THE 



"SOUTHERN PLANTER. 

Btfcotefc to glgrfculture, horticulture, au& the pjouseholtt ^Irts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. — 
Xenophon. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of the 

State. — Sully. 



FRANK: G. RUFFIN, Editor. 



P. D. BERNARD, Publisher. 



Vol. XIV. 



RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 1854. 



No. 9. 



For the Southern Planter. 

MINUTES OF AGRICULTURAL FACTS AND 
OBSERVATIONS, 

Collected and noted by the Agricultural Commissioner, 
and ordered to be piiblished by the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Virginia State Agricultural Society. 

[Continued from page 196.] 

MINUTE II. 

The Effects of Mowing on Clover and Iron- Weed {or 
"Stick- Weed."*) 

In 1858, Edmund Ruffin, of Hanover, had, on 
part of the field, a remarkably fine growth of clover, 
which had been sown on wheat in the spring of 1852. 
The ground in question was a piece of about thir- 
teen acres, very rich black clay soil, originally the 
mud deposited in a shallow pond, now well drained. 
The clover was mowed for hay from May 27th to 
3d of June, 1853. As the growth was generally 
thick and uniform, so the mowing was regular over 
nearly all this ground. The weeds, which grew 
intermixed with the thick cover of clover, were 
not noticed ; but on one side the soil very gradually 
became somewhat poorer, and also was less per- 
fectly drained, and the clover was thinner and more 
mixed with iron-weed, (or stick- weed, as commonly 
termed,) and other weeds. As there was much more 
of good clover than could be cut, the inferior parts 
were omitted; but, in doing so, the mowing ended 
at straight outlines, some running with and some 
across the direction of the mowing. Of course, 
there could have been no immediate great change, 
either of the growth or of quality of the soil, pre- 
cisely at these lines, w T here the mowing ceased at 
the discretion of the mowers, or by chance. 

The second growth of clover, in the same sum- 
mer, was so good and free from all other growths, 
that it was designed to be mowed for seed. But 
that could not be done, when needed, for want of 
force. So that growth dried and fell, and was suc- 
ceeded by a third growth, which, by October 1st, 
was half-leg high, and was then given up to the 
cattle, which grazed the whole ground closely, and 
for a short time, and also early last spring, since 
when they have been excluded. 

1854, May 17th. This is the third year of this 
clover. The whole of the much larger portion 
mowed (before ripening the seeds of first crop of 
1853,) is, as last year, covered by a thick and uni- 
form cover of clover, with scarcely any intermix- 
ture of weeds, or as little as is ever seen. The 
clover is not so luxuriant or tall as last year, but 
Vol. XIV.— 9. 



still a heavy cover. Some few iron-weeds only 
grew, last summer, and still show their dry stems 
in the deep water- furrows, where the scythe did 
not cut them low. All the other mown ground was 
entirely free from this after-growth (in summer 
and autumn) of these weeds. But on all the parte 
omitted, and precisely to the outlines of the mow- 
ing of 1853, the iron- weeds grow thickly, and the 
large dead stems still stand so thick as to forbid 
mowing that ground, if there was any thing to mow. 
But scarcely any clover, from old roots, remains 
there. Whether because (not being mown) it majle 
its complete biennial growth last year, and so died — 
or whether its extinction was hastened and effected 
Uw the numerous tall iron-weeds growing among 
Hid shading the lower clover — all of the former 
plants are now dead, though there are numerous 
young plants which sprang up last autumn and this 
spring. 

Other and higher parts of the field, where the 
clover of the best spots only was mowed last year, 
show similar present results, in the absence of dry 
and large iron- weeds where the mowing occurred, 
and the presence of these and other large weeds, 
of summer and autumn growth, where there was 
no mowing. But, different from the other ground, 
above described, the old clover has not died out 
among these old iron-weeds. It may be inferred, 
that where the clover died out, the cause was the 
great fitness of the soil for iron-weed, in being rich, 
very stiff, and also, rather wet — which latter condi- 
tion, especially, is unfavorable to clover, and most 
favorable to iron-weed. 

Thus, from merely mowing the clover, the growth 
of the very injurious iron-weed was kept ..down for 
the year, (if no longer,) and the clover maintained 
in life and vigorous growth through a succeeding 
year; while, where mowing was omitted, the plants 
of clover then living died with the close of their 
second year, and the ground remains well set with 
a growth of iron-weeds, which would, last summer 
or autumn, and will, in the next, be a great impe- 
diment to the good operation of even four-horse 
ploughs. This very hard and strong and vivacious 
weed, (an astrea,) grows on all kinds of arable soils, 
and is a great impediment to their tillage and pro- 
duction. So far as one experiment may be relied 
on, these observations go to show that clean mow- 
ing, about the time that clover seeds begin to ripen, 
will effectually check or interrupt the growth of 
iron-weed, .and also prolong the life and growth of 
the clover. 

At this time, (May 17th,) as was the case last 
year, young stalks of iron- weed are growing inter- 



258 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



mixed with the thick clover; but would scarcely 
he obswved. In like manner, as last year, they 
may he checked for the present year by mowing 
the clover. But, if not so mown, these seeds will 
attain such size and hardness as to be a serious 
impediment to future ploughing, as is the case on 
all my fields left untilled, and not closely grazed. 

MINUTE III. 

Sulphur in Soils on the Sea- Board. 

The very level and low, yet firm land of Princess 
Anne county, within some miles of the sea shore, 
is every where over-lying a bed of what seems to 
have been originally marsh mud, and showing a 
marine original formation. Mr. W. Roberts, a resi- 
dent of that neighborhood, who informed me of 
that fact, also stated the following evidence of the 
general presence of sulphur, and in large propor- 
tion, in the sub-soils of that locality. Whenever 
bricks are made and burned, for a day or twe after 
the burning is begun, the smoke or steam from the 
kiln is so impregnated with sulphurous fumes as 
to be very disagreeable to the attendants when 
they breathe in it. 

MINUTE IV. 

Sowing Clover Seed in April. 

The great difficulty of clover culture in this re- 
gion, on suitable soils, is the getting the young plants 
to live through freezing, or drought in hot weather. 
Mr. Chas. C. Curtis, of Gloucester, had experienced 
the ordinary failures in his seedings as Ion 
he sowed in December and too early in sprin 
is usual. Col. Catesby Jones told him that he would 
never fail to obtain a stand of clover if he would 
follow his plan, and sow in April. This he has done 
since, for about nine successive years, with entire 
success. About the last of March or beginning of 
April, (and once it was as late as the 17th,) when 
the wheat land is dry enough, two-horse harrows 
are drawn over the ground, and the clover seed 
sown immediately after the harrowing. The har- 
rowing does not hurt the wheat, (I presumed when 
not forward enough to be in joint,) and makes good 
openings to receive the seed. Not one such sowing 
has yet failed to give a stand of plants, and their 
continuing to live through summer. Another per- 
son, who followed the same advice, was equally 
successful. 

[Many years ago I practiced to some extent this 
mode of harrowing to prepare for sowing clover 
seed, and deemed it highly beneficial. The whole 
process was described and recommended by me in 
the Farmers' Register. But I had not ventured, 
or deemed it safe, to sow later than March — and 
wheat land was rarely dry enough for harrowing, 
until (as then supposed) it was too late to sow 
clover. But this difficulty of harrowing, and also 
the danger of late freezing, are obviated in Mr. 
Curtis' April seedings; and which, if generally as 
safe as in his experience, will be a security of in- 
calculable value against these usual and very great 
losses in clover sowing. In very forward wheat, if* 
jointing, or where the growth was very luxuriant 
and thick, harrowing in April could not be done 
safely, if at all serving for the purpose desired. — 
E. R.J 



Charcoal- Burning of Edv;ard A. Marks, Esq., of 
Burleigh, P rinse George County. 

It has been only within the last fifteen or twenty 
years that the cutting of wood for sale has becom 
a very profitable business on the lands within a 
few miles of the navigable tide-waters of Virginia. 
Before, the clearing of wood-land, for tillage, yielded 
only the ordinary annual supply of fuel and fencing 
materials for the farm. All labor beyond this sup- 
ply, was dead loss. Thus the converting of wood- 
land to arable was usually effected at a cost of labor 
not less than ten dollars the acre; and for the 
greater part of all such clearings, before marling 
or liming was in use, the land wdien cleared was 
not worth, either in market price or productive 
value, as much as the cost of its clearing of wood 
for tillage. 

More lately, the price of cord-wood has so much 
risen, that the cutting for supplying Northern ves- 
sels has become a very profitable labor for all of 
the few farmers who still have wood-land to clear 
within three or four miles of a landing place for 
sea vessels. Of this supply and profit, the greater 
share falls to the places Avhere agricultural improve- 
ment had been least advanced, and therefore the 
most land had been worn out, and thus allowed to 
be covered with a second growth of pine. Where 
the improvement of poor lands by marl or linie^ 
had been practised extensively, no land has been 
turned out of culture for a long time, and but little 
wood-land remains to be cleared. Such is the par- 
ticular neighborhood in Prince George, which will 
be the subject of these remarks. But a few farmers 
there had enough pine wood remaining to make it 
worth their going into the wood business. 

The latest and highest prices of pine wood, are 
$2 25 the cord, delivered to vessels at a wharf or 
landing, and $2 50 to $2 75 to sea vessels lying in 
the channel , or far from the shore . The w T ood stand- 
ing, which but lately and near the rivers was worthi 
but 25 cents the cord, will now command from 59 
to 75 cents. 

Very lately, in this neighborhood, the burning 
of charcoal has been begun, for sale to New York 
vessels or buyers. This, by the facility of lighter- 
carriage, wiil bring into profitable use much of the 
large surplus of pine wood which is too remote 
from navigable rivers to be transported as wood. 
This business is still so new, that it must be very 
imperfectly executed; and with present losses, 
which more experience will serve to lessen. But 
as it is, and under all the disadvantages of a new 
beginning and limited operations, this business is 
very profitable. For the purpose of inducing the 
extending of this industry, I have viewed the ope- 
rations of Edward A. Marks, Esq., of Prince George, 
and noted his verbal answers to my inquiries. No 
better authority could be desired than Mr. Marks, 
both as a judicious conductor of any business he 
undertakes, and as a careful and correct reporter 
of the facts. But, besides the small scale of his 
operations and his inexperience, he labors under 
other difficulties not usually attending. His land 
is hilly, offering sloping and, therefore, bad sites 
for many of his kilns, which ought to be level. 
The wood is the second growth (nearly all pine) of 
land under tillage some forty years ago, and much 
of it unfit for splitting. The land is some miles 
from the farm labors, and therefore wanting the 
master's regular or frequent superintendence. Foi 
the latter reason, the whole work is carried on bj 



— . 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



259 



tasks to each laborer or sets of laborers, and the 
tasks are all light and less than might be well per- 
formed. Hence Mr. M. infers, that whatever is 
done by him, might certainly be done elsewhere, 
t with like general care, and under not more difficult 
circumstances. 

In every such undertaking, it is necessary that 
the different parts of the operations, and the force 
for each, shall be proportioned to each other. The 
cutting and cording the wood, is the only excep- 
tion; as that work may be any time in advance, so 
that the wood shall not be too green, or more than 
a year old when it would begin to be damaged. 
The wood is best when about half dried or "sea- 
soned." The " setting" the kilns, or constructing 
them of wood and its cover, the burning, the open- 
ing and separating the charcoal from the covering, 
earth, &c, the hauling to the landing place, must 
all proceed in order, and be in proportion each to 
the other operations. Therefore, to allow regularity 
of procedure, the size of kilns must be propor- 
tioned to the force employed. For this small force, 
the kilns hold, on an average, 10 cords of wood, 
(cut in lengths of 4 feet,) and this quantity makes 
2 loads of charcoal for a four-mule wagon, hauled 
daily to the landing place, on Powell's creek, four 
miles distant. If many more hands were employed, 
the kilns might be much larger, even to containing 
40 cords. One kiln is fired every day, and burns 
ten or twelve days. Of course, every day there is 
a kiln to take down, and the charcoal of a previous 
day's opening ready to make up the two loads for 
the wagon. The wood is cut at any leisure time, 
and by other hands, or by these, when the kiln 
work is suspended for three months in winter, when 
it would be carried on disadvantageous^, because 
of so much wet weather. For nine months, the 
work is pursued continuously, and employs (be- 
sides the cutting of wood) 8 men about the kilns 
(and loading the vessels when required,) and a 
I driver of the wagon. The wood cutting is paid 
for at 35 cents the cord to hirelings, or is done as 
cheaply by the farm hands in winter. The laborers 
(slaves) are estimated as hirelings by the year. 
I The "burner" only, is a white man, an Irishman, 
j who was about two years employed in this business 
in New Jersey. He only is required to attend to 
the burning kilns Sundays, and with the aid of 
another hand, through the night as well as day. 
Every thing, as to success, will depend on the care 
and watchfulness of this operative ; and ever} T ne- 
gligence of his will cause waste and loss in the 
charcoal to be obtained. 

The arrangement of this work permits the ex- 
penses and returns to be easily and correctly esti- 
mated, as follows : 

Expenses of each working day (6 to the week,) 
for all the year except three winter months : 
10 cords of pine wood — cutting and cording, 

at 35 cents, $3 50 

7 laborers, "setting" and covering kilns, 

opening and separating charcoal, and 4 

of them loading vessels when needed, at 

62| cents— total 4 37£ 

1 burner (or " collier") at SI 50, 1 50 

Wagon, driver, 4 mules — total cost say ... 5 00 



$14 37* 

Proceeds of above, 250 heaped bushels of 
charcoal, as measured (or accounted for) 
in New York, at 9 cts. when put on board, 22 50 



12* 



As in this case, the clearing of the land was de- 
sired for cultivation, and the owner would have 
given the wood to any one who would have removed 
it, the whole $8 12£ per day is to him clear gain. 
But if, as in other cases, 25 cents the cord be 
charged for the wood standing, (a high price at four 
miles from the vessel,) this would add $2 50 more 
to the expenses, and leave $5 62£ clear gain per 
day for the operation, and give for the pine wood 
(worthless otherwise) $15 the acre, if yielding 60 
cords, or $10 if only the small amount of 40 cords. 
It is evident that this new employment may be 
well extended to 8 miles or more from navigation, 
and thus bring into profitable use many thousands 
of acres of land, on which the pine wood has here- 
tofore been a useless incumbrance. 

I had designed, and made notes for the purpose, 
to describe minutely the whole preparation for the 
burning of charcoal. But the progress of my ob- 
servations showed that it was impossible by de- 
scription only to convey any useful practical in- 
struction to novices in the business, beyond stating 
the estimated expenses and returns. The operation 
is well worth the attention of every proprietor of 
surplus and useless pine wood. But every one who 
intends to go into the business ought to see it him- 
self, and learn every process, where well conducted, 
and also to employ an experienced, intelligent and 
trustworthy burner and manager of the kilns. 

I have heard that this business is now carried 
on in Charles City county, on a much larger scale, 
and the burning effected in iron vessels. There 
must be much waste in the ordinary kilns. At the 
kilns, the charcoal is about thirty heaped bushels 
from each cord of wood. By the time this reaches 
New York, there are only 25 bushels accounted for. 
Yet, if the entire wood was converted into charcoal, 
without loss, there would be but little diminution 
of bulk, and a cord measures 128 solid feet, which 
is equal to nearly 84 heaped bushels, of 2640 solid 
inches, which is the New York measure of charcoal. 

In Mr. Marks' operations, though the wood is 
nearly all of "old field" pine, there is much small 
growth of other kinds, especially on the hill sides, 
of better natural soil, as poplar, oak, dogwood, &c. 
Every thing serves for and is converted into char- 
coal, that is not too laborious to cut up. The small 
limbs and sapling growth serve to fill the chinks 
between the pieces of large split or round wood. 



For the Southern Planter. 
THE ELEVEN CHEMICAL CHANGES. 

Of the eleven chemical changes enumerated by 
chemists to which vegetable and animal substances 
are subject during their decompositions, I propose 
offering a few remarks upon those only which are 
deemed of the most importance to the practical 
farmer. In doing so, I beg leave, respectfully, to 
present my individual opinions without reference 
to those entertained by scientific writers. 

Fermentation, eremacausis, combustion and pu- 
trefaction are four distinct and peculiar chemical 
processes, because they require different circum- 
stances to produce them, and leave products en- 
tirely dissimilar. Each of these processes may be 
primarily generated in the same substances by at- 
tention to circumstances, and each product differs 
in color, consistency and quality, and, of necessity, 
in chemical composition. 

I will not stop to inquire why it is that the be- 



— 



— - 



260 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



neficent Creator has ordained that the same sub- 
stances, by a mere modification of circumstances, 
should produce wine, vinegar or manure; such in- 
quiries I deem idle and unprofitable speculations. 
Practical minds will be content with a careful ob- 
servation of the facts and gratefully accept the be- 
nefits conferred in the products. 

Decay, decomposition, eremacausis — that chemi- 
cal change which animal and vegetable substances 
undergo when exposed upon the surface of the 
earth to the vicissitudes of the weather — is a dis- 
tinct and peculiar process, differing from the pro- 
cesses of combustion and putrefaction, not only in 
the circumstances, but also in the quality and che- 
mical composition.of the product. 

It is a well ascertained fact that the body of a 
horse or cow located properly for putrefaction, yields 
manure enough to produce thirty bushels of wheat. 
Decayed by this process it leaves no manure. The 
ricks of hay or straw which the farmers, in their 
barn-yards, convert annually into many loads of 
valuable manure, if subjected to this process form 
a trifling residue destitute of fertilizing qualities. 
Wood decayed by eremacausis leaves a valueless 
product. When properly putrefied it makes good 
manure. 

This residue of eremacausis is a substance capa- 
ble of undergoing the putrefactive process, if mixed 
with lime or ashes, in compost heaps, or when 
ploughed under. 

It must be a subject of great interest to the 
practical farmer to ascertain the precise circum- 
stances necessary to generate the putrefactive pro- 
cess, for the value of the product always depends 
on the perfection of the process. No other residue 
will feed all plants in all soils in every variety of 
climate. It is itself incapable of experiencing any 
other chemical change, and is, consequently, inde- 
structible. 

In vain have scientific investigations been be- 
stowed with a view to ascertain the combinations 
which constitute its fertilizing properties. That 
this does not depend upon the ammonia which it 
contains is manifest, for the French chemists pre- 
pare a manure as valuable as guano, (poudrette,) 
from which every particle of ammonia is expelled 
by quick lime, and is then dried on heated plates. 
This proves conclusively that the fertilizing value 
of manure does not depend upon ammonia, or any 
other volatile substance — and no one of the mineral 
salts, which by analysis is demonstrated to exist in 
it, can be proved to be possessed of fertilizing vir- 
tues, when separate from manure itself. 

Ashes, the residue of combustion, is a peculiar 
substance, differing from all others in color, con- 
sistency and quality. It obviously contains salts 
which can be obtained from no other chemical 
change of vegetable matter. Potash for the ma- 
nufacture of soap is extracted from this residue 
only. Ashes, when recently made, prove injurious 
to all vegetation, consequently it cannot be manure. 
When incorporated with the earth, however, it does 
possess the power of fertilizing it. Its moihis ope- 
randi I will now attempt to explain. 

Vegetable substances, when ploughed under, are 
favorably located for putrefaction; that is, they are 
placed in a close, cool, dark and damp location. 
There is, however, one circumstance wanting which 
is known to be indispensable to the generation of 
the putrefactive process — that is a contact of air. 
This property of the atmosphere, so important in 
effecting chemical changes of every kind, scientific 
investigations have proved to reside in the oxygen. 



If this be true, of which I do not entertain a doubt, 
any substance which contains oxygen will produce 
similar results; that is, it will complete the chain 
of circumstances necessary to generate the putre- » 
factive process. 

If vegetable substances be ploughed under when 
saturated with water, the decomposition of the 
water will furnish the oxygen necessary, and ma- 
nure will invariably be the product. A similar re- 
sult will be obtained by lime or unleached ashes, 
the oxides of calcium, potassium and sodium, be- 
ing capable of furnishing sufficient oxygen to ge- 
nerate putrefaction in those vegetable matters which 
are mixed with the earth. Leached ashes, or ashes 
deprived of the potash by lixiviation, will readily 
experience putrefaction, and they will always prove 
to be more valuable manures when placed in a close 
ash-house or damp cellar, than when thrown in 
heaps exposed to the weather. 

That the surface of the earth itself when closely 
covered with any substance whatever, will readily 
undergo a chemical change is plainly manifest, for 
it is found changed in color, consistency and ferti- 
lity, and I venture the assertion that the experience 
of the practical farmer will teach him that the ma- 
nure made by this chemical change in the earth 
itself, caused by shade, will prove to be a much 
more valuable manure than the best Peruvian 
guano. 

E. T. Baldwin. 

Winchester, July 28, 1854. 



For the Southern Planter. 
NECESSITY OF GOOD STOCK IN VIRGINIA. 

Mr. Editor, — In the last numbers of the Planter 
you have favored your readers with some remarks 
upon the " Necessity of Good Stock in Virginia." 
These remarks, it would seem, you intended to ap- 
ply to Eastern Virginia, as distinguished from West- 
ern Virginia. If you had applied them only to 
Western Virginia I would not now impose upon 
your goodness by requesting an insertion of these 
strictures. But allow me to raise my voice against 
the attempt to convert Eastern Virginia into a stock 
raising country — at least the south side portion of 
it. South side Eastern Virginia is not and cannot 
be a grazing country. He who has visited the 
counties of Western' Virginia — the rich table lands 
of Montgomery, Pulaski and Wythe, or the Trans- 
Alleghauy counties of Tazewell, Mercer, Russell, 
&c. &c. — can see the force of this remark. There 
the soil is eminently adapted to the growth of grass; 
it springs up spontaneously. You have but to clear 
out the under growth to convert the native forest 
into a grassy meadow, and on the sides of hills, too 
steep to cultivate, cattle and sheep will find luxu- 
riant pastures. 

You say these lands are remote. For that reason 
they are adapted to stock and nothing" else. Eastern 
Virginia can never be able to compete with them 
in raising stock. But I will copy the whole sen- 
tence to which I have referred. You say: "We 
need not cite statistics to prove that the lands of 
Tide Water and Piedmont, with every advantage 
of climate and contiguity to market, with loss na- 
tural waste lands, and with a soil better, on an 
average, than that of the Valley, do not come within 
50 per cent, of their value, and are worth only about 
33 per cent, more than the still more remote and 
inaccessible lands of Trans-Alleghany," &c. For 



j 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



261 



that very reason we should cultivate our crops — 
make as much tobacco and wheat as we can, con- 
sistent with an improvement of our estates, and let 
stock alone. But you agree that stock will help 
improve our lands. So it will. And we are com- 
pelled to keep a few work oxen and a few milch 
cows, and these will he as many as we can afford 
to keep upon our thin, short grass lands. As re- 
gards sheep, we are compelled to keep enough for 
wool for our negroes, and these will be as many as 
our poor ridges will sustain. 

But is this entering into the stock raising busi- 
ness? Is this doing things upon a large scale? 
Upon a scale large enough to justify our buying 
Devons, and Durhams, and Herefords, &c. &c. &c. 

You certainly meant that we should raise cattle 
for market, and sheep, to sell their wool and per- 
haps, also, for mutton. In all these we cannot com- 
pete with our brethren west of us. They can fatten 
five steers with less expense and trouble than we 
can one. And, as I have said above, most of the 
Trans- Alleghany country is not arable, and the 
higher portions of it are too cold and moist for the 
cereal crops, but they produce grass more finely 
than those favored with a warmer climate. It can 
never, then, become an agricultural section, and 
must always be a grazing country, to which its 
remoteness from market offers but a small impe- 
diment. 

But we are not remote from market — all our 
lands are arable — we have a genial sun, and more 
slave labor than our western brethren, and our 
country, then, must be an agricultural one — it is 
the unalterable law of nature, and we must suc- 
cumb. We cannot afford to raise stock to any ex- 
tent — we cannot afford to be amateur farmers, (as 
an acquaintance in Davidson county, North Caro- 
lina, is.) Tobacco and wheat pay much better, and 
by a judicious management, with the assistance of 
the stock necessary to our business, we can improve 
our lands rapidly. But, perhaps, you will ask, if 
some of our planters have not a great maity ne- 
groes, and find it necessary to keep a large stock 
of sheep to clothe them, and would not a flock of 
a'hundred and fifty or two hundred justify the pur- 
chase of some of the improved varieties'? In an- 
swer to this I will beg you to bear in mind that 
wool — very coarse wool — thrift and hardihood is all 
we want. We want not mutton — we want not beauty 
or symmetry of form. The most hardy sheep, then, 
that will give the greatest amount of coarse wool, 
is the variety we need, and if you will demonstrate 
that some other breed than the native will do this, 
I will try to persuacfce some of my rich neighbors 
to improve their stock of sheep. 

Some of the fint , stock Arms in Virginia are in 
the county of .u«i bv©me v y. The farmers have 
many of the impr >>. cd breeds of stock. They have 
been grazing for many years. They received their 
farms from their fathers as grazing farms. Had a 
stranger five years ago asked if they could be in- 
duced to plough up their meadows — to " turn over" 
their green pastures, and convert them into tobacco 
lots and wheat fields, they would have given an em- 
phatic negative. But what do we hear from those 
regions now ! Are they still following in the foot- 
steps of their fathers? Self-interest — an enlight- 
ened self-interest — the love of gold, was too great 
a temptation — they could not resist it. Their county 
has been penetrated by the Virginia and Tennessee 
Rail B,oad — they have an easy access to market, 
and according to the last accounts are endeavoring 
to reap the benefits of it, by selling all their fine 



stock (retaining only a few for plantation use,) and 
"breaking up" some of the greenest fields the eye 
of the writer ever beheld. 

Farmers and planters of Virginia, consult these 
men, if you want to know any thing about stock, 
and learn from their experience the better way of 
appreciating your contiguity to market and the 
geniality of your climate. 

South Side. 



For the Southern Planter. 
IMPROVED SHORT-HORN CATTLE. 

Mr. Editor, — I promised to write for your paper 
a short history of the Short-Horn cattle. I am in- 
duced to write it from the belief that there are very 
few persons in Virginia who know any thing about 
the history of these cattle, or what was their true 
origin. From a remark you made to me, at our 
Show last November, I take it for granted you have 
read the history of the Short-Horns written by the 
Rev. Henry Berry, and published in Youatt's " Trea- 
tise on Cattle." Your remark was, that the Short- 
Horns were a "cross breed." I, too, have read 
Youatt. I believe it was the first work I read on 
cattle, having purchased the work soon after I com- 
menced farming. I thought for years that this was 
their true history ; subsequent reading, reflection, 
and conversations with persons who are well ac- 
quainted with the true history of the Short-Horns, 
have convinced me that there is very little reliance 
to be placed upon Dr. Berry's history, so far as the 
improvement of the Short-Horns is concerned. If 
any person wishes a full history of these cattle, he 
can find it in "Allen's American Herd Book," and 
in Stevens' edition of Youatt, published by C. M. 
Saxtou, New York, and I presume for sale by most 
of the booksellers in Richmond. To these works, 
particularly the last, and to various articles in the 
American Agriculturist, I am indebted for what 
little I know about the history of the Short-Horns. 
To write a full history of the Short-Horns for your 
paper would make my article too long. Besides, 
Stevens' edition of Youatt costs but $1 25, and 
should be in the hands of every grazier and breeder 
of cattle. The work was edited by Mr. Ambrose 
Stevens, of New York City, and I doubt whether 
any man living knows more about Short-Horn cat- 
tle, or is a better judge of them. Should you visit 
New York I would advise you to call on him; you 
will find him an agreeable and accomplished gen- 
tleman; and if you are fond of cattle and "cattle 
talk," you will find him not only ready and willing, 
but able, to afford you any information you wish. 
I am greatly indebted to him for his courtesy and 
kindness to me whilst visiting New York. He ac- 
companied me every where I wished to go, and 
showed me all the fine stock I wished to see. 

I am thus particular in stating the sources of my 
information, because I do not wish to pretend to 
know more about the Short-Horns than I do. I 
merely know enough about them to know that I 
know very little. What I vvish to do is to rescue 
my favorites from the charge of having been im- 
proved by a descendant from a miserable little horn- 
less Scotch cow ; and to show you that the Short- 
Horns, a hundred years ago, and more, long before 
this Galloway cross was made or thought of, pre- 
sented the same pictures of thrift, beauty, excel- 
lence and profit that their descendants do at this 
day — that the Short-Horns at Charles Colling's sale, 



262 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



October the 11th, 1810, uncontaminated by this base 
mixture, brought higher prices than the Galloway 
cross — that their descendants do the same at the 
present time — and that for all the evidence to the 
contrary, they are as ancient a race of cattle as any 
in England. This I know is entirely different from 
the general belief that they were a large, coarse, 
thin-skinned, sleek-haired, bad handling race of 
cattle which were found in the counties of Durham 
and York, celebrated for nothing but giving a large 
quantity of very poor milk, until improved by this 
Galloway cross. 

You will probably recollect that Berry wrote two 
histories of the Short-Horns. One, in pamphlet 
form, was published in 1824, and republished in 
1830. In this first history he says nothing at all 
about the Short-Horns having been improved by 
the Galloway cross. If you will turn to Youatt 
you will find that he tries to make out in his second 
history that this cross Avas one of the main features 
in their improvement. In his first history his ob- 
ject was to show that they were an ancient race of 
cattle, and says, "There exists authentic evidence 
of facts which place the Short-Horns on a level, at 
least, with any of their rivals, however high the 
antiquity they boast." In the first, or pamphlet 
history, he says: "As early as 1745, living wit- 
nesses informed him; a breed of cattle existed on 
the banks of the Tees, in color resembling what is 
called the improved breed of the present day, ex- 
cept that the fashionable roan was not quite so 
prevalent; possessing a fine mellow touch, good 
hair, light offal, particularly wide carcass, and deep 
fore-quarters, they were also justly celebrated for 
extraordinary proof (tallow) when slaughtered, re- 
sembling thus closely their descendants of the pre- 
sent day." 

"In 1740 Mr. Milbank, of Barmingham, stood 
preeminent as a Short-Horn breeder, and it is on 
record, that a five year old ox of his weighed, 
dressed, the four quarters, 2100 lbs., beside 224 lbs. 
of rough tallow; and a cow of the same stock, a 
daughter of the old Studley bull, weighed upwards 
of 1540 lbs. The Studley bull was described to 
Mr. Berry, by a person who had often seen him, as 
possessing ' wonderful girth and depth of fore- 
quarters, very short legs, a neat frame, and light 
offal.' Had he added mellow handling, which, no 
doubt, the animal possessed, nothing more essential 
could be said of the good Short-Horns of the pre- 
sent day, and yet this bull existed long before the 
Messrs. Colling appeared as breeders; for he was 
the sire of Dalton Dick*#old at the then high price 
of fifty guineas to Maynard & Wetherell, in whose 
possession he served cows at half a guinea each. 
These circumstances forcibly prove that Mr. Mil- 
bank must have possessed a very valuable' stock of 
cattle, even at that early period, namely, more than 
one century since." 

As a proof of what the Short-Horns did before 
and about the time the Messrs. Colling commenced 
their career of breeding, Mr. Berry records the fol- 
lowing facts of their great weight and early matu- 
rity : 

" ' Sir Henry Grey, of Howick, bred two oxen, 
which weighed, at six years old, 1820 lbs. each. 

" ' Miss Allen, of Grange, bred a three year old 
heifer, fed on hay and grass alone, which weighed 
1200 lbs. The same lady also bred two three year 
old steers, fed in a similar manner, weighing re- 
spectively 1288 and 1344 lbs. 

" ' Mr. Waistell's four year old steer weighed 1540 



lbs. Another, of the same age, bred by Mr. Simp" 
son, fed on hay and turnips alone, weighed 1890 lbs- 

" 'A cow, from Mr. Hill's stock, weighed 1778 
lbs. A Northumberland ox, bought by Mr. Wais- 
tell, yielded 364 lbs. of tallow. 

" 'Mr. Coates slaughtered a heifer, fed on tur- 
nips and hay, which, at two years and two months 
old, weighed 952 lbs. ; while a seven months heifer 
of his came up to 476 lbs. ; and a steer, exactly 
three years old, 1330 lbs. ; and another, two months 
older, 1470 lbs. 

" 'An ox, bred by Mr. Hill, six years old, weighed 
2124 lbs. 

" ' Two Howick oxen, at seven years old, re- 
spectively, weighed 2137 lbs. and 2136 lbs. of beef, 
with 231 and 224 lbs. tallow. 

" 'Mr. Charge's ox, of same age, weighed 2362 
lbs. with 192 lbs. of tallow.' 

"Thus much," adds Mr. Berry, "for the Tees- 
water cattle, the originals of the improved Short- 
Horns, ripe in points, possessing fine symmetry and 
light offal, their descendants are not a breed of yes- 
terday, liable and likely to degenerate to-morrow; 
but they possess the important advantage of being 
descended from a long line of animals, in which 
existed, in an eminent degree, the good points 
which are now admired of themselves." 

In Mr. Berry's second history, the one in Youatt, 
he says: "Whatever had been the merits of the 
Teeswater cattle, it is certain Mr. Colling greatly 
improved them." He found the Teeswater, like all 
other extravagantly large cattle, frequently of loose 
make and disproportion. He was sensible, also, of 
the difficulty of breeding, with any thing like cer- 
tainty, large good animals ; and though he has de- 
clined on all occasions to throw any light on his 
views and proceedings, the writer thinks he can 
detect, in the very outset, and through the progress 
of his practice, a resolution to reduce the size of 
this breed, and at the same time, and by that means, 
to improve its form. This he is supposed to have 
effected through the medium of a bull called Hub- 
back, an animal respecting which there has been 
much controversy, principally touching the purity 
of his blood, a question now of little importance, 
because it is admitted on all hands that Mr. Colling 
adopted another cross, which prevails in a majority 
of superior Short-Horns of the present day. 

This last cross is the Galloway. Dr. Berry then 
goes on to state some particulars respecting Hub- 
back, " that it appeared probable he possessed. on 
one side the imported blood. The possessor of 
his dam was a person in indigent circumstances, 
and grazed his cow in the highways. When, after- 
wards, she was removed to good land, near Dar- 
lington, she became so fat that she did not breed 
again; and her son, having the same feeding pro- 
pensity in a high degree, was useful as a bull during 
a very short period. The quality of his flesh, hair 
and hide are supposed to have been seldom equalled, 
and being smaller than the Teeswater cattle, he was 
well calculated to forward Mr. Colling's views." 
There is a note in Youatt which says that Hubback 
was bought by Colling when very young and that 
when he began to serve cows he confined him to 
his own herd. 

You will perceive that there is an attempt to 
throw suspicion upon the purity of Hubback' s pe- 
digree. At the time Berry wrote his histories Hub- 
back's pedigree had been published, and was as 
well authenticated as any in the Herd Book. " In 
a letter published by George Baker, of Elemore, in 
the Farmer's Journal in 1821, he says, attempts 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



2G3 



have been made, by hearsay evidence, and other- 
wise, to question the blood of Hubback. I send 
you his pedigree. I have the authority of Mr. Chas. 
Colling to say, he always considered him a thorough- 
bred Short-Horned bull.'''' There is no doubt that 
Mr. Berry was willing for it to appear that it was 
doubtful whether Hubback was a pure Short-Horn. 
He had become deeply interested in breeding the 
Galloway cross, and wished to make it appear that 
all Short-Horns were mixed bloods. 

I will now extract from Mr. Stevens' history of 
the Short-Horns the history of this Galloway cross, 
and you will find that so far from having been 
made for the purpose of improving the Short-Horns, 
it was made by mere accident : 

"The Galloway cross was made by chance; and 
the alloy stock had no value, except as conferred 
by the Short-Horn blood in them, and in spite of 
the Galloway strain. 

" In the first volume of Coates' Herd Book, page 
102, is the following : ' O'Callaghan's son of Boling- 
broke, red and white, bred by Col. O'Callaghan, of 
Heighington, got by Bolingbroke, dam a red polled 
Galloway Scotch cow. This cow and another of 
the same breed, were purchased of Mr. David 
Smurthwaite, near Northallerton, by Mr. George 
Coates, who sold them to Col. O'Callaghan. O'Cal- 
laghan's son of Bolingbroke, when a few days old, 
became the property of Mr. C. Colling, and was the 
sire of Grandson of Bolingbroke.' 

"Col. O'Callaghan lived near Ketton, and when 
he got these two Galloways, in 1791, he arranged 
with Mr. Colling to bull them, and by agreement, 
Mr. Colling was to have the bull calves and the 
Colonel to retain the heifers. One dropped a heifer 
and the other a bull calf in 1792; the latter, by the 
bargain, was Mr. Colling's. He was kept a bull 
until about a year old. Johanna, (a very moderate 
co?v,~) got by the same bull, (a very moderate one,) 
not having bred for two years, was, in 1798, turned 
to run with this young bull. He got her in calf, 
and was then castrated and fed as a steer, and was 
never used to any other cow. In 1794 Johanna 
dropped a bull calf, the grandson of Bolingbroke, 
one-fourth Galloway. Old Phoenix produced Fa- 
vorite in October, 1793, and had no calf in 1794 
nor 1795, and during all this time was bulled by 
Bolingbroke and other bulls of the pure blood, 
until, as a last hope, she was turned into the straw 
yard in the winter of 1795-96, to run with this 
grandson of Bolingbroke, and lie got her in calf; 
and she in the autumn of 1796 dropped the cow 
Lady. Mr. Colling never used this grandson of 
Bolingbroke to any other cow. Lady's first calf 
was Washington. Mr. Colling used him to only 
three or four cows one season, and these produced 
nothing of any particular value. He was used by 
Mr. Colling no more; and he never used any other 
bull out of her or her daughters. The alloy in his 
hands was confined to Lady, her daughters, and 
the produce of her daughters. He never suffered 
the blood to run into his Daisey tribe, his Duchess 
tribe, nor the rest of his Lady Maynard tribe." 

" But," says Mr. Berry, " it will probably be ad- 
mitted that the prejudice against this cross was at 
the highest at the time of Mr. Colling's sale. The 
blood had then been but little, if at all, introduced 
to other stocks, and it was manifestly the interest, 
whatever might be the inclination, of the man) 7 
breeders who had it not, to assume high ground 
for the pure blood, and to depreciate the alloy. 
What said public opinion, unequivocally certified 
by the stroke of the auctioneer's hammer 1 Lady, 



at fourteen years old, sold for two hundred and six 
guineas. Countess, her daughter, nine years old, 
for four hundred guineas. Laura, another daugh- 
ter, four years old, for two hundred and ten guineas. 
Major and George, two of her sons, the former 
three years old, the latter a calf, for two hundred 
guineas, and -one hundred and thirty; besides a 
number of^others, more remotely descended from 
Lady, which all sold at high prices. Lady and her 
descendants sold for a larger sum than any other 
family obtained." 

The above is calculated, and I have no doubt 
was intended, to produce a false impression, for 
"the family of Lady, her daughter, an^ the pro- 
duce of her daughters, numbered thirteen at the 
sale of Mr. Colling in 1810, and were so much more 
numerous that they sold for a larger sum than any 
other family. No other family numbered over Jive. 
The alloy family sold for 2082 guineas, and averaged 
160 guineas; the Phoenix family, including Comet, 
averaged 491 guineas, and without Comet, arveraged 
237 guineas; and the Daisy family averaged 175 
guineas. The pure blood brought higher prices 
than the alloy ; and in the leading families of the 
pure blood made higher averages. No other fa- 
mily could make so great an aggregate.' 1 ' 1 Mr. Youatt, 
in a note, says it is most probable that the unques- 
tionable merit of Lady and her descendants is to 
be attributed more to her dam than to her sire, for 
the grandson of Bolingbroke w T as not known to be 
the sire of any other remarkably good animal. 
This is no doubt true, for Lady herself was but 
one-eighth Galloway. Let us, however, look at in- 
dividuals. Countess one-sixteenth Galloway sold for 
400 guineas. Lily, of the pure blood, sold for 410 
guineas. The highest price that a bull of the alloy 
brought was, Major, one-sixteenth alloy, who sold 
for 200 guineas. Comet and Petrarch, both of the 
pure blood, sold much higher — one for 1000 and 
the other for 865 guineas. Of the bull calves of 
the alloy, Young Favorite sold for 140 guineas ; he 
had one-thirty-second part Galloway. Cecil, a calf 
of the pure blood, sold for 170 guineas. Of the 
heifers, Young Countess, having one-thirty-second 
part alloy, sold for more than any other ; she sold 
for 206 guineas. Young Duchess, of the pure blood, 
sold to Thomas Bates for 188 guineas. It was from 
this last, however, that the cattle whose prices I 
gave you in my last were descended. Mr. Bates 
never used any of the Galloway blood, and I would 
like to know if any of the descendants of Lady 
have ever brought such prices as these pure Short- 
Horns % But I think I have said enough to prove 
to you that the Galloway cross did not irwprove the 
Short-Horns — that they were good long before this 
cross was made, and that the pure blood sold higher 
at Colling's sale, in October, 1810. They alsolold 
higher at Robert Colling's sale in 1818, and at Mr. 
Mason's, 1829, Earl Spencer's, 1848, Mr. Bates', 
1850, and at Earl Ducie's, 1858. You may rely 
upon it that they can "boast as high antiquity as 
any of their rivals." 

Nor were they crossed with the white wild breed. 
Bailey in his Survey of Durham (1810.) says, 
"About seventy years since, (1740,) the colors of 
the cattle of Mr. Milbank and Mr. Croft were red 
and white, and white, with a little red about the 
neck, or roan." Now at this period, 1740, there 
were no wild cattle except in Chillingham Park, 
Northumberland, Craven Park, Yorkshire, and Cha- 
telheraut Park, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Mr. Berry 
fixes the period of 1740 as the time at which the 
improvement by supposed crossing was made in 







264 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



the Short-Horns. Then the persons making the 
cross must have gone to one of these parks for the 
means. What is the character of these cattle 1 
Culley, in 1785, described them thus : " Their color 
is invariably a creamy white, muzzle black, the 
whole of the inside of the ear and about one-third 
of the outside, from the tips downward, red, horns 
white with black tips, very fine and bent upward; 
some of the bulls have a thin upright mane about 
an inch and a half or two inches long." " Such," 
says Mr. Stevens, who examined them in 1848, 
" they are now, and a personal examination of them 
authorizes the statement." "Mr. Culley omitted 
to say thjey have a dull, ferocious eye, encircled 
Wy a black ring. If this was the cross which gave 
rite white color to Short-Horns, it would as cer- 
! 'inly have given the black nose, the black tipped 
i orn and the dull, ferocious eye, with its black rim-. 
Was a Short-Horn, of known purity, of white color, 
with these characters, ever seen?" 

Now, I ask you to weigh these facts calmly, and 
then let us know how the Short-Horns were crossed. 
But if the Short-Horns were improved more than 
fifty years ago by a cross, is it not time their breed- 
ers were making another cross to keep up the im- 
provement'? There is no one who pretends that 
they have been crossed in the present century, and 
if you will take the pedigrees of some of the best 
of the descendants of this Galloway alloy, I think 
you will find they have not more than one-two thou- 
sand and forty-eighth part Galloway. That is, if 
the animal possessed 2048 pints of blood, for in- 
stance, one pint of it would be Galloway, and the 
balance Short-Horn. Or if he weighed 2048 lbs. 
one pound would be Galloway, and the balance 
Short-Horn. I have seen some Short-Horns, whose 
pedigrees run back in known crosses of pure Short- 
Horn blood to the year 1739, and you have only to 
examine them as I have, to be convinced that there 
is nothing which could be added by crossing with 
the Galloway. I refer to the Princess family of 
Short-Horns imported by Col. Sherwood and Mr. 
Stevens, of New York. 

Nor is it true, as asserted by Mr. Berry, that 
Hubback soon became useless as a bull, from fat, 
or that he was purchased when quite young. It 
will make my article too long to state all the par- 
ticulars respecting Hubback, but I cannot help 
giving you the following: Hubback was calved in 
1777, as you will see by referring to the Herd Book. 
He was purchased when a calf by a Quaker, who 
sold him again to Mr. Fawcett, who kept him until 
1783, when be was purchased by Mr. Waistell and 
Rob't Colling; and so far from having been confined 
to Chas. Colling's stock, he was kept and let to cows 
when in Fawcett's possession, at one shilling each. 
He was kept by Waistell and Robert Colling during 
the summer of 1783, and Waistell had eleven and 
Colling seventeen cows served by him during the 
season. Charles Colling proposed to buy him fall 
of 1783, when the bull was nearly six years old, 
and Waistell and Robert Colling parted with him. 
Charles Colling used him but two seasons and sold 
him to a Mr. Hubback in Northumberland. Whilst 
Colling owned him he had no name, for he was not 
called Hubback until after he was sold to a ge;i! le- 
man of that name (Hubback,) at North Seaton in 
Northumberland. lie was used by Mr. Hubback 
until 1791, when he was fourteen years old. Mr. 
Bates, the great breeder, saw him and calves of his 
in 1791, got, of course, the year previous. 

I shall endeavor to answer your note to my 
article in the July number of the Southern Planter. 



I shall, however, make some remarks upon the last 
part of your note first, where you say, " Last sum- 
mer we met with a case in point, stated in one of 
the letters of some man who had been sent from 
the West by a cattle importing company to buy 
stock in England. He observed a coarse headed bull 
in a noted herd, and on asking why such an animal 
was kept, received for answer, that though he had 
never taken a prize himself, he was the getter of 
prize-takers — the vigor was there, and his aspect 
was the proof of it." 

I suppose the person to whom you allude is Mr. 
Stevenson, of Indiana; and if so, you will find the 
remark in the " Indiana Farmer" for August 15th, 
1853. The herd of which he spoke was Mr. Booth's, 
of Warlaby, one of the very best, no doubt, in 
England. By turning to Mr. Stevenson's letter 
again, I think you will find that you have made 
his words too strong. His words were: " The bull 
that he is breeding from is the most inferior looking 
animal in his herd, with a heavy, ugly horn." But 
he remarked to me, "he is a getter of winning 
stock. He gets the best calves of any bull I have, 
and it is not abways the best looking bull that gets 
the best calves." There is a very great difference 
between breeding from a coarse headed bull, and 
one with heavy horns. There is no breeder that I 
am acquainted with, who will breed, in preference, 
from a coarse headed bull. If his head is coarse, 
his bones are apt to be coarse. A bull should have 
a masculine appearance, but no coarseness. To 
get vigor, you might just as well contend that the 
animal should have coarse legs as a coarse head. 
In fact, one generally accompanies the other. Mr. 
Booth, I have no doubt, had better reasons for 
breeding from this bull than because his horns 
were heavy. I do not know what bull it was, but 
I have no doubt he was of his very best blood,- or 
that he was very superior in some important point 
in which his cows were, probably, defective. Some 
of the very best breeders use bulls which are de- 
fective in some points, if they are properly de- 
scended and are very superior in the most impor- 
tant points. I was informed by a gentleman, who 
knew him well, that the celebrated breeder, Mr. 
Bates, used his bull, " Short-Tail," (No. 2621 in the 
Herd Book,) as much as any bull he ever owned; 
and that Short-Tail was very defective in almost 
every point, except his brisket and his handling. 
Short-Tail was of his best blood, and he relied 
upon that to enable him to get good stock. Some 
of the very best Short-Horn bulls I have ever seen 
had rather heavy horns ; I remember one in parti- 
cular, which I saw in Kentucky. With the excep- 
tion of his horns, which were rather heavy, and 
had a bad set, I considered him one of the finest 
bulls I ever saw. 

I will now turn to the first part of your note. 
You say: "What we meant by being uncertain is 
this: there is less uniformity in breeding Short- 
Horns than either Devons or Herefords. With a 
Devon bull, even on a native cow, you are apt to 
get a calf strongly marked with the Devon points. 
With a Short-Horn bull, even on a Short-Horn cow, 
you cannot predict what sort of animal the progeny 
will prove, either in color or quality; and though 
there may be a sprinkling of premium animals, the 
average of excellence will be less." 

In breeding from a Devon bull, I admit you will 
get mostly red calves. They would be all red if 
the bull and cows are thorough bred; for there are 
no pure Devons of any other color. The Devons 
are an ancient race of cattle, and have always been 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



265 



bred for their red color. That is the reason they 
transmit it with so much certainty. The Short- 
Horns, you know, are red, or white, or a mixture 
of the two, or roan. They have never been bred 
t for any particular color; but you will never see a 
Short-Horn bull and a Short-Horn cow produce a 
calf of any other colors than the above. That the 
Devons or Herefords transmit their points or quality 
with more certainty than the Short-Horns, I deny. 
If the Devon is a well bred animal and the Short- 
Horn not, he will, of course, breed with more cer- 
tainty, and the reverse will be the case if the Short: 
Horn is well bred and the Devon not. You are a 
Devon man, and I suppose paid great attention to 
the Devon class at our State Show at Richmond; 
I, too, examined them very carefully, for I was 
called upon as a committee man to award premiums 
in the Devon class. Whilst I admit I saw some 
most excellent Devons, candor compels me, also, to 
say that I saw some, said by their owners to be 
thorough bred, whose expenses I w T ould not have 
paid home if they had been given to me and I had 
wished to breed Devons. Some of them were very 
dark red, with faces nearly or quite black. It would 
be quite easy to breed red Short-Horns if the color 
was an object; but there is no breeder, who under- 
stands his business, who will sacrifice any point 
which he deems of importance for the sake of color. 
There is a general prejudice against white, from 
most persons thinking it an evidence of tenderness. 
This, however, is a mistake. I have seen white 
Short-Horns which were as hardy and as easily 
fattened as red or roan. If they have good yellow 
skins and good hair, I care nothing about the white 
hair. But if there is any one thing which makes 
the Short-Horns more attractive than another, it is 
their brilliant and ever varying colors. I wish you 
could see a dozen or two rich roans, intermingled 
with white, reposing under the shade of sugar 
trees, in the rich blue/ grass pastures of Kentucky. 
You would think, at a little distance off, that you 
were gazing upon hillocks of tulips and roses, and 
carnations and dahlias. 

If you will refer again to the Indiana Farmer 
you will see why Short-Horns are sometimes un- 
certain in breeding excellence. There are four let- 
ters from Mr. Stevenson in the same number of the 
Farmer. In the one of 25th July he says, in de- 
scribing the market at Darlington, "On the north 
side of the square, ranged in a row, are two thou- 
sand Short-Horns." In his next, of the 26th, he 
says: "The large number of Short-Horns, men- 
tioned in my last, may somewhat startle your 
readers. But permit me to inform them that the 
Short-Horns are the common cattle of this country, 
and are fount! on every farm. See cattle when you 
will, and you see the Short-Horn colors of red and 
white and roan — and you find the form, too, and 
the horn. They have existed here time out of 
mind." And again: " I wish to impress upon your 
readers the fact of the Short-Horn race prevailing 
here universally. It is without pedigree. Indeed 
the history of its ancestry could not be ascertained, 
for this race has existed here beyond the memory 
of man, and at a time when no one thought it ne- 
cessary to keep this kind of registry of it. But Mr. 
Colling, it was thought, greatly improved the race 
of Short-Horns by some system of breeding never 
made known, and it is the descendants of this race 
that are pedigreed. Now the impropriety of rely- 
ing upon imported cattle in our country will be 
seen. It is not sufficient that they trace to im- 
ported cattle, because the common Short-Horns of 



the country may be imported, and I have no doubt 
often are. I could have selected hundreds of hei- 
fers here to-day, at from £7 to £12, that would 
have puzzled the very best judges to have told 
from the descendants of Colling's cattle. I asked 
a breeder, to-day, why they were not as good as 
the pedigree or improved breed. ' They do not 
breed with the same certainty,' was his reply. He 
then went on to point out some imperfections in 
those before us. There are but a few men here, 
comparatively, that have paid attention to purity 
of blood — they have been well paid, though, for 
this attention." 

I have made the above long extract for two rea- 
sons — one of which is, that I hope your readers, 
who have any idea of breeding Short-Horn cattle, 
will remember it. It may save them from pur- 
chasing miserable grade brutes, which have been 
fattened, up, pedigreed, and sent to our shows for 
sale, and on which not the least reliance can be 
placed, so far as their power of transmitting good 
qualities to their descendants is concerned. I told 
you something of the same kind in my last. An- 
other reason is, I think it an answer to your re- 
marks, that the Devons and Herefords breed with 
more certainty ; for says Mr. Stevenson, " See cattle 
when you will, and you find the Short-Ham colors of 
red and white and roan — and you find the form, too, 
and the horny He says, too, that "he could have 
selected hundreds of heifers, which it would have 
puzzled the best judges to have told from Colling's 
cattle." I do n»t know how to prove to you that 
the Short-Horns transmit their qualities with as 
much certainty as Devons or Herefords; but I am 
willing to submit them to any test. The above re- 
marks of Mr. Stevenson, when applied to two thou- 
sand head of Short-Horns sent to market to be sold, 
not for breeders, but for their milking or grazing 
qualities, ought, I think, to be conclusive as to their 
possessing transmissible qualities, reliable and un- 
mistakable. To show you, however, although I 
may be wrong, what perfect confidence I have in 
their progeny having "qualitj^," I will tell you 
what I will do. There are two herds of Short- 
Horn cattle in Kentucky, one belonging to Jame- 
and the other to Abram Renick — the two herds 
number, I suppose, about forty cows together. I 
will take all the heifer calves from both herds at 
$100 each, and I will agree to purchase and make 
you a present of a better Devon bull than any at 
our Show, if you will buy them for me at that 
price. The address of the Messrs. Renick is Clin- 
tonville, Bourbon county, Kentucky. There are a 
great many fine cattle in Kentucky besides these 
two herds, but I do not think I have ever seen in 
Kentucky, or any where else, such uniformity of 
excellence. The reason I say nothing about bull 
calves is that I do not need a bull, and I would 
like very much to buy some good heifers. I think 
every breeder who pretends to have first rate stock 
ought to be willing to Warrant the bulls to get good 
stock. And if any fair, candid gentleman in Vir- 
ginia, will purchase a bull calf of either of the 
Renicks, which they will recommend as of their 
best stock, I will myself warrant him to get good 
stock, and if he does not I will take him and pay 
the purchase money, for I have as much confidence 
in the men as I have in their stock. 

But I must return again to the Indiana Farmer. 
You will recollect that the Kent,uckians sent three 
of their best judges to England in the spring of 
1853, to purchase Short-Horns. In the Farmer for 
the 15th June, is a letter from one of them, Chas. 



266 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



T. Garrard, taken from the Paris (Bourbon County) 
Citizen. From this letter I will make a few ex- 
tracts, for he describes some of the most celebrated 
herds in England. After describing one or two 
herds and his trip from Liverpool to Otley, he says : 
"We then went to Chas. Townley's, near Burnley. 
He has one of the finest herds in England. He has 
50 or 60 head, 80 or more of which are fine stock — 
two cows, one of which, Alice, he had just taken 
to Ireland to a great show, and received the highest 
prize; she is one of the finest cows in England, no 
doubt; she will weigh in her present condition 13 
or 14 hundred pounds. He has another, Butterfly, 
nearly as large, and that has been winner of more 
prizes than any cow in England of her age. The 
bone in the fore legs of each of them is not larger than 
an ordinary eight month's calf's in our country; they 
could not be bought for money ; but are too large, old 
and fat, for us at any price. Some of his heifers, 
one year old, are likewise so fat as almost to insure 
them to be barren." He then went to see several 
herds. Sir Charles Tempest's, containing 35 or 40, 
some of which were very good, but would not sell 
any he wished him to price. H. Ambleu's, near 
Halifax, who had a fine herd of some 50 or GO. T. 
H. Fawkes, near Otley, had 75 or 80 head of fine 
cows and heifers, but would not price a single one. 
He then went to Mr. Bray's, near Harrowgate. He 
had 20 to 25 head; some fine cattle, " one two year 
old bull which we thought worthy to examine his 
pedigree, but it would not do." So you see even if 
the bull pleases and the pedigree does not, they do 
not buy. He then visited Maynard, near Ripon, 
and next Mr. Booth, of Warlaby, who, he says, 
•" has some of the finest cows, heifers, and the finest 
young bull, in the estimation of many, that is in 
this part of England, if not in all the country. He 
is white, and so are several of his finest cows — his 
others are rich roans. "We could not induce him to 
price a single bull or heifer to us. He will not sell 
any of his fine bulls, but lets them out at from 50 
to 100 guineas for the use of them for one year. 
Every thing is very high in this country, and Short- 
Horns in particular." 

You call the Short-Horns, "the boasted and 
beautiful, but delicate and uncertain.'" Think you 
their breeders would refuse to sell, at any price, 
these delicate and uncertain animals 1 Or that then- 
breeders would give as much as a Devon or Here- 
ford costs for the use of a bull one season, if they 
could not "predict what sort of animal the pro- 
geny will prove either in color or quality?" And 
this, be it recollected, is in the country of their 
origin, where they have been bred in their excel- 
lence more than a hundred years, and from which 
they have been exported to every country whose 
agriculture is improving. But further, says Mr. 
Garrard: "Nearly all the cows, and many heifers, 
which we see, that would suit us, are so fat as to 
utterly forbid our buying them, if Ave could do so; 
which, with the difficulty added of getting the 
owners to agree to sell to us, will make it extremely 
difficult for us to get what we came to this country 
for. We saw at Charles Townley's a three year old 
white heifer, made barren by feeding, which I think 
I would be safe in saying is the finest animal in all 
England — yes, in the world. She is so fat that you 
can scarcely feel a bone in her, except her head 
and legs. If I see her again I will take her mea- 
surements, to let •ur folks have an idea of a fat 
Short-Horn heifer. She would weigh some 14 or 
15 hundred, or I would rather say, it would be 
guess work. I have never seen any thing of the 



sort before. She is the greatest mass of flesh I 
ever have seen or ever expect to see again." 

Mr. Stevenson states the same thing of some 
others, in the letter referred to in the preceding 
part of this article. Speaking of Mr. Willson's T 
herd, he says; " He has a cow that has won ten or 
eleven prizes, but she is so fat that it would be dif- 
ficult to say whether she has a bone in her or not. 
I next visited Mr. Booth, one of the very best 
breeders, and who won several prizes a few days 
since at the Royal Agricultural Show. He showed 
me a heifer calf, very beautiful and very fat." It 
seems they get very fat when calves as well as at 
three years, or older. "Next, about twelve cows 
were shown ; these were on pasture, but in exceed- 
ingly fine condition. Here I saw a red cow that 
has won quite a pile of prizes; she, too, was a 
moving pile of tallow. Next, two roan cows, in 
stables, were shown me, and how to convey to you 
an idea of the amount of fat they carried will be 
difficult, and I am sure I would not likely be cre- 
dited. Next two two year old heifers were shown, 
in about the same condition. Five or six bulls 
were next brought forth and shown one by one. 
Mr. Booth would price nothing." It seems from 
the above, that there is. not the least uncertainty 
in breeding Short-Horns, at least as far as early 
maturity and propensity to fatten is concerned; 
and I ask you in all candor, whether delicate ani- 
mals will get as fat as the above are described to 
be 1 You will probably say, they were pampered 
and extravagantly fed. I have given you descrip- 
tions not only of particular animals, but of whole 
herds; but I will answer that it is not reasonable 
to suppose that breeders who — at least some of 
them — pay a rent, by the year, for their land, far 
higher than land can be purchased for in this coun- 
try, would breed and feed a race of animals which 
costs more to keep than they are worth. Would it 
not be more reasonable to suppose that the Short- 
Horns pay, and pay well, for the food consumed — 
that their breeders are fully alive to their superi- 
ority, as feeding animals, over every other breed of 
neat stock now existing — that they believe, and 
have good grounds for believing, for the belief is 
founded on experience, that so far from being un- 
certain, they have carried, and with proper care 
on the part of their breeders, will still carry, from 
generation to generation, the same pre-eminent 
qualities. 

I am fearful I will tire the ]>atience of yourself 
and your readers, of whom I suppose at least three- 
fourths live east of the Blue Ridge, and care very 
little about cattle of any kind. It was with ex- 
treme reluctance that I consented to occupy so 
prominent a position in your paper. It was, you 
know, at your urgent solicitation that I consented 
to write you some articles on cattle. On account 
of old College recollections, I was induced to aid 
you, if I could, in your laborious undertaking. I 
would have preferred an anonymous signature, but 
you thought it best to sign my proper name ; so if 
your readers think I occupy too much space in 
your paper, and that it would be better occupied 
in the discussion of " Guano and its effects," " The 
best Remedy for the Joint-worm," or "Which is 
the most profitable breed of Chickens;" they must 
blame you and not me. At the risk, however, of 
being tedious, I must notice your other objection : 
" But we also join issue upon the other pofnt raised 
by Mr. Mathews. We have been taught to believe 
that the bulls are not so apt to beget, and the cows 
less apt to conceive, than in any of the other races. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



267 



This is a natural consequence of the system that 
has been adopted in their rearing and management. 
Every thing has been sacrificed to early maturity, 
or the habit of laying on fat," &c. You will see, from 
the extracts taken from Mr. Garrard's letter, that 
many are made barren by high feeding. It will be a 
long time before cattle are made barren in Virginia 
by high feeding. Our people seldom try how much 
fat they can put on in a certain time, with a certain 
amount of food — but rather how many cattle they 
can keep alive through the winter. So this .objec- 
tion is not likely to apply in Virginia for some time. 
I will answer you candidly, however, that my own 
experience has been, that the bulls are as sure get- 
ters, and the cows conceive as readily, as any other 
race whatever. I do not think they breed to as 
advanced an age,. generally, as the natives, or rather 
scrubs ; but I have known a great many to breed 
to a very advanced age — having a calf, and fre- 
quently twins, every year. But do not all animals 
which come early to maturity, cease breeding ear- 
lier than those which are slower in coming to per- 
fection 1 It is certainly the case with the South 
Down, the Cotswold and New Leicester sheep. But 
I think the objection to the Short-Horns of very 
little importance ; for when the cow ceases breed- 
ing she will, with a good summer's grazing, yield 
you 10 or 15 hundred weight of good beef, with from 
150 to 200 lbs. of neat (not rough) tallow. As I 
told you, I have no experience with Devons or 
Herefords, but I suppose they do not breed as long 
as scrubs. It would be very well, however, if these 
last would cease breeding altogether ; and if it was 
not that it would look too much like interfering 
with "private rights," I would be glad if the Le- 
gislature would pass a law requiring the whole of 
them to be spayed, and would be in favor of hold- 
ing an "extra session" for that purpose alone. I 
think the owners of scrub bulls, and rams, should 
at least be required to keep them on their own 
premises. 

I can not now, but wall hereafter, give you the 
weight of Short-Horns fed in Kentucky, where 
they are never housed, as further evidence that 
they are not delicate — not picked animals, but 
whole herds. Very few good bull calves have been 
made steers- of,.as yet, in this portion of Virginia, 
have patience, however, and we will show you 
some at Richmond after a while that will be worth 
looking at. 

I have said very little about the Herefords, as to 
color, &c, for you say yourself that your ideas of 
them were suggested by reading and not by expe- 
rience. I do not believe they transmit their color, 
or any thing else, with more certainty than the 
Short-Horns. If I am not mistaken, I saw some 
years since, in a Kentucky paper, a letter written 
by Mr. A. B. Allen, a first rate judge, and a gen- 
tleman of great experience, in which lie stated that 
he saw a great many Herefords, in England, which 
were roan, and I think some white. I am not so 
sure about white, as it is several years since I read 
the letter, but I feel pretty sure about the roan. 
They are now claiming great excellence for what 
they call in England the gray Hereford. It is 
strongly suspected that they got some of these 
colors, together with some good points, by crossing 
with Short-Horns. Get in the cars, however, and 
go to the next New York show, and examine them 
for yourself. I think you will admit that good 
Short-Horns cannot be improved, in any way, by a 
cross with Herefords. At least this is my opinion, 



Short-Horns — even the Devons for Old Virginia. 
For this last I would select a Short-Horn bull, 
small of his kind, with small bones, good hair and 
fine handling qualities. More of this, however, 
hereafter. 

I have given you in a preceding part of this ar- 
ticle the weight of the Short-Horns in 1740 and in 
1780. In my next I will give you the weight at 
different periods down to the puesent time, in order 
to show you that they " are not a breed of yester- 
day, liable and likely to degenerate to-morrow." 
It will be as easy to establish their claims to good 
milking as to quick feeding. 

Truly yours, 

Alex. S. Mathews. 

Wythe County, 1851. 



For the Southern Planter. 



BLUE STONE AS A PREVENTIVE OF SMUT 
IN WHEAT. 

Mr. Editor, — I promised to give you the result 
of my experience in soaking seed wheat in a solu- 
tion of blue stone as a preventive of smut in the 
succeeding crop. 

My opportunities for making contributions to the 
fund of public information on subjects relating to 
agriculture are very limited, as my farm occupies 
but little of my attention, but I consider it the duty 
of every one interested in the success of that main 
support of all other employments, to add some- 
thing if lie can, though it be but a mite, to the 
stock of facts, that the public may be enabled to 
make a profitable use of them. I comply with my 
promise the more readily because you were kind 
enough to furnish me, in the fall of 1852, with a 
manuscript copy of the directions in advance of 
the publication in the Planter, which would have 
been too late to try the experiment with my whole 
crop. 

According to the directions I prepared the solu- 
tion — I do not now remember the strength, but it was 
very strong, as I remember using a large quantity 
of the blue stone. The wheat was soaked from 
twelve to sixteen hours, and every bushel of my 
crop was carried through the process before sowing 
except a sir. all quantity, referred to below. The 
germinating quality was not affected, the wheat 
coming up well. There was a small quantity of 
smut in the seed which was thus prepared, and as 
well as could be determined, by close observation, 
the crop of 1853 had about as much smut as the 
seed from which it was raised. The common theory 
about this disease is, that it is very contagious — 
one of the smallest particles of the black powder 
contained in the smut-pod being supposed to be 
sufficient to communicate the disease to the pro- 
duce of every grain with which it has come in con- 
tact. For the purpose of testing the truth of this 
theory, and also the efficacy of soaking in blue 
stone water, my overseers sowed a small quantity 
without soaking. To make the experiment more 
satisfactory, they took wheat which had gone over 
the tail of the fan with which was mixed a large 
quantity of the smut-pod. This was stirred and 
rubbed so as to get the black powder all over the 
grain before sowing, and the result was just such 
a crop as that sowed with the best wheat and which 
had been prepared by soaking in the solution of 



blue stone. Two men, in whose statements I con- 
but I believe all other races may be improved by I fide most implicitly, on different farms, both in- 



a 



268 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



formed me that they could not discover any greater 
proportion of smut in this than the general crop. 

After this experience I sowed my present crop 
without any preparation as a preventive of smut, 
though the seed, as before stated, had some smut 
in it. One of the same overseers informs me that 
he has not as yet, though nearly done threshing, 
discovered in this crop any smut at all. 

These are the simple facts of the case. I have 
no doubt that the best remedy for all the impurities 
in wheat is to let the seed get thoroughly ripe, and 
then expose as little as possible either to rain, dew 
or sun. 

Very respectfully, 

> E. Fontaine. 

Beaverdam, Hanover, Aug. 3, 1854. 



For the Southern Planter. 
DISTEMPER AMONG CATTLE. 

Mr. Editor, — Since the appearance of Dr. Mor- 
ton's communication in the Southern Planter for 
July, on " Distemper among Cattle," I am induced 
to believe that I should have been more explicit in 
a communication of mine on the same subject in 
the June number, over the signature of W. E. H. 

My father lived and died in Charlotte county, 
Virginia, and in his treatment as a preventive for 
the distemper he, also, for some two or three years 
cautiously prevented all intercourse with the in- 
fected cattle of his neighborhood, as the disease 
was considered contagious ; but after this period, 
in consequence of an imperfect fence, his cattle 
would frequently get with his neighbors' distem- 
pered stock, and roam on lands on which distem- 
pered cattle had grazed and died, and yet his cattle 
entirely escaped this contagious and fatal disease, 
which raged in that neighborhood for, I think, some 
six or eight years, but finally died out. 

This treatment of my father is a very strong case, 
yet I think the Doctor's precautionary directions 
should be scrupulously observed by all those who 
are introducing fine cattle in the State, especially 
that portion where this disease has once existed, 
and I will add, let them have a liberal supply of 
red clay and salt. 

I have been a resident of this State for about 
eight years, in which time, and previously thereto, 
the distemper has been prevailing in this and the 
surrounding neighborhoods, but I am in hopes, 
from present appearances, is subsiding. When I 
moved from Charlotte I brought only my oxen with 
me, and continued my former treatment, clay and 
bait, with the exception of one .year, (1851,) when 
I lost two of my oxen brought from Virginia, 
three milch cows, a bull and heifer with the dis- 
temper. I will say that the parent stock of my 
milch cows, &c. were said to be free from distem- 
per, as this disease had not gotten to the neighbor- 
hood from whence I purchased them, and that I 
have, with the exception of the years 1852 and 
1853, sedulously prevented my cattle from getting 
with those of my neighbors, as I was not a believer 
in the doctrine held here, "that this disease was 
not infectious." With all my precaution, united 
with the neglect of my former treatment, my cattle 
by some means contracted this disease, and the 
result was as above stated. Some of my friends 
have adopted the treatment as detailed in my for- 
mer communication on this subject, and with the 
most satisfactory results. 



Here I can but relate an anecdote of a neighbor, 
wino, upon my recommendation, was induced to 
try the efficacy of clay and salt, and observed to 
me when I saw him again, "that he examined his 
trough some five or six days after filling it, and his 
cattle had nearly eat up all its contents." 

I have, Mr. Editor, been thus explicit in order 
to illustrate more fully my former communication 
on this important subject, in the hope that those 
of your readers who are interested will give it a 
trial, and note the result. 

I am very much biassed in favor of Dr. M.'s sug- 
gestion, that " what we term the North Carolina 
distemper is probably the ' bloody murrain of Scot- 
land,' &c. and brought to this State by Scottish im- 
migrants." An old neighbor of mine, now dead, 
and who forrnerty traded to Fayetteville, informed 
me that " the first case of distemper he ever heard 
of in this State was near Fayetteville;" and as we 
know that Fayetteville was settled principally by 
the Scotch we may very safely infer that this dis- 
ease originated from infected cattle brought over 
by the immigrants. So, Mr. Editor, as I am an 
adopted son of Old Rip, and can but feel some pride 
in her fair fame, I most heartily unite with the 
Doctor in saying "we shall have to restore the old 
name, and associate something far better than dis- 
temper with the name of the good Old North State." 
Yours respectfully, 

William R. Hatchett. 

Casioell Co., N. C, July 24, 1854. 

P. S. — Our crops here are suffering intensely for 
the want of rain, and still more so in some ad- 
joining neighborhoods and counties. W. R. H. 



For the Southern Planter. 
HOW TO RAISE FOWLS AND WHAT KIND. 

Mr. Editor, — I like to have my hen-house near 
a grove where the hens can have a good shelter in 
winter from the cold and in summer from the scorch- 
ing rays of the sun. Nothing adds more to the 
health of fowls than a good shade and a plenty of 
running water. Some imagine thatjiens ought not 
to be fat when they go to setting. * They say they 
will not set well, which, in my mind, is a very er- 
roneous idea, for if you set a lean hen and she is 
at all annoyed by vermin, she is apt to die, on ac- 
count of feebleness. 

How to Get Rid of Vermin. — Never have more 
than twenty hens and two or three cocks to a hen- 
house of common size, and once in a week, or even 
a month, catch your hens and put a little sweet oil, 
on their heads (if not setting) and a little under 
their wings; and instead of having the nests made 
of straw, and the like, make them out of trash to- 
bacco, which will drive the vermin from the hen, 
and when she hatches the chickens will be free of 
lice, their fatal foe. 

When you put the hen out with chickens put 
also this lice destroyer in the hovel; and at dinner 
for a week or so leed with a small piece of fat 
meat, cut up and put in the dough. Feed three 
times a day. Chickens should be turned out quite 
early, if dry; if not, not until it is dry. After my 
chickens get to be as large as quails I feed them 
in the morning on dough; at twelve on wheat, and 
at nigh't on dough again. 

1 think 1 can take the Earl of Derby or the Mexi- 
can game and raise as many fowls, by following the ^ 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



269 



above rules, as any body can with any other kind 
of fowl or by following any other mode. The Mexi- 
cans and also the Derbys are superior to any kind 
of fowl I have ever seen for strength, for the deli- 
cacy of their flesh and for beauty and courage. 

I have been raising fowls for twelve years, and 
have tried all plans, but never raised many until I 
adopted the above mode and got the above named 
fowls. 

John Lander. 



For the Southern Planter. 
BRUNSWICK AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

At a meeting of the Brunswick Agricultural So- 
ciety, held at Ebenezer Academy on Wednesday, 
19th July, the following resolutions were adopted: 

Resolved unanimously, That this Society heartily 
approves the establishment of the Union Agricul- 
tural Society of Virginia and North Carolina at 
Petersburg, and the organization of similar Asso- 
ciations wherever located in this State ; but it is 
recommended, as important and necessary to the 
progress of agricultural improvement in Virginia, 
that all such Societies should be auxiliary to the 
Virginia State Agricultural Society. 

Resolved, That the Corresponding Secretary be 
instructed to send copies of the above resolution 
to the editors of the Southern Planter and Southern 
Farmer for publication, and also a copy to the Se- 
cretary of the Union Agricultural Society of Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina. 

John R. Buford, Cor. Secretary 
Brunswick Agricultural Society. 



From the Ohio Farmer. 



GUANO. 

The State of Maryland has an Inspector of 
Guano, who is required by law to publish for 
the benefit of the public, tables exhibiting the 
marks which are now used by the Inspector to 
designate the quality of the different varieties 
of Guano imported into the State. We give 
his Report at length. 

FIRST PERUVIAN GUANO. 

All Guano marked "Peruvian," letter A, con- 
tains Ammonia and its elements, equal to 
from 15 to 18 per cent. 

Do. do. do. B, from 12£ to 15 per cent. 

Do. do. do. C, from 10 to 12| per cent. 

Do. do. do. D, from 7 to 10 per cent. 

SECOND MEXICAN GUANO. 

All Guano marked "Mexican," letter A, Con- 
tains Phosphoric Acid equal to from 45 to 
55 per cent, of Bone Phosphate of Lime. 

Do. do. do. B, 35 to 45 per cent. 

Do. do. do. C, 25 to 35 per cent. 

THIRD WHITE MEXICAN GUANO. 

All Guano marked "White Mexican," letter 
A, contains Phosphoric Acid equal to from 
75 to 85 per cent, of Bone Phos. of Lime. 

Do. i do. do. B, from 65 to 75 per cent. 

Do. do. do. C, from 55 to 65 per cent. 



FOURTH AFRICAN GUANO. 

All Guano marked " African," letter A, will 
contain Ammonia and its elements equal to 
2 per cent., and Phosphoric Acid equal to 
35 per cent., and bone Phosphate of Lime. 

MEXICAN GUANO. 

In making a scale to indicate the quality of 
Mexican Guano, (the chief value of which as a 
fertilizer depends upon the per centum of Phos- 
phoric Acid it contains,) I have so constructed 
it that the purchaser may readily ascertain its 
commercial value, as compared with Bone 
Phosphate of lime, estimating the Phosphoric 
Acid as the per centum of that combination of 
Lime and Phosphoric Acid, as indicated by the 
letter in the table. Unadulterated "Ground 
Bones" or "Bone Dust" will average about 
50 per cent, of Bone Phosphate of Lime. In 
adopting a standard for the best quality of the 
ordinary Mexican Guano, I have after much 
investigation and examination of all the car- 
goes imported since the 1st of May, 1854, to- 
gether with data furnished me by Doctors Hig- 
gins, Piggott, and Bicknell, who have examined 
several cargoes imported during the last year 
or two, adopted the above table, fixing the 
maximum per cent, of Phosphoric Acid as 
equal to 55 per cent, of the Bone Phosphate 
of Lime. I have seen no lot exceeding 55 per 
cent., on the contrary, several have fallen far 
below it. The quality of each lot then will 
be indicated by the letter as arranged in the 
table. 

An article has been recently imported from 
the Carribean Sea in the form of irregular, fri- 
able white lumps, which when ground has the 
appearance of a white powder slightly tinged 
with yellow. Upon analysis it is found to con- 
tain a large quantity of Phosphoric Acid, and 
all the constituents of the ordinary Mexican 
Guano. From its chemical composition as thus 
ascertained — its physical appearance — the lo- 
cality from which it is obtained, and the cha- 
racter of the deposite as learned from those 
who have seen it, I have concluded, that it is 
an old deposit of Guano, brought into its pre- 
sent condition by long exposure to the atmos- 
phere, and the bleaching effects of the alternate 
rain and sun of the climate from whence it is 
obtained. 

As the article contains a very large per cent- 
age of Phosphoric Acid, as will be seen by the 
analysis below, I could not classify it with the 
ordinary Mexican Guano, and have therefore 
denominated it "White Mexican Guano," and 
arranged a separate table to indicate its quality. 
This becomes the more necessary, as upon ex- 
amination of three different cargoes, I have 
found a difference in quality to exist, though 



270 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



they yield a much larger quantity of Phospho- 
ric Acid than the best ordinary Mexican. 

Analysis of average samples of this article, 
taken from the ship "Junius:" 

Water, 4.26 

Organic Matter, 6.39 

Phosphoric Acid, 37.08 

Lime, 45.48 

Per Oxide of Iron, 0.12 

Carbonic Acid, Alkalies, traces of 
Sand and Magnesia, 6.67 

100— 
It will require 80.25 per cent, of Bone Phos- 
phate of Lime to yield 37.08 per cent, of Phos- 
phoric Acid, the quality obtained from these 
average samples. 

The lot imported in ship "Junius" contains 
more Phosphoric Acid than subsequent lots, 
and I have accordingly taken it as the standard 
for this article, and so arranged the table. 
The quality then will be indicated by the let- 
ters as placed in the scale. 

AFRICAN GUANO. 

In arranging the table for African Guano I 
have taken as the standard a cargo recently 
imported from Saldanha Bay, it being the lot 
now in the market. Its quality is indicated by 
the letter as adopted in the scale for African. 

Wm. S. Reese, 
State Inspector of Guano. 
Baltimore, June 1, 1854. 



Prom the Soil of the South. 
VEGETABLES AND THEIR COOKERY. 

We have long labored to improve the culture 
and quality of the various vegetables in culi- 
nary use. But this labor were vain, unless 
our housewives, cooks, boarding-house keepers, 
and crack hotels know how to cook them. 

We are led into this train of reflection by 
dining recently at a first class hotel. The 
backward spring had made vegetables a rarity. 
We consulted the bill of fare (which by the 
way was the waiter,) and ordered squash. In 
the interim, our fancy pictured the golden mar- 
rowy substance floating on the melted butter. 
The servant presented a black looking sub- 
stance. We told him we wanted squash, early 
squash, that bright yellow, tender, delicious ve- 
getable. This is it, master. Well, we thought, 
possibly there is some new method of cooking 
it — French, Chinese, or Japanese. At it we 
went. Sundry things seemed to hold the sub- 
stance together. Ah ! thought we, Chinese 
squash, for here were the Rat's tails. We are 
not squeamish; can eat what any body else 
can. We must confess our first impressions of 
Chinese squash were not very favorable. But 



even the enchantment which French, Chinese 
or Japanese, had to the taste, was at last dissi- 
pated, when we found the dark color of the 
squash, came from the iron vessel in which it 
was fried, and the strings which seemed to 4\ 
bind it together, instead of being rats> tails, 
were bacon rinds. — Shades of epicures ! what 
a dish for free born Americans, and a Horti- 
cultural Editor to eat ! And this is not the 
only delicate morsel that is ruined by the 
cooks of the country. All vegetables have a 
flavor of their own, which the cook should 
study to retain. 

The peculiar flavor of asparagus, green peas, 
green corn, tomatoes, squash, egg plant, and 
salsify, cannot be imitated by art, but is very 
easily spoiled by the cook. 

There are many vegetables that should be 
cooked so as to preserve the green color, such 
as asparagus, spinach, green peas, snap beans, 
okra, &c; this cannot be done if cooked in iron. 
Brass, or vessels lined with porcelain, will 
preserve the green of nature. How often do 
we see okra as black as ink from being cooked 
in iron vessels, and green peas that are black 
peas. It is not the looks alone, but the flavor 
is not as good as where the green is preserved. 

Vegetable Soups. — All vegetables that are 
put into soups, should be put into cold water, 
and gradually brought up to the boiling point. 
This will cause the vegetable to diffuse its fla- 
vor throughout the whole mass. Irish potatoes 
should never be put in soups, until first having 
been cut up in hot water, this extracts their bit- 
terness, and renders them fit to mingle in the 
other vegetable mass. The meats to flavor 
vegetable soups, may be beef, veal, mutton or 
chicken, and like the vegetables, should be put 
into cold water. There are fewer good soups 
made in the country, than almost any other 
dish, and the reason is obvious ; it takes time 
to cook them. An okra gumbo soup, should 
boil incessantly six hours, then the flavor of 
the meat, vegetables, and condiments are so 
intimately and delicately blended, that they all 
seem one delicious mass. Salt hardens water 
and flesh, and should not be put into soups 

until the mass is well done. 
# 

Asparagus. — This delicious vegetable is not 
yet appreciated in the up-country of the South. 
Tie the stalks in small bundles, and drop them 
into boiling water, with a good portion of salt, 
ten or fifteen minutes boiling is enough. Place 
some slices of soft toast in a deep dish, and 
take the asparagus up on the toast, saturate 
the whole with sweet butter and pepper to taste. 

Green Globe Artichoke. — Take off the 
seed down, wash them clean and soak them in 
cold water, drop them into boiling water with 



—~ 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



271 



a handful of salt, and boil until tender, which 
will take some two hours, when taken up, drain 
them well, and serve up with melted butter. 

Snap Beans. — Having taken off the strings, 
snap them, and drop into boiling water, with 
the addition of salt, try with a fork, and when 
tender, take up, and serve up with melted but- 
ter or good sweet cream. Many cook snaps 
with meat. But they are only greens cooked 
with meat. 

Butter Beans. — Having shelled them, drop 
them into cold water; as the water boils, add 
salt, try with a spoon, and when done, serve 
up with melted butter. 

Beets. — No knife should ever touch a beet 
previous to boiling; rub the leaves off by hand, 
for if there is a wound made in the beet, the 
best of its juices will be lost in boiling. Drop 
the beets into boiling water with a handful of 
salt. Most cooks take beets from the boiling 
kettle and place them in cold water for the 
ease with which the skin peels off. This should 
never be done, as they part with one half their 
flavor. When taken from the pot, let them 
drain, then peel and slice them, butter, pepper 
and salt them, or pour good vinegar over, which 
many prefer. 

Cabbages. — There are more ways to cook a 
fine cabbage than to boil it with a bacon side, 
and yet few seem to comprehend, that there 
can be any loss in cooking it, even in this sim- 
ple way. Two-thirds of the cooks place cab- 
bage in cold water, and start it to boiling, this 
extracts all the best juices, and makes the pot 
liquor a soup. The cabbage head, after having 
been washed and quartered, should be dropped 
into boiling water, with no more meat than will 
just season it. Cabbage may be cooked to 
equal brocoli or cauliflower. Take a firm, 
sweet head, cut it into shreds, lay it in salt and 
water for six hours. Now place it in boiling 
water, until it becomes tender — turn the water 
off, and add sweet milk when thoroughly done, 
take up in a colander and drain. Now season 
with butter and pepper, with a glass of good 
wine and a little nutmeg grated over, and you 
will have a dish little resembling what are ge- 
nerally called greens. * 

Cauliflower and Brocoli. — The flower 
heads of these delicious vegetables, may be 
cooked like the cabbage, or as the asparagus. 
They should be dropped in fair, boiling water, 
taking care not to let them boil too long, as 
tli£ buds will drop off. Season with butter, 
pepper and salt, with the addition of a little 
white wine. 

Carrots. — This vegetable is but little used, 
except in soups ; yet they are very palatable 
and healthy, containing a great amount of nu- 



triment. They should be placed in boiling wa- 
ter, and served up with melted butter, pepper 
and salt. 

Celery. — This delicious vegetable is not 
generally appreciated, as a cooking vegetable. 
Wash the stems clean in salt and water, and 
drop them into fair boiling water. After boil- 
ing twenty minutes take up and drain ; place 
some toasted bread in the bottom of a dish, 
now lay the celery over, and season with melted 
butter, pepper, salt, and such other condiments 
as the taste may dictate. 

Cucumbers. — Who ever heard of cooking a 
cucumber ? we hear our readers exclaim ! Try 
it; and then tell your neighbors how well a 
poor man may live in this country. Take the 
cucumber just as it begins to turn yellow, peel 
and slice it into salt and water; drop it into 
cold water and boil until tender. Season with 
salt and pepper — mix with batter and fry. — 
Few can tell it from egg plant. 

Indian Corn or Boasting Ears. — Who 
don't know how to cook roasting ears ? but if 
every body does know how to cook them, it is 
seldom we find green corn upon the table, with 
all its good qualities preserved. It is no won- 
der that our negroes are so greedy for pot li- 
quor, when in nine cases out of ten, it contains 
all the best of the vegetables. Corn boiled in 
the ear should be dropped into boiling water 
with salt to season. Corn cut from the ear, 
and boiled in milk seasoned with butter, pepper 
and salt, is an excellent dish. Corn cut from 
the cob after boiling, and mixed with butter 
beans, seasoned with butter, pepper and salt, 
makes succotash, a capital dish. Corn oysters 
is a delicious dish : grate the green corn from 
the cob, season with salt and pepper, mix in 
batter, and fry in butter. Green corn pudding 
is a great delicacy: grate the corn from the 
cob, mix sweet milk and flour until of the con- 
sistency of paste, season with anything the 
taste may dictate, and bake in a hot oven — it 
should bake quick. 

Onions and Leeks. — Many object to these 
vegetables, that they are strong, and taint the 
breath, but if onions or leeks are boiled in 
milk, they will leave no taint upon the breath. 
Onions that are to be fried, should first be cut 
up in cold water — it extracts much of its spirit, 
and makes them pleasanter.to the taste. Take 
them from the water, and drop them into boil- 
ing lard or butter; season as, they fry, with salt, 
pepper, &c. 

Egg Plants. — Peel the fruit, and cut them 
into thin slices, boil in salt and water, until 
quite tender; drain off the water, and add 
sweet milk, crumb in toasted bread, and whilst 
simmering gently, add butter, pepper, &c. ? and 



272 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



break in three or four fresh eggs ; take up be- 
fore the eggs cook hard, and you will have a 
dish almost equal to stewed oysters. To fry egg 
plants, they should be peeled, cut into thin 
slices, parboiled, then dipped in batter, which 
has been highly seasoned, and fried in butter 
or lard; either way, they are delicious. 

Okra. — This vegetable should be cut up fine 
for soups ; but when it is designed to bring it 
on the table whole, the stems should be care- 
fully cut off, and the okra dropped into boiling 
water, if the pods are young, twenty minutes 
is long enough to boil; take up, draw off the 
water, add butter, pepper and salt. A good 
portion of salt should be in the water when 
boiling. This is one of the vegetables that 
should never be boiled in iron. 

Parsnips. — This vegetable bears cooking 
with meat, better than most others. It may 
be boiled with beef, pork or mutton. It is also 
very fine cooked in fair water, and served up 
with melted butter. 

English Peas. — Green peas to be good, 
must be young, and of quick growth; after 
shelling, drop them into boiling water, with a 
little salt; there should be just enough water 
to cover the peas : twenty minutes boiling will 
cook them. Just before taking them up, add 
a lump of sweet butter, with pepper and salt 
to taste ; cook them in brass or porcelain. 

Squash. — The early bush and crookneck, 
are only fit to cook when very young : cut the 
steins and flower ends off, and drop into boiling 
water; when done, take up and drain through 
a colander, then with a wooden spatula mash 
until the mass is perfect jelly. Now add sweet 
butter, salt and pepper, and serve up for the 
table. Marrow squashes should be split open, 
the seeds taken out, the skin taken off, and 
dropped into boiling water; when done, take 
up and mash; add sweet butter, salt and pep- 
per; break three or four eggs into the mass, 
stir it well, place it in a shallow dish and bake 
it; should the squash prove dry, a little sweet 
milk may be used to moisten it : cooked in this 
way, it will prove what its name imports — 
Marrow, indeed. 

Spinage. — This is one of the most delicions 
of the whole tribe of the greens family. Wash 
the leaves carefully, and drop them into boiling 
water, in which therchas been a little salt put; 
ten or fifteen minutes will be enough to cook 
them. When done, take up and drain through 
a colander; now season with butter, pepper 
and salt, and lay over some slices of toasted 
bread, and serve up for the table. 

Salsify or Vegetable Oyster. — Wash 
the roots perfectly clean, and drop them into 
boiling water; when done, take up and mash; 



add sweet milk and flour sufficient to make a 
batter, season with salt and pepper, and such 
other condiments as the oyster requires, and fry 
in butter. Another way in which they are 
very delicious is, to grate the root on as fine a 
grater as it will pass through ; add sweet milk, 
just enough to cover it, and boil; when done, 
add flour enough to make a batter; season with 
salt and pepper, break two or three eggs in, and 
stir the whole together; fry in butter or very 
sweet lard, and the resemblance to oysters is 
complete. 

Tomato. — There are as many ways of cook- 
ing this vegetable as there are tastes. We find 
the following to answer our purpose: drop the 
fruit into scalding water, which will cause the 
skins to come off easily; place them in a brass 
or porcelain vessel, with a table spoonful of 
sugar to every quart of skinned tomatoes, and 
stew; when the tomato is well done, take up, 
add some crumbs of light bread, with a lump 
of butter, place in shallow vessels and bake; 
they are very nice when stewed, but when baked 
are delicious. 

Turnips. — A turnip that has grown quick, 
will eat well boiled whole, with a leg of mutton. 
Most turnips have a strong taste, and should 
be put into cold water when started to boil. 
To boil turnips to mash, they should be put 
into fair water; when done, take up and drain, 
mash with a wooden spoon or spatula, add salt, 
pepper and sweet butter, and serve up. When 
at the Fair of the Southern Central Agricultu- 
ral Society, last fall, we learned from Col. Sum- 
mer, of South Carolina, a way to cook turnips, 
which every one that trys will get more than 
his subscription's worth for this paper. Peel 
the turnips, and slice them, boil them in fair 
water, with the addition of a little salt; just 
before the turnips are done, add to the water 
a table spoonful of sugar to every quart of 
sliced turnips; take up and drain. Season with 
pepper and butter, and serve up for the table. 

Irish Potatoes. — There are many ways to 
cook this vegetable to make it delicious, and 
yet our hotels seldom have them fit to eat upon 
their tables. An Irish potato to be good, must 
be mealy when boiled. To secure this, select 
good potatoes, wash them clean, cut the skin 
from both ends, drop them into boiling water, 
with a handful of salt, the moment a fork will 
penetrate them freely, turn the water all off, 
and let them steam until dry; take up hot and 
send to the table. Those left over dinner, may 
be sliced and fried. Salt them well, and fry 
brown. Another method of cooking the potato 
is to peel and slice them raw; let them soak in 
cold water two hours before cooking, to extract 
the bitterness. Now boil in salt and water; 



■^p 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



273 



when nearly done, turn off the water, substitute 
sweet milk, add a lump of butter, with black 
pepper, and serve up for the table. Another 
way of cooking the potato is to make it into 
bread. Boil the potatoes; skin and mash them 
by hand; add sweet milk, and one half flour, 
stir it well; season with salt and butter; turn 
into deep dishes and bake. 

Vegetable Seasoners. — Parsley, celery, 
thyme, sage, onions, garlic and other seasoners, 
should not be put into soups or stews, until the 
soup is nearly done; chop fine, and put in five 
minutes before the soup is taken from the fire. 

Green Peppers. — A good dish is made from 
peppers, which is called in the West Indies, 
Devil Hash. Chop equal portions of fresh 
beef and green peppers very fine, add an onion 
and some parsley, season with salt and fry in 
sweet lard. 




THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 

RICHMOND, SEPTEMBR, 1854. 



TERMS. 

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which maybe discharged by the payment of One Dollar 
only, if paid in office or sent free of postage within six 
months from the date of subscription. Six copies for Five 
Dollars; thirteen copies for Ten Dollars, to be paid 
invariably in advance. 

83^" No subscription received for a less time than one 
year. 

fpp^ Subscriptions may begin with any number. 

j$5§P" No paper will be discontinued until all arrearages 
are paid, except at the option of the Publisher. 

§3^ Office on Twelfth between Main and Cary steets. 

ADVERTISEMENTS. 

A limited number will be inserted at the following rates : 
For each square of ten lines, first insertion, One Dollar; 
each continuance, Seventy-five Cents. Advertisements 
out of the City must be accompanied with the money, to 
insure their insertion. 

f3P" It is indispensably necessary that subscribers or- 
dering a change should say from what to what post office 
they wish the alteration made. It will save time to us and 
lose none to them. 

NOTICE. 

fjJP^ If subscribers do not order a discontinuance of the 
Planter before the commencement of a new year, or volume, 
it will be considered as a renewal of their subscriptions, 
and they will be charged accordingly. 

121^ Postage on the Southern Planter, (when paid in 
advance,) to any part of the United States one cent and a 
half per quarter, or six cents per annum. 



PRINTING OFFICE FOR SALE. 

In consequence of continued ill health, the subscriber 
proposes to sell his book and job printing office, which 
has a very fair run of job business. He also offers for sale 
the Southern Planter, which now has a large and in- 
creasing patronage. If any person feels disposed to pur- 
hase, and desires it, the building in which the office is, will 
also be sold. 

For information, address (post paid,) 

P. D. BERNARD, Richmond, Va. 



THE FAIR GROUNDS. 

The Fair Grounds of the State Agricultural So- 
ciety, at Richmond, will be much enlarged and im- 
proved this fall. The walks are all being properly 
graded, drained, and beautifully gravelled, so that 
if it is dry, there will be no dust; if wet, no mud. 
The plots are many of them handsomely turfed, 
with trees set out in them and they will be occu- 
pied with buildings, (not tents,) sufficient to accom- 
modate all specimens that may be sent to them ; 
and the arrangement of the stalls will be so altered 
as to improve the appearance of the grounds, whilst 
they are enlarged at the same time. 

Entries have begun to be made of the various 
articles, animals and implements, and it will be a 
great accommodation, not only to the Secretary 
and the Marshal, but to exhibiters, themselves, if 
they will make their entries as soon as possible. 
Now, we have ample time to make them all — then, 
as was the case last year, we may not have. 



THE HORSE COURSE AT THE FAIR. 

This course is, perhaps, the best of the kind in 
the United States. The whole of one square from 
Franklin to Grace street has been generously ceded 
by its different owners for the occasion, and it will 
be fitted in the shape of an ellipse, for a trotting 
and riding course, the track laid with tan bark, a 
stand for the judges in the centre, and the spaces 
at the upper and lower ends and the corners ap- 
propriated to stabling for horses and bulls. The 
horse course at Springfield where there were so 
many fine horses exhibited, and where the show 
was restricted entirely to horses, was only a quarter 
of a mile, or 440 yards in circuit; but our course 
is 556 yards. That we expect to be the chief at- 
traction of the ground. We have heard of several 
fine horses that will be brought to the Fair, among 
others, we learn that that most liberal and public 
spirited gentleman, Mr. Dulany, of Loudoun, has 
sent to England by a competent agent for several 
fine horses of different breeds, which are expected 
to be here in time for our Exhibition. One of them 
is to be a Suffolk stallion, a specimen of the best 
work horse in the world. 

Would it not be well if the owners or exhibiters 



274 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



of jacks were required to show their paces on this 
ring, each jack mounted by his owner 1 We know 
one large gentleman, a very particular friend of 
ours, who with his noble jack would cut a figure 
on the grounds. 



THE RAIL ROADS AND THE FAIR. 

The liberality of the rail roads is again mani- 
fested in behalf of the Fair. The Central and the 
Danville and the Lynchburg and Tennessee, all, in 
fact, that have been heard from, have been just as 
liberal as the Executive Committee have asked 
them to be, and seem anxious to cooperate with 
the Committee to the extent of their power and 
means. We can never forget that the rail roads 
last fall made the Society. Before, it was but a 
name. They gave it substance, and we cannot 
doubt will do so again. AVe do not expect from 
them the extravagant liberality of last year, but 
reasonable terms we think we can now promise 
from all. 

The following are the terms of the Central and 
the Danville Rail Roads : 

"The Board of Directors of the Central Rail 
Road Company have passed a resolution to carry 
all persons who exhibit evidence of being life mem- 
bers of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, 
free, going to and returning from the next Annual 
Fair at Richmond. 

"Also, that all persons who produce evidence of 
being members of the Society for the present year, 
if they have paid their fare going to Richmond, may 
return free. 

"That the freight on all subjects of exhibition 
will be required to be paid going down, but if not 
sold and the articles are offered to be carried back 
by the same owner, they will be taken free, and 
the original payment refunded." 

Extract from the minutes of the Danville Rail 
Road Directory : 

"Resolved, That the life members of the Virginia 
State Agricultural Society and such annual mem- 
bers as exhibit evidence of payment of their an- 
nual dues to the Society, be returned free on the 
road upon payment for their down trip. And that 
all animals and articles intended for exhibition and 
premiums be transported to and from Richmond 
on the road free, at the risk of the owners." 



Surely if any Society deserves it, they do. Their 
premium list amounts to about $8000, and without 
pretending to rival them, who are so much older, 
wealthier, and under more experienced guidance, 
than our Society, we cannot but feel more pride in 
the fact that our premiums amount to just about 
the same sum. 



NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

This noble Institution holds its next Fair in the 
city of New York. Hamilton Square, in that city, 
containing eighteen acres, has been given up to the 
Society; and the American Institute, which holds 
its Fair every fall, will unite with the Society. 
With the wealth and enterprise of New York to 
help out a Society itself remarkable for those prime 
elements of success, we cannot doubt that they 
will have the most brilliant exhibition they have 
ever yet held. We wish them all possible success. 



PATRICK HENRY'S RESOLUTIONS ON THE 
STAMP ACT. 

It gives us great pleasure to announce that our 
indefatigable antiquarian friend, N. F. Cabell, Esq. 
of Nelson, Chairman of the Committee on Honorary 
Testimonials, has obtained, among other valuable 
and interesting original documents for exhibition 
at the State Fair, the original manuscript Resolu- 
tions of Patrick Henry on the Stamp Act, offered 
to the Houise of Burgesses, in Williamsburg, just 
three days before their adjournment, and passed 
by that body in 1765. As the commencement of 
the Revolutionary struggles, this precious relic 
possesses a higher value than any other document 
in the world except its legitimate ancestor, the 
magna charta of Runnymede, and a sight of it 
alone will repay a trip to the Fair. It has been 
lent, for the occasion, by his son, John Henry, Esq. 
of Charlotte, by whom it is held as the most sacred 
of all the memorials of his great ancestor. 

We have not space now to enumerate several 
other interesting things of the same sort, all ema- 
nating from, or closely connected with, the planter 
and farmer statesmen of Virginia, or of others 
eminent in the profession. And we shall withhold 
one other matter which we have taken special pains 
to prepare as a pleasant surprise to the assembled 
farmers of the State. 



ORATOR OF THE FAIR. 

We omitted to notice, at the proper time, the fact 
that William Ballard Preston, Esq. of the county of 
Montgomery, late Secretary of the Navy under Mr. 
Filmore's administration, had been selected to de- 
liver the annual address at the approaching Fair. 
We owe an apology, both to Mr. Preston and the pub- 
lic, for this omission, which was purely accidental. 



ERRATUM. 



In the Planter of last month, the Essay on the 
Improvement of Poor Land, credited to William 
H. Harrison, Esq., was written by William B. Har- 
rison, Esq. of Brandon, in the county of Prince 
George ; further, was one of the essays which com- 
peted for the premium at the Fair last fall, and was 
not written "for the Southern Planter," as was 
erroneously printed. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



275 



IMPROVED SHORT-HORNS. 

We take the liberty of presenting two articles, 
from our friend Mr. Mathews, in one, as owing to 
accidental circumstances that one intended for out- 
last number reached us too late. He apologizes for 
their length ; we think it unnecessary to do so — to 
read them has been a treat to us, and we are bound 
to suppose that a majority of -our readers have the 
same good taste that we have, and feel the same 
interest in a' subject, which if not of immediate 
importance to them, is yet of very great importance 
to a large, and perhaps the finest, part of their na- 
tive State. 

Mr. Mathews treats his subject con amore, and 
handles it so ably, that we confess he' has shaken 
some of our strongest convictions. We have the 
promise of one or two more articles from his pen, 
and we bespeak, even from those who own no cattle, 
a careful perusal — they will repay it. 



HOW TO SELECT PUMPKIN SEED. 

Some two years ago, walking out to a friend's 
hog-pen with a gentleman who had been a success- 
ful planter, he remarked to us that there were too 
many he pumpkins in the pile of that he saw, show- 
ing that the seed had not been well chosen. We 
asked him to explain, and he told us what he said 
was well known and practised upon in Alabama. 
There is, as our readers know, a sort of scar at the 
end of each pumpkin just where the bloom drops 
off. There are two classes of these scars — the large 
and the small. The small scar denotes what he 
called the he pumpkin, the large one, the she pump- 
kin. Seed selected from the latter, he assured us, 
would give a much larger pumpkin than from the 
former. Having failed entirely in this very impor- 
tant hog crop for the last two years, we have been 
unable to test his accuracy in the matter by any 
experiments of our own. But from the character 
of our informant we had no doubt of the fact. We 
give it now, that persons as they feed them out 
may select the seed, and make the experiment for 
themselves. Let them be taken from each kind of 
pumpkin, and be planted far apart, so that there 
shall be no chance of the pollen of the two mixing. 
A couple of years will settle the matter. 

If it holds good with pumpkins we see no reason 
why it should not be equally true of the cymbline 
and melon and gourd family, and perhaps cucum- 
bers also. 

In feeding pumpkins to hogs or any other stock, 
as we have mentioned before, they should be gutted, 
and the seed thrown away — otherwise the strong 
diarrhoeatic properties will not only prevent the 
pumpkin from fattening, but will also hinder the 
corn from doing it. 



For the Southern Planter. 

COLONEL WARE MORE IN SORROW THAN 
IN ANGER. 

Mr. Editor, — I have read your article in your 
July number with sorrow at the bad spirit and ill 
feeling manifested, I think, unworthy an agricul- 
tural, however much it may accord with the habits 
of political journals. Journals can only be benefi- 
cial to the agricultural interest by encouraging a 
frank and free interchange of sentiments on all 
questions connected with the subject. Can that be 
obtained by applying offensive epithets and ascrib- 
ing selfish, interested motives to correspondents 
who offer pieces on any subject connected with if? 
Can an editor justify himself to an agricultural 
community for bringing his private prejudices and 
feelings to operate by that course against such free 
discussion'? In this I do not purpose to discuss 
with you any subject, but to correct some remarks 
and insinuations you make of myself, for your first 
sentence states you admit my piece "purely be- 
cause," thus apologizing for admitting it at all, and 
I do not wish a place on any other principle than 
of agricultural right, and with that the right to a 
treatment in accordance with the decent courtesies 
of life. 

I did not expect you to consider mine a reply to 
you. I have rarely, if ever, met a man that con- 
sidered himself answered in any question where 
two sides exist. It so happens that nature implants 
in the bosom of most men a large portion of self- 
esteem, and I cannot from your pen disc-over that 
you are in the slightest degree deficient of your 
share. Seeing your indignation so unnecessarily 
aroused, induced me to re-peruse your as well as 
my pieces — for to do injustice was farthest from 
my wishes and intentions. When you compared 
your section of country advantageously with mine, 
I deemed a reply proper, and thought it would be 
a matter of pride to you, as a Virginian, to see two 
sections of Virginia contending for superiority, and 
was really surprised to find from your tone and 
manner you seemed to consider it presumptuous, 
and gave offence. Well, sir, that is matter of opi- 
nion — let it pass. Others, as well as myself, still 
entertain the same opinion. All I have conversed 
with on the subject read your editorials to the 
same purport that I did. I will call your attention 
to them. April number, page 114, " There is no 
danger now of a surplus of cattle, though every 
subscriber to the Planter should go at once into 
the business." Same page, of a gentleman keep- 
ing "450 Merino sheep on 230 acres of land with- 
out any food except what they could pick up on a 
bare pasture." Again, page 115, "the same gen- 
tleman wintered 600 sheep on less than 230 acres 
of land," &c. Again, another gentleman "in the 
county of Nelson on 500 acres of land, with about 
150 acres in woods and the balance so utterly worn 
out as not to be worth cultivating, started two years 
ago with a flock of 530 sheep," &c, and strongly 
recommended the Merino as sheep that "will bear 
crowding on the land better." — Page 115. In all 
this was there one word, either by way of advice, 
instruction, dictation or suggestion, in favor of pre- 
paration by grass 1 or of "repose under grass'?" 
You cannot say that in each there was a grass pre- 
paration ; for you instance the Nelson case as too 
utterly worthless for cultivation; the other as 
bare ; and your advice was to all Virginia, and not 
to the counties only you name in your July number 



— — 



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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



as so poverty stricken. From these extracts and 
your boasts of their success and profits, and your 
advice given, I could draw no other conclusion. 
Can any other person'? Even your disclaimer in 
your July number seems to be contradicted by this, 
from page 211, "Sheep browze a great deal, and 
when they cannot get sufficiency of other food, they 
will not only eat bushes in greater quantities than 
cattle will, and of kinds which cattle reject, but 
they will chew up running briers by the yard;' 1 ' (Italics 
by me.) And by this, in the next page, "we, who 
scout the omnipotence of guano, do not see how, 
by means other than these, or by some similar plan, 
these lands are to be restored to, and retain, their 
native fertility." Now, I have known and kept 
many varieties of sheep, and whether full grazed 
or not, they will eat bushes and sometimes weeds, 
but never yet have known them eat so eagerly the 
running brier. They will nibble them a little oc- 
casionally, and but very little at that; not so freely 
as weeds, and, I presume, both as a medicine. 
The cravings of hunger must be great, I think, that 
drives them to that wholesale consumption. When 
briers are mowed and the new growth, as tender as 
asparagus, puts up, sheep of any kind (for their 
nature is the same) may be tempted to eat it when 
their pasture is scant. 

You say, "the motive of Col. Ware we take to 
be this : he is ' as much interested in fine stock as 
the most of men.' He raises Cotswold sheep, and 
we do not admire them. It is not enough for us 
to say, there is profit in all, but we must agree with 
him that his are beyond all comparison the best, 
and adopt his motto, aut Cotswold, aut nullus. We 
not having done this, he undertakes to reply to us," 
&c. Now, where did all this come from'? from 
anything from me? Not at all. I did not even 
name the Cotswold. It is from your own brain 
operating on that quality, already mentioned, as 
liberally bestowed on you by nature, and it forces 
me to say what I wished to avoid, as some might 
think it meant discourtesy, when only intended to 
relieve you from the thought, that in honest truth 
I declare positively, that in the whole range of my 
acquaintance I know not the man, who has thought 
of animals at all, about whose opinion of animals, 
of any kind, whether good or bad, I have so little 
concern or care as of yours. 

Now as to your charge of interested motive, 
" speculation." In order to have the best sheep, I 
get each year the winners of the high prizes of the 
Royal Agricultural Society of England. It takes 
but five to win that, and all must know to purchase 
the prize winners of England must incur heavy 
expenditures. Cannot any person see that in sup- 
plying the public with their produce my flock must 
necessarily continue small a long time. Were not 
one single one ordered from me for Virginia I could 
easily sell double as many as I can raise, and not 
one that I could at all spare is ever left to two 
years old. Then if each farmer in Virginia was to 
order one from me it could not add one cent to my 
purse. Where, then, can the interested, specula- 
tive motive be? If I had that motive, instead of 
advising against it until prepared with grass, would 
I not, like you, urge the purchase, prepared or not 'J 
It must be clear to all liberal minds, that my mo- 
tive could only be that Virginia should have that 
kind that profits most. My principle is to have of 
each hind of animal some of the highest quality — 
to procure which is, of course, costly, aud but few 
can be procured. Now it so happened, in cattle I 
had fancied the very cattle you also denounce, but 



have selected differing from the general rule. I 
sought the high milking family of the improved 
Short-Horns, and two of my cows (mother and 
daughter) gave large quantities of milk and butter, 
and their cream churned into butter with a teo^-spoon 
in fifteen seconds. I refused for the daughter $700. 
The third I bought when largely in her teens for 
$500; she was killed before getting her home. 
She gave " 9 J gallons of milk per day and 20^ lbs. 
of butter per week." Her cream churned in a 
churn into butter *"in three seconds by a stop 
watch." The report of the committee "was re- 
ceived unanimously, as the Society witnessed the 
fact." And your charge of selfish motive against 
me about sheep was no more applicable than cattle, 
and surely the Virginia public will agree I have 
done my part towards elevating her agricultural 
character, in stock at least. When you charge me 
with doing you injustice in your position, in such 
indignant terms, would not gentlemen think, that 
smarting under such wrongs as you profess to do, 
you would be particularly guarded in not mis- 
stating me, and thus " come into court with clean 
hands'?" Now, where did you get the charge from 
that I complained of your not admiring the Cots- 
wold'? or that I required you to agree with me 
that they were beyond all compare the best? or 
that I had any motto of aut Cotswold, aut nullusl 
and above all, that I ever required your adoption 
of if? For I made no such demand in any part of 
my communication; so far from it, I was writing 
on the subject of farming only, and did not even 
mention Cotswold. Why is it you cannot under- 
stand that a Virginian can act on other than sordid, 
selfish views ? Do you not see that when you make 
such entirely groundless charges, unsustained by 
one single word in my communication, that upon an 
old rule, you are opening the door for the strongest 
suspicions that your mind was poisoned by enter- 
taining that selfish, sordid motive of speculation 
yourself? for you carefully mention you own the 
very same sheep you seem so fretfully anxious in 
urging Virginia to adopt. It was well your article 
was headed in large letters, "An Answer to Col. 
Ware," like the Dutchman's tavern sign, " dis is 
de man, dis is de horse," for except my name to 
it, the design would hardly have been discovered. 
But why complain of my " undertaking to answer" 
you, when you say you were "willing to have 
them criticized by abler hands'?" Is it because I 
do not come up to your standard of " abler hands V 
Who is to be judge of that? I will admit it; but 
why fix a standard at all, for on some subjects con- 
nected with farming, the gigantic mind of Littleton 
Waller Tazewell could get instruction from a very 
plain practical farmer'? But if that is to be the 
standard and you are to be the judge, do you ever 
expect to find a man, differing from you, to come 
up to if? 

I have neither said, nor mean to say, any thing 
with a disrespectful intention; nor will I ascribe a 
single unworthy motive to you. But do you think it 
could not be done ? Or that when you are ascribing 
such to others, that you are more free from it (from 
persons of your disposition) than others? How 
easy it is to say, as many 3^ou will find, think and 
say, that you hold the office of Secretary of the 
Virginia State Agricultural Society, with a salary 
of $1500 per year — for doing what ? What equiva- 
lenl service is rendered the Agricultural Society for 
this large sum ? Can any man tell ? The Secretary 
of the Maryland State Agricultural Society (the 
Editor of the American Farmer) for the same du- 



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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



277 



ties of the same office receives not one cent. With 
all this gratuity, not having the liberal public spirit 
to bring into Virginia the costly animals that have 
made England famous and have brought the public 
spirited to her shores from all parts of the world 
as purchasers, at high rates, of improved Short- 
Horns and improved Cotswolds, pouring wealth into 
her lap and elevating to a high standard the agri- 
cultural character of Kentucky, Ohio and other 
States — and Virginia has had some reputation in 
the city markets — but from what other but the 
improved Short-Horn and the improved Cotswold 
has she had that reputation? And yet you make 
war upon them especially — the only animals of the 
kind that can elevate her agricultural character, as 
they have done that of other States, and brow-beat 
their advocates from your columns. You take the 
low priced animals, such as never can elevate Vir- 
ginia's agricultural character — such as Mr. Randall, 
of New Yqrk, (the advocate of Merino sheep for 
the South,) said in his writings, New York was re- 
jecting from her pastures, as unprofitable — "some 
going into the dairy business, others into the large 
early maturing mutton sheep, as much more pro- 
fitable." The sheep that numbers in Ohio and 
Pennsylvania say " cannot be profitable unless they 
can get 60 cents per pound on the farm for their 
wool," and are about abandoning them — a sheep 
that has been tried in this country at a cost of 
$1500 for a buck and $400 and $500 for ewes, and 
so rejected as none to be found here now. You 
calculate upon having these cheap animals, and 
by lauding them to the skies and brow-beating the 
advocates of others from your columns, you can 
by slight expenditure gratify your views of " spe- 
culation," and keep Virginia's agricultural reputa- 
tion always at a low standard, instead of placing 
her foremost of the first. I only state this to show 
you how fully as easy it is to ascribe selfish mo- 
tives, speculation, to you, as it is for you to ascribe 
it to others, and certainly with at least as much 
show of justice, and certainly after ascribing such 
motive to me you could not complain at having 
it retorted. Occupants of such tenements ought 
to be careful of throwing stones. I do not charge 
such motive — I utterly disclaim doing so. I have 
truly stated my object. 

Now, sir, I will say the calculation of 7 sheep 
to the acre was not mine, (nor was it a calculation 
of a "bare pasture,") but of one of our most ex- 
perienced, oldest, best and most successful farmers, 
and was considered by no means an extravagant 
calculation — his sheep were always good and his 
base was on them. Further, I will say ours is a 
grain growing country, and when the grass that 
Kentucky prizes appears in our land we plough it 
up, as interfering with our wheat; and this is the 
reason Kentucky pastures differ from ours and are 
better. Our flocks of sheep in consequence of our 
system are all small, but good; it is one of the 
smallest branches of our agriculture. 

I have never boasted of the number of my sheep — 
the number of acres, or quality of my land, or my 
capacity as a farmer, consequently your insinations 
of being in secondary positions does not disturb 
me, as I presume it is of no consequence to any but 
myself, and you may entertain your own opinion 
on them all, whether correct or not. 

Your ideas of the weight of the part bred Cots- 
wold muttons I sell ; of the improved Short-Horns 
being "delicate and uncertain," even in your ex- 
planation of your meaning; of the improved Cots- 
wold (I mean thoroughbred only) being delicate, 



(I suppose you mean in constitute, for it seems 
neither Mr. Mathews nor myself Could understand 
you,) sluggish, lubberly, foul nosed Cotswold sheep; 
all seemed to me so entirely erroneous, that I fear 
the instruction you sought to give, and which you 
think Mr. Mathews so benefited from, will prove 
but a stumbling block. Our experience in this 
country has been that no animal so strongly marked 
his get as the improved Short-Horned bull, and no 
cow with us bred with greater regularity and cer- 
tainty ; and what farmer, acquainted with thorough- 
bred Cotswold, would recognize them in your de- 
scription'? Not one word applicable but "slug- 
gish;" and all, who know any thing about sheep, 
know that to be an indication of aptitude to fatten 
and protection from dogs. Who ever in this wide 
world knew sheep to be recommended by a judi- 
cious man for being "active," a race, saddle or 
light draught horse quality 1 I can only conclude 
you are not accustomed to or acquainted with high 
and thoroughbred improved Short-Horns and Cots- 
wolds, but have formed your opinion from part 
breds, brought into Virginia as thoroughbreds, as 
described by Mr. Mathews, or such as have been 
raised to thoroughbreds (as you consider them) by 
the system of breeding you recommend to get tho- 
roughbreds, in page 146, second column, and which 
system drove me from the North to England, to 
insure pure bred. Would Mr. Mathews be content 
with such as thoroughbreds, got up by such a sys- 
tem 1 Now I must be pardoned for not taking such 
instruction from one who clearly shows he knows 
so little of either thoroughbred Short-Horns or 
Cotswold, as the errors above prove you to be, and 
probably never owned a single thoroughbred of 
either, in preference to the highest authority in 
England, where the improved Short-Horns have 
swept the palm of superiority from all competitors , 
and the standing committee on sheep of all kinds, 
in England, composed of the most experienced 
breeders, have recommended a " cross of the im- 
proved Cotswold on all breeds of sheep, to give 
them size, early maturity, aptitude to fatten and 
hardihood of constitution." From which cross on 
the South Down, the Oxford Downs have sprung, 
and all judicious men acknowledge that their early 
maturity, size, and aptitude to fatten was the im- 
provement over the South Down, acquired from 
the Cotswold. Nor can I take "instruction" from 
a man who can recommend for profit a breed of 
sheep that can sell their wool for no more money 
per fleece than a Cotswold, and whose lambs as 
muttons will not sell before four years old, and 
then only for from $2 50 to $3, in preference to a 
Cotswold that will sell their fleece for as much or 
more money and his yearling part bred mutton for 
$10 each regularly; thus selling $40 in mutton, at 
least, by the time the Merino can sell one for $2 50 
or $3. Nor can I take instruction from a man who 
considers the Ayrshire "valueless," comparatively 
with the Dcvons — among others (note, page 214.) 
Nor can I take instruction from a man who recom- 
mends such a system of procuring thoroughblood 
as in page 146. I should always look with distrust 
upon the stock recommended by any person who 
advocates such a system. I should fear meeting 
the fate, spoken of in Holy Writ, as falling to the 
blind leading the blind. 

Josiah Wm. Ware, 
Near Berryvilk, Clarke Co., Va. 

ANSWER. 

We reply reluctantly, but decidedly, to the above 



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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



article of Col. Ware, (which we insert ahead of our 
remarks that they may not anticipate his, and in 
that way, possibly do him an injustice,) reluctantly, 
because such controversy does no good, and is 
generally productive only of ridicule or disgust. 
Col. Ware charged us with theorizing, with recom- 
mending what would make an English farmer 
"laugh at Virginia's notion of improving land,"' 
&c. — in a word, he attacked our agricultural repu- 
tation, which, such as it is, we shall always defend 
against him and every one else, and laid down the 
law with an air which we would not brook. We 
shoAved that he had misrepresented us, and we as- 
cribed it not to his want of correct apprehension, 
but to interested motives — one or the other it must 
have been, and we believed it to be the latter, be- 
cause in a private note he promised, when he had 
time, "to reply to our article against Cotswold 
sheep and improved Short-Horned cattle," and be- 
cause in the same note, he says, "you were wrong, 
as an Editor, to try and make any impression on 
the public, by advising against particular breeds. 
You would be going far enough in showing the 
profit of those you prefer, without advising farmers 
not to purchase particular breeds that you know, 
(Italics our own,) your patrons are profitably using 
at great expense. Probably, you will not find such 
another instance of an Editor's course in the wide 
world." It was offensive for any one to suppose 
himself our "patron," and still more to approach 
us in a "private" note, and, on that ground, at- 
tempt to influence the course of this paper. It was 
an indirect threat to compel our silence, or our com- 
mendation; and we determined, instantly, to let 
him know that he had missed his man, and that 
the Planter would speak its real sentiments, gainsay 
them who might. We do not pretend to know 
much, we are not proficients in stock breeding, nor 
adepts in tillage, but what we think, it is our duty 
to say. We owe that to the public ; and whilst we 
wish everything canvassed, and our errors exposed, 
we will not be misstated without rebuke, nor tam- 
pered with without resentment. Neither will we 
consent not to form or express an opinion on any 
subject, and to stand in respectful silence whilst 
our "patrons" puff their stock and mislead the 
public. We do not set ourselves up to be the cham- 
pion of the agricultural interest, nor yet their knight 
errant, roving in search of grievances to be re- 
dressed. But our position is a pledge to protect 
that interest and we shall do it. As a matter of 
course we expect the animosity of the men whose 
speculations we thwart, or whose extravagances 
we expose — and Ave may be overborne by them; 
for the public generally lets its defenders fight 
such battles without much assistance, and is rarely 
grateful, at the moment, to those who open its 
eyes, and Avill not let it be deceived, or deceive 



itself. But Ave shall persevere in the path of right — 
preferring our own approbation to the plaudits of 
others — and endeavor to meet such adversaries as 
best Ave may. 

Like a member of Congress, avIio makes a motion 
to get in his five minutes speech under the rule, 
and then withdraws the motion, Col. Ware charges 
us Avith speculating in fine Avooled sheep, and says 
he does not mean it. We take the speech, and he 
may do as he chooses with the motion. Suppose 
Ave had had no such sheep : hoAv Avould Ave have 
stood then, recommending one breed and OAvning 
another'? Hoav easily might it have been charged 
that Ave were theorizing. We did own them, and 
kept them until a change of residence, to within 
sight of Richmond, made another breed, obviously 
proper. We then sold them as follows : to one gen- 
tleman who had bought one hundred such eAves last 
fall at $5, Ave sold our best hundred at that price, 
to be paid in his common sheep, he being satisfied, 
after a year's trial, to double his flock; Ave have en- 
gaged the balance to one gentleman at another gen- 
tleman's valuation ; Ave engaged every buck lamb 
to a butcher at $3, and of our own accord, before 
he ever saAv them, abated fifty cents, because Ave 
thought he had estimated them too highly — he Avas 
satisfied with the discount — and so Ave got for lambs 
what Col. Ware puts four year old sheep at; Ave 
have sold the ewe lambs to an established wool 
groAver at his own valuation Avhen he gets them ; we 
are fattening the wethers for the shambles : we have 
sold one ram at $10 : Ave have given one away to a 
friend; and Ave have four left, which Ave shall dis- 
pose of as Ave think proper. We have never adver- 
tised one of them, and though Ave think them, (their 
prevailing cross is Saxon,) every bit as good as the 
Merinoes, Ave have publicly advised purchasers to 
take the Merino — all this Ave did, because Ave meant 
to have " clean hands;" and Ave have them. 

In the same spirit, Col. Ware prefers and disclaims 
the charge that Ave get $1500 a year "gratuity," 
(i. e. for doing nothing,) from the Virginia State 
Agricultural Society. This gives us an opportunity 
of setting that matter right, and it has been both 
misunderstood and misrepresented. When in the 
Society, last fall, the motion Avas made which cre- 
ated that office, Ave Avere absent at home, a Avitness 
in court, and kneAv nothing of it. It Avas a subject 
which had never been discussed in the Executive 
Committee, nor mentioned in that body, so far as* 
Ave know — one gentleman only had conceived the 
plan, and Ave did not knoAv his purpose in regard to 
it. The first intimation that Ave had that it Avas to 
be created, Avas an invitation to accept it. When 
it was tendered us, without solicitation, by the Ex- 
ecutive Committee, unanimously, with one excep- 
tion, we took it on trial, and Ave Avere taken on trial ; 
it wafl so expressly understood. If the Executive 



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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



279 



Committee, by their action, conferred a gratuity, or 
pensioned a favorite on the Society, let Col. Ware, 
or any one else, hold them accountable for it. If 
he really thinks they have, it is his duty to impeach 
them ; and, as the party most interested, we now 
invite him to do it at our next annual meeting. If 
the Editor of the American Farmer, " for the same 
duties of the same office receives not one cent," he 
has more money, more leisure, more " liberal pub- 
lic spirit," more industry, or deeper designs than 
we have. We certainly will not work for nothing. 
It is not pleasant to us to give these private details, 
which, but for Col. Ware's insinuations, Ave had 
withheld from the press ; but we are not ashamed 
to give them. We stand erect : and if by any inu- 
endo of his, Col. Ware expects the pleasure of see- 
ing the Editor of this paper 

"Vailing his high top lower than his ribs" 

he is mistaken. Not anxious to establish a cha- 
racter by courting attack, we are yet so conscious 
of rectitude as to defy investigation. Let it come; 
but when it does, we hope, for his own sake, that 
the prosecutor will be bold enough to maintain his 
ground, and will have risen above that safest, but 
most discreditable of all modes of assault, which 
denies the palpable purpose at the very moment it 
aims the blow. 

We come now to Col. Ware mending his hold on 
the Cots wolds. In illustration of our remarks we 
had cited a highly cultivated English farm which 
kept an equivalent of nearly two sheep for each 
acre. Contrasting the lands of Clarke -and Jeffer- 
son with that farm, Col. Ware stated that they 
could "graze advantageously seven sheep to tfie 
acre." He now repeats it, and refers to "one of 
the most experienced, oldest, best and most suc- 
cessful farmers" of that region as his authority. 
But the truer it is, the worse for him. Why don't 
he do it, and make $61 25 per annum from his 
flock, or nearly four and a half times as much as 
he does make according to our liberal estimate of 
one sheep to each acre of his land at $10 per head ? 
(a price, by the way, which fair yearling calves 
now readily command in the South-West.) Be- 
cause, he says, his "is a grain growing country," 
and sheep constitute "one of the small branches 
of our agriculture." But why so "small," if so much 
can be made from it 1 We have seen the results of 
Mr. Harry Turner of Jefferson's wheat farming ta- 
bulated from his journals, somewhat intermittently 
kept, it is true, of many years. The average, if 
our memory serves us, was a fraction less than 15 
bushels per acre on what was a model farm. Sup- 
pose Col. Ware's farm, or farming, 33£ per cent, 
better, and give him 20 bushels. For fourteen 
years past our crops in Albemarle (as near to mar- 
ket, whether in freight or distance, as Col. Ware's) 



have netted us, on an average, only about 80 cents. 
Allow him $1. Deduct $5 per acre for expenses of 
the crop at home, and he has $15 per acre against 
$70 or $35 (just which he pleases, but one or the 
other,) from sheep, and a difference of $55 or $20 
per acre per annum against the wheat crop. 

Another of Col. Ware's reasons for not keeping 
as many sheep is, that he gets " each year the 
winners of the high prizes of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society of England. It takes but five to win 
that;" so his stock is small; kept so by supplying 
the public. Let us see. Col. Ware has been pro- 
fessing to do this thing for five years, to our know- 
ledge. This will give him, if there were one ram 
in each annual lot of five, five rams. The male 
produce of his imported ewes will, upon any fair 
calculation, amount to four times as many more 
by this time, which, with the imported parents, 
will make enough, at 60 ewes to each ram, (see 
Morrell's American Shepherd, p. 289,) for fifteen 
hundred ewes. This leaves out of the estimate the 
progeny of thoroughbred ewes that he had before 
he commenced importing u the Queen's prize" ani- 
mals, and themselves capable of producing " year- 
ling part bred mutton at $10 each regularly." It 
is very evident, therefore, that he can easily raise 
that number if the land will " graze seven sheep 
to the acre advantageously," and that his importa- 
tions, so far from hindering will aid him in the bu- 
siness. If he " can now easily sell double as many 
as he can raise," and "never ha's one that he can 
spare over two years old," how is it that he sells 
thoroughbred ewes, in lamb by his imported bucks, 
and those, too, that have taken high premiums, for 
only $50 each, as was the case with some he sold 
Messrs. Newman, Willis & Scott, of Orange] If each 
buck is worth $100, and that we think is his price, 
how can he sell for half that sum a ewe which will 
produce, either a ewe lamb, worth more than $50 as 
a breeder, or a buck lamb — probably a pair of 
them — worth, as the case may be, $100 or $2001 
And how can he, as he did on one occasion, sell 
some thirty choice ew T es out of his flock, and buy 
a flock of a neighbor 1 If his statements are accu- 
rate he cannot afford to do it, for the more difficult 
it is to procure a few of the highest quality, the 
more precious are their progeny. Those who choose 
to believe that it is liberality in him to sell them at 
these prices may do so, but we are compelled to 
think that he keeps his flocks small because they 
will not thrive in large numbers, and because the 
land will not carry "seven sheep to the acre ad- 
vantageously" without grain — as Col. Ware, we 
think, has found by experience — even under a much 
milder rotation than is now r adopted in his neigh- 
borhood. And so thinking we think Col. Ware has 
made statements about his sheep and his land 
which, as we understand them, cannot stand inves- 
tigation. 



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280 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



As a mode of getting thoroughblood we proposed 
to breed the common stock to thoroughbred ani- 
mals, and their progeny again to thoroughbred, and 
so on, " until in a few years the desired strain shall 
be pure for all practical purposes, and in a few 
more reach that purity which is required by the 
fastidiousness of the Herd Book." We are a little 
surprised that Col. Ware objects to this, for his 
"pure bred" Gotswolds that he sent to England 
for, (where only three pure breeds exist, the New 
Leicester, Cheviot and South Down — Morrell, page 
265,) are nothing else but the old Cotswold ex- 
tensively crossed with the Leicester. See Morrell, 
p. 126. And we had not supposed that he would 
have depreciated his own sheep by repudiating the 
principle on which the breed is formed. " Tho- 
roughbred" is a word derived from the turf, and 
there is applied to horses which derive their blood 
in unbroken succession, on both sides, from Arabs 
or barbs — Godolphin Arabian was a barb — and yet 
if he knows anything, he knows that fifteen-six- 
teenths is considered thoroughbred for all practical 
purposes; and that if it were not, some of the 
finest horses ever in America, among them, Sir 
Charles, Ball's Florizel, and even Boston, his near 
descendant, would be excluded from the course 
and the stud. He also knows that the term is more 
latitudinously applied to cattle, and still more to 
sheep. Is Col. Ware so fastidious when he goes to 
sell] Does he inform purchasers that his "pure 
bred" Cotswold are a mixed breed - ? And does he 
never sell any grade ewes to improve the flocks of 
the country % As to the propriety of the system 
we recommended, we refer to Morrell, page 274. We 
had not looked into it until Col. Ware's strictures 
made it necessary to fortify ourselves with autho- 
rities, than whom there is none higher than Mr. 
Morrell, fully endorsed as he is by the New York 
State Agricultural Society's Executive Committee. 
In truth, it was unnecessary to refer to any book 
in a matter of common sense. 

The quotations from what we had written to prove 
how accurately he had construed us, omit one sen- 
tence. At page 114 we say, " We do not, of course, 
expect that the whole of the region we speak of 
shall go at once up to the number" [of stock on 
the model English farm] "here indicated, or that 
the whole of it is so fertile as to possess the same 
acreable capacity." It is unlucky that Col. Ware 
should give the sentence immediately following to 
sustain himself, without noticing the vital qualifi- 
cation of its antecedent. It would seem as if he 
had a trick of this kind. But admitting our im- 
puted recommendation of the English quantity; 
as the lands in Clarke can so easily carry seven 
sheep to the acre, it cannot do harm to the lands 
in Eastern Virginia to carry less than two, and 
Col. Ware by reflecting on this point might have 



been spared all the trouble he has taken in their 
behalf. 

Our " ideas of the weight of his part bred Cots- 
wold muttons he sells" are " entirely erroneous." 
How ] Above or below the mark % We put them 
at 180 lbs. gross weight — 100 lbs. net. If they go 
higher than that, then the absurdity of his state- 
ment is still greater, because it shows them on pas- 
ture "not one-seventh as good" to be more than 
four times better than their English congeners. If 
they go lower, then we wish to know, first, the 
weight, and second, who gives more than ten cents 
per lb. for mutton, taking the average of a flock 1 

The idea that it offended us to have the claims 
of Clarke and Jefferson for supremacy asserted by 
any one is a mistake. We admit freely the fertility 
of those lands, which we know, from minute, per- 
sonal inspection, to be unsurpassed by any others, 
and unequalled, except, perhaps, in the valley of 
James river, and some smaller districts. We never 
said otherwise: but Col. Ware appropriates what 
we said of the whole to his neighborhood, which, 
fertile and beautiful as it is, is but a small part of 
the great Valley of Virginia. Equally erroneous 
is the idea that we have "private prejudices" 
against Col. Ware or his sheep. We bear him no 
grudge : his character is not of that order which 
creates grudges. It is very true that we have not 
felt that "large portion of self-esteem" he ascribes 
to us grow any smaller in his company — unless it 
might be by comparison : but we have never felt 
that he was a man to dislike any more than to ad- 
mire. And what can have prejudiced us against 
his sheep % So we do our duty in recommending 
sueh as we deem best, it concerns us no more than 
any other man if every sheep in Virginia was a 

Cotswold, except that we should see no more 

mutton fit to eat. We are not the shepherd of the 
Commonwealth, and why fret ourselves about its 
sheep: we have quite other demands upon our 
temper. We think the Cotswold are good sheep 
in their place — vastly better than the natives of 
Eastern Virginia. Their wool, though heavier than 
any other, is the least valuable that we make, espe- 
cially for negro clothing, the purpose to which, 
strangely enough, it is thought particularly adapted; 
for it is not a fulling or cloth making wool, but an 
inferior combing wool — the lowest grade of wool 
grown in the United States ; and they do not make 
mutton equal to several other breeds, but they are 
prolific and good milkers: they mature early, and 
a sprinkling of them does very well to sell to 
butchers to " grease" their other carcasses w)* v _ 
as Colonel Ware calls it, that is. to transfer fat 
from them to leaner muttons. They are, on the 
whole, a fair mutton sheep, fattening kindly but 
flavoring indifferently; but they are not adapted 
to Eastern Virginia generally in its present condi- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



281 



tion. And in saying this, we are better friends to 
them than those who invest them with extravagant 
and sometimes impossible merits, which every body 
will believe they have at first, and come to rate 
them ultimately as much below their true deserts. 
We are now done with Col. Ware for the present. 
We shall not stop to ask him how it is that his 
sheep, eating less than any other breed, yet make 
more fat and more manure than any others, as he 
says they do, nor to argue several other points 
which, in his enthusiasm, he has claimed in their 
favor. Our readers have had enough of the sub- 
ject. We do not apologize for the mode in which 
we have treated it or the length of our remarks 
because all we have said has been in duty to our- 
selves and to them. 



J. Horace Lacy, Esq., has consented to deliver 
the address before the Rappahannock Agricultural 
Association, which holds its next annual meeting 
in Fredericksburg. It is unnecessary to say that 
an address from Mr. Lacy will add greatly to the 
interest of the occasion. 



B. Johnson Barbour, Esq., of Orange county, has 
accepted an invitation to address the Loudoun Agri- 
cultural Association 5T their next meeting. 



For the Southern Planter. 
BRINING AND LIMING SEED WHEAT. 

Mr. Editor, — After fifteen years of what was con- 
sidered the successful use of brining and liming 
seed wheat in preventing smut in wheat I published 
the fact in the Planter. Two consecutive years now 
satisfy me the conclusion arrived at was fallacious, 
and I retract the opinion. On the contrary, I have 
heard of three well authenticated cases of much 
injury being done to the vegetative power of the 
seed by the process. Who can give a remedy % 

Thomas Meaux. 

Amelia, August 21, 1854. 



PAYMENTS TO THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



From the Soil of the South. 

SALT A PREVENTIVE OF WEEVIL AND SMUT IN 
WHEAT. 

Messrs. Editors, — I never have written a line for 
publication in my life — farming is my occupation — 
but sometimes I think that if every farmer was to 
do so we would have no Soil of the South ; so for 
the promotion of it, I will drop you a few lines, 
and you can do with them as you please. 

I saw an article in the Farmer and Planter, some 
time in the fall, telling how to prevent smut in 
wheat, which was to soak the seed in brine. I have 
put my wheat up in salt for twenty years, for the 
purpose of keeping the weevil out, which it does 
effectually. I put about a pint of salt to three 
bushels of wheat. If these two great objects can 
be accomplished by so simple a process, it is worthy 
of a trial by those who raise wheat. 



To the 25th of August, 1854. 

George E. Welsh to January 1855 

James F. Harper to May 1855 

T. R. Dunn to January 1854 

Dr. Robert R. Barton to January 1857 

Walker R. Ogden to July 1855 

F. Burns to August 1855 

N. B. Whitfield to July 1855 

R. G. Johnson to July 1855 

Thomas Rollins to Julv 1855 

Trent W. Cox to July 1854 

John B. Smith to August 1855 

John Mosby to September 1854 

R. B. Hendrick to January 1855 

John L. Carpenter to July 1855 

S. Basset French to January 1856 

E. Lazenby to September 1855 

Dr. John E. Friend to January 1855 

Gilderoy Yeatts to March 1854 

Moses Myers to January 1855 

T. S. Morton & Co. to July 1854 

R. L. Welbourne to October 1854 

A. H. Hankins to September 1855 
John W. Scott to July 1855 
James D. Smith to July 1855 
Edward Lightfoot to June 1855 

P. F. Boisseau to January 1855 ^ 

John E. Perkinson to January 1855 
Dr. T. W. Neal to January 1855 
J. B. Williamson to January 1855 
W. W. Wallace to January 1855 

B. W. Bailey to January 1855 

Dr. W. J. Cheatham to January 1855 
E. E. Jefferson to January 1855 
Daniel Worsham to January 1855 J 
E. G. Leigh to January 1855 
Travis H. Eppes to January 1855 
John L.'Brooke to January 1855 
Dr. William R. Holt to January 1855 
J. A. Ferguson to January 1855 
Edward Porter to January 1855 
Anderson Hughes to January 1854 
S. B. Atwill to July 1855 
J. M. Doswell to August 1855 
Rev. F. H. McGuire to July 1854 
James A. Bruce to August 1855 
Thomas L. Page to January 1855 
William A. Winfree to September 1854 
John F. Edmunds to January 1857 
Capt. N. W. Hunt to August 1855 
R. B. Watkins to July 1855 
Nelson W. Elsom to July 1855 
M. L. Anderson to July 1855 
S. F. Sampson to July 1855 

C. H. Lewis to July 1854 

Dr. E. F. Birckhead to July 1855 
John White to July 1855 
George W. Harris to July 1854 
George Rives to July 1855 
L. Brockenbrough to April 1855 



n oo 

1 00 

1 00 

2 00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 



7 50 



1 00 


1\00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


11 25 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


5 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


2 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 


1 00 



GUANO AND WHEAT DRILLS— We are now re- 
ceiving orders for PENNOCK'S celebrated Wheat 
Drill, with Nelson's Guano Attachment. By the use of the 
Attachment, at least two-thirds of the guano is saved to the 
farmer, a ;d as fine a crop of wheat is insured. We war- 
rant the Drill to work well. Persons wishing them will 
please send in their orders as soon as possible. 

MEADE & EACHES, 
R. S. Huck's Old Stand, Fairfax Street, 
se2t 4 doors from King, Alexandra, Va. 



3*1 



282 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



THE HORSE, THE HORSE, 

TVTOBLEST OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS, and the 
1 l one most frequently ill-treated neglected and abused. 
We have just published a book so valuable to every man 
who owns a Horse, that no one should willingly be without 
it. It is entitled the modern horse doctor, and is from 
the pen of that celebrated English Veterinary Surgeon, 
Dr. George H. Dadd, well known for many years in this 
Country, as one of the most successful, scientific and popu- 
lar writers and lecturers in this, branch of medical and sur- 
gical science. The book which he now offers to the pub- 
lic, is the result of many years study and practiced expe- 
rience which few have had. From the numerous and 
strong commendations, of distinguished men and the news- 
paper press, we select the following: 
Extract from a letter from Hon. John II. Clifford, Ex- 
Governor of Massachusetts. 

New Bedford, May 11, 1854. 
Dr. Dadd,— Dear Sir:— I hope your new work on the 
noblest creature that man has ever been permitted to hold 
in subjection, (the Horse,) will meet with that success, 
which all your elForts in this direction so well deserve. 
Your obedient servant 

John H. Clifford. 

From Hon. Marshall P. Wilder. 

Boston, May 13, 1854. 
Dr. Dadd,— My Dear Sir:— I am greatly obliged to 
you for the valuable treatise, the results of your own inves- 
tigations which you have recently issued, hoping that it 
may meet with the patronage of a discriminating commu- 
nity. I remain yours with great regard 

. Marshall P. Wilder. 

The Modern Horse Doctor, by Dr. G. H. Dadd, is a 
manual of genuine science, and ought to be owned and 
studied on the score of humanity, as well as interest, by 
every man who owns a horse. — Boston Congregationalist. 

Dr. Dadd has had great experience in the cure of sick 
horses, and explains the secret of his success in this vol. — 
New York Tribune. 

The author of this work is well known as a most skilful 
veterinary surgeon. His book is based on the soundest 
common sense, and as a hand-book for practical use, we 
know of nothing to compare with it. — Yankee Blade. 

We know Dr. Dadd well, and are satisfied that he pos- 
sesses most, important qualifications for preparing such a 
book as this. — New England Farmer. 

Messrs. Jewett &, Co. have just published a very valua- 
ble work by Dr. Dadd, a well known veterinary surgeon, 
on the causes, nature and treatment of disease, and lame- 
ness in horses. — Farmer's Cabinet. 

This is one of the most valuable treatises on the subject, 
ever published; and no owner of that noblest of ihe ani- 
mal race, the horse, should be without it. Especially 
should it be in the hands of every hotel and livery-stable 
keeper. To many a man would it be worth hundreds of 
dollars every year. — Ind. Democrat, Concord. 

By far the most learned and copious work on the horse 
and his diseases we have ever seen. — N. Y. Evangelist. 

One of the greatest and most commendable qualities of 
this work, is, it is practical and plain to the comprehension 
of those farmers and others for whom it is mainly designed. 
The course of treatment favors generally a more sanative 
and rational system of medication than that recommended 
in any previously existing works on farriery. No farmer 
or owner of a horse should be without this book. Stable 
keepers, stage proprietors and hackmen, we believe, would 
derive profit by having at least one copy hung up in their 
stables for use and reference by their stable men. — Daily 
Ncxcs, Philadelphia. 

There is more common sense in this book than any of 
the kind we have ever seen, and farmers and owners of 
horses would find it a matter of economy to possess them- 
selves of it. It will be of more service than the counsel 
©fa score of ordinary doctors. — Albany Courier. 

We deem this decidedly the best and most reliable work 
on the "Cause, Nature, and Treatment of Disease and 
Lameness in Horses," ever published. — Nantucket In 
quirer. 



What we have read of this book induces us to regard it 
as a very sensible and valuable work; and we learn that 
those much more competent to judge of its value have given 
it their unqualified approval. — Ev. Traveller, Boston. 

This book supplies a great desideratum, which Skinner's 
admirable treatise on the horse did not fill. Every man *? 
may be his own veterinary surgeon, and with much greater 
safety to this noble animal, than by trusting him to the 
treatment of the empirical itinerants who infest the coun» 
try. It is well illustrated, and should be purchased by 
every man who owns a horse. — Ev. Mirror, N. Y. 

This is a book that should be forthwith put into the 
hands of all who own or drive horses whether for the dray 
or gig, for the plough, omnibus or road, for hard service 
or pleasure. — McMakin's Courier, Philadelphia. 

A good, clearly written book, which should be in the 
hands of every man who has a horse whose ills his affec- 
tion or his purse make it worth while to cure. — Bangor 
Mercury. 

This is a scientific, thorough and complete treatise upon 
the diseases to which one of the noblest of animals is sub- 
ject, and the remedies which they severally require. — 
Troy Daily Budget. 

It is a valuable book to those who have the care of 
Horses. — Hartford Herald. 

He is not worthy to have a horse in his care who will 
hot use such a work to qualify himself for his duties to this 
animal. — Commonwealth, Boston. 

Published by JOHN P. JEWETT & CO., 

Boston, 
Jewett, Proctor. & Worthington 

Cleveland, Ohio. 

se — 3t !2P Eor sale by all Booksellers. 



PRIME MERINO STOCK FOR SALE— The under- 
signed having associated himself with Col. Philip St. 
Geo. Cocke, for the purpose of growing fine wool and rais- 
ing choice Merino Stock, and ultimately upon a very exten- 
sive scale in both Powhatan and Brunswick counties, is 
now prepared to offer 75 buck lambs, old enough for deli- 
very in September next. 

These Iambs are sired by three Bucks which have taken 
prizes in two different States of the Union. One of them 
took the first prize in the State of New York for two years 
in succession. A large number of our Ewes have been 
purchased from very superior northern flocks. I have on 
hand some good stock Bucks ready for use this fall. 

I will box up and deliver for transportation, either on the 
James River Canal or Danville Rail Road, with proper 
directions for feeding and without extra charge, any stock 
ordered, but will in no case be responsible for accidents or 
losses occurring after such delivery. The cash must in all 
cases accompany orders. 

Neither care nor expense will be spared to procure and 
keep up Stock of the purest and best quality; and I assure 
the Southern Agriculturists that it is designed to make this 
one of the most interesting and best wool growing and 
stock raising establishments in the United States. 

I invite persons interested to call on me at my residence 
at Belmead, or to address me by letter as below. 

THEODORE N. DAVISSON, 
Jefferson P. O., Powhatan co., Va. 

jun4t 



SUFFOLK PIGS from the stock of Prince Albert, which 
gained the gold medal at Smithfield Club, England, also 
the first prize at the exhibition of the Norfolk Agricultural 
Society, Massachusetts, 1S53, two to three months old, sup- 
plied with food delivered on board Express cars or vessel on 
receiving thirty dollars per pair. Or they will be sent to 
any part of the United States, upon receiving a certificate of 
deposit for forty dollars, from the Postmaster, that upon their 
reception, in good order, free of expense, he will pay. 
Address JAMES MORTON, 

West Needham, Mass. 
Or GEORGE H. P. FLAGG, 

Boston, Massachusetts. 
se3t* 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



283 



CRYSTAL PALACE.— World's Pair, New York, United 
States of America — Association for the Exhibition of 
the Industry of all Nations. 

EXCELSIOR. 

The Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of all 
Nations awards to Elisha S. Snyder of Charlestown, Jef- 
ferson County, Virgina, the highest premium Bronze Medal, 
with special approbation, for the combination he has effected, 
and the practical application he has given the same, in his 
Labor Saving Machine for Threshing, Separating, Cleaning 
and Bagging Grain. Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, President 
of the Association ; Hon. Henry Wager, Western New York, 
Chairman; Watson Newbold, Esq. Columbus, New Jersey; 
Col. John W. Proctor, Danvers, Massachusetts; Maj. Philip 
R. Freas, Germantown, Pennsylvania; Hon. Henry S. Bab- 
bit, Brooklyn, Long Island, acting Secretary in Class 9, 
Jury C. 

My Patent Premium Threshing, Separating, Cleaning 
and Bagging Grain Machine, is for sale, which received 
the first premium at the Crystal Palace, New York, over 
all Threshing Separating, Cleaning and Bagging Grain 
Machines on exhibition, thus proving conclusively that sim- 
plicity in construction, cheapness in price and durability in 
my machine, is being fully appreciated, and the old and 
new costly inferior complicated Separating Machines, must 
yield their places to a superior Labor Saving Machine. 
The celebrated Machine for Threshing, Separating, Clean- 
ing twice, Screening and Bagging Grain by one simple 
operation. The greatest labor saving Machine in the world 
for separating all pure and impurities. This Machine throws 
the straw to itself, the chaff to itself, the wheat in the bag, 
the screenings to itself, and the smut and cheat to itself. 
Every thing has a place, and every thing is in its place to 
suit the conveniences of the farmer. For simplicity, dura- 
bility, cheapness and capacity, it has no equal in the world. 
As for what has been stated in the different papers concern- 
ing Mr. Zimmerman's Machine receiving the first premium 
at the Crystal Palace, New York, is false, and not true. It 
is also stated that Mr. Zimmerman received a number of 

premiums at and other fairs. That I know nothing 

about; perhaps he did; but it is very easy to win the race, 
as the boy said when he ran by himself. But, my honora- 
ble friends, this was not the case at the World's Fair, New 
York. Mr. Zimmerman had a number of other boys to 
run with besides himself, which made the race more diffi- 
cult for him; so much so, that he, Mr. Zimmerman, was 
neither first nor second; so you may judge where he was. 

These are facts that cannot be denied. The undersigned 
would inform the public that his Farmers' Labor Saving- 
Machine for Threshing, Separating, Cleaning, Screening 
and Bagging all kinds of Grain, is for sale. Farmers wish- 
ing to buy the best Machine io, use, will address Joseph 
Glaze, Frederick City, Maryland. Those wishing to pur- 
chase the Patent Right to manufacture the Machines, will 
address me at Charlestown, Jefferson County, Virginia. 
ELISHA S. SNYDER. 

July 1, 1854— 12t 



]\TOTICE.— DRAYTON G. MEADE, (late of the firm 
IN of Addison & Meade,) and WILLIAM EACHES, 

having entered into a copartnership, under the name of 
MEADE & EACHES, for the sale of Agricultural Imple- 
ments, Seeds, Manures, &c, having bought out the entire 
stock of R. S. Huck, and located at his old stand on Fairfax 
street, east side, between King and Prince, will continue to 
keep on hand a full and complete assortment of the various 
articles in their line of business, and will always be happy 
to see their friends, and all who may be pleased to give 
them their patronage. D. G. MEADE, 

WM. EACHES. 

IJSp" The undersigned having sold his stock of Agricul- 
tural Implements, &c, to Messrs. Meade & Eaches, returns 
his thanks to his friends for their past patronage, and re- 
spectfully asks a continuance of the same to his successors. 

Alexandria, Sept. 1— 2t R. S. HUCK. 



WM. A. BUTTERS, 

BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER, 

au No. 157 Main Street, Richmond, Va. 



THE CHINCHA ISLANDS. 

AS many ships to our address are under charter to pro- 
ceed to these Islands to load Guano, we beg to submit 
some particulars relative to the detention of ships and the 
expenses of loading. 

All vessels may expect to lay out the full number of their 
lay days before loading is completed. A bonus of $10 to 
$15 per day, for every day saved, is sometimes paid as a 
gratification to officials. Most ships are kept a month after 
arrival, before an order is given to ballast, after which it is 
decided whether they are to load by lighter or by "Mangu- 
era," or shoot, by which the Guano is run into the hold. 

The " Manguera" discharges from 400 to 500 tons per 
day. All ships dry up very much, from being exposed to a 
hot sun, and nearly all are obliged to caulk before leaving, 
unless they have been very recently caulked. Vessels 
should be provided with oakum and pitch, and English 
Caulkers can be obtained at $4 per day and board. Ame- 
rican coin or Sovereigns are best for disbursements — the for- 
mer passing at par, and the latter at $5 each. Captains of 
vessels, short of funds, can obtain money of resident 
Houses, if well accredited, at 6 per cent, premium upon 
sight bills, or draw upon their charters at 12 per cent, pre- 
mium. The following were the Port Charges and disburse- 
ments for a ship of 700 tons : 
Callao. — Stamps, $5; Sailing License, $11 •• • $16 00 

Tonnage Dues, 25c per ton 175 00 

Clearance dues, Pisco 4 00 

Com'n on Charter 150 00 

At the Islands 345 00 

Manguera Fees, mooring- •• $20 00 

Pilot attending 24 00 

Trimm'g Fees, 17c reg'r ton 119 00 

163 00 

Crew to load from Callao and 
back, 16 men three months 
each, at $20 per month •• • 960 00 

Com'n shipping & boat hire, 

. $2 each 32 00 

Market bill for beef and vege- 
tables, 3 months 300 00 

Water bill for the Islands- • 50 00 

Crew shipped to go home, 16 
men, at $35 per month, 2 
months in advance, $70 
each, is • 1,120 00 

Com'n ship'g and boat hire, 

$5 each-- 80 00 

Water to go home '• 30 00 

Captain's expenses at Callao 

and Lima 25 00 

2,597 00 

Add for caulking ship 200 00 

" " gratification to trimmers and 
pilots 30 00 

$3,335 00 
There is another charge for hire of water casks (2 cents 
per gallon,) to carry water from Callao to the Islands, which 
the charter says is to be delivered "free of expense." The 
water has to be bought, and if the ship has no spare casks, 
they have to be hired. There is also a chance of losing 
$50 on the boats or lighters used in ballasting or loading, 
vessels arriving purchasing of those leaving and when 
loaded, but not always obtaining as much as they expended, 
se— tf HUSSEY, BOND & HALE. 

BROWN & SHOOK, General Commission and For- 
warding Merchants, corner Union and Franklin streets, 
Richmond, Virginia. All business carefully and promptly 
executed. 
mar — ly 

UNITED STATES HOTEL, 

(formerly union,) 
Corner of Main and Nineteenth Streets, Richmond, 

J. E. NORRIS, Proprietor. 
martf Price of Board, per day, $1 50. 



JUL 



284 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



A MORRIS, 97 Main Street, is constantly sup- 
• plied with all Nbw and Standard Agricul- 
tural Works. The subscriber respectfully invites 
the attention of the public to his extensive assort- 
ment of Books on Agriculture, among which may 
be found — 

The Chemical Field Lectures for Agriculturists, 
by Dr. J. A. Stockhardt; translated from the Ger- 
man: edited with notes by James E. Tesehemasher. 

The Field Book of Manures, or the American 
Muck Book; treating of the nature, properties, &c. 
of all the principal manures in common use, by 
D. J. Brown. 

The American Farm Book, or Compend of Ame 
rican Agriculture, being a practical treatise en soils, 
manures, draining, &c. and every staple product of 
the United States, with the best methods of planting, 
cuhivatingand preparation formarket, by R.L.Allen 

Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, 
by James F. W. Johnston, M. A. 

The Monthly Journal ofAgriculture, containing 
the best current productions in promotion of agri- 
cultural improvement, including the choicest prize 
essays issued in Europe and America, with original 
contributions from eminent farmers and statesmen, 
3 vols. 8vo., John S. Skinner, Editor. 

The Principles of Agriculture, by Albert D. 
Thaer. 

The Farmer's and Planter's Encyclopaedia of 
Rural Affairs, embracing all the most recent disco- 
veries in agricultural chemistry, adapted to the 
comprehension of unscientific readers, by C. W. 
Johnson, Esq. 

European Agriculture and Rural Economy, from 
personal observations, by Henry Colman. 

Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and 
Physiology, by Justus Liebig, M. D. 

The Book of the Farm, detailing the labors of 
the farmer, ploughman, field worker, &c, by Henry 
Stephens. 

Elements of Scientific Agriculture, or the Con- 
nection between Science and the Art of Practical 
Farming, by John P. Norton, M. A. 

An Essay on Calcareous Manures, by Edmund 
Ruffin: 5th edition, amended and enlarged. 

The Farmer's Barn-Book, by Clater, Youatt, Skin- 
ner and Mills. 

Together with many other valuable works on 
farming, the treatment and management of cattle, 
&c. A. MORRIS, 

Bookseller, Stationer, and Dealer in 

feb— if Piano Fortes, 97 Main street. 



ALBEMARLE PIGS. 

I AM prepared to receive orders for Albemarle 
Pigs — a breed made by crossing several varieties, 
which will grow to good size, and fatten easily at 
any age. This breed received some of the highest 
prizes at the Virginia State Fair. I have, also, four 
boar pig-, from my large Delaware Sow, (estimated 
to weigh, nett, near one thousand pounds,) which 
will be ready for delivery in a few weeks. Address, 
(postpaid,) JOHN R. WOODS, 

ja — if Woodville Depot, Albemarle, Va 

ANALYSIS OF SOILS, &c. 

THE undersigned is prepared to execuie the an- 
alyses of Soils, Guano, Marls, Plast* i &c. &c. 
at the Laboratory of the Virginia Military Institute. 
Packages may be forwarded through Webb, Bacon 
& Co. Richmond, or Echols & Pryor, Lynchburg. 
Persons desiring further information will please 
address WILLIAM GILH 4 M, 

Prof. Chemistry and Agriculture, V. M. I. 
Feb. 1, 1852. Lexington, Va 



STOVES AND FANCY IRON CASTINGS, 

Exhibited at the Virginia State Agricultural Fair, 
By Messrs. Bowers, Snyder & Carter. 

THESE Gentlemen erected Works, about two ^ 
years since, by which they have been exten- ^ 
sively supplying the State with articles for which 
we have heretofore depended entirely upon northern 
foundries. 

Their Cooking Stoves have given entire satisfac- 
tion to all Virginia housewives who have used them. 
On the door of one of these we notice a representa- 
tion of a sheaf of wheat, in which the heads and 
even the distinct grains stand out in beautiful relief. 
They exhibit a specimen of parlor stove especially 
worthy of notice. Its style and finish are highly 
ornamental. Its chief merit consists of a door de- 
signed to increase the draught of the fire, which is 
made to revolve vertically upon a pivot. 

These manufacturers, in a modest, unpretending 
way, are rendering good service to the State, by de- 
veloping her resources in this branch of domestic 
industry. E. B. Spence, 

H. M. Smith, 
James Pae, 
Committee on Household Implements. 

I have sold principally, for the past two years, 
the stoves manufactured by Messrs. Bowers, Snyder 
& Carter, at the Richmond Stove Works, and have 
found them to give my patrons entire satisfaction, 
both in their operation and durability. 

Charles D. Yale, 
130, Main Street, Richmond, Virginia, Depot for 

Bolton & Yale's "Caloric Air Furnace." 

jan 1854— ly 



EAGLE FOUNDER!'. 

THE subscriber having removed to the large 
Foundery, just erected by him and fitted out 
with machinery of the latest and most approved 
style, is, in addition to the manufacture of Tobacco 
Flattening Mills, prepared to receive orders for Sta- 
tionary Steam Engines, Saw and Grist Mills, Agri- 
cultural Machines, Tobacco Presses of every de- 
scription, and all kinds of Iron and Brass Castings. 
He pledges himself to execute faithfully, and with 
dispatch, all work entrusted to him, and respectfully 
solictsacall from hisfriendsand the public generally. 
The highest cash prices paid for old cast iron, 
brass and copper. PHILIP RAHM, 

ja — ly Cary, between Pearl and 15th sts. 



BOOKS, PIANOS, MUSIC, &c. 

JAMES WOODHOUSE, Wholesale and Re- 
tail Dealer in Books, Piano Fortes, Station- 
ery, Music, &c. 139 Main St., Richmond, Virginia. 
Constantly on hand, a full supply of standard 
Agricultural Works oc— tf 



SINTON & SONS' NURSERY, NEAR 
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 

AS the season for planting has arrived, the sub- 
scribers would respectfully call the attention of 
their friends and the public generally, to their large 
and extensive collection of Fruit Trees, embrac- 
ing, perhaps, a selection that has not been surpassed, 
for the climate of Virginia, and nearly all propa- 
gated from fruit-bearing trees in their own orchard. 

Catalogues, with directions for planting, may be 
had at William Palmer's Seed and Plough Store; 
at Peyton Johnston & Brother's Apothecary Store; 
at C.J. Simon & Co's. Hardware Store, and at Lo- 
gan Waller'.s Commission House, where any orders 
left will be punctually attended to, and letters ad- 
dressed to the subscribers, Richmond, will receive 
prompt attention. 

nov— tf JOSEPH SINTON & SONS. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



285 



FARM, STOCK, CROPS, NEGROES, &C, FOR 
SALE. — The subscribers are authorized to sell a valu- 
able farm in the county of Buckingham, 5i miles from the 
Court House, containing upwards of 800 acres, having on 
it every necessary improvement, consisting of a handsome 
two story dwelling just completed, barn with threshing 
machine, stables, corn crib, carriage and ice houses, black- 
smith's shop, &c, with a kitchen and meat house about to 
be erected. It has also a fine garden and an orchard of 
choice fruit, embracing almost every variety grown in Vir- 
ginia. It will be sold with the growing crops, (175 bushels 
of wheat and 100 bushels of oats have been seeded) stock, 
tools and implements of every description, and 16 first rate 
farm and house servants, one of whom is a good black- 
smith. 

This farm is situated in a region proverbial for health 
and agreeable society, 15 farms and dwellings being in 
view from the dwelling. 

The owner desiring to remove to the South, and being 
unwilling to break up the relations existing among his ne- 
groes, will dispose of the whole at a great bargain. 

For terms, &c, apply to 

MARTIN GOLDSBOROUGH, Baltimore, or 
RUFFIN & AUGUST, Richmond, Va. 

jun — tf 



SUPERIOR SWINE AND PREMIUM POULTRY.— 
I am prepared to engage pigs by my large Byefield and 
superior Suffolk boars, from matchless sows of the following 
breeds : Byefield, Suffolk, Skinner, Essex, Chester, Dela- 
ware, Cheshire and Russian — most of them of mammoth 
size. 

The finest collection of ornamental and domestic Poultry 
in Virginia — receiving the premium as the finest collection 
and upon individual pairs. They consist of the following : 
Brahma Pootra, Imperial Chinese, Colatta, Dorking, Span- 
gled Hamburg, S,eabright and African Bantams, Sumatra 
Pheasant Game, Ablin Game, Mexican Game, Ebon Game, 
Crested Turkey, Purple Turkey, Pure White Turkey, Bre- 
men Geese, Hong Kong Geese, Wild Geese, Crested Black 
and White Ducks, Java Ducks, Penguin Ducks, Rouen 
Ducks, Aylesbury Ducks, Pure White Guinea Fowls, Ita- 
lian Pea Fowl, Madagascar or Lopped Eared Rabbits — ears 
22 inches long, 5 broad. 

The above are bred in separate apartments, and can be 
obtained at moderate prices by addressing 

JOHN G. TURPIN, 

mar — tf Clover Dale, near Petersburg, Va. 



IMPROVED SUPER PHOSPHATE OF LIME.— The 
subscriber is manufacturing the above at his Bone Mill, 
a short distance from the city, of the best, and purest kind. 
Farmers are requested to examine his before purchasing 
elsewhere; the quality will speak for itself, and his price is 
the same as that manufactured out of the State. 

may— tf R. R. DUVAL. 



GREAT REDUCTION IN PRICES OF HATS AND 
BOOTS.— J. H. ANTHONY'S Fashionable Hat 
Store, Columbian Hotel Corner. The cheapest place in 
the city of Richmond to buy hats and boots is at the above 
store, where every article sold may be relied on as repre- 
sented. By this means he has gained a good run of cus- 
tom, and his customers feel satisfied. Below is a list of his 
prices, which will be strictly adhered to : 

Best quality moleskin, - - $3 50 

Second quality moleskin, - - 3 00 

Best quality silk, - - - 2 50 

Second quality silk, - - - 2 00 

Fine Calfskin Sewed Boots only three dollars and fifty 
cents. 

Also, Caps, Shoes and Umbrellas. 

J. H. Anthony has made an arrangement with one of the 
best makers in the city of Philadelphia to supply him with 
a handsome and substantial calfskin sewed Boot, which he 
will sell at the unprecedented low price of three dollars and 
fifty cents. The attention of gentlemen is respectfully soli- 
cited, as they are the best and cheapest boots that have ever 
been offered for sale in this city. He intends to keep but 
the one kind, and sell them at one price, 
mar '54 — tf 



("1REAT PREMIUM FAN, patented December 20, 1853. 
X Montgomery's Celebrated Double Screen Rockaway 
Wheat Fan, has, during the past year, been proved to be 
the best Fan ever offered in the Middle States, having taken 
premiums over all that have been offered to the public from 
every quarter of the United States. It took the first pre- 
mium at the Maryland State Agricultural Society's Exhibi- 
tion, in October last, where all the most celebrated Fans 
were in competition. 

The first premium at the Virginia State Agricultural So- 
ciety's Exhibition, in November last. 

The Maryland Institute awarded silver medals to it at its 
Exhibitions in 1852 and 1853, as superior to all others on 
exhibition. 

The first premium was awarded at the Talbot County 
(Maryland) Show, in 1852; and 

The first premium at the Prince George's County (Mary- 
land) Exhibition, in 1853, by the special vote of the Society, 
in consequence of its superiority and value, it being con- 
trary to their standing rules to award premiums to articles 
made out of the county. 

We annex the following certificate from a respectable far- 
mer of St. Mary's county, and any number of others could 
be published if necessary, all tending to show the decided 
superiority of this Fan over any others that have ever been 
introduced in the Middle States — and as the manufacturers 
devote their whole attention to this one article, and rely for 
its continued success upon the faithfulness of its make, as 
well as the superiority of its principles of construction, far- 
mers and others may rely on having their Fans made of 
the best materials and workmanship. 

St. Geramers, St. Mary's Co., Md., Oct. 6, 1853. 

This is to certify, that I have tried Messrs. J. Montgo- 
mery & Brother's Wheat Fan in some tailings I made in 
cleaning a part of my crop, which I did not think could be 
made worth anything; it extracted from a bushel and a 
half of filth about three pecks of pure wheat. I must say 
that I never saw a Fan that can even come in competition 
with J. Montgomery & Brother's Rockaway Wheat Fan, 
for screening wheat. Benjamin M'Kay. 

REFERENCES. 

City of Baltimore : John S. Williams, foot of Commerce 
street; Messrs. Seth & Godwin, No. 4 Bowly's wharf; E. 

B. Harris, No. 4 Bowly's wharf; Michael Dorsey, Light 
street; Thos. J. Hall, Light street; N. E. Berry, Lombard 
street, near Charles; R. D. Burns, foot of Bowly's wharf; 
Mr. Wihrier, No. 2 Bowly's wharf — all commission mer- 
chants. 

Virginia references: Hon. William S. Archer, Virginia; 
Gen. 6. Peyton, Virginia; Hill Carter, Virginia; Lewis G. 
Harvey, Virginia; Rowlett Hardy & Co., Petersburg; A. 

C. Lane, Richmond; Robert Cole, Richmond, Virginia; M. 
Heartwall, I). I. Payner, James B. Lundy, J. Ravenscroft 
Jones, Geo. W. Field, Col. Isham Trotter, John Winbeiks, 
Wm. Towns, Jas. Hays, Sr., Dr. Wm. W. Oliver, Samuel F. 
M'Gehee, William M. Watkins, William I. Scott. 

We are prepared to sell State or County rights to those 
who wish to manufacture our Fan. 

All orders addressed to the undersigned at the Baltimore 
City (Md.) Post Office, will be promptly attended to. 
J. MONTGOMERY & BRO. 
No. 155 N. High st., between Hillen and Gay streets, 
may — ly Baltimore. 



GENERAL AGENCY FOR THE SALE AND PUR- 
CHASE OF LANDS— FRANK : G. RUFFIN, Secre- 
tary of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, and N. 
AUGUST, Notary Public and Accountant, offer their ser- 
vices to the public as General Agents for the sale and pur- 
chase of lands in Virginia, and in the Southern and West- 
ern States. Those wishing our services, having lands for 
sale, are requested to furnish us with a full description of 
such property, and the terms, &c, upon which they are 
willing to sell ; and those wishing to purchase are requested 
to inform us of the locality in which they wish to purchase, 
the price they are willing to pay, &c. Our charges will 
be moderate. 

Office at the office of the Virginia State Agricultural So- 
ciety. 

jan — tf 



286 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



WOOL, DEPOT. 

Richmond, June 22, 1854. 

Dear Sir, — Having been engaged for years past in the sale of Wool, we are fully aware of the difficulties that the 
Wool Growers of this State have labored under to obtain for their Wool its fair market value. For this there are two 
causes — one is, that in each lot of Wool, indeed in each bag of Wool, there are several grades, and each purchaser has 
to buy some Wool that does not answer his purposes; he could not, therefore, afford to pay the full value for an article 
that he did not want, and which he only bought because it was not assorted. All who are familiar with the sale of 
tobacco, are fully aware of the loss that the planter sustains who does not assort his tobacco. It is the same case with 
Wool, to a considerable extent. 

Another reason is, that the receipts of Wool have been light, and so scattered that it was difficult to get together a 
sufficient quantity to attract the attention of purchasers. We have found this operate so strongly that we have not 
generally attempted to make sale of small parcels of Wool, but allowed our receipts to accumulate; and we have 
generally obtained from three to five cents per pound more for such large parcels than could be had for small lots. The 
Wool interest of Virginia is now rapidly increasing, and we think is destined, in a short time, to become an extensive 
trade. Already there is a sufficient quantity grown, if concentrated to one point and properly graded, to overcome, to 
some extent, the difficulties referred to above. We think this can be best accomplished by a well conducted Wool 
Depot. This city appears to be the most accessible point for a majority of the Wool Growers in Virginia. 

Being already in this trade, and having an extensive acquaintance with the producers as well as the manufacturers 
and dealers in Wool,' we have determined to open such a Depot in this city, in connection with our present business. 
In order to conduct it in the most satisfactory manner, we, have engaged the services of Mr. John Waterhotjse, who 
was long and favorably known as the efficient Agent of the late Woollen Factory in this city. 

All the Fleece Wool sent to us and tub washed Wool, so far as it is practicable, will be graded, and each quality put 
together, unless the owner prefers that his Wool should be sold alone — in that event he will so direct us. 

Our charges will be — 

Commission for selling, 2 h per cent. 

Storage, grading, fire insurance, advertising and labor, 1 cent per lb. 

We shall always sell for cash, unless we find it to the interest of the owners to sell on time. In that event, we will 
charge 2i per cent, guarantee. We will be prepared to cash all such sales as soon as made, deducting the interest. 

We hope the establishment of such a Depot will meet with your approval, and that we may be favored with your 
consignments. Yours, most obedient, CRENSHAW & CO., 

Grocers and Commission Merchants, North Side of the Basin, Richmond, Va. 

I3?" Liberal advances will be made on consignments of Wool, when required. 

Genuine No. 1 Peruvian Guano always on hand, and for sale on the best terms. C. & CO. 

autf 



STEPHEN H. FISHER, Manufacturer of Boots 
and Shoes, No. 228, Broad Street, north side, be- 
tween 3d and 4th streets, Richmond, Virginia, keeps con- 
stantly on hand a full assortment of ready made Boots and 
Shoes of his own manufacture, for Ladies' and Children's 
wear, which he will sell as low as can be purchased in this 
city. Boots and Shoes for Gentlemen and Boys on hand, 
®r made to order at short notice. Servants' Shoes of all 
qualities always on hand. All work warranted. 

H3P Farmers are invited to give him a call. ocly 

GENERAL AGENCY AND COMMISSION BUSI- 
NESS. — The subscriber tenders his thanks for the 
many calls heretofore received, and again offers his services 
on reasonable terms. Now for sale many Farms in Mary- 
ryland and Virginia, Stallions, Bulls, Bucks, Boars, of im- 
proved stock; improved Fowls of all kinds; Mares, Cows, 
Ewes, Sows; Ewes one-half. and three-fourths Cotswold; 
Calves at three months old, one-half Alderney; South Down 
Ewes with their lambs. For particulars address (post paid) 
the subscriber, 

MARTIN GOLDSBOROUGH, 
38 Holliday Street, Baltimore, Maryland. 
P. S. — Answers to letters particularly desired. M. G. 
may — tf 

ALBANY TILE WORKS, corner of Patroon and Knox 
streets, Albany, N. Y. Drain Tile of the following 
descriptions and prices suitable for land drainage, always 
on hand in large or small quantities of the first quality, 
delivered at the docks and railroad depots free of cartage : 

Horse-shoe Tile. 

4k inch calibre, $18 per 1000 feet. 

3£ do. 15 do. 

2£ do. 12 do. 

Sole Tile or Pipe. 

3 inch calibre, $18 per 1000 feet. 

2 do. 12 do. 

Large Tile for drains about dwellings, yards, &c, of 
various sizes, $4 and $8 per 100 feet. Sole Tile, 4 inch 
calibre, for sink drains at $4 per 100 feet. Drain your land 
and save your crops. Orders from a distance will receive 
prompt attention. A. S. BABCOCK. 

Albany, April 20, 1854. jun— tf 



VALUABLE ALBEMARLE FARM FOR SALE.— The 
subscriber offers for sale that valuable and well known 
farm, the D. S., situated on the waters of Ivy Creek, 3k 
miles from the University of Virginia, 4| from Charlottes- 
ville, and immediately on the Staunton and Charlottesville 
Turnpike, and Virginia Central Rail Road, in one of the 
most beautiful sections of the State, and in a neighborhood 
long proverbial for its highly cultivated society, its fertile 
lands, its pure and abundant water and general healthful- 
ness; also possessing the greatest facilities to the best of 
markets. The D. S. contains 695 acres, about one hundred 
acres in timber, and the balance in a fine state of improve- 
ment. It has for many years been considered one of the 
most productive farms in the county, producing finely all 
the various crops of this section. There is an abundant 
supply of running water in every field, and large portions 
of the farm could be converted into watered meadow. The 
improvements are good and of every variety. Being anxious 
to sell, terms will be made very accommodating. Address 
GEO. B. STEPHENS, 
ap — tf Woodville Depot, Albemarle, Va. 



COTSWOLD OR NEW OXFORDSHIRE SHEEP.— 
The subscriber has for sale a number of yearling Bucks 
of the Cotswold or New Oxfordshire breed, which he will 
sell at any time when called for. This flock has been bred 
from some of the best ever imported, and are superior to all 
other breeds for large carcass, heavy fleece, early maturing 
of constitution, and defy all competition with other breeds 
for profit. The clips of the two Bucks which were imported 
last year weighed 17 lbs. of each, of washed wool. A lot 
of wethers slaughtered last March averaged, alive, 308 lbs., 
and when dressed for market, 206| lbs. Gentlemen are 
invited to call and see for themselves, or communicate by 
mail: Address WILLIAM REYBOLD, 

au3t Marshmount, near Delaware City, Del. 



COTSWOLD BUCKS.— For sale three high grade Cots- 
wold Bucks — one four years old, one two years, and 
one one year — and six Buck Lambs. The latter by my full 
blood Buck, purchased last fall for me by Mr. Sands, editor 
of the American Farmer, from Mr. Reybold, of Delaware. 
The lambs are from high grade Cotswold and South Down 
ewes. Price fifteen dollars each, deliverable at Gordons- 
ville Depot, Orange county. R. B. HAXALL. 

Richmond, August 1, 1854. -2t 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



287 



FOR SALE! A BEAUTIFUL AND VALUABLE ES- 
TATE. — Desirous to close my business in Frederick 
county, and remove to a central part of Virginia more con- 
venient to a large landed estate I own in that quarter, I 
offer for sale, Springdale and Bartonsvillc, with various 
Mills, forming certainly one of the finest estates in the whole 
-ountry. Springdale contains upwards of 800 acres of fer- 
tile land chiefly limestone, or of a kind, mixed soil, upon a 
clay basis, all admirably adapted to wheat, corn, timothy 
and clover. There are about 60 acres of creek bottom of 
surpassing fertility, which might be cultivated twenty years 
in succession with but little depreciation. Indeed, the en- 
during quality of the soil is a characteristic of the whole 
farm, justifying stubbling and repeated continuous crops. 
For example, I have a small field which for twelve years 
has been in'wheat or corn, and in all that time never failed 
to yield a noble crop. Three or four successive crops of 
wheat from the same ground is a common practice with 
me, without injury to the land or of any abatement of quan- 
tity produced. 

The improvements on this estate are those which taste 
and a free expenditure of money for fifty years could make. 
There' are 6h miles of limestone fencing, 5 miles of paling 
nd plank, and the balance of locust stake fencing. There 
are 26 enclosures from lots of 4 or 5 acres to fields of 50 
acres. The wood land, 170 acres, consisting of open forests 
of black walnut, ash, hickory and o*k, is divided in eight 
lots, all enclosed and yielding pasture for sheep and cattle. 
A fine stream flows a mile and a half through the farm, and 
never failing springs rise in many of the fields. 

The dwelling-house is a well constructed building of two 
stories, covered with tin roof, having dining-room, parlor, 
library, six chambers, beside four cellar and three attic rooms. 
There is a large and handsome piazza in front and a portico 
in the rear. The building is 90 feet in length, including 
the wings, of substantial hewn, square limestone, and hav- 
ing eight dormer-windows. A two story stone building, 50 
feet in length, used as a negro quarter. An extensive barn, 
with stone underpinning and shedding; excellent stabling, 
stone and frame, sufficient for thirty head of horses; also, 
houses for hay and extensive shedding for cattle; two corn 
houses, one rat-proof, capable of containing 1000 barrels of 
corn, besides granaries for wheat, oats, &c; carriage house, 
ice house, admirable dairy, with a large limestone spring 
very convenient to the house; large stone smoke house, 
overseer's house, wagon and cart sheds, and other conve- 
nient out houses. ^ 

The Village consists of stone house with eight rooms, 
long used as a wagon stand, large stone blacksmith shop, 
wagon and cooper shop, several excellent buildings, occu- 
pied by mechanics, with stabling, stone smoke houses, gar- 
dens, &c. 

There are two excellent and large orchards of selected 
summer and winter fruit, the proceeds of which I sold one 
year for 81200. 

The Merchant Mill is a three story building partly of 
stone and partly frame, capable of grinding 20,000 bushels 
of wheat annually. It does also a large share of country 
grinding, and has a valuable plaster and saw mill attached ; 
also, near it a miller's house, stabling, garden, &c. 

This property is 5-| miles from Winchester, a flourishing 
town of near 5000 people, and the terminus of the rail road 
connecting with Baltimore. The Manassas Gap Rail Road, 
connecting with Alexandria, Washington and Richmond, is 
only 11 miles south. The projected rail road from the Ma- 
nassas Gap to the Coal Field will pass only a mile from 
Springdale, while the Valley Rail Road from Winchester 
to Staunton, undoubtedly soon to be made, will touch upon 
the farm. The Great Valley Turnpike, extending from 
Winchester to Tennessee, passes nearly a mile and a quarter 
through the farm, over which several mail coaches are 
driven every morning and evening, directly in sight of the 
house. These, together with the large number of carriages 
and other vehicles, hourly passing through a densely settled 
country, give to the farm a most cheerful asped. The 
morning papers from Washington and Baltimore are re- 
ceived every day soon after dinner. The celebrated Capon 
Springs are but 20 miles off— Jordan's Sulphur but 10. 
There are 20 churches of various denominations within a 



circle of 6 miles. A mile and a half from the farm is the 
village of Newtown, containing nearly 1000 inhabitants, 
with churches, an academy, post office, several stores, and 
various mechanic shops, &c. The farm is surrounded by 
a refined society, and in forty minutes a gentleman can take 
his family to Winchester over a beautiful turnpike to church, 
or upon a visit to a very clever and genteel people. , 

Sincerely desirous to sell this estate, but to avoid all hig- 
gling and needless applications, I will state my price for the 
whole, including the mills described, is $72,000 — one-half 
cash, the balance I am content to say two, four, six and eight 
years, the purchaser paying interest and securing all by a 
lien on the property. There are three farms united, with 
improvements on each, but I will not separate them in any 
sale. A good manager may always calculate on from 5000 
to 6000 bushels of wheat each year, worth at the home 
market an average of $6000. This is a clear net crop, for 
the corn, hay, stock, &c, will more than pay all expenses. 
The mills, houses and orchards, will rent for $1200 per an- 
num — thus making an income of $7200 from about $80,000 
invested, including stock on farm, &c, or about 9 per cent. 
Such is the admirable tilth of this farm, its cleanness, con- 
dition of the fences, its level or gently rolling surface, &c, 
eight laborers can cultivate it. A healthier spot can hardly 
be found on earth. In a family of some 75 persons, includ- 
ing tenants, for 35 years, I have never known a case of 
bilious or intermittent fever. 

To the wealthy merchant or professional man, who wishes 
to retire from business and enjoy health and ease, at a de- 
lightful residence, or the industrious farmer, looking to a 
profitable investment of his money, the extraordinary con- 
veniences and resources of this farm present equal attrac- 
tions. No one will purchase so valuable an estate without 
some personal acquaintance. To those at a distance dis- 
posed to inform themselves, I refer to a number of friends 
or neighbors who have visited this farm, many of whom are 
extensively acquainted with the facts set forth in this adver- 
tisement. In the event of a sale, the purchaser may have 
leave to sow wheat this fall, one hundred acres being already 
ploughed for the purpose, and I will give complete posses- 
sion by the first of next October, if desired. 

References. — Hon. James M. Mason, Senator; Hon. 
A. A. H. Stuart, Staunton, Virginia ; Charles Barnard, Esq., 
Boston; Moncure Robinson, Benjamin Etting, Esqs., Phi- 
ladelphia; A. P. Kennedy, S. K. Burkholder, Esqs., Balti- 
more ;*Capt. L. M. Powell, Capt. William McBlair, United 
States Navy, Washington; Ro. B. Boiling, Esq., Petersburg, 
Virginia; William H. Macfarland, R. B. Haxall, Samuel 
Marx, Esqs., Richmond, Virginia ; Myer Myers, Esq., Nor- 
folk, Virginia; James K. Marshall, Esq., Alexandria, Va.; 
John G. Meem, Esq., Lynchburg, Virginia; Dr. Rice, New 
Market, Virginia; Dr. R. T. Baldwin, T. A. Tidball, H. M. 
Brent, James Marshall, Joseph H. Sherrard, D. W. Barton, 
Esqs., Winchester, Virginia; John S. Magill, William S. 
Jones, Joseph Long, James Chipley, F. B. Jones, James 
Gilkeson, Esqs., Frederick county, Virginia. 

R. W. BARTON. 

Near Winchester, Va., July 10, 1854. — autf 



WILLIAM P. LADD, Apothecary and Druggist, 
No. 319, head of Broad Street, Shockoe Hill, Rich- 
mond, Virginia, dealer in English, Mediterranean, India and 
all Foreign and Domestic Drugs and Medicines ; also, Paints, 
Oils, Varnish, Dye-Stuffs, Window Glass, Putty, &c. For 
sale on the most accommodating terms. 

fpgp 1 Orders from Country Merchants and Physicians 
thankfully received and promptly attended to. 
jan '51 — tf 



AGENCY FOR THE PURCHASE AND SALE OF 
IMPROVED STOCK.— Stock Cattle of all the differ- 
ent breeds, Sheep, Swine, Poultry, &c. will be purchased 
to order, and carefully shipped to any part of the United 
States, for which a reasonable commission will be charged. 

Apply to AARON CLEMENT, Philadelphia. 

Refer to Gen. Wm. H. Richardson, Richmond, Virginia. 

N. B. — All letters, post-paid, will be promptly attended 
to. 

ap '53— tf 



288 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



CONTENTS OF NUMBER IX. 

PAGE 

Minutes of Agricultural Pacts and Observations, col- 
lected and noted by the Agricultural Commissioner^ 257 

The Eleven Chemical Changes 259 

Necessity of Good Stock in Virginia 260 

Improved Short-Horn Cattle 261 

Blue Stone a Preventive of Smut in Wheat 267 

Distemper among Cattle 263 

How to Raise Fowls and what kind 268 

Brunswick Agricultural Society- *# 269 

Guano 269 

Vegetables and their Cookery 270 

Printing Office for Sale 273 

The Fair Grounds 273 

The Horse Course at the Fair 273 

The Rail Roads and the Fair 274 

The New York State Agricultural Society 274 

Patrick Henry's Resolutions on the Stamp Act 274 

Orator of the Fair 274 

Erratum 274 

Improved Short-Horns 275 

How to Select Pumpkin Seed 275 

Col. Ware more in sorrow than in anger 277 

Answer to Col. Ware 277 

Loudoun Agricultural Association 281 

Rappahannock Agricultural Association 281 

Brining and Liming Seed Wheat 281 

Salt a Preventive of Weevil and Smut in Wheat 281 

Payments to the Southern Planter- • 281 



READ, CONSIDER AND ACT WIS 

IMPORTANT TO FARMERS! 

What is that . ,— , Ah ! Massa, dis de Wells' See(< 
you have got 'gHI | Sower — de berry best ting in dr 



there boy, and 
what doing? 



world to sow de clober and 
imoty seed, de plaster, de 
no, and de wheat. 
: 25 acres in one 
day massa — trj 
him. 




WORMS. 

Pip As this is the season of the year when worms are 
most formidable among children, the proprietors of McLane's 
Vermifuge beg leave to call the attention of parents to its 
virtues for the expelling of these annoying, and often fatal 
enemies of children. It was invented by a physician of 
great experience in Virginia, who, after having used it for 
several years in his own practice, and found its success so 
universal, was induced at last to ofter it to the public as a 
cheap, but certain and excellent medicine. It has since 
become justly popular throughout the United States, as the 
most efficient vermifuge ever known, and the demand has 
been steadily on the increase since its first introduction to 
the public. 

f^p Purchasers will be careful to ask for "Dr. McLane's 
Celebrated Vermifuge," and take none else. All other ver- 
mifuges, in comparison, are worthless. Dr. McLane's genu- 
ine Vermifuge, also his celebrated Liver Pills, can now be 
had at all respectable Drug Stores in the United States and 
Canada. 

THE LIVER PILLS. 

jpp^ The Liver Pills of Dr. McLane were first used by 
him exclusively in his own practice. So efficacious were 
they in all cases of Liver complaint, that they became fa- 
mous, and attracting the attention of the medical faculty, 
passed into general use. They act with great certainty and 
regularity; the patient almost immediately feels the disper- 
sion of his disease, and is gradually restored to health. 
With some the effect is almost miraculous, frequently ex- 
periencing immediate relief, after having for months resorted 
to drugs and medicines of another description, in vain. 
Diseases of the liver are very common in this country, and 
are often frightful in their character. Those who expe- 
rience any of the premonitory symptoms of this dangerous 
and complicated disease, should at once procure a box of 
Dr. McLane's Pills, and perhaps thereby be saved a world 
of misery. 

Purchasers will be careful to ask for "Dr. Mc- 
Lane's Celebrated Liver Pills," and take none else. There 
are other Pills, purporting to be Liver Pills, now before the 
public. Dr. McLane's Liver Pills, also his celebrated Ver- 
mifuge, can now be had at all the respectable Drug Stores 
in the United States and Canada. 

For sale by PURCELL, LADD & CO. 

selt Corner Main and 1 1th street, Richmond. 



It is only by the use of valuable improvements that 
can reasonably expect to keep up with the age in whicl 
we live, and public opinion everywhere has placed M. D" 
Wells' Improved Patent Seed Sower in the first class o 
agricultural implements. The above drawing exhibits i 
in use, and any ordinary mind must at once be impressec 
with the certain conviction that it is an indispensable im- 
plement of husbandry, and that every good farmer s-houlc 
have it. By its use you save time, which is money anc 
labor which costs money, and experience in using it proves 
you will not be driven from the field unless by very rougJ 
weather, and the almost mathematical precision with whicl 
the seed is distributed, compared with hand sowing, render! 
it self-evident in the opinion of the best farmers that a sav- 
ing or gain of two dollars per acre is made in two crops o 
grass and the succeeding crop of wheat, one year's inte 
rest on an acre of land at $33|, and sowing three acres 
pays for a machine with lid at $6. 

The first premium was recommended for this machine 
at the late Virginia State Fair, and four of the committee 
(all having use for it) engaged one each ; and Ave think | 
governed by your interest you will do likewise. 

MOTT, LEWIS & WILLSON, 
Sole agents for Richmond — Agricultural Implement 

fe— tf Store, No. 36, Main Street 



MERINO SHEEP.— Having increased my flock of Me' 
rino Sheep on my farm, in Orange county, to ovei 
800 I am now prepared to sell a few choice yearling Bucks 
and Ewes. To all who have any acquaintance with Col 
Henry S. Randall of New York, and the reputation of his 
flock, it is only necessary to say that the yearlings I pro- 
pose selling are the product of ewes purchased of him when 
he sold out last year, and selected by him personally as the 
best in his flock. I have his letters, saying that he was 
offered the same price for his ewes by his neighbors, but 
that in stalling the growth of fine wool in Virginia it was 
very important to have good sheep, and as he knew these 
were superior, he preferred* selling them to go there, 
shall sell no bucks except such as show marks of supe- 
riority. All who want to raise their flocks to a high stand* 
ard at once will do well to apply early, as I have but 
limited number for sale. Address by mad, or apply to 
WM. G. CRENSHAW, or 
CRENSHAW & CO., 
June — tf North side of the Basin, Richmond, Va. 

PERUVIAN GUANO.— Having on hand, and engaged 
to arrive, a large supply of Guano, we solicit orders. 
All who buy of us may rely on getting it genuine, as we 
sell none except what comes "direct from the Peruvian agents. 
CRENSHAW & CO., 
june — tf North side of the Basin, Richmond, Va. 



M'CONNELL & BURTON, 

DENTISTS, 
Main Street, between 9th and 10th Streets, Richmond, ^ 

JOHN M'CONNELL. W. LEIGH BURTON. 

ap— tf 



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