TH E 




Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts. 



SS !S thG nUrSing m ° ther ° f thG Alts |TiHa^d PnBt^^^^h^ts of 
Jienopnon. | the State.— Billy. 



J. E. WILLIAMS, Editor. 



Vol. XVIII. RICHMOND, VA., SEPTEMBER, 1858 



AUGUST & WILLIAMS, Prop'rs. 
NO. 9. 



, Agriculture and Commerce. 

BY CHARLES D. BP.AGDON. 

American agriculture is the base of Ameri- 
can commerce. No argument is necessary to 
prove this. Agriculture and commerce are 
mutual dependencies ; one cannot exist except 
the other thrives, and the other cannot thrive 
without the existence and perfection of the 
first. Then the relations that exist between 
the producer and the exchanger or conveyer 
should be of the most harmonious character. 
A either can afford to lose the good will or o-nod 
offices of the other. Charity should be exer- 
cised by the one and reciprocated by the other. 
go who would dissever a single bond of good 
feeling between them can understand little of 
the wants and relations of agriculture and 
commerce. There is necessity for the eleva- 
tion of the average character of the represen- 
tatives of both these great interests. Educa- 
tion must do it— education alone can do it.— 
Whatever tends to such result is education.— 
ftind of employment elevates no one—there is 
no caste in honest labor. The closely shaven, 
neatly clad merchant behind his counter, is no 
more refined than the roughly clad, bluff beard- 
ed plowman. Position never elevates men ; 
capacity does. Intelligence and integrity ele- 
vate the position— elevate a class— alone can 
create caste. In proportion as knowledge is 
laded to the muscular power of the farmer, in 
ike proportion will the farmer's occupation be 
honored. In proportion as husbandry receives 
33 



! the attention of the best minds, in like propor- 
tion will the husbandman's occupation appre- 
ciate. So long as it Is believed that the balance 
ot intelligence and refinement is found in the 
ranks of commercial men, so long will recruits 
bo found to swell those ranks. Men desire to 
rise. They will work late and hard to doit-; 
and it matters not what they do if the peg they 
hang their coat3 on is higher in the world's es- 
teem than the peg they took them from.— 
Then, in order to elevate an occupation or in- 
terest, the men engaged in it must ascend, and 
they must not cease to ascend. With all the 
sensuality of the present day, it is not the 
characteristics of Americans to grovel. Hari 
work and success are synonomous. The Ame- 
rican farmer and the American merchant both 
understand this. They need to understand 
better how to work. The current of labor U 
conceded by the intelligent. But that dignity 
depends for degree upon the direction ami 
channel it pursues. There is dignitv in intel- 
ligent labor; there is no dignity in any other. 
The exercise of muscular power in the prose- 
cution of enterprises possesses only mechani- 
cal merit. The mind that guides and control-; 
the movements of a thousand men may bo em- 
bodied in a single person. The will of a sir, 
gle man, backed up by his intelligence, may 
accomplish what the thousand uneducated men 
would fail to do, what they would never con- 
ceive possible, without education. It is the 
light which burns within, the character of thai- 
light, and the motives and influences which 
modify it, that give power, and add to the 



514 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



wealth and prosperity of the man or a people. 
How then shall American agriculture and 
American commerce be made to prosper By 
the education of the farmer and merchant. It 
is a simple answer, yet embraces vastly more 
in detail than is discovered at a single glance. 
How educated? This is the point of moment, 
this is the question to solve. We have schools 
where letters, languages, natural sciences and 
mathematics are taught. How? Simply by 
mechanical exercises of the mind. The teach- 
er says, "two times two are four;" the pupil 
2'epeats the teacher's stereotyped mathematical 
assertion, until memory refuses to let go of it. 
But he may repeat it for years and find no 
practical use for it, or discover no practical ap- 
plication. An apple may fall before his eyes, 
and the teacher assures him it is gravitation 
which causes it to fall. He remembers that, 
perhaps, but he has learned nothing of the j 
practical effect of this force upon common ob- 
jects with which he constantly is coming in 
contact. Mechanics and mechanical powers! 
are defined and named ; but there is no effort' 
made to teach the value of these forces, their 
relations to matter, and their uses. He is 
taught that all matter can be divided and sub- 
dived — tha the mass becomes atomic, and that 
different laws govern each atom — that chemi- 
cal forces affect their union — and similar facts; 
but he is seldom taught this with any view to 
practical use. It is only that he may become 
learned, and teach others, perhaps, the same 
profound knowledge. It is not that it may en- 
ter into every-day life, and control and affect 
common farm practice. It is not intended for 
the farmer ; the man possessing it cannot af- 
ford to hide his talents in the country. No, 
sir! He must mystify and impress the rising 
generation with his profundity; teach them, 
from the professor's chair, that nature is a my's 
tery, and faithfully impress the fact upon them 
that "Knowledge is power!" This is the sum 
of his duties. His brow must. grow broad and 
classical; his locks add to his dignity ; and his 
success in gaining a reputation depends more 
upon his power to pull wool over than off the 
student's eyes. 

This is what needs the attention of every 
philanthropist, a complete revision of our whole 
school system. It were better that absolutism 
could control this matter than that it should be 
neglected longer. What misfortunes has it 
not entailed, what mistakes is it not responsi- 
ble for — this superficial, theoretical method of 
teaching ! If we have advanced to great tri- 
umphs the past fifty years, what has caused it? 
If science has effected great results, great re- 
forms, and metamorphosed the world, is it be- 
cause scientific men have been content to know 
that certain forces existed? — or because they 
sought to employ them, and succeeded ? The 
latter is the true cause, and if ve maintain the 
superiority nature h i> given us as an agricultu- 
ral and commercial [ coolc, it will be because ice 



get knowledge and make use of it. Then here 
is another truth : knowledge is good for noth- 
ing, unless we can make use of it — unless we 
know how to use it. We want knowledge tha! 
is available. 

Years spent at a college in the study of the 
classics, at the expenditure of money and 
health, in dissipation and inactivity, make the 
man less a man for life, in the greater propor 
tion of cases. We want no such process of ed 
ucation for the commercial man or the farmer 
The first needs to learn business practically 
study the laws which govern trade and finance 
and be taught integrity, industry and frugali 
ty. The farmer needs to learn all this, ant 
morel The commercial man depends upon the 
farmer for the material of .traffic for which he 
pays money or its representative. The farmei 
depends on nature — on the earth and the Goc 
of the harvest — for this material of commerce 
He must study the laws which govern produc 
tion and which insure it. The currency h( 
uses to remunerate the soil for its harvests re 
quires more extended resources than is usually 
supposed. We must place these resource; 
within the reach of the farmer. This shoulc 
be the object of his education, added to propel 
moral cultivation. — American Merchant. 



The State of New York Regarded in th< 
Light of an Experimental Farm. 

We have frequently taken occasion to allud< 
to the universal deterioration of the soil undo 
cultivation, upon the system now practiced b; 
a large proportion of farmers — that is, con 
tinual cropping without restoring to the land 
in manure, in some form, an equivalent fo: 
that which has been taken from it in the crop. 
j harvested and sold. 

The best farming portions of New York ar> 

comparatively new. Much of it that now yield; 

| the largest crops of wheat, corn, &c, was i 

[wilderness witi'in the memory of the writer 

I and yet with more regard to manuring than i: 

I practiced by our western farmers, the yield pe: 

j acre is materially diminished with each revolv 

ing year. A tangible illustration of this i 

'presented in the Country Gentleman, by Dr 

' Daniel Lee, formerly an agricultural editor ii 

[ that State, but now a Professor in the Univer 

Isity of Georgia, Athens. Dr. Lee predicate 

!his calculations upon a comparison of the cen 

I sus returns of 1845 and 1855, embracing i 

' period of ten years, and notwithstanding th 

'advantages gained in increased crops by im 

proved cultivation and in the use of improve! 

implements, which it cannot be denied is ver; 

great, yet the tailing off in the acreable yiel< 

of every leading crop except rye, is alarming 

The census of 1855 exhibits the corn crop of th 

previous year at only 21.02 bushels per acre 

on an average; while that of 1844 yielded ai 

average of 24.75 bushels, notwithstandin; 

deeper tillage and better husbandry has mad 



T 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



515 



greater progress and improvement within the 
last ten years than in any former period of 
twice that time. Taking the whole area of 
land planted to this crop in the State, the cal- 
culation shows a decline in the product, of 
1,600,000 bushels. In the same period of ten 
years, the yield of wheat has fallen off about 
one bushel and three-quarters per acre. The 
average yield in the State, according to the last 
census, was but 11.43 bushels per acre. Pota- 
toes show a greater decline — about 25 per cent, 
or frum 92^ bushels to less than 70 bushels 
per acre. Buckwheat also shows a material 
decline, while rye alone indicates a slight in- 
crease, which is attributed to the fact that some 
of the better land was sown to this crop in the 
place of wheat. ^ 

The writer, in quite an elaborate article on 
this subject, concludes with the following re- 
marks, which should command the serious at- 
tention of every farmer: "There are grave 
errors in going over Avith the plow so large a 
surface, to the serious injury of the •farming 
lands, not only of New York, but of all other 
States in the Union, for the practice is univer- 
sal in this country. Feeling deeply the impor- 
tance of the principle involved, which applies 
to agriculture everywhere, I respectfully ask 
thinking men to consider the following facts : 

" 1. When vegetable mould is consumed by 
tillage, it cannot be restored again except at 
considerable expense, either in labor or in time, 
by the rest of the field. 

"2. Vv here latent elements of fertility, such 
as phosphoric and sulphuric acids, potash, soda, 
lime and magnesia, locked up in insoluble 
compounds, are first rendered soluble, and then 
removed from the soil, either in crops, or by 
moving water passing over and through the 
earth cultivated, the sterility of the land in 
that condition is much worse than it is where 
these latent resources remain intact. 

"3. The natural laws which govern the de- 
crease of fruitfulness, are at all times inexora- 
ble; and therefore, it is the part of wisdom in 
the good husbaudman, not only to study and 
learn them, but carefully to obey them. 

" 4. Farmers ought to remember that Nature 
never plows the ground when she produces her 
largest and oldest forest trees, which sometimes 
grow every year for ten centuries, and every 
year extract from the same soil soluable salts of 
potash, lime, magnesia, iron and soda, which 
are deposited in the cells of the trees, there to 
remain perchance for a thousand years ; and 
yet the soil is not exhausted by this millennial 
draft on its resources." 

This process of depletion that is taking place 
in the soil of the State of New York, is going 
on at a still more rapid rate in every State in 
the West. It is the clearest conviction of this 
fact, from the experience of thirty years in the 
State of New York and more than twenty 
years in the West, that impels us so frequently 
and with so much earnestness, to urge upon 



our farmers the importance of more carefully 
husbanding every material upon the farm that 
can be converted into manure and applying it 
to the soil. System and care in cultivation, 
with a due regard to a proper rotation of crops, 
connected with the rearing and fattening of 
farm animals, which, in the main will be found 
the most profitable course with all, are the 
means to be employed to arrest this evil. 

The experience of the old world as well as 
of all the older States of America, should 
teach us lessons on this point that should at 
once stay the progress of this exhausting 
system. — Valley Farmer. 



Pasture Lands. 

In the management of pasture lands, it 
is an excellent plan, where the nature of 
the ground favors the operation, to free 
the surface of bushes, stones, stumps, &c, 
and plow it carefully once every six or eight 
years, harrow thoroughly, and sow on the 
seeds of such grasses as are found to be 
best adapted to the locality, and the most 
valuable as a summer food for stock. 

Herd's grass (timothy) white and red 
clover, red and brown top, make an excel- 
lent stocking for light pastures. The re- 
cuperative power of pasturage lands is 
such as to render application of manures 
of less consequence than on other lands ; 
yet it will be found beneficial to apply, oc- 
casionally, a light dressing of plaster, 
lime, or what is better still, wood ashes — 
all of which have a tendency to promote 
the development of vegitation in the early 
spring, as well as to sustain it in season of 
severe and protracted drought. These ap- 
pliances tend also to bring into action the 
energies of the humus contained in the 
soil, and to render the silicates soluble, 
and consequently in a proper condition to 
be taken up by the roots of plants. 

From the inert humus, and certain 
other substances of a mineral Character, 
the soil of our pastures derives the power 
of recuperation — or self-replenishment — 
which it is supposed to possess. But it is 
enough to remark, that, apart from the 
phenomena of vegetable growth and decay, 
in no such power is recognized nature. If 
we annually remove the produce of a field 
or pasture, without making any returns in 
the form of manure, we shall necessarily 
pretty rapidly impoverish the soil. 

In fallowing — that is, in plowing and 
harrowing land without sowing it — no veg- 
etation is allowed to mature - r all that the 



516 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



vegetable powers of the soil produce, is 
immediately returned to it, and as most 
plants derive a portion of food from the 
atmosphere, the air, by this process, is 
made to enrich the earth. The soil itself 
also absorbs from the same source a very 
considerable amount of fertilizing matters 
in the shape of gaseous products and when 
supplied with materials capable of absorb- 
ing and fixing the aeriform principles which 
are perpetually present — and in large quan- 
tities throughout this wide spread and in- 
exhaustible field of fertility — the accession 
of fecundating matter will be very large, 
and secure the most favorable results, both 
to the soil and the succeeding crops. This 
is, perhaps, one of the most economical 
and effectual methods of replenishment it 
is possible to adopt. 

But we must not suffer ourselves to be 
illuded by the glitter of hypothetical con- 
clusions : we must attribute results to their 
legitimate causes, and trace each one, so 
far as it is practicable for us to do, to its 
real and proper source. The demand upon 
the energies of the soil always exceeds 
the supplies derived from the air, and 
hence we see that there is no such thing 
as a recuperative power, or principle, inde- 
pendent of vegetable life. 

The spires and blades of the grasses, 
and the stalks and foliage of other plants 
frequently decay and fall upon the ground, 
their places being supplied by new forma- 
tions, often emanating from the same or 
nearly the same points. The same takes 
place among the roots. When a fibre per- 
ishes, it is resolved into humus, and sup- 
plies food for the new organ which nature 
prepares to occupy its place. This alter- 
nation of decay and reproduction, is going 
on continually throughout the wide range 
of nature, and its results are obvious at 
every turn. 

The pastures to which we refer, must 
be, of course, such as are capable of being 
worked; such as lie near villages, or wher- 
ever land is high. The rough, rocky, 
mountain pastures where the land is com- 
paratively cheap cannot be economically 
plowed. If they are absolutely needed, 
being worth more for pasture to allow them 
to grow up to wood, about all that can be 
done for them is to keep the bushes down, 
and sow on them occasionally piaster, lime, 
or ashes; and the economy of this will de- 
pend entirely upon the price at which 



these articles can be obtained, including 
the cost of transportation. 

From Dr. DadaVs Veterinary Journal for July. 

Back Galls on Horses. 

The exciting cause of Back Galls, is irrita- 
tion occasioned by " bad Jits" — (harness or 
saddle.) The shape of the latter must be al- 
tered so as to correspond with the shape of that 
portion of the back with which it comes in 
contact; this can be done by padding the con- 
cavities with lamb's wool, and in chambering 
the convexities, so that there shall be no un- 
equal pressure nor causes for irritation. Yet, 
after all, it may be more economical to procure 
a new article and a better fit; no doubt that in 
some cases this w«ill be the most humane policy. 

Treatment of Back Galls. — So soon as an ab- 
rasion is discovered on the back, the animal 
should be excused from duty for a few days ; 
the abraded part should be lubricated two or 
three times, daily, with a small quantity of 
glycerine; in most cases, however, a few ap- 
plications of tincture of aloes and myrrh will 
produce healthy action, and thus restore the 
parts to soundness. 

Should there be no abrasion, yet some tume- 
faction, heat, and tenderness, a cold water pled- 
get, renewed as occasion seems to require, 
will, in most cases, have the desired effect. 

Occasionally the integuments are so bruised 
as to induce induration — hardening. Local in- 
duration in the region of the back is a morbid 
condition of parts, known to the farriers of 
old as " sit-fast." The treatment consists in 
smearing the part with a portion of the fol- 
lowing: 

Iodine, .... half a drachm. 

Simple ointment, . . . seven do. 

Powdered blood root, . . half a drachm. 

Mix. 

A few applications of a portion of the 
above, will have the effect of removing the sit- 
fast, or eschar, when a healthy, granulating 
surface will appear. 

Some animals, owing to a peculiarity of con- 
stitution, will "chafe" as the saying is, in 
those parts which c me in contact with collar 
and saddle, and no human foresight nor me- 
chanical contrivance can prevent the same; 
for example, we now have a horse under treat- 
ment notorious as a " humor y" subject; if he 
perform a day's labour in the warm season of 
the year, notwithstanding he be harnessed in 
the best possible manner, he is sure to come 
home at night with galled shoulders or else 
sore back. For such a case as this, the har- 
ness-maker with all his skill and ingenuity 
has no remedy. The subject alluded to has 
had several runs at grass, still he is the same 
old " two and sixpence" and the owner has, 
at last, decided to send him, for a season, to 
some fashionable watering or grazing place — 
Saratoga, perhaps, or the sea-shore, or else 
will swap him off! 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



517 



Coffee. 

The use of coffee has become very general 
throughout the civilized world, and has of late 
years become a necessary of life, instead of, as 
in the last century, merely a luxury. The 
events of the French Revolution had a great 
effect upon the growth of coffee, since Hayti, 
which was one of the chief places of produc- 
tion, was nearly ruined by the event. Never- 
theless, up to 1825, Cuba, St. Domingo, the 
British West Indies and Java were the most 
important sources of supply. At that date the 
superior advantages of sugar in Cuba caused 
them to neglect coffee, and the crop of that Is- 
land has fallen from 65,000,000 lbs to less than 
12,000,000 ft>s, and the product in the other 
West Indies has declined from various causes, 
like emancipation in Jamaica, &c. At the 
same time the crop of Java, being stimulated 
by the exertions of the Dutch Company great- 
\y increased. By far the greatest increase has, 
however, taken place in Brazil. The coffee of 
that region was not liked so well as that of 
some otiiers, owing to defects in the mode of 
cleaning, until about 1845, since when the pro- 
duct has grown to equal that of half the whole 
supply. 

The production of coffee has been as follows, 
at different periods : 



1841. 


1852. 


1857. 


Brazil, Bj160,000,000 


300,000,000 


360,000,000 


Java, 112,000,000 


120,000,000 


139,250,000 


Sumatra 12,000,000 


8,000.000 


7,000,000 


St. Domingo 25,000,000 


30,000,000 


45,000,000 


Cuba and 






Porto Rico 56,000,000 


25,000,000 


35,750,000 


West Indies 18,000,000 


7,000,000 


17,000.000 


Mocha and 






Manilla 10,000,000 


3,000,000 


25,500,000 


Ceylon 10,000,000 


30,000,000 


56,250,000 


Laguayra. and 






Costa Rica 27,000,000 


25,000.000 


45,000,000 



Total, 430,000,000 548,000,000 730,750.000 

The most marked increase in this production 
is in Brazil, and various circumstances have 
conspired to produce that result. The climate 
was found to be most congenial, the tree yield- 
ing double that of the West Indies. The slave 
trade was very active, and the blacks could be 
sold on long credits at $200 @$300 each, and 
at the same time an improved mode of prepar- 
ing the coffee for market had removed some of 
the objections to the Brazil article in Europe. 
The entire stoppage of the slave trade in 1850 
involved a rise of two hundred per cent, in 
blacks, and seriously checked the growth of the 
plant. Nevertheless, the growth of the crop 
in the Brazils is more rapid than elsewhere, 
under the influence of the same general causes. 
The supply is everywhere checked by the inef- 
ficient means of preparing the berries for mar- 
ket. The coffee berry contains two seeds cov- 
ered with a gummy, mucilaginous substance, 



and enclosed in a skin, which is thick, sweet 
and dark red when ripe. The mode pursued 
by the Brazilians is to dry the beans with .the 
skin on, and in the process the skin becomes 
dark, and finally black arid crisp. It is then 
rubbed off and the bean washed. In this pro- 
cess great danger of fermentation is incurred. 
This is avoided by the English, French and 
Belgians, who own the best plantations, by the 
use of improved machinery. It may be re- 
marked that the skin of the berries is as rich 
in saccharine matter as the sugar cane, and 
could be profitably worked by the use of ap- 
propriate machinery. The coffee plant will 
grow from seed, but is mostly propagated by 
young plants, which are taken off at two yeara 
old and planted in good soil. It bears on the 
fourth year, but gives a regular crop on the 
fifth — two to three lbs. per tree. Ten years is 
the average life of the tree. The picking com- 
mences in July, and concludes by the end of 
August. 

The culture in Arabia Felix is extensive, and 
the crop is gathered by spreading cloths under 
the trees. The fruit is then shaken into them, 
and the berries are then dried on mats, when 
they are passed under a heavy roller. They 
are then winnowed and again dried. The 
Arabs make a decoction of the pulp, which 
they call Sultan's coffee, and it is an agreeable 
and refreshing beverage. The qualities of cof- 
fee as they come upon the market are in some 
degree known by their derivation. That of 
Mocha has the first rank. The beans are small 
in general arid round. Some of them are, how- 
ever, large and flat. They have a yellow or 
greenish color. They have a strong perfume 
and a more agreeable flavor than any other spe- 
cies. It requires an exercised taste to distin- 
guish the true Mocha. 

The manner of gathering the berry, and its 
preparation, is thus described in Tomlinson's 
Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts : 

" In Arabia, planters spread cloths under the 
trees, and b} r snaking the ripe berries drop on 
them. In the west Indies the berries are pick- 
ed by negroes. In curing coffee it is some- 
times usual to expose the berries to the sun's 
rays, in layers five or six inches deep, on a 
platform. The pulp ferments in a few days, 
and thus having thrown off a strong acidulous 
moisture, dries gradually during about three 
weeks. The husks are afterwards separated 
from the seeds in a mill. 

" Other planters remove the pulp from the 
seeds as soon as the berries are gathered. The 
pulping mill used for this purpose consists of a- 
horizontal fluted roller, turned by a crank and 
acting against a moveable breast board, so 
placed as to prevent the passage of whole ber- 
ries between itself and the roller. The pulp 
is then separated from the seeds by crushing 
them, and the latter are spread out in the sun 
to dry them. It is then necessary to remove 
the membranous skin or parchment, which is 



518 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



effected by heavy rollers running in a trough, 
wherein the seeds are put. The mill is work- 
ed by cattle. The seeds are afterwards win- 
nowed to separate the chaff, and if any among 
thein appear to have escaped the action of the 
roller, they are again passed through the mill." 

In the British West Indies the berries when 
gathered are immediately fed in the hopper of 
a mill, which consists of two wooden rollers 
revolving over a third, which strips the berries 
of their pulp. These fall into a sieve, which 
sifts them from the outer skin. They are then 
steeped in water over night, washed and again 
dried, when they are subjected to the peeling 
mill, which is a large wooden wheel made to 
revolve vertically by means of a horse yoked 
to the end of the prolonged axis. This, pass- 
ing over the beans, crushing off the parchment 
like skin. The whole is then subjected to a 
rude winnowing mill. 

The quantities of coffee imported in the last 
official years into the leading nations were as 
follows : 

Great Britain. lb 34,518,555 

France . . .• 26,325,500 

United States 240,243,684 

Hamburg 96,012,101 

Bremen 13,700,000 

Lubec 8,836,106 

Zollverein 130,111,110 

Denmark 16,716,741 

Holland 167,661,014 

Russia 7,814,865 

Norway 682,061 

Switzerland 12,285,000 

Trieste 77,726,880 

Spain 91,171,101 

Smyrna 4,607,111 

Galatz 1,421^102 

Ibralia 281,101 

Sardinia . . 41,352,438 

Greece 6,661101 

Total 968,132,571 

These, of course, to a considerable extent, 
embrace re-imports, as the receipts in the Zoll- 
verein and Switzerland are repetitions of the 
imports into the Hanse towns, Holland and 
Trieste. The figures indicate, however, the 
direction in which coffee finds its 'destination, 
and the localities which have the greatest ulti- 
mate interest in the supply. The U. States, 
where the article is free of duty are by far the 
largest consumers. The consumption is, how- 
ever, elsewhere increasing. In England, in 
1840, the consumption was 1 lb. per head, at a 
duty of GJd. per lb., and it has risen to 1} It), 
per head with the duty at 3d. In Europe the 
use of coffee is increasing, although it has been 
much retarded by the use of chicory, which 
became extensive in Europe, under the Conti- 
nental system of Napoleon, when colonial pro- 
duce of all kinds was difficult to be had. The 
chicory coffee, as it is called, is still used, be- 
cause it can be made a much cheaper coffee, and 



is an excellent article for adulteration. — U. S. 
Economist. 



From the Maine Farmer. 

Suckers Among Corn— Query. 
Mr. Editor — We read that — 

"Man wants but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long." 

The "Old Man Eloquent" expressed my mind 
when he remarked — 

" : Tis not with me exactly so, 
Though 'tis so in the song/' 

I was looking at my corn this day, and find 
suckers upon it, which, with the leaves straight- 
ened up, measure twelve inches. Are not these 
a great drawback to the main stalk? I have 
half an acre that looks very well; several of 
the hills measured, whole length, twenty-four, 
and a few thirty inches in height, — a half acre 
with sheep dung in the hill is very poor, while 
a half acre on " old dung" looks very fair. So 
much for the 2d July, 1858. M. T. B. 

North Prospect. 

Note. — We formerly practiced pulling off 
the suckers when large enough for fodder, and 
fed them to stock. We do not do it now for the 
following reasons. By chance we observed that 
those rows of corn which we had deprived of 
suckers, had, at hanest time, more ears with 
long snouts, as we say — or tops of cobs with- 
out any corn on them, than did those rows not 
robbed of suckers. Finding this to be a fact 
we concluded that there was a use for suckers, 
and that their part of the play was to furnish 
pollen or fertilizing dust from the spindles, la- 
ter than did the main stalks. You probably 
are aware that as the kernels form on the cob, 
each one throws out a green slender thread 
which comes out over the top end of the husks. 
This is called the silk or beard. They are in 
fact, what Botanists call the pistil or female 
part of the plant, and receive the pollen which 
falls from the spindle, and fertilizes the kernel 
from which it starts. If a single thread fails 
to catch any of this dust the kernel from which 
it starts never fills out. Further observation 
shows you that the lower kernels first throw 
out threads which, when they have performed 
their office dry up and become brown, and that 
a succession of them come out all along the 
ear to the tip. Now those at the tip are be- 
hind the others, and some do not fairly show 
themselves until after the spindles on the main 
stalks have become exhausted. The pollen 
then from the suckers which come along in 
succession supplies their place, and thus the 
whole ear by their means becomes filled out 
with corn, plump and sound, whereas if it had 
not received that aid from the suckers it would 
have presented an ear with the corn part way 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



510 



up, and the rest a long snout with blighted 
kernels, or mere rudiments of them upon it. 

Will not our friend examine into this theory, 
and experiment a little, and see if we are cor- 
rect? 

In regard to sheep dung, it is a strong dress- 
ing, and should be fermented or composted be- 
fore being used. It is then excellent. 



From the Southern Farmer. 

Prizing Tobacco. 

The article on this subject should command 
the careful attention of tuba ceo planters. It is 
from the pen of one of our commission mer- 
chants, formerly a planter and who speaks 
from experience derived from both persuits. 
Considering that tobacco is one of our staple 
crops, it may well excite surprise that a portion 
of it should be brought to market in a condi 
tion not at all creditable to the skill of the 
planter. But that such is the fact, will be evi- 
dent to any spectator who attends the breaks 
at the warehouses fur a few days. Besides the 
several evidences of mismanagement which our 
correspondent has specified, such a degree of 
heat is sometimes discovered — caused by too 
much moisture — as not only to impair the qual- 
ity of the article, but almost to destroy its 
value. The loss of course falls on the planter, 
which might have been avoided by a little 
more care in the handling. 

Many persons have taken to growing tobac- 
co within the last year or two who probably 
never raised a plant before. This may account 
for much of the bad tobacco which has been 
sent to market — for to make a successful plan- 
ter requires an experience of several years. — 
Nevertheless a proper degree of care will over- 
come many difficulties in the art; and if a first 
rate article cannot be produced at first, it is in 
the power of an intelligent man to produce at 
least a respectable one. It yields more ready 
money than any other crop, and after the plan- 
ter has gone to the trouble of growing it, he 
should not relax a moment in his diligence in 
prepariug it for market. 

Our correspondent is well able to treat the 
subject, in all its details, in an instructive man- 
ner, and we should be glad to hear further from 
him. No person can so well inform the plan- 
ter what sort of an article the buyer wants, as 
the commission merchant ; and a series of ar- 
ticles — for the subject is a prolific one — might 
render a service which many planters seem 
greatly to stand in need of. 

In connexion with this subject we would en- 
quire whether the planters of the south side 
might not be benefited by such an institution in 
Petersburg as the Tobacco Exchange in Rich- 
mond. We are aware that it encountered con- 
siderable opposition in the commencement, as 
all innovations are pretty certain to do ; but 
from what we have learned, it works well, and 
large quantities of tobacco are daily sold at the 



board by sample, for which there is an active 
competition. We invite a discussion of the 
subject. 

P. S. — Since the above was in type, we have 
received a communication in relation to the 
Tobacco Exchange from an intelligent corres- 
pondent, which will be found in our issue of 
this week. The writer — who is what he rep- 
resents himself to be, a planter ; and who has 
taken the pains to enquire into the working of 
the system — takes decided ground in its favor, 
and has at least given us a very readable arti- 
cle. 

If it is thought by any that an undue prom- 
inence is given to the subject of tobacco this 
week, we have only to say in excuse that it ex- 
cites at this time more interest than any other 
crop. 

Prizing Tobacco. — This operation in prepar- 
ing tobacco for market — than which there is 
none more important, from sowing the seed to 
selling the crop — does not receive that atten- 
tion from the larger portion of plauters to 
which it is justly entitled. Be the crop good 
or bad, the planters' profits are mainly depen- 
dent upon the condition of his tobacco when it 
reaches market. True a planter cannot prize 
a gOod crop unless he first makes it ; but a fine 
article may be so bungled over in prizing, put 
up in such order, so fangled and mixed by care- 
less hands, as to be actually worth less by 50c. 
to $1 per cwt., than a more inferior one, prop- 
erly ordered, straightened and well prepared 
for market. 

The writer has been a close observor of to- 
bacco sales for several years, and has seen a 
difference of $1 to $2£ per cwt. produced in 
crops grown on adjoining farms, cultivated in 
the same manner, and sold the same day, which 
could only be attributed to the manner of priz- 
ing. 

The buyer must take the tobacco as it comes 
from the planters' hands ; he can use only a 
certain portion of it per day. That in safe con- 
dition he can keep for future use, and is always 
willing to pay for it full market rates; that out 
of condition he must keep until he can use it, 
and if he considers his interest, buys at what 
it will be worth to him when he shall be ready 
to work it up ; thereby throwing on the plan- 
ter the injury and loss in the tobacco from the 
time of purchase to that of manufacturing. — 
This loss is considerable. The planter has to 
bear it. It is right that he should. He has 
no cause to complain of the manufacturer. If 
he feels like doing so, let him come here in 
September or October, and walk into one of 
our large factories, and take a look at a hhd. 
then being pulled up, bearing his own name 
on its head, which he sold in the spring. We 
presume he would then feel rather more sym- 
pathy than blame for the manufacturer, and 
congratulate himself that he and that tobacco 
parted long ago. But planters can remedy this 



520 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



evil. It is useless for them to talk about bad 
seasons for striking, bad winds, cold winds, too 
much or too little rain, &c. This will not ex- 
onerate them from the duty they owe them- 
selves. These bad seasons are not universal. 
They do not affect every planter; when they 
do we shall believe in them. There are plan- 
ters who always manage their crops properly, 
in defiance of too much season, too little sea- 
son, or any season at all. They are men of 
reputation as planters, and well do they sustain 
it. Examine their crops year after 3'ear, and 
fchey will invariably be found in good condi- 
tion, and will always bring the highest prices. 
How is this done? The answer simply is, that 
fchey give every attention to the ordering and 
prizing their tobacco. To do this it must be 
straightened and bulked in soft order, and 
heavily weighted, which preserves the shape of 
(he bundles and makes the leaves stick togeth- 
er. After remaining in bulk a few days it is 
again hung up on much smaller sticks than 
those at first used. These sticks should be 
drawn smooth, triangularly shaped, and shar- 
pened at one eud so as to run through the bun- 
dle just below the tie. The leaves of each 
bundle should not be separated after coming 
up from bulk. Let it hang until thoroughly 
dry. Then so soon as the outer surface of the 
bundles becomes soft enough to admit of care- 
ful handling, it may be taken down and bulk- 
ed again with weights, and prized at leisure. 
No straightening will then be necessary. The 
inside of the bundles will be too dry to prize 
when first taken down, but after remaining in 
bulk a week or ten days, the order will be per- 
fect. If the quality is poor, a little pure olive 
oil may be used with benefit. Much has been 
said about oiling tobacco. We only say oiled 
tobacco sells best, be the quality of the tobacco 
good or bad. We do not advise the use of it. 
Planters must decide for themselves on this 
point. Above all things, have the order safe, 
and weights heavy, and you will not go away 
grumbling about bad markets, low prices, &c, 
when you ought to blame nobody but your- 
selves. PETERSBURG. 



From the Germantown Telegraph. 

Green Crops for Manure. 

Mr. Editor : There is probably no more 
economical method that can be adopted 
in communicating fertility to the soil, than 
that of turning in green crops. For this 
purpose, a large variety of plants are used, 
but the preference is ordinarily of plants 
accorded to those which are the most suc- 
culent. Buckwheat is highly valuable for 
this purpose on account of its rapid growth, 
and the succulent and readily decomposa- 
ble nature of its haulm. But of all plants 
susceptible of being rendered available by 



the farmer, for the enrichment of his ex- 
hausted soils, none are, in my opinion, su- 
perior to Indian corn. An experiment 
made last year, with this vegetable, has 
demonstrated the truth of this 

On a piece of poorish soil, plowed the 
previous autumn, I sowed three bushels of 
Indian corn, broadcast, and harrowed it in. 
A small quantity of gypsum — about two 
and a half bushels — and ten bushels of 
wood ashes (unleached) were sowed on 
the piece, which contained one acre. 
The plants came vigorously, and were not 
arrested in their growth, notwithstanding 
the season was remarkable for dryness, 
and just before the corn commenced spind- 
ling it was turned in The operation was 
facilitated by fastening the crowbar to the 
beam of the plow, extending several feet 
on the land side, so as to prostrate the 
plants, and lay them in a position which 
insured their being thoroughly buried by 
the fin row slice, and in this way the whole 
was covered, so that on the completion 
of the work, which was finished off with 
a light roller, not a leaf of corn remained 
to be seen. 

In this condition it was left till the next 
spring, when it was again plowed, har- 
rowed and rolled ; a second harrowing fol- 
lowed, and the seed planted (Indian corn) 
with one gill of gypsum and wood ashes, 
half and half, in the hill. I have rarely 
had a better crop, even on good soil, with 
a liberal allowance of manure. The soil, 
on plowing it the last spring, presented a 
fine appearance, and looked like old soil 
that had long been under good cultivation, 
and liberally manured. Southern flat corn 
would doubtless give a larger quantity of 
decomposable matter to the soil, than In- 
dian, and would perhaps be in some re- 
spects a better article for this use. 

A Chester County Farmer. 

June 28, 1858. 



Capped Hock. 

[From Dr. D acid's Veterinary Journal for July} 

The above term is usually applied to a 
serious abcess, accompanied by tumefac- 
tion, around the point of the hock ; occur- 
ring, as it does, at a very prominent and ex- 
posed part of the limb, it is almost sure to 
attract notice, hence, becomes an eye-sore 
to every casual observer, at the same time 
costituting a serious defect, and if accom- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



521 



panied by lameness, the animal is un- 
doubtedly unsound while the lameness 
lasts. 

Pathology of Capped Hock. — The tumor 
occasioned by the presence of serum, water 
— which finds its wa}' into location be- 
tween the external tendinous sheath, and a 
portion of strong, cellular membrane, which 
is here interposed between the skin and 
. the tendon for the purpose of facilitating 
the motions of the hock. 

Cause of Capped Hock — Capped hock 
is generally produced by a blow or bruise. 
It is almost always occasioned by the whif- 
fletree coming in contact with the parts ; 
the animal ma}' however, injure the point 
of the hock while in the stall by making 
attempts to kick at a chain or rope which 
may have been confined across the en- 
trance of the same, as is often the practice 
when the animal is in the habit of getting 
cast; this contrivance allowing us to get 
rid of the halter. The parts may also be 
bruised while the hor^e is lying down in 
the stall ; therefore, we may safely say 
that capped hock is the result of some ex- 
ternal violence. 

Treatment.- — Supposing the injury to 
have just occurred; the parts being hot and 
tender ; apply a portion of the following 
lotion several times daily until the inflam- 
matory symptoms have subsided : 

Refrigerating and Sedative Lotion. Take 
Hydrochlorate of ammonia, (sal ammonia) 
Nitrate of Potassia, of each one ounce, 
water, one quart, Alcohol, half a pint — 
Mix. 

A cloth may be dipped into this mixture 
and loosely tied over the inflamed parts : 
so soon as it becomes dry it should be 
again wetted. Having continued the ap- 
plication of the above until the heat and 
tenderness have disappeared, the tumefac- 
tion if any remain, will generally disappear 
by making a few applications of the fol- 
lowing : 

Take, Glycerine, one ounce, Iodide of 
Potassium two drachms — Mix. Smear the 
tumor with a portion of this, twice, daily. 

In chronic cases, of long standing, the 
oil of cantharides, is probably, the best 
remedy, several applications of which 
may be needed ere the tumor disappears. 

It is not necessary that your flower garden 
should be full of all kinds of plants and flow- 
ers, but it should be neat and well kept. 



A First-Rate Whitewash. 

We have tried various preparations for 
white-washing ceilings, and the walls of 
unpapered rooms, but have never found 
anything that wasenirely satisfactory un- 
til the present Spring. We have now 
something that affords a beautiful, clear, 
white color, and which cannot be rubbed 
off. 

We procured at a paint store, a dollar's 
worth of first quality "Paris White." — 
33 lbs , at three cents per lb. — and for this 
quantity, one pound of white glue, of the 
best quality, usually called Cooper's glue, 
because it was manufactured b}' Prter 
Cooper, of New-York. Retail price 50 
cents per pound. For one day's work, 1-2 
lb. of the glue was put in a tin vessel, and 
covered with cold water over night. In 
the morning this was carefully heated un- 
til dissolved, when it was added to 16 lbs. 
of the Paris White, previously stirred in a 
moderate quantity of hot water. Enough 
water was then added to give the whole a 
proper milky consistency, when it was ap- 
plied, with a brush, in the ordinary man- 
ner. Our 33 lbs. of Paris White and I 
lb. of glue, sufficed for two ceilings, and 
the walls and ceilings of seven other small- 
er rooms. 

A single coat is equal to a double coat of 
lime-wash, while the white is far more 
lively or brilliant than lime. Indeed the 
color is nearly equal to that of "Zinc 
White," which costs at least four times as 
much. We are satisfied, by repeated 
trials, that no whitewash can be made 
;to adhere firmly without glue, or some 
i kind of sizing, and this will invariably be 
| colored, in time, with the caustic lime, 
i The Paris White, on the contrary, is sim- 
I ply pure washed chalk, and is entirely 
inert, producing no caustic effect on the si- 
zing. Any of our readers who try this, and 
are as well pleased with it as we are, will 
consider the information worth many times 
the cost of an entire volume of the Agricul- 
turist. Had we known of it when we first 
"set up house keeping" it would have 
saved us much labor, and the annoyance of 
garments often soiled by contact with 
whitewash — not to mention the saving of 
candles, secured by having the ceiling 
! always white enough to reflect instead of 
J absorbing the rays of light. — American Ag- 
riculturist. 



522 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



From the Farmer and Planter. 

• Rainy Days' Employment. 

Mr. Editor: — As we should always be 
usefully employed, and use our time to the 
best possible advantage (this evening being 
two wet for out of doors' work), I propose 
to write a short article on the above sub- 
ject, which you can publish if you think 
fit. 

All must acknowledge that it is to the in- 
terest of each and every one, at all times 
to be usefully and profitably employed ; 
especially if he would desire to thrive and 
prosper in the world. No one has any 
time to lose or idle away unimproved. We 
should work while it is day, for the night 
cometh when no man can work. 

The farmer, as well as the man of any 
other vocation, can work or use his time 
profitably on rainy days. Because it is 
too wet to work out, it is no reason why 
he should not work at all. He may rest 
assured that he has a ple?ity, and more 
than he can do if he will. 

Every farmer should have some kind of 
lumber house, or work shop, in which his 
tools should be kept. On wet days let him 
repair thither and make or repair all such 
tools as are needed on the farm ; such for 
instance, as plow stocks, harrows, axe han- 
dles, and many other things that cannot 
be enumerated. A farmer should plan out 
and arrange his business so as not to be 
compelled to stop his hands out of the 
field when the weather is favorable for out 
of doors' labor, in order to attend to all 
those numerous jobs which can be accom- 
plished as well on wet days as dry ones. 
He can do or have done all of his shoe- 
making and mending, coopering, &c, on 
rainy days. He can also have his corn 
shelled and sent to mill when the ground 
is too wet to plow. In a word, a farmer's 
labor is almost endless if he tries to man- 
age and keep up everything pertaining to 
a farm. And, when he can do or think of 
nothing else to do on a rainy day that 
would be more profitable to him for his 
neighbor, then let him pick up the Farmer 
and Planter, and read a few articles in its 
pages, which will employ and invigorate 
his mind to do something both profitable 
and useful when the rain shall have ceased 
falling. T. F. A. 

Calhoun June 1st, 1858. 



Do Potatoes Mix in the Hill. 
In the Valley Farmer for June we gave 
our views in full on this question, based 
upon physiological laws and reason, yet 
we failed to convince some, as will be 
seen by our August number, that potatoes 
would not mix. The following communi- 
cation on the subject we find in the Coun- 
try Gentleman, by E. C. Goodrich. The 
writer has probably produced more new 
varieties of potatoes from the seed, and 
experimented with a greater number of 
kinds together than any other man in the 
United States, if not in the world, and yet 
from all his experience in planting differ- 
ent varieties he has yet detected no mix- 
ing in the hill. We publish the article 
for the benefit of the still unbelieving : 

I. Physiological Reasons. 
All the various sorts of potatoes culti- 
vated in this country are, so far as I can 
judge, not only of one genus, but also of 
| one species, according to botanical classi- 
j fication. Under this one species, however, 
'are included almost numberless varieties. 
Among the many thousand that have 
! grown up under my experiments in the 
I last few years, I have seldom seen two 
j whose vine and tuber looked exactly alike, 
I or if they did, they would vary in color 
• of blossom or position in the soil. In 
1858 I sowed the seed of one ball alone, 
and got 10 varieties of which no two were 
alike, though most of them had a family 
: likeness. The same year I got nine vari- 
I eties from another ball, produced by a 
; different variety from the foregoing. — 
I Among these nine, no two were quite alike, 
though, as before, bearing a family resem- 
jblance. Among potatoes, if anywhere, we 
might suppose such mixing as that now 
contemplated might occur. 

1. The first effect of blossoms on one 
impregnated by those of a different varie- 
ty, is felt on the seed. In 1844, I crossed 
a seven-year pumpkin's staminate flower 

I with the pistillate one of a green fleshed 
j melon. The result, as a fruit, was still a 
seven year pumpkin, although the seed 
was changed, and the next year it produced 
that excellent variety since called the 
I Honey Squash. Other flowers on this 
vine not so crossed, produced the ordinary 
seven year pumpkin fruit. 

2. A Damson plum may be grafted with 
a fine variety of plums, and the fruit will 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



523 



correspond to the new or grafted sort, but 
the roots of that tree, though fed with nu- 
triment from the leaf of the superior sort, 
will yet throw up Damson sprouts, showing 
that the root is unchangeably Damson. 

3. Now plant a Carter and Kidney po- 
tato in the same hill ; each tuber will throw 
up a top of its own kind. The blossoms 
may pioduce cross impregnations, and 
the balls so produced may yield new varie- 
ties, showing a cross between the two sorts, 
but the roots of each plant and the tubers 
produced upon them, will be true to their 
own sort. The tubers of perennial trees, 
are not seeds nor anything else indicating 
a new sort. 

4. Nor can mere juxta-position produce 
a cross. If the same large apple tree, 
grafted with fifty varieties of apples, will 
yet produce fifty sorts of apples, though 
drawing ils nutriment from the same soil 
and through one body, and presume these 
fifty sorts growing side by sid*>, and with 
branches intertwined, through any number 
of years, then surely two different trees, 
growing side by side, will produce regular- 
ly each its own kind of fruit. 

5. Now a potato planted in the spring 
is like the piece of a root of the tree, or 
like a graft — it has the elements of sort in 
itself unchangeably. If it were not so, 
we should have security for the perma- 
nence of quality in any fruit, tuber or blos- 
som. Every seedling plant, in its very 
origin, or at least in that and the circum- 
stance of its culture for the first few years, 
acquires a stereotyped character which it 
never loses while remaining in that soil 
and climate, nor will its essential and spe- 
cific qualities be lost even when removed 
to another soil and climate. 

IT. Reasons from Experience. 

1. I have been raising seedling potatoes 
by the thousand during the last eight years. 
Many of them in favorable years, as 1852 
and 1855, produced balls the year of their 
organization. Many of these sorts have 
been cultivated side by side, and some- 
times in the same hill, four or five years, 
i. e., until I could judge of their value. 
Yet I have never found a sort that varied 
in its practical characteristics, such as 
shape of leaf and vine, color of leaf and 
flower, and color both external and inter- 
nal, of tuber after the first year. It is 



only in shape of tuber that I have found 
them to vary. 

2. I have numerous sorts that have been 
cross-impregnated. Thus in 1851, I had 
a cross between a seedling of 1849, called 
the Empire State, and the New Jersey 
Black Yam. The result was that variety 
since given out under the name of Black 
Diamond. So also in 1852, I had a cross 
between the Early Mountain June and 
a blue variety, which resulted in the sort 
named the Mountain June Pink eye. But 
in neither case did the varieties bearing 
the balls, i. e., the Empire State and the 
Early Mountain June, show any change 
in their tubers. 

3. Variety in soil, culture and season, 
one or all, may make slight changes in the 
flesh, degree of color, both external and 
internal, and in the smoothness of the 
skin, but these changes are not essential 
or permanent. Thus both the Summer 
and the Winter Pink eye will often show 
hills that differ from each other in the 
amount of purple stripes on the tubers, 
nay, the tubers of the same hill will differ 
from each other. So the Western Red 
varies in depth of color with soil and sea- 
son. 

4. Some varieties are never fixed in 
color. I imported a variety from South 
America-, in 1851, which was almost uni- 
formly white, though the same hill would 
occasionally show one tuber with a bright 
purple stripe, or even small speck. I fre- 
quently find this same feature of varying 
color among my new seedlings, both exter- 
nally and internally. 

From all these considerations, both of 
philosophy and fact, I am constrained to 
conclude that the color or other sensible 
qualities of the potato, are incapable of 
change by being planted together, and 
hence that facts that seem to favor such a 
conclusion have not been accurately exam- 
ined. C. E. Goodrich. 



— ■» + ••» 



From the Northwestern Farmer. 

Preserving Fence Posts— Striped Bugs. 

Eds. Northwestern Farmer : — The 
time is fast approaching when farmers will 
be engaged in building, and rebuilding, 
fences. As the plank and wire fence is 
taking the place of the old zig zag rail 
protector, I ask a space in your Monthly 
Visitor to give my experience in setting 



524 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



posts. In the year 1845 I made some new [ the chiefs about Abbeokuta. Finding, how- 
paling fence, setting the posts a portion of; ever > that th e European agents either died or 
them top end down, and others butt end I h * d . returned to this country several young 
i ' Africans were selected by the Missionary Soci- 

. ,./ , , ., c ' .,, ety and sent over to England, at the exnense of 

After twelve years the fence was rebuilt th J e Native Agencj Committee, to be educated 
and all those posts set top end down, were ana instructed in the best method of cleaning 



sound and took their place in the new 
fence, for another twelve or twenty years ; 
while those butt end down were entirely 
rotted off. 

Farmers, try the top end down, if not 
quite so large. 

Now for the striped bug, that little Turk, 
inveterate destroyer of Cucumbers, Mel- 
ons, and Squashes in their early growth. — 
Year after year I have combatted them with 
thumb and finger, sulphur, chimney soot, 
boxes, &c. Last Spring, I had a few fine 
hills of early frame cucumbers, just com- 
ing into fourth leaf, and as necessity has 
created the motto, "eternal vigilance or 
no safety," f went out as usual to examine 
my patch, and lo ! and behold ! not less 
than a thousand to a hill were working 
away and the air full of new recruits. I 
felt all was over with that planting. But 
my wife came to the rescue ; saying she 
would give them a dose such as her Old 
Grandmother used to give. What could 
it be ! A little bunch of cotton saturated 
with spirits or oil of turpentine, placed in 
each hill ; and such a scattering I never 
did see. 

In three minutes, not a bug was to be 
seen, evidently not liking to deal with 
spirits. They next attacked the Autumnal 
Marrow Squash you sent seeds of. I ap- 
plied it again, and from five seeds, had 
forty fine squashes, a portion of which I 
sold two weeks since at twenty cents each 

J. A. P. 

Bunker Hill, Til., March 22d., 1858. 



the cotton without injury to the fiber. The Afri- 
can Native Agency Committee of London also 
supplied packing presses and other machinery, 
and Mr. Piatt supplied cotton gins, goods, and 
money to purchase the cotton with. Up to the 
1st ultimo he had sent out 175 cotton gins, 
coscing from £3 17s. to £10 10s. each. He baa 
entered into correspondence with upwards of 
76 native and other African, traders, 21 or 22 
of them being chiefs, and many of them having 
begun to consign their cotton and other produce 
to him. Three manufacturers, of Manchester, 
have sent out 250 cotton gins, and the natives 
are at present, with their present appliances, 
able to turn out yearly 4,368,000 pounds of clean 
cotton, equal to 10,000 American bales. This he 
regards as a rare instance of rapid development 
of a particular trade, and, after a view of all 
the known facts, he "can clearly see a pros- 
pect of the slave trade being entirely starved 
out." The cotton, from whatever part of Afri- 
ca it comes, will invariably sell in Liverpool for 
2d. or 3d. per pound more than East India cot- 
ton. For some years it has never cost more 
than |d. per pound in the seed ; more has been 
offered at that price than the agents, chiefs, and 
dealers have been able to buy up ; and it can be 
laid down in Liverpool at 4gd. per pound, 
whilst it is now worth 7d., and not long ago 
was worth 9d. per pound. Mr. Clegg says that, 
believing in the goodness of the cause, he is 
anxious to raise £2,040 for the establishment 
of four new cotton stations. — Hunt's Merchant 
Magazine. 



Cotton Cultivation in Africa. 



Wonders of Boiling Water. 

We live, we move and have our being at 
the bottom of an atmospheric ocean, whose 
lower strata arc pressed upon by all above 
them. Unlike the common sea, the atmos- 
phere yields considerably to this superincum- 
bent spring, and like it, exercises an elastic 
force proportioned to the weight it has to bear. 
A pillar of air, with a base of one square 
inch resting upon the surface of the sea, and 



Mr. Thomas Clegg, of Manchester, has pub 
lished an interesting letter, describing the re 

suit of the efforts which have been made by j reaching to the top of the atmosphere, weighs 
him for the last seven or eight years to promote in round numbers fifteen pounds; and this, 
the cultivation of cotton in Africa, with the therefore, is the pressure exerted by the at- 
view of putting down the slave trade by show- mosphcrc on each square inch of the sea's 
ing the native chiefs and others " that it was surface. It varies within narrow limits, ac- 
their interest to employ their people, instead : cording as the pressure is that of the warm, 
of making war upon each other for the sake of j light air of the South, or of the cool dense 
getting a colorable right or pretext for selling air of the North: in the former case the ba- 
into slavery the prisoners taken in such maraud- rometer falls — in the latter it rises. We have 
ing expeditions." An opening experiment at j heard an intelligent youth ask the following 
Sierra Leon failed, and he decided to go at once ! question : " Suppose a room containing people 
to interior cotton fields, and to the residence of; to be shut up, and every chink and cranny 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



525 



closed so that all communication shall be cut 
away between the air within and that without. 
Here, although the ceiling and walls interpose 
to shield the people in the room from the 
pressure of the atmosphere, still each of them 
bears the same pressure as a person outside 
the room ; and a barometric column will stand 
as high within the room as without it. What 
is the reason V* The reason is, that the air 
within the room possesses the full elastic force 
which the pressure of the atmosphere can 
give it; the spring was compressed before the 
room was closed, and its power of lifting the 
barometric column is therefore the same as 
that of the free atmosphere. 

A vessel of water, with its surface exposed, 
yields up vapour at all temperatures, and will 
finally disappear ; but the elastic force of this 
vapour will depend on the temperature at 
which it is generated, being greater the higher 
the temperature. If the heat be sufficient to 
boil the water, bubbles rise and sometimes 
float for a considerable time upon the surface. 

Let us consider the cause of such a bubble, 
whose area is one square inch. The fragile 
thing bears the atmospheric pressure of fifteen 
pounds. Why, then, does not the film burst? 
Simply because the elastic force of the steam 
within the. bubbles is exactly equal to the 
elastic force of the air without; so that the 
film is in reality placed between two gaseous 
cushions, which press upon it equally, in oppo- 
site directions, and therefore neutralize each 
other. Until the water is hot enough to pro- 
duce steam of this tension, it cannot boil ; the 
tendency to ebullition is subdued by the atmos- 
pheric pressure. Under the full atmospheric 
pressure of fifteen pounds per square inch, 
water boils at a temperature of 212 degrees, 
Fahrenheit; and hence steam generated at 
this temperature is said to have an elastic force 
equal to one atmosphere. But if a portion of 
the atmospheric piessure be removed, water 
will boil before it reaches 212 deg. Take, for 
instance, the case of a bubble floating on the 
surface of water at the top of a mountain. 

We have seen that the existence of the thin 
film which constitutes the bubble, depends on 



necessary to ascend a mountain to satisfy our- 
selves that the boiling point sinks as the at- 
mospheric pressure is diminished. If water 
at 180 degrees be placed under the receiver of 
an air pump, and the air be removed until the 
pressure becomes as low as it is on Donkia, the 
water will boil : It is not even necessary to 
heat the more volatile liquids to produce this 
effect. A beaker of alcohol, placed under the 
receiver of an air pump, at the ordinary tem- 
perature of our climate, will boil violently 
when the receiver is sufficiently exhausted. 
Reversing the conditions, we can by increasing 
the pressure upon its surface, enable water to 
attain a far higher temperature than 212 de- 
grees without boiling. Thus, as is natural to 
expect, an external force which resists the ten- 
dency of heat to tear asunder the particles of 
liquid, and convert it into vapour, elevates the 
boiling point of the liquid. The boiling point 
depends also on the nature of the vessel in 
which the liquid is placed. Anything that 
resists the separation of particles, produces the 
same effect as an increase of external pressure. 
Water adheres to certain surfaces much more 
strongly than to others ; thus it clings to glass 
more tenaciously than to metal ; so that, to 
make water boil in a glass vessel, requires 
more heat than is necessary if it be contained 
in a metalic vessel. 

In boiling their solutions in glass vessels, 
chemists have to be very careful, for the adhe- 
sion between glass and liquids is overcome by 
jerks; instead of the amicable ebullition exhib- 
ited in a metalic vessel, the solution boils by 
starts; and this in sometimes so energetic a 
manner, as to project the solution quite out of 
the glass vessel. But the most remarkable in- 
fluence upon the boiling point of water is ex- 
ercised by the air which it holds in solution. 
When wafer is exposed to air, a certain amount 
of the latter is absorbed by the liquid, the mag- 
nitude of the absorption being proportional to 
the pressure exerted by the air on the surface 
of the liquid. It is extremely difficult to ex- 
pel this air, but it may be done by continued 
boiling. Imagine a glass tube, which has been 
exhausted by an air pump, to be half tilled 



the pressure against it from within being the with water which has been purged of its air 
same as the pressure upon it from without., by boiling, and hermetically closed at both 
But the pressure without the bubble on the i ends. This water adheres so closely to the 
summit of the mountain is less than at the, sides of the tube, that when the latter is turn- 
surface of the sea, and hence the elastic force ed upside down the liquid will not fall down- 
of the steam must be less in the former posi-i wards, but will cling to the upper portion of 
tion than in the latter. This is the case ; and] the tube. This experiment shows that the ad- 
to produce this feebly elastic steam less heatjhesion between the liquid and the glass is 
is required; or, in other words, the boiling enormously increased by the expulsion of the 
point of water on the mountain is lower than 'air, for no such effect could be produced with 
at the sea level. At 18,000 feet, on Donkia 1 ordinary water; but it also teaches us that 
mountain, in the Himalaya, Dr. Hooker found j the cohesion among the particles of the liquid 
that water boiled at 180 degrees; so that tea,; itself is very great; for the. e is nothing to 
soup, and chocolate, which require to be made prevent the central portion of the liquid col- 
irith water of nearly a temperature of 212 deg. ! umn from detaching itself from the portion in 
Fahrenheit, would be of very inferior quality contact with the tube, except the cohesion be- 
n this mountain region. It is not, however,! tween the liquid particles themselves. Now 



■ 



526 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



here we have a force which tends to resist the 
separation of the particles ; how will it affect 
the boiling point of the liquid ? Most remark- 
ably. Water thus purged of its air may be 
heated to a temperature of 275 degrees Fahr. 
without boiling ; and when it does boil it is 
not with the gentle ebullition of ordinary wa- 
ter. The particles snap suddenly asunder like 
a broken spring, and ebullition is converted 
into an explosion. — Westminster Review. 



Grape Vine and its Culture. 

The following very practical remarks on the 
culture of the Grape Vine are taken from the 
Horticulturist, and are from the pen of one of 
the most practical gardeners in the country, 
namely William Chorlton of Staten Island. 

The plain fact is, there is nothing mysteri- 
ous about the cultivation of this plant, neither 
is there any other that will bear a greater 
amount of ill treatment and recover. We have 
said above that the grape vine is a plant of 
longevity ; yet some of our cultivators, both 
in the vineyard and under glass, consider it 
necessary to replant after a few years of bear- 
ing, because, according to their belief, the vines 
are worn out. Now if we find that, under dif- 
ferent circumstances, certain individuals that 
have received more rational treatment are 
known to be hundreds of years old, and are 
still as healthy as they were a century ago, 
also continuing equally fruitful, and that fruit 
of the best quality, it stands to reason that 
there must be a screw loose in such experience 
somewhere. To secure this robust old age, 
and the consequent profits arising therefrom, 
it becomes requisite to consider the nature of 
the plant. 

First. It is always found to be most at home 
in a tolerably rich upper base abounding in 
vegetable matter impregnated with limestone, 
and accompanied with a well-drained subsoil. 
Secondly. It is a rampant grower in all its va- 
rieties, producing a large volume of branches 
and leaves, the latter of which respire and per- 
spire very freely, and act by drawing up and 
elaborating the juices from the roots, and also 
absorbing the moisture and gases in the atmos- 
phere. According with the amount of surface 
in these leaves, and concentration of action un- 
der the influence of steady heat and light, so 
will be the corresponding ratio of roots and 
wood healthy, and of parmanent structure or 
otherwise. Such being the case, it is easily 
seen, and if the extension of growth be unduly 
encouraged by over-rich compost (more par- 
ticularly while young,) the cellular and vascu- 
lar tissues will become deranged by the excite- 
ment, and neither roots nor branches partake 
of the indurated character they ought to. Add- 
ed to this, we have, generally speaking, more 
close pruning practised, not only in winter 



fast growing vine than any other fruit-bearing 
plant. Recapitulate the circumstances, and in 
the first place we force a plethoric growth by 
stimulating manures, and afterwards the plant 
is prevented from performing its proper func- 
tions by being permanently cramped into a 
comparatively very small superficial surface. 
How, we may ask, is such a being to form an 
increase of hardened woody fibre in the roots, 
or how is it possible that they can continue to 
have strength enough to be vigorous absorb- 
ents of the fluids around them ? The finale 
speaks for itself. A premature imbecility, 
with the consequent tendency to mildew, 
shank, dry rot, decayed roots, and all the other 
known and unknown diseases we have to com- 
plain of. 

To come more practically to the point: Either 
in the grapery border or outdoor culture, it is 
indispensable to secure a free passage for the 
surplus water from the subsoil by good drain- 
age. Make choice of good, friable soil enrich' 
ed sufficiently with decayed barnyard manure 
and vegetable mould, and if crushed bones are 
to be obtained readily, add a portion. No harm 
will be done by these latter, and no propor- 
tions need be given. If the flesh is not on 
them, they will give out very slowly and prove 
permanent. Much as has been written, and 
many as have been the arguments respecting 
the composts for grapery borders, I speak with 
confidence and from experience in stating thai 
better grapes may be grown by simple double 
trenching, with good drainage, and the addi- 
tion of a reasonable quantity of the above men- 
tioned material than are frequently obtained 
by the most fastidiously formed and ruinously 
expensne beds that are too often compounded. 
The following will prove a most efficient bed 
when the best results are desired : — 

Dig the border clear out from fifteen k 
twenty feet in width, from the base front ol 
the house, and two feet six inches deep. Let 
the bottom level slope somewhat towards the 
outside line, along which excavate another fool 
deeper, and the same wide. Fill this drain 
with rough stones or other such material, an<3 
cover six inches of the same over the wholt 
base. If the soil taken out, or any portion .;: 
it,' be of good quality reserve it, and mix one 
fourth in quantify of barnyard manure and de 
composed vegetable matter with one bushel o: 
crushed bones to every cubic yard in bulk 
Whatever quantity of earth may be require! 
beside that taken out, procure it from a pasturi 
of triable loam, and use only the upper tur 
sod. Cover the drainage base with these soda 
also, and fill in the prepared compost to on< 
foot above the ground level. 

Planting, Training, rf'f. — Chose for all pur 
poses healthy vines of one or (-at most) tw» 
years' growth from the cutting or bud. Fa 
outside, make a hole three inches deep, an( 
level on the bottom ; spread out the roots care 
tully, and fill up with well broken soil. In tto 






THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



527 



grapery, smooth the surface, and cover over 
the roots so as to form a small mound around 
each stem, which may afterwards be shortened 
down to two or three buds. When these buds 
have grown some two or three inches, take out 
all but the strongest. Train this carefully to 
the wires or poles as it advances in growth, 
and pinch out the laterals or side shoots to the 
first leaf as they continue to be produced. If 
the weather be dry and hot through the sum- 
mer months, mulch the ground with littery ma- 
nure, and give occasionally a copious supply of 
water to the roots. Do not stop the leader 
until the wood begins to turn brown in the 
fall. 

One of the litest methods for future training, 
outside, is to conduct two shoots horizontally, 
one on each side of the main stem, and eigh- 
teen inches from the ground level. This may 
be secured for the present by cutting down to 
two buds above that height. These, in the 
spring, will push out the desired branches, 
which may be allowed to grow as the single 
one did last year. Next fall, cut them in, to 
four or six feet, according as they have grown 
strong, or the reverse. The third year from 
commencement they will develop side shoots, 
which are to be trained up perpendicularly to 
the trillis at the distance of eighteen inches j 
apart. More than enough will be produced, 
the surplus of which should be rubbed off as 
soon as # it can be seen which are the most suit- 
able to leave. One bunch of fruit may now 
be allowed on each of these uprights without; 
injury. The following fall, every alternate] 
cane is to be cut down to one bud, the others j 
being shortened in to five or six feet, and left I 
to bear. And now begins a regular course of j 
pruning. Those that have borne the last year j 
are to be cut down to an eye, and the others j 
that have emanated from the previous single 
bud left for fruiting next year. It may also be 
mentioned that a greater longitudinal surface 
can be gained in after years by extending the 
horizontal branches in like manner. 

Michigan Farmer. 

From the New York Observer. 

A Chapter on Strawberries. 

The best season for making summer planta- 
tions of this delicious fruit is near at hand. 
Those who neglected to plant in the spring, 
and have been regretting such neglect, should 
now make thorough preparations for planting 
during the month of August. It is important 
that you make selections of the best varieties 
in cultivation. It will cost no more to grow 
the best than it will the most inferior. 

We have recently visited some of the best 
fruit gardens in Connecticut, for the purpose of 
examining the strawberry crop. We are sur- 
prised to fine this crop so rapidly increasing, 
and the great number of varieties already un- 
der cultivation. In the villages and cities in 
the eastern part of the State, where nothing 



but the small berries of the New York market 
were seen five years ago, you now find an 
abundant supply fresh from the neighbouring 
gardens, and at prices so low as to put them 
within the reach of all. Even at the lowest 
prices they ever bring, they are found to be 
one of the best crops the horticulturist can 
grow, and many of the farmers are beginning 
to make their ventures in the business. 

Deacon A. Smith, of Lebanon, was among 
the first to introduce this crop in that town, 
and now a large quantity are grown there for 
the Boston market, as well as for the supply of 
the home demand. They cultivate here prin- 
cipally the Hovey's Seedling, Virginia Scarlet, 
and Boston Pine, varieties that were very pop- 
ular eight or ten years ago. The soil in this 
region is very moist, and abundantly furnished 
with vegetable matter. It is admirably adapt- 
ed to this fruit, and good crops are realized on 
any land that will grow good corn. This town 
also grows considerable quantities of peaches 
of excellent quality. The trees are much 
longer lived than in Jersey, frequently contin- 
uing twelve or fifteen years. The pear also 
flourishes here, and a variety called the Sum- 
mer Viryalieu or Lebanon Fear, is raised in 
large quantities. It is about the size of the 
Bartlett, and though less showy in appearance,, 
is scarcely inferior to it in quality. It has a 
saccharine, aromatic taste, that many would 
prefer to the Bartlett. It is not yet much 
known to the public, and has not been propa- 
gated extensively out of New London county. 

In Colchester, strawberry culture is yet in 
its infancy. E. Carpenter has .some fine beds 
of the Longworth's Prolific, and Walker's Seed- 
ling. He prefers the first on account of its size, 
the latter for its high pine flavour and richness. 
Hovey's Seedling is in favour, and is sometimes 
sold as low as fifteen cents a quart. 

Norwich is the largest market for this fruit 
in the country. A large number of varieties 
are brought in from the neighbouring towns, 
and a still larger number are cultivated in the 
private gardens. AVe have never found this 
fruit in greater perfection than in the gardens 
of this city. 

The old favourite, Hovey's Seedling, and its 
mate the Virginia Scarlet, is still retained by 
many, though it has formidable rivals in some 
of the new varieties. It does better here than 
in any other region where we have observed it. 
Dr. Daniel T. Coit has one of the largest and 
best gardens in the county, and his strawberry 
beds this year present a magnificent appear- 
ance. With him the Longicorth's Prolific is a 
great favourite for size, productiveness and 
quality. At I. N. Perkins' we found the 
Fiver's Eliza, which is the first English straw- 
berry we have ever known to succeed well in 
our climate. We noticed it in several other 
gardens, and in every instance it surpassed all 
others for size and productiveness. The plants 
were loaded with very large berries, three, four 



528 



THE SOUTIIEKN PLANTER. 



and five inches in circumference. They have 
been grown here six inches. The vine is large, 
hardy, and a hermaphrodite. The berry is 
light coloured, of excellent quality, and toler- 
ably firm. There would be no difficulty in cul- 
tivating it for the home market. Mr. Forbes, 
the very intelligent gardener of Mr. Perkins, 
also cultivates this fruit on his own account. 
We found here McAvoy's Extra Red, which is 
a very remarkable berry for size and produc- 
tiveness. There could not have been less than 
a quart on many of the single vines. But this 
showy fruit has a pungent acid flavour, which 
must make a very large drain upon the sugar 
bowl. McAvoy's Superior is a much better 
fruit, and almost as productive. The only ob- 
jection to it is, that it is too soft fjr a market 
berry. Scoffs Seedling is a long, cone-shaped 
fruit, of good quality, and productive. This, 
we are informed is a favourite in the Boston 
market. Burr's New Pine, which stands so 
high for quality, is discarded by Mr. Forbes as 
a poor grower, and shy bearer. The fruit is 
not large, and indeed has nothing but its ex- 
cellent quality to recommend it. The GoliutJi 
is a seedling of River's Eliza;- much like the 
parent in all respects. 

Rev. J. P. Gulliver has within a few years 
sought health in a garden, and has already one 
of the best selections of small fruits in the city. 
He has near a dozen varieties of strawberries. 
Among them is the Moyamensing Pine, a late 
berry, much cultivated for the Philadelphia 
market. The vine is very large and produc- 
tive, the berry among the largest and of good 
quality. It is an excellent variety for preserv- 
ing. We found here, also, the celebrated Pea- 
body's Seedling, which has been sent out so 
extensively over the country the last two sea- 
sons. We were particular in testing this ber- 
ry, in three other gardens, and have had good 
opportunities to compare it with other good 
varieties. We must say, that so far, we see 
nothing in it to pay for the fifty thousand dol- 
lars it has cost the country. We were disap- 
pointed at its productiveness. Well-grown 
plants do not yield anything like the quantity 
of Uovey's Seedling or Longworth's Prolific. 
This, perhaps, may be partly accounted for, in 
the fact that the plants have been severely 
taxed in making new runners to sell. But the 
quality docs not meet our expectations. The 
first berries we tried grew upon a bed that 
had been purposely left thick for supply- 
ing plants. The fruit was iusipid. The next 
was upon plants having the full advantage of 
sunshine and good cultivation. The berries 
were of higher flavour, but stringy ; not better 
in quality than a Longworlk, and not equal to 
a Burr's New Pine, with which we compare 
them repeatedly, picking both berries fresh 
from vines that grew side by side. It is a lit- 
tle remarkable that this berry and the Dio- 
ecorea Batatas of Prince, had the advantage 
of plates and official notice in the Patent Office 



report. The Walker's Seedling flourishes here, 
and is preferred to all others for its luscious 
pine flavour. Compared with Peabody's Seed- 
ling, Walker's or Wilson's Seedling is vastly 
superior in firmness, flavour and productive- 
ness. We hazard nothing in saying that the 
Walker and the Wilson Seedlings which have 
been noiselessly disseminated, will in a short 
time take the place of the boasted Peabody. The 
latter, owing to its w T ant of firmness and fla- 
vour, will never become a market berry. Ama- 
teurs may retain it as a variety. 

At New London, strawberry culture has 
been longer established, and the plantations 
in the suburbs not only supply the city, but 
send off large quantities to other markets. 
They receive only field cultivation, and the va- 
rieties are not well selected for size or produc- 
tiveness. With the gardens of amateurs here 
J we are not particularly acquainted. 

Stonington is just beginning to grow its 
own strawberries. Of the private gardens, 
that of J. I. Day comes nearest to our ideal 
of what a fruit garden should be. Both 
the large and small fruits are abundantly rep- 
resented, with the best varieties. It has the 
prime advantage of shelter, being situated on 
the Southern edge of a piece of woodland, and 
all fruits are about a week earlier than the 
same varieties in gardens, within a mile's dis- 
tance, upon the seashore, in exposed situations, 
he still cultivates the Boston Pine and "Uovey's 
Seedling — the latter doing well with him, 
while it has been discarded from two gardens 
in the vicinity more exposed to the sea breeze. 
We have rarely seen a finer display of straw- 
berries than in this garden. 

The gardener of J. F. Trumbull, Esq., is be- 
ginning to grow them for market. He has the 
Longworth's Prolific, McAvoy's Superior, Jenny 
Lind, Brighton Pine and Walker's Seedling. 
The Jenny Lind is a strong grower, prolific, 
and of fair quality. It wants the full advan- 
tage of the sun-light, and of good soil, to bring 
out all its good, qualities. The Brighton Pine 
is a new variety, sent out only two years since. 
It is hardy, prolific, and of excellent quality. 

Of all the varieties that we have seen in this 
trip, we give a decided preference to the Wal- 
ker's Seedling. It has more of the points of 
a good strawberry than. any other with which 
we are acquainted. As to flavour, which is the 
main thing with a strawberry, in a private 
garden, it is decidedly better than Burr's New 
Pine, which is a standard of excellence. It is 
hardy, a strong grower, and very prolific, ri-« 
pening its berries in succession through a long 
season. It is a solid berry, and bears carriage 
well. It retains its form, after preserving, 
more perfectly than most berries. It is al- 
ready so widely distributed among nursery men 
and amateurs, that the plants can be fur- 
nished in any desired quantities as cheap as 
the more common varieties. We trust Wil- 
son's Seedling, which so nearly resembles the 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



529 



Walker, will soon be found in these various gar- 1 
dens. In size and productiveness it excels the 
Walker. 

It is cheering to see the increasing enthusi- 
asm of the cultivators of this healthful and 
luscious fruit. It was recently declared, at a 
meeting of the Farmers' Club, at the Ameri- 
can Institute, that strawberries could be culti- 
vated at less expense than potatoes, bushel for 
bushel. The} 7 unquestionably are a surer crop 
than potatoes, and at present prices are much 
more profitable. There is no good reason why 
they should not have a place in every farmer's 
garden. They would prove an agreeable va- 
riety at the season when salt junk and old po- 
tatoes are in the ascendant. 



WILSON' S SEEDLING STRAWBERRY. 

We had the pleasure, a year since, of sup- 
plying to our worthy friend, Jonathan Odell, 
Esq., of Yonkers, a hundred plants of Wilson's 
Seedling strawberry. We knew that he would 
bestow upon them careful attention ; and in 
visiting his grounds in June we were not dis- 
appointed in their cultivation or product. 

The beds were loaded with masses of fine 
fruit which astonished every beholder. For 
quantity, average size, or beauty, we doubt 
whether they have been equalled. 

We saw dozens of the berries within a yard 
square, measuring from four to four and three- 
quarter inches in circumference, and a great 
number of others of nearly as large size. On 
one single plant we counted one hundred large 
berries, many of which were over four inches 
in size, and on several ether plants we counted 
seventy-five and eighty berries of similar size. 

The fruit was also fully ripe at the time of 
our visit, bearing a dark mahogany appear- 
ance, — and the flavour, on careful examination 
and comparison, was found to be excellent. 
The brisk acid which is so noticeable in Wil- 
son's Seedling, on its first becoming red, seem- 
ed to give place to a very rich, pleasant fla- 
vour, when fully ripe. 

Exceptions have been taken to the short 
footstalks of this variety, but here we meas- 
ured some of them that proved to be of six 
and seven inches in length. 

The plants were about eighteen inches apart 
each way, and were cultivated in usual garden 
soil, with a fair quantity of well-rotted ma- 
nure. 

We think this variety will bear higher cul- 
tivation than many others ; while its produc- 
tion is amazing with only ordinary soil and at- 
tention. It is hardy, vigorous, and invariably 
productive in all instances where it has come 
under our observation. James W. Falkner, 
Esq., of Stamford, Ct, an amateur cultivator 
of the strawberry, who has, within the few 
years past, at no little cost of time and money, 
procured from headquarters, in their purity, 
all the best varieties, informs us that among 
34 



thirty-nine varieties cultivated this year, the 
Wilson is regarded by him as greatly superior 
to any other variety. 

We shall esteem it a favour to receive from 
any one who has grown it, their frank and can- 
did opinion of its merits, whether favourable 
or otherwise. We early commend it to pub- 
lic favour, and we shall be pleased to know 
how far it has been found worthy of it. 

We hope our friend of the Magazine of Hor- 
ticulture has been permitted to test its quali- 
ties during the present season, and that he will 
favour his subscribers with an opinion of its 
merits, and of its claims to popular regard. 

STRAWBERRY TRADE OF NEW YORK. 

The quantity of this fruit sent to the New 
York market has largely increased within the 
few years past. Few are aware of its impor- 
tance to the producers. The season lasts but 
a few weeks. Those engaged in the trade have 
to bestir themselves, and hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars are paid for the crop. 

New Jersey is the great field of strawberry 
culture. Monmouth and Middlesex counties 
furnish the earliest supply, while Hackensack 
and Upper Jersey yield a later and a superior 
fruit. These are brought to the city chiefly 
by private conveyance, are fresher, and com- 
mand a better price than others. Among those 
cultivated to any extent, the Crimson Cone is 
the finest variety to be found in our market. 
Some of the recent varieties, like Walker's 
and Wilson's Seedlings, when they are better 
known and in supply, will take the place of 
many of the old and inferior sorts. 

The Express says that after a careful inquiry 
made among the commission men, it has been 
ascertained that over six millions of baskets 
have been sold in the New York market the 
present season. 

Large quantities are sold outside of these 
commission men. There is no doubt that more 
than a quarter of a million of dollars are paid, 
in a single season, for strawberries in this 
market. 



S. G. Pardee, who is now considered by mosi 
people to be the highest authority on things 
pertaining to the culture of strawberries, re- 
marks on the 

MANNER OF MANURING STRAWBERRIES. 

I am opposed to all stimulating manures for 
the strawberry, or land over-enriched, as some 
portions of the gardens are, but I have always 
preferred land in the best possible condition 
for a crop. Then apply a moderate coating of 
unleached ashes, lime and salt — say three 
bushels of ashes, one of lime, and four or six 
quarts of salt, and, if need be, prepared muck, 
or leaf mold, or turf. Always keep them 
clean, and not only uniform large crops may 
be expected, but superior fruit, and all at a 



530 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



cost of less than fifty cents per bushel for the 
mere cultivation, as my own and others' obser- 
vation and experience abundantly attests. If 
you mulch your beds with tan, the mulch will 
keep down the growth of weeds near the plant. 
I would let runners grow, and in the Fall take 
a fine rake and pull up the weak plants of the 
runners. This is cheaper than any plan of 
cutting off the runners, and does not injure 
the plants. In setting plants, use the plants 
from the first end of the runners, as the roots 
are stronger than at the little end of the vine. 

S. G. Pardee. 



Progress of English Agriculture. 

In our August issue we published a very 

interesting and lucid synopsis of an article 

contained in the April number of thej 

London Quarterly Review, entitled " The i 

Progress of English Agriculture." Much! 

to our mortification, credit to the Boston! 

I 
Journal — the source from which it was 

derived — was omitted, and we were there- 
by placed in the unenviable position of! 
appropriating the labors of others without i 
due acknowledgement. It is true we had 
endorsed it with the name of that paper, 
but the printer being unused to that mode 
which in our want of experience we had 
thoughtlessly adopted, failed to observe it, 
and we became aware of the omission 
only when it was too late to remedy it.! 
We have read the article in the London! 
Quarterly with much satisfaction, and! 
would gladly lay it before our readers in 
externa did our limits permit ; but, on ac- 
count of its length, we must contenti 
ourselves with the presentation of the 

extracts which follow: 

# * # # * 

The first great epoch of modern agri- 
cultural improvement began with Lord 
Townshend, who demonstrated the truth 
embodied in the adage, 

' He who marls sand 
May buy the land,' 

showed the value of the turnip, and, as 
we presume, must have been a patron of 
the four-course system, which had its rise 
in Norfolk about the same time. The 
second epoch was that of Bakewell, whose 
principles of stock-breeding have ever 



since continued to raise, year by year, the 
average value of our meat producing ani- 
mals. The third epoch dates from the 
exertions of such men as the Duke of 
Bedford and Coke of Holkham, the latter 
of whom, combining usages which had 
been very partially acted upon, brought 
into favour drilled turnip husbandry, car- 
ried all the branches of farming as far as 
was permitted by the knowledge of his 
time, and did the inestimable sevice of 
inoculating hundreds of landlords and 
tenants with his own views. The fourth 
epoch, if we were to take each advance 
from its earliest dawn, would comprise the 
various dates of the opening of the first 
railroad, the importation of the first cargo 
of guano, the publication of Liebig's first 
edition of the ' Chemistry of Agriculture,' 
and the deep draining of the Bonesetter's 
field on Chat Moss ; but in genera! terms 
it may be said to date from the first meet- 
ing of the Royal Agricultural Society at 
Oxford in 1839, when farmers began to 
be familiarized w T ith men of science, and 
men of science learned not to despise 
agricultural experience. This last era is 
almost the birth of yesterday, and already, 
as compared with any former period, the 
results read more like a page from the 
Arabian Nights than like a chapter in the 
history of agricultural progress. Deep 
drainage, artificial manures, artificial food, 
improved implements, and railroad con- 
veyance, have been the leading means by 
which the change has been wrought. Deep 
drainage has brought into play the un- 
exhausted fertility of our strong clays : 
portable manures and purchased food have 
increased the crops on land of every de- 
gree. Mangold and swedes have been 
made to flourish on stiff soils, and cereals 
on sieve- like sands. Downs have been 
transformed from bare pastures to heavy 
root and rich grain-bearing fields. The 
visiters to Salisbury Plain at the agricultu- 
ral show of 1857 were surprised to find a 
large part of it converted into productive 
corn-land — a change which has been al- 
most entirely effected within the last 
twenty years. The scientific mechanic 
has provided the tools and machinery for 
breaking up and pulverizing the ground, 
for sowing the seed, for gatheringthe crops, 
for preparing it for market, for crushing or 
cutting the food for the stock, with an ease, 
a quickness, and a perfection unknown 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



531 



before. The railroad is the connecting 
medium which maintains the vast circula- 
tion, conveying the agencies of production 
to the farmer, and the produce of the 
farmer to the market. The steam-cultiva- 
tor is, perhaps, about to be added to the 
triumphs of mechanism, and then will be 
realized the expression in the fine lines of 
Mr. Thackeray on the Great Exhibition of 
1851 — an expression which was prema- 
ture if it was intended to be historic, 
but which we hope, and almost believe, 
w r ill prove to be prophetic. 

'Look yonder where the engines toil; 
These England's arras of conquest are, 
The trophies of her bloodless war; 
Brave weapons these. 
Victorious over wave and soil, 
With these she sails, she weaves, she tills, 
Pierces the everlasting hills 

And spans the seas.' 

The spirit of the old agriculture and the 
new are diametrically opposite — that of 
the eld agriculture was to be stationary, 
that of the new is to progress. When 
Young made his tour through the east of 
England in 1771, he remarks as a pecu- 
liarity that the turnip cabbage of a 
IMr. Reynolds, which had a special supe- 
riority, was gradually adopted by his 
neighbours — 'a circumstance,' he adds, 
['that would not happen in many counties. 1 ' 1 
MHis works are, in fact, a narrative of indi- 
vidual enterprise and general stupidity. A 
iMr. Cooper who went into Dorsetshire from 
■Norfolk could only get his turnips hoed 
■by working himself year after year with 
■his labourers, and refusing to be tired 
lout by their deliberate awkwardness for 
tsthe purpose of defeating his design. After 
I he had continued the practice for twenty 
iyears, and all the surrounding farmers had 
■witnessed the vast benefits to be derived 
Jjfrom it, not a single one of them had be- 
oi»un to imitate him. Mr. Cooper, with two 
njhorses abreast, and no driver, ploughed an 
licie of land where his neighbours with 
tour horses and a driver ploughed only 
hree-quarters of an acre. Yet not a 
abourer would touch this unclean imple- 
ment, as they seemed to think it, and no 
arrner, with such an example perpetually 
before his eyes, chose to save on each 
)lough the wages of a man, the keep of 
wo horses, and the extra expenditure in- 
uned by the diminished amount of work 
erformed in the day. No longer ago than 



1835, Sir Robert Peel presented a Farmers' 
Club at Tamworth with two iron ploughs 
of the best construction. On his next 
visit the old ploughs with the wooden 
mould-boards were again at work, 'Sir,' 
said a member of the club, ' we tried the 
iron, and we be all of one mind that they 
made the weeds grow.' On Young recom- 
mending the Dorsetshire agriculturists to 
fold their ewes in the winter they treated 
the idea with contempt ; and on pressing 
them for their reasons, they replied, 'that 
the flock, in rushing out of the fold, would 
tread down the lambs,' though no such 
accident had ever been heard of, ' and that 
the lambs would not be able to find their 
dams in a large fold.' though certainly, 
says Young, ' a lamb in Dorsetshire has as 
much sense as a lamb elsewhere." Wheth- 
er the method had been beneficial or not, 
the grounds for rejecting it were equally 
absurd. Of two neighbouring counties one 
was sometimes a century behind the other. 
A lazy desire to creep with sluggish mo- 
notony along an established path, and a 
feeling of impatience at being pushed into 
a novel track, helped to maintain heredi- 
tary prejudices, and tenants invented 
fanciful excuses for not doing what was 
plainly advantageous to be done, because 
they preferred present sloth to future 
profit. They were like a man who had 
lain upon one side till he shrunk from the 
trouble of turning over to the other, though 
when the process was performed the new 
posture might be easier than the old. But 
once roused and put in motion, and the 
inherent reluctance to stir being overcome, 
the gain in interest as well as in pocket 
was felt to be great. He who has profited 
b} r one innovation is ready to try another, 
and his pride and his pleasure is to im- 
prove where his fathers gloried in resisting 
improvement. There are still large dis- 
tricts of England which have yet to be 
converted to a rational system of agricul- 
ture — landlords who are ignorant of the 
principles of management w r hich attract or 
create intelligent tenants — and tenants 
who are ignorant of the methods by which 
the land is made to double its increase. 
But the wave of agricultural progress has 
acquired irresistible might, and they must 
mount it or it will sweep them away. The 
best thing which can be done for these 
laggards in the race is to persuade them to 
take an agricultural newspaper, to gH 



532 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



them to consult the commercial travellers 
who collect orders for the manufacturers 
of artificial manures, to talk them into 
replenishing their worn-out implements 
from the mart of the great makers, to 
prevail on them to visit the annual shows 
of the Roj'al Agricultural Society, to throw 
them, in short, in the way of seeing the 
products of advanced husbandry, and of 
hearing the ideas of enlightened cultiva- 
tors. By some or all of these means they 
may be put upon the high-road to improve- 
ment, and when they have gone an inch 
there is little fear, unless they are afflicted 
by a hopeless incapacity, that they will 
refuse to go the ell. He who lives within 
the diameter of a little circle has ideas as 
narrow as his horizon, but the influence of 
numbers and skill together is irresistible, 
and no impersonation of ignorance or bigo- 
try has probably ever visited a single great 
agricultural exhibition without returning a 

wiser and a better farmer. 

# # # # * 

If it be asked what has been practically 
gained within the last twenty years by the 
investigations of the agricultural chemist, 
we would answer, certainty. We knew 
years ago that farmyard manure was ex- 
cellent; by the light of chemical science 
we learn why it is c perfect universal ma- 
nure,' we learn how to manufacture and 
employ it best, and we learn why on clay 
soils it may be safely, nay advantageously, 
left for weeks on the surface before be- 
ing ploughed in. Chemical science again 
teaches us why lime, which is not an active 
manure, although valuable as a destroyer 
of elements hostile to fertility, produces 
great effect for a series of years, and then 
not unfrequently ceases to show any profi- 
table results ; it teaches us to what crops 
guano, to what superphosphate of lime, to 
what farmyard manure may be most profi- 
tably applied, and when a mixture of all 
three. Chemistry settles the comparative 
value of linseed cake, cotton cake, and 
karob beans; shows when pulse should 
be used for fattening pigs, and how to 
compound a mixture of Indian corn and 
bean-meal which shall produce fat bacon 
neither hard nor wasteful. The conclu- 
sions of science were previously known 
empirically to a few, but their range was 
limited and their application accidental. 
They have been reduced to order and 
.rendered universally available for the use 



of plain farmers by the investigations of 
men like Lawes and Voelcker. As the 
latter observes, • there are too many modi- 
fying influences of soil, climate, season, 
&c, to enable us to establish an} T invariable 
laws for the guidance of the husbandman ;' 
but the more we can trace effects to their 
causes and ascertain the mode in which 
nature operates, the nearer we are to fixed 
principles and a sure rule of practice. 
# # # # # 

[Description of Three Farms in different 

districts of England, one consisting of light 
self-drained land, another of clay, sand and 
good pasture, and the third of stiff clay.] 

To give some idea of the modern system 
of English agriculture, we subjoin a brief 
description of three farms in three different 
districts of England — the first, a light land 
self-drained ; the second, clay, sand, and 
good pasture ; the third, stiff clay; and all 
cultivated by tenants who have not ex- 
pended money to purchase glory, but who 
have invested capital in order to earn a 
profit. 

Mr. John Hudson, whose name is famil- 
iar to all English, and many French and 
German, agriculturists, began farming half 
a century ago. In 1822 he entered upon 
his now celebrated farm of Castle Acre, 
Which consists of self-drained land, and is a 
fair specimen of the Norfolk light soil. 
At that period the only portable manure 
was rape-cake, which cost about $65 a ton, 
and did not produce any visible effect upon 
the crops for a month. The whole live- 
stock consisted of 200 sheep and 40 cattle 
of the old Norfolk breed.. He adopted 
what was then the new, now the old, and 
what is perhaps destined to become the 
obsolete four-course Norfolk system — that 
is to say, 250 acres pasture, 300 wheat, 
300 barley; or, in dear years, 600 wheat, 
300 roots, and 300 seeds, the rest being 
gardens and coverts. On these 1200 acres 
he at present maintains 10 dairy cow r s, 36 
cart-horses, a flock of 400 breeding ewes, 
and fattens and sells 250 Short-horns, 
Herefords, Devons, or Scots, and 3000 
Down sheep. The crops of swedes ave- 
rage from 25 to 30 tons, the mangold-wurzel 
from 30 to 35 tons per acre. His wheat 
had,, in 1855, averaged, for the previous 
five years, 48 bushels per acre ; the barley 
56 bushels. Of the seeds, the clover is 
mowed for hay, the trefoil and white clover 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



533 



are fed down by sheep, and there are no 
bare fallows. The purchased food given 
to the cattle in the straw-yard and sheds, 
and to the sheep in the field, consisting 
of oilcake, meal, and beans, cost 2000/. 
a-year. The greater part of this oil-cake 
is charged to manure, which it enriches in 
quality as well as increases in quantity ; 
but the direct expenditure on artificial 
manures — guano, nitrate of soda, and su- 
perphosphate of lime — amounts in addition 
to 1000/. a-year. Wages absorb from 
2600/. to 3000/. a year. Seven or eight 
waggon-loads per acre of farmyard- manure 
are ploughed in on land intended for roots, 
besides above 305. worth per acre of su- 
perphosphate of lime drilled in with the 
turnip-seed; while wheat has a top dress- 
ing of 1 cwt. of guano, \ cwt. of nitrate 
of soda, and 2 cwt. of salt, mixed with 
earth and ashes. No weeds are grown. 
The turnips are taken up in November, and 
a troop, called by the vile name of a ' gang,' j 
consisting of ' boys and girls,' under the . 
care of an experienced man, traverse the 
ground, forking out and burning every 
particle of twitch or thistle. The samej 
'troop' is called in during the progress of 
the root-crop whenever occasion requires, 
and immediately after harvest they go over 
the stubbles with their little three-pronged 
forks, exterminating the slightest vestige 
of a weed. The expenses of cleaning are 
thus kept down to Is. an acre, a price 
which excited the admiration and doubts 
of that admirable agricultural essayist the 
late Mr. Thomas Gisborne, and which 
proves that, by stopping the evil at the 
source, and never allowing the enemy to 
get ahead, land may be kept wholly weeded 
more cheaply than half weeded. Lord 
Berners mentioned as recently as 1855 that 
he found in Leicestershire hundreds of 
acres netted over with twitch as thick as 
a Lifeguardsman's cane, and studded with 
clumps of thistles like bushes. Such neg- 
lected land required an expenditure of 51. 
to 61. an acre to put it in heart. The 
farmer who saw a thief daily stealing from 
his dung-heap would soon call in the aid 
of the policeman. The weeds are an army 
of scattered thieves, and, if the pilferings 
of each are small in amount, the aggregate 
is immense. The wise and thrifty farmer, 
therefore, keeps his constabulary to take 
up the offender, and consign him as quickly 
as possible to death. He who allows him- 



self to be daily robbed of his crop, and the 
community to the same extent of food, 
and all the while looks helplessly on, is 
not only a bad farmer, but in effect, though 
not in design, a bad citizen also. 

Mr. J. Thomas, of Lidlington Park, our 
second example, farms about 800 acres of 
a mixed character under the Duke of Bed- 
ford, of whom it is the highest praise to 
say that he is a landlord worthy of such 
tenants, consisting in part of clay, which 
has been rendered profitable for arable 
cultivation by deep drainage, and in part 
of what is locally called sand, which 
has been reduced from rabbit-warrens to 
corn-fields by the Norfolk system. This 
intelligent cultivator read a paper some 
time since to the Central Farmers' Club, 
in which he stated, with the assent of his 
tenant audience, that, under very high 
farming, it was not only possible but advi- 
sable to reduce the fertility of the soil 
by the more frequent growth of grain — as, 
for instance, by taking barley after wheat, 
and returning to the once fatal system of 
two white crops in succession. He said 
that, under the four or five-course he began 
to find his ' turnips subject to strange, in- 
explicable diseases ; his barley (where a 
large crop of swedes had been fed on the 
ground by sheep, with the addition of cake 
or corn) laid flat on the ground by its own 
weight, and in a wet harvest sprouted, 
thus rendering the grain unfit for the 
maltster, the straw valueless as fodder, 
w 7 hile the young clover was stifled and 
killed by the lodgment of the barley crop.' 
Thus, while Roman agriculturists, with all 
their garden-like care, were tormented by 
a decreasing produce on an exhausted soil, 
we, after ages of cropping, have arrived at 
the point of an over-abundant fertility — an 
evil to be cured, not by any fixed rule, but 
' by permitting the diligent and intelligent 
tenant-farmer a freer exercise of judgment.' 
In this speaker we have another specimen 
of the invaluable class of men by whom, 
during the last ten years, on tens of thou- 
sands of acres, the produce of meat and 
corn has been doubled. 

At Lidlington, where there is strong 
clay to deal with, and more good grass- 
land than exists at Castle Acre, it is not 
necessary to purchase so much food to 
keep live-stock for manure. But there are 
about one hundred and fifty beasts and 
one thousand sheep sold fat, besides a 



534 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



choice breeding-flock of four hundred 
Downs, the result of twenty years' care. 
By these sheep the light land is consoli- 
dated and enriched. It they are store 
sheep they are allowed to gnaw the turnips 
on the ground for part oi the year ; if they 
are young and to be fattened for market, 
the turnips are drawn, topped, tailed, and 
sliced by a boy with a portable machine. 
Thus feeding by day and penned succes- 
sively over every part of the field at night, 
they fertilise and compress, as effectually 
as any roller, the light-blowing sand, and 
prepare soil which would scarcely feed a 
family of rabbits for luxuriant corn crops. 
The cattle, consisting of two-year-old 
Devons, Herefords, or short-horns, or 
three-year-old Scots or Anglesea runts, 
purchased at fairs according to the supply 
and market-price, in spring or summer, 
are run on the inferior pasture until win- 
ter, then taken into the yards or stalls, fed 
with hay, swedes, mangolds, ground cake, 
linseed or bailey meal, and allowed an un- 
limited supply of clean water. When the 
spring comes round I hey are put on the 
best grass, and sent off to market as fast 
as they become ripe, having left behind 
them a store of manure, which is the 
capital from which everything else must 
spring. 

Ten years ago four miles of rough bark 
fences were cleared away on the clay half 
of this farm, and replaced by single rows of 
blackthorn, dividing the fields into square 
lots of forty or fifty acres. Under the old 
system two hundred acres were poor pas- 
ture ; now under the rotation system the 
strong clay feeds four times as much live- 
stock as before, and bears wheat at least 
twice in six years. According to the 
latest experience, the most profitable sys- 
tem in its present light condition would 
be, to devote the farmyard dung to grow- 
ing clover, to eat down the clover with 
folded sheep, and then to use the ground 
fertilized by the roots of the clover, with- 
out home-made manure, for cereal crops, 
assisted by a top-dressing of guano, to be 
followed by roots nourished with super- 
phosphate of lime. Good implements 
come in aid of good methods of cultiva- 
tion. Mr. Thomas has eight or nine of 
Howard's iron ploughs — both light and 
heavy — iron harrows to match the ploughs, 
a cultivator to stir the earth, a grubber to 
gather weeds, half a dozen drills, manure 



distributors, and horse-hoes, a clod-crusher, 
a heavy stone-roller, a haymaking-machine, 
and horse-rakes. Reaping-machines are 
to follow. To deal with the crops, a fixed 
steam-engine, under the care of a plough- 
boy, puts in motion the compendious barn 
machinery we have already described, 
which threshes, dresses, and divides the 
corn according to its quality, and raises the 
straw into the loft, and the grain into the 
granary, besides working a chaff-cutter, a 
bean-splitter, a cake-crusher, and stones 
for grinding corn or linseed. With ma- 
chinery no large barn is required in the 
English climate ; the corn can remain in 
the rick until required for market. About 
twenty men and thirty trained boys, under 
an aged chief, are constantly employed. 

No land is here lost by unnecessary 
fences ; no food is wasted on ill-bred live- 
stock ; no fertility is consumed by weeds ; 
no time or labour is thrown away. One 
crop prepares the way for another, and 
the wheeled plough, under the charge of 
a man or boy, follows quick upon the 
footsteps of the reaper. The sheep stock 
is kept up to perfection of form by retain- 
ing only the best-shaped ewe-lambs, and 
hiring or buying the best South-down 
rams. The profit of keeping first-class 
stock was proved at the Christmas market 
of 1856, when twenty-five pure Down 
shearlings, of twenty months old, which 
were sold by auction at Hitchin, made an 
average of 41. 8s. each, being nearly double 
the usual weight. The large produce, 
whether in corn or meat, is the result of a 
system the very converse of that practised 
by the Belgia*n peasant proprietor, or 
French metayer, whose main object is to 
feed his family, and avoid every possible 
payment in cash. As for laying out six- 
pence on manure, or cattle food for making 
manure, no such notion ever crosses the 
minds of those industrious, hard-living 
peasants, and the diminution in the means 
of subsistence in consequence is almost 
past calculation. He who puts most into 
the land, and gets most out of it, is the 
true farmer. The bad cultivator gives lit- 
tle, and receives accordingly. 

When the Central Farmers' Club dis- 
cussed the advantage of returning to the 
plan of more frequent corn ciops, which 
before the days of artificial manures was 
found to be utterly ruinous, the then chair- 
man said that he ' had for several years 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



535 



taken a crop of wheat every other year; 
and that on such soil as that of his farm, 
as long as he manured accordingly, he 
considered that he was not using the land 
(one-half of which is his own freehold) un- 
fairly.' This Weald of Sussex farm shall 
be our third example; and we adduce it 
to show what may be done with the most 
intractable class of retentive soils. A few 
years ago it was divided into enclosures of 
from four to eight acres each by broad 
hedge-rows, many of them with ditches on 
both sides. It was among the evils of 
these small enclosures that they facilitated 
the old make-shift plan of draining by 
surface furrows to shallow sub-drains of 
bushes, because the water had not far to 
run. A partial cure postpones completer 
remedies. In the numerous hedges, ac- 
cording to the custom of the country, the 
landlord grew oak timber and the tenant 
underwood for fuel and for mending fences. 
Before railways had made coal cheaper 
than hedgerow cuttings, the labourers were 
employed in line weather during the winter 
in trimming the hedges, and clearing out 
furrows and ditches ; in wet weather they 
retreated to a large barn and threshed out 
wheat or oats with a flail, in a damp at- 
mosphere the most unfavourable for the 
condition of the corn, and a time of the 
year most convenient for pilfering it. The 
usual course of cropping was — 1, fallow ; 
2, wheat ; 3, oats ; 4, seeds. The seed 
crops were fed until the beginning of June 
with all the stock of the farm, and then 
broken up for a bare fallow with a wooden 
turnwrist plough. The crops were about 
twenty bushels of wheat per acre once in 
four years, about forty-eight bushels of 
oats the year following, and hay and seeds 
in the third year. The stock consisted of 
about twenty-five cows, and ten young 
beasts, which were sold half-fat. The 
horses ploughed four at a time in a line, 
and were usually the plumpest animals on 
farm. Sheep there were none, nor was it 
believed possible to keep them without 
Down feed. Lime was the only manure 
purchased, and hay the only winter food. 
The present owner and farmer of Ockley 
Manor, after travelling through England 
to study the best specimen of modern 
tenant-farming, began by reducing a hun- 
dred enclosures to twenty, and by borrowing 
enough money from the public loan to 
drain the whole of his clays, the stiffest 



imaginable, three feet six inches deep. 
He would have preferred four feet deep, 
but the expense lopped off six inches. This 
indispensable preliminary process enables 
him to grow roots and keep a large stock 
of Southdown sheep on his clovers and 
seeds, with plenty of cake, running them 
on the land almost all the year round. To 
assist in disintegrating the drained clay he 
avails himself of ' Warne's box-feeding' 
system, manufacturing a large quantity of 
long straw-dung, which, when ploughed 
in, exercises a mechanical as well as a fer- 
tilizing effect. 

There are three modes of feeding cattle 
in use — open yards, stalls, and boxes. 
Well-built yards are surrounded by sheds 
for shelter, the open space is dish-shaped, 
thinly sprinkled with earth, and thickly 
covered with straw, which is renewed from 
time to time as the cattle trample it into 
manure. The roofs of all the surrounding 
buildings are provided with gutters, and 
the rain is carried into underground drains. 
The liquid manure is pumped back upon 
the prepared dung-heaps. These yards 
are attached to all root-feeding farms, and 
by their appearance and the quality of the 
cattle fed in them a fair opinion may be 
formed of the management of the tenant. 
In stalls the cattle are tied by the head 
under cover, with more or less straw un- 
der them according to the proportion of 
arable land. On the ' box system' each 
beast is penned in a separate compartment 
under cover, and supplied from day to day 
with just as much straw as will cover the 
solids and absorb the liquid dung. By the 
time the beast is fat his cell is full of solid 
well fermented manure, of the most valua- 
ble description for clay land. The cattle, 
whether in yards, stables, or boxes, and 
all are often to be found on the same farm, 
ought to be bountifully fed w T ith sliced or 
pulped roots mixed with chaff, hay, oil- 
cake, linseed, or corn. The extra buildings 
make boxes the most expensive plan, but 
in no way do the animals thrive better, 
and where there is an ample supply of 
straw it is the most advantageous method 
of manufacturing manure. Box-feeding 
affords one more instance of the antiquity 
of many modern agricultural practices. 
In Sir John Sinclaii's 'Statistical Survey 
of Scotland,' published 1795, we read that 
in the Shetland Island of Unst, 'The 
method of preserving manure is by leav- 



536 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



ing it to accumulate in the beast-house 
under the cattle, mixed with layers of 
grass and short heather, till the beasts 
cannot enter. When the house is full the 
dung is spread over the fields.' Doubtless 
the islanders of Unst found, in their damp 
climate, that dung collected out of doors 
lost all its fertilizing value. At Ockley 
farm, with the assistance of the grass-land, 
from one hundred to one hundred and 
twenty of the best class of Sussex, or De- 
vons, or Scots, are fattened every year in 
boxes, built cheaply enough of the timber 
from the condemned hedgerows, interlaced 
with furze and plastered with Sussex mud. 
Though not very sumptuous externally, 
they are warm and well ventilated. Twen- 
ty Alderney cows eat up what the fat cattle 
leave on the pastures (each cow being 
tethered), and supply first-class butter for 
Brighton — a market which requires the 
best description of farm produce. In 
manufacturing districts quantity pays the 
grazier or dairyman the best, in fashiona- 
ble quarters quality. Eight hundred fat 
Down sheep and lambs, and about eighty 
pigs, which are sold off cheaply in the 
shape of what is popularly called • dairy- 
fed pork,' complete the animal results on 
this Weald of Sussex farm. 

On four hundred and fifty acres devoted 
to arable cultivation wheat is grown every 
alternate year, at the rate of from forty 
to forty*eight bushels per acre. The sheep 
and lambs, which get fat on the clover or 
other seeds, assisted by cake, prepare the 
soil for the alternate corn crops, and have 
doubled the original produce. The roots 
fatten the cattle in boxes, and, while they 
are growing ripe for the butcher, they 
manufacture the long straw manure, which 
both enriches the tenacious soil, and by its 
fermentation assists to break it up. Space, 
light, and air have been gained by clearing 
away huge fences, which, besides their 
other evils, harboured hundreds of corn- 
consuming vermin. By these and such-like 
methods, all novelties in Sussex, the pro- 
duce of the farm has in ten years been 
trebled, and the condition of the soil in- 
calculably improved ; and all would have 
been vain, and much of it impossible, 
without the adoption of deep, thorough 
gridiron drainage. This has done in the 
Weald of Sussex clay what sheep-feeding 
and drill-husbandry did for the warrens of 
Norfolk, the sands of Bedford, and the 



Downs of Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. The 
result, however, is not so satisfactory in a 
profitable point of view as in light land 
counties, because, as Talpa has shown in 
his 'Annals of a Clay Farm,' it is almost 
impossible on a retentive soil, with any 
paying number of horses, to get through 
more than one-third of the ploughing be- 
lore winter sets in, with its rain and snow. 
The cultivators of the farms which from 
their natural fertility in dry seasons were 
in favour for centuries, while what are now 
our finest corn-growing- districts were 
Moorland deserts, are often beaten by 
time, prevented as they are by the wet 
from getting on the land, and obliged to 
work slowly with three or four horses. 
Yet on autumnal cultivation depends the 
security of the root-crops — and the root- 
crops are like the agricultural ' Tortoise' 
of Indian mythology, the basis on which 
rests the rent-paying corn crop. Much, 
therefore, as deep drainage has done for 
advanced farmers, on retentive clays, it 
has not done enough, and they look 
anxiously forward for the time when a 
perfect steam cultivator will make them 
independent of animal power, and enable 
them, if needful, to work night as well as 
day during every hour of dry weather. 



Sugar— Theory of High Prices. 

The high prices which have ruled for 
sugar in the last few years have develop- 
ed some singular circumstances in rela- 
tion to production. It seems to have been 
the case, judging from the results in the 
countries of largest consumption — United 
States, Great Britain, and France — that 
the usual influence of high prices in di- 
minishing production, has not been felt in 
sugar, since the consumption has been 
rather increased than otherwise. Thus 
1852 was the low year for sugar, New 
Orleans (in New York) averaging then 
$4.84, and Havana brown $5.75. Prices 
continued to rise, with some fluctuations, 
all over the world, until 1857 New Orleans 
sugar in New York was $9.04, and Ha- 
vana $9.69. These prices indicate the 
rise all over the world, nevertheless, the 
consumption of cane sugar in the three 
countries named was in 1852, 707,000, 
and in 1857 it was 802,000. Thus, at 
prices nearly doubled the consumption was 
greater, apparently, though an immense 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



537 



fall has since taken place, involving much 
loss and heavy failure in the trade all 
over the world. The value of the sugar 
consumed in the three countries in 1852, 
was $77,000,000, and in 1857 $160,000,- 
000. This fact is at variance with the 
theory that high prices diminish consump- 
tion. They do so, no doubt, in some de- 
gree, but the mere advance iri the figures 
for the sale of an article does not really 
(constitute a higher price — the real price 
consists in the relative ability of the buy- 
ers. In a time of activity of trade and 
mproved general business, the ability of 
all consumers to purchase necessaries and 
comforts is greater, and they do so if the 
price is higher than it formerly was. In 
the case of sugar, which is always an ac- 
companiment to other articles, the de- 
mand for it depends upon those other ar- 
ticles. The Island of Cuba is the largest 
consuming country in the world, because 
its natural and spontaneous supply of fruit 
is immense, and sugar added to these for 
preserves becomes an important item of 
food. So in the Northern United States, 
the consumption of sugar depends very 
much upon the suppl}* of fruits, peaches, 
strawberries, &c, for which it is the cus- 
tom of every family to preserve quantities 
every year. When these are abundant 
and cheap, the price of the sugar is far 
less an object than when they are scarce 
and dear. Thus, a basket of peaches 
weighs about 50 lbs., which will be reduc- 
ed to 20 lbs. when ready for the sugar, 
which is used pound for pound. In some 
years a basket of peaches can be had for 
50c. ; in others $5 are given. If sugar is 
5c. and peaches are 50c, the 20 lbs. of 
Dreserves will cost 50c. for the former and 
$1 for the latter. At the higher prices 
'or the peaches the cost will be $5 for the 
ruit and $1 for the sugar, but when the 
'ruit is dear the sugar is obviously likely 
o be cheap, and the reverse. It follows 
hat the condition of the fruit crop has an 
mportani relation to the consumption of 
ugar, whatever may be its price. The 
ise of coffee or tea, in greater or less 
[uantities, has also a great influence, and 
ot a less important one is the use of that 
irticle in drinks of wine or spirits, all of 
vhich are affected by other causes than 
he price of sugar. It follows that the ex- 
ended use of any and all of these arti- 
cles throughout Europe and America, 



makes rapid demands upon the supply of 
sugar. In Germany, in particular, where 
until very recentl}' the use of sugar was 
hardly known among the masses of the 
people, the custom was, instead of putting 
sugar in the drinks, to hold a piece of 
hard candy in the mouth while drinking. 
With the improved condition of the peo- 
ple, this habit changes to the American 
custom. The use of sour salads and 
sauces in Germany in some degree sup- 
plied the want of sweets, and the custom 
is changing. The whole consumption is, 
therefore, rapidly outrunning the supply 
of cane sugar, of which the production is 
everywhere closely restricted by the want 
of labour. In all sugar-raising countries 
the cry goes up for labour. The British 
West Indies have been confessedly ruined 
for the want of it. The demand for it in 
Cuba has fed the slave trade in spite of 
all efforts to restrain it. A rise in the 
value of a hhd. of sugar is always an ex- 
tra premium for a hand. The Brazils 
have almost abandoned sugar raising for 
want of hands. The Mauritius and Re- 
union lost large quantities of cane last 
year, because there were no hands to har- 
vest. In Louisiana the effect of the same 
cause is self-evident. The use of beet- 
root sugar is not amenable to the same 
difficulties. It is as good a paying crop 
as the farmer can have, and is not restrict- 
ed for want of labour. Sorghum will not 
produce sugar profitably, but it will distill 
to greater profit than beet-root, leaving 
that article free for sugar making. Chem- 
istry is, however, busy with a new effort 
at transmutation, with much promise of 
success. The famous chemist, M. Bra- 
connet, of Nancy, has succeeded by the 
help of sulphuric acid in transmuting cer- 
tain woods, straw, hemp, and flax, into 
sugar, pound for pound, but not of a qual- 
ity that will granulate. There is every 
hope from what has been done that science 
may yet enable a housekeeper to fill his 
sugar bowl from his old straw beds, and 
convert the baskets in which fruit has 
been kept into sugar to preserve them ! 

U. S. Economist. 



A large number of American oaks 
have been planted on the Quai de Tuile- 
ries, Paris, and are flourishing. 



538 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



From the British Farmers' 1 Magazine. 

Vegetable Physiology. 
Professor Henfrey of King's College, Lon- 
don, delivered before the Weekly Council of 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England the 
following lecture on Vegetable Physiology, in 
reference to the kinds, races, and organs of 
plants: 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

In preparing to execute the task with 
which you have honored me, I felt consid- 
erable difficulty from the peculiar circum- 
stances of the case. The occasional lec- 
tures which have been delivered in this 
room have been for the most part given 
with a view to promote practical agricul- 
. ture, and they have had a more peculiar 
interest here from the circumstance that 
these experiments have generally been 
undertaken at the instigation of the Soci- 
ety. Now, scientific men, called upon at 
short notice, are not always in a position 
to furnish new facts or new conclusions, 
or to bring forward series of researches 
Avhich are capable of practical application. 
In my own case, my recent work has been 
devoted especially to subjects whose ap- 
plication to science, or whose relation to 
science is at present remote, and in fact 
to subjects which are so abstract that they 
scarcely admit of popular treatment: I 
was therefore thrown more on the general 
subject. Here again a certain difficulty 
met me in the circumstance that vegeta- 
ble physiology may be said to be still in 
its infancy. Hence it is in possession 
only of a few well-established generaliza- 
tions, and these are too well known and 
too commonplace to form the subject of a 
lecture ; while the objects of its present 
activity consist chiefly of questions still in 
a state of debate, overloaded with unclass- 
ed, unsatisfactory, and even contradictory 
evidence, the attempt to discuss which 
could only have led to a kind of contro- 
versial thesis. It appeared to me, there- 
fore, better, especially in consideration of 
circumstances to which I shall presently 
allude, to occupy your time with a few il- 
lustrations of the nature and objects of the 
science of vegetable physiology itself, se- 
lecting these illustrations, as far as possi- 
ble, from departments of the subject which 
either do at present or hereafter may ad- 
mit of a practical application. The cir- 
cumstance to which I have just alluded as 



especially influencing me in the tendenc 
or the direction of agricultural physiolog 
of late years — the tendency which rath< 
leaves vegetable physiology, properly s 
called, in the back-ground. Jf we loc 
back for a few years at the literature • 
agricultural science, we find that tr. 
works which have made most impressio] 
those which have been most valuable, an 
are best known, have been written b 
chemists. I need scarcely allude to th 
works of Liebig and Mulder; even in tb 
writings of Boussingault, and of Law* 
and Gilbert, vegetable physiology, prope; 
ly so called, has been recognised ; still th 
vital qualities of plants have been rathe 
looked upon as secondary consideratioc 
than as primary. The chemistry of th 
subject has been that which has principal 
ly occupied attention. Far from com 
plaining of this, far from regarding it as 
mistake, I regard it as desirable, inevita 
ble, if we would make secure progress 
because vegetable physiology does reall; 
depend upon chemistry for some of it 
most important materials. Vegetable phy 
siology is not merely organic chemistry 
but organic chemistry is required to ad 
vance to a certain degree of perfection 
before we have the material upon whicl 
vegetable physiology, properly so called 
can work. It is hardly necessary to re 
mind you of the views which have beei 
entertained by those who have presse 
the chemical theory of physiology too far 
with the notion that the life of plants o 
animals consisted merely in a successior 
of chemical changes. Such a view car 
only be entertained by those who take ar 
extremely one-sided view of the subject 
The old illustration of the duck's egg am 
the hen's egg are sufficient to show thai 
there is something more than chemistry 
in the difference of species, and the same 
argument may be carried throughout al! 
the details of life, throughout the whole 
phenomena of organization. Chemists 
will scarcely be able to distinguish, by any 
means belonging exclusively to the che- 
mist, between the germ of the hen and 
the duck ; but in those germs, undistin- 
guishable from one another, lies the ener- 
gy which results in the product of a total- 
ly different organization. The line of ar-. 
gument thus illustrated shows at once that 
we must, in order to cultivate vegetable 
physiology, advance a step beyond the 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



539 



mere examination of chemical conditions 
and changes, and take into account the 
phenomena of life. The phenomena of 
life as regards plants may be called the 
phenomena of organization — that is, the 
phenomena presented by the conversion 
of mineral or dead matter into organs. — 
Now, the difference between organs and 
substances — those parts or constituents 
which distinguish live things from mineral 
or dead substances — lies in the circum- 
stance, that while in substances we have 
what we may call merely qualities, in the 
organs we have what are called functions. 
The qualities are, as it were, passive cha- 
racteristics ; and functions are active cha- 
racteristics — manifestations of constant, or 
at all events, periodical activity, in the 
presence or manifestations of which we i the Ivy in November, the flowering of the 
distinguish the force which we call the vi- Hellebore or Christmas Rose in January, 
tal force. This continued activity, more and so on, as contrasted with the summer 



ferent from that of -the majority of plants 
in this climate ; the particular irritability 
there denotes its constitution; it is the con- 
stitution of the plant which causes it to 
pass through these changes under differ- 
ent conditions from other plants, scarcely 
distinguishable probably in the majority of 
their characters. There is nothing known, 
and probably nothing to be known, in the 
case of Chickweel, to distinguish it che- 
mically from many other common weeds, 
but it is the peculiarity of the constitution 
of that species, that it passes through these 
changes under different conditions. Abun- 
dant illustrations of these peculiarities 
might be readily furnished, with which it 
is scarcely worth while to take up your 
time: for instance, the late flowering: of 



or less independent of external causes 
resulting in continued or periodical change, 
is the sign of the existence of this vital 
force — that force whose laws form the 
subject of vegetable physiology. The 
collective functions of a plant or animal 
constitute its life. I will now confine my- 



and autumn flowers, forming the great 
mass of our native and cultivated vegeta- 
tion. These peculiarities of constitution 
are not entirely explicable by the view 
which has been taken by some authors, that 
plants are dependent for their growth upon 
a certain supply of heat given to them. — 
self to the consideration of the life of j Some years ago M. Boussingault publish- 
plants, consisting in the performance of'ed some interesting researches, in which 
their collective functions by the different i he showed that many plants, especially 
organs. Now, these functions collective- j cultivated plants, required a certain sum 
ly constituting the life, exhibit what we | of heat for their perfect development; — 



call the constitution. When we say that 
a plant has a particular constitution, we 
mean that it performs its functions in a 
particular wa}\ It is to the examination 
of the constitution not only of plants, but 
of the organs or parts of plants, to which 
vegetable physiology has especially to di- 
rect its attention; and I wish to day briefly 
to indicate some points of importance in 
regard to this subject — the constitution of 
plants or their organs. 

In the first place, I would direct atten- 
tion to the phenomena illustrating the ex- 
istence of constitutions in species or kinds 
of plants. The phenomena which prove 
these are familiar to every one. Every 
one knows, for example, that Chickweed 
flowers in the winter season, when the 
great proportion of the plants growing in 
this country are unable not only to form a 
flower or seed, but even to put forth their 
leaves. The irritability (to use a some- 
what hypothetical expression) or the vital 



that between the time of the germination 
of the seed and the ripening of the fruit, 
or the production of the grain, the plant 
required to receive a certain amount of 
heat. He measured this heat by taking 
the daily mean temperature and multiply- 
ing it by the number of days, and he found 
that the plants received pretty nearly the 
same amount of heat in very different cli- 
mates. Where the heat was g. eater the 
plant was perfected in a smaller number 
of days ; where the heat was less a great- 
er number of days was required. For in- 
stance, in Alsace, where his own property 
was situated, he found that Barley would 
be perfected in ninety-two days, where 
there was an average temperature of 19 
deg. of the French thermometer, giving a 
total of 1,748 deg. He then obtained the 
Date from Cumbal, situated under the 
equator, where the plant was grown be- 
tween June and November, instead of be- 
tween May and August ; the daily tempe- 



activity of this plant is evidently very dif- rature was there (it being in the colder 



540 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



season) between 10 and 11 degrees, and 
168 days were required for the perfecting 
of the plant, giving a total result of 1,797 
degs. In many cases the numbers came 
out very satisfactorily for this hypothesis, 
showing that the plants required a certain 
sum of heat, and that that heat might be 
given in small proportions during a large 
number of days, or in higher proportions 
in a small number of days. However, 
there were many important exceptions to 
this rule, those depending on certain mat- 
ters of detail which were overlooked in 
the first experiments. For instance, Bous- 
singault did not pay attention to the omis- 
sion of useless heat. Many plants do not 
move at certain temperatures, even far 
above the freezing point. No plant, pro- 
bably, will vegetate or perform any of its 
vital functions under the freezing point ; 
many require several degrees above freez- 
ing point before they begin to start into 
life. That must be ascertained in each 
individual plant before we can calculate 
the useful heat which it receives, as we 
must omit all degrees below the point at 
which the plant moves. Then it is impor- 
tant to take into account the temperature 
of the soil, upon which the development 
of plants very greatly depends. We have 
no more striking illustration of that than 
was furnished by the records of last year, 
when the temperature of the soil in this 
country was found far above the average 
during the later months, the result of 
which was the flowering and even the ri- 
pening of seed in many plants, which very 
rarely perfect their fruit in this country. 
Though the consideration of the constitu- 
tion of many plants may be reduced prac-j 
tically to a consideration of the climate — j 
the supply of heat varying with the length' 
of time during which the plants grow — 
still there are limits to these conditions. 
Supposing the calculations to be carried 
out with the precautions to which I have 
just referred, there are certain limits be- 
yond which they cannot be admissible. — 
Over-supplies of heat do not produce the 
same results in a shorter time, but produce 
disease ; and cold below a certain tempe- 
ture will prevent the performance of the 
vital functions at all. It is well known 
that in the Feroe islands and in Iceland 
the amount of heat is never sufficient to 
produce the ripening of the seed of grain, 
even though the vegetation of the plant 



be prolonged to a much greater extent than 
in this climate ; there is not a sufficient 
stimulus ever given to the plant, so that 
the natives are obliged to import their 
seed, though they grow the grain year 
after year. Again, we may note the infor- 
mation furnished by travellers in regard 
to vegetation on the island of Madeira. — 
There, in the season when the mean tem- 
perature approaches that of our own sum- 
mer, our Beech looses its leaves and re- 
mains without them for 149 days ; the Oak 
remains without its leaves 110 days, the 
Vine 157 days. The Vine again affords 
an example of the noxious results of ex- 
cessive heat, because in climates near the 
equator the plant scarcely produces fruit, 
or only fruit of a very imperfect charac- 
ter, running awa}' to vegetation, and los- 
ing those qualities for which it is most 
valued. The constitution of particular 
kinds of plants is a subject of great im- 
portance both to the agriculturist and the 
horticulturist, and its practical influence 
has strongly attracted attention in those 
valuable experiments which have been 
carried on at Rothamsted by Messrs. 
Lawes and Gilbert. There they have 
found most important differences, not only 
between such plants as Turnips and Grain 
crops, but also differences of constitution 
between Barley and Wheat — plants be- 
longing to the same natural families, and 
differing (scientifically speaking) only in 
slight peculiarities from each other. 

We cannot doubt the existence of this 
peculiar constitution in species of plants. 
But going a step beyond this, we find that 
individual plants have their constitutions, 
and the result of this variation within the 
limits of particular species is to produce 
plants having characters considerably dif- 
ferent from each other, and yet referable 
all to the same specific type. Species of 
plants are subject to variations according 
to external conditions, variations which 
not only affect their structure, but declare 
themselves in a difference in constitution. 
Some of these diffetences of constitution 
are transmissible, as also the differences 
in the details of the minor parts of their 
organization. The preservation of pecu- 
liarities of this kind, transmitted through 
generations, results in the formation of 
what are called races of plants. When 
we see a variation of species, a particular 
modification, falling within the specific 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



541 



type, which presents desirable qualities in 
regard to structure or constitution, we en- 
deavour to preserve it, and cultivation is, 
to a great extent, devoted to the preserva- 
tion, the continuance and improvement of 
races established in this way. It is be- 
cause the constitution of these variations 
of the original form is favourable that we 
endeavour to preserve them ; and when 
we have firmly fixed these peculiarities in 
a series of forms, generation after genera- 
tion, we have produced a "race." The 
varieties on which these races are found- 
ed may perhaps be attributable, in the first 
instance, to physical conditions ; these 
conditions may have produced the origi- 
nal modification from which the race takes 
its character. By this I would not admit, 
for a moment, that the external conditions 
may transform one species, properly so 
called, into another ; but every species has 
a certain range of differences, and exter- 
nal conditions may call out one or other 
of these modifications under particular 
circumstances. I think it probable that 
most variations of particular species may 
have been produced by external conditions 
in the first instance; it is true also that 
the external conditions have great influ- 
ence in preserving these characters in 
races ; but we find that in old-established 
races the character is preserved with a 
certain obstinacy in spite of external con- 
ditions, and that the running back or re- 
verting of such races is slow. The races 
which are cultivated chiefly in this coun- 
try — races of Wheat, plants belonging to 
the Cabbage tribe, Turnips, Cauliflower, 
and so on — are most of them very old, 
and we have little information as regards 
their origin. Gardeners prosecute this 
part of cultivation — the formation of races 
— very actively ; and with florists espe- 
cially the production and establishment of 
races is one of the most important depart- 
ments of their art, being as important to 
them as the importation and introduction 
of new species. They obtain these diffe- 
rent races by sowing large quantities of 
seed, selecting the specimens which come 
up of the form which they require, saving 
these alone, and repeating the process 
generation after generation, getting rid of 
all the forms which are most like the orig- 
inal parent. It has been observed by cul- 
tivators that there are certain peculiarities 
in the product of these successive sowings, 



which can scarcely be called unexpected, 
because we see the same thing illustrated 
in the races of animals and even in the 
human race. Two general rules are de- 
rived by gardeners from the observation 
of the phenomena presented in this pro- 
duction of races by successive sowings. — 
The first is that like produces like. They 
save the seed only of the variation which 
they wish to preserve, and the probability 
is that it will produce like. This, how- 
ever, is by no means certain, as every one 
knows. The seed of any variety produces 
a great number of varieties, of which only 
a part are like the immediate parent. It 
is found that there is a tendency for seve- 
ral generations to run back to some of the 
former generations, in contradistinction to 
the rule that like produces like, and this 
is called by physiologists atavism, or a 
"taking after" their ancestors. M. Vil- 
morin, a distinguished Belgian florist, 
thinks that the best way of breaking this 
tendency to run back to the ancestral type 
— to take after their grandfathers or great 
grandfathers, instead of their fathers-— is 
to select for a number of generations those 
forms which are least like the original pa- 
rent ; to get the forms as far as possible 
away from the original type, in the first 
instance, before proceeding to select the 
absolute form which is required. After a 
certain number of generations, however, 
of course, this atavism will begin to act 
on the same side as the tendency of like 
to produce like. If we get a number of 
generations of the race resembling one 
another generation after generation, of 
course the tendency to go back to the an- 
cestors will not tend to alter the plant, be- 
cause it will have a long line of similar 
ancestors before it, where it will not find 
the differences which it did in the original 
case. From this it follows that the older 
a race is, the more it is fixed. If a par- 
ticular form has a long line of similar an- 
cestors, the tendency to run back to the 
form of its ancestors co-operates with the 
tendency to be like its immediate parent ; 
both these work to the same end, and the 
practical deduction is that races recently 
established have little or no fixity ; that 
the older a race is, the more firmly and 
surely its peculiarities are fixed. We have 
illustrations of this in the human race, and 
amongst the most striking may be men- 
tioned the Jewish race, undoubtedly one 



542 



TllE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



of the most ancient, in which we see fixi- 
ty so strikingly marked under such very 
different external conditions. In this sec- 
ond part of my discourse I have directed 
attention to the importance of physiology 
in reference to races. The subject of races 
is one which belongs particularly to physi- 
ology as distinguished from organic chem- 
istry ; as also does the constitution of spe- 
cies or kinds of plants, of which I have 
previously spoken. 

The third head of my lecture has refe- 
rence to the constitution of particular or- 
gans. No organ, perhaps, is of more in- 
terest in this respect, or presents a greater 
variety of conditions, having relation to 
practice, than the root. It is very much 
the case with those who take merely a 
chemical view of physiology, to regard the 
root as a kind of absorbing machine, as a 
process of prolongation of the structure 
into the soil (serving like the lower part 
of the wick of a lamp) to absorb the nour- 
ishment contained in the soil. Such a 
view as this is a very partial view of the 
nature of the root, and leaves out of con- 
" sideration the most important of its physi- 
ological characters. In the first place, 
roots are very different in their kinds. — 
We have tw r o kinds of roots among the 
flowering plants, examples of which occur 
among commonly cultivated plants. We 
have roots such as are produced by the 
turnip, by the bean, and various legumi- 
nous plants; and we have roots produced 
by the different kinds of grass and grain 
plants, where there is an original differ- 
ence in the structure, a difference depend- 
ing on the modes in which they first sprout 
from their seed. One class produces a 
large root ; the class to which the turnip 
and bean belong produces a main trunk, a 
continuation of the lower part of the stem, 
from which the different absorbing branch- 
es are given off as the branches are from 
the trunk above. In the grass and corn 
plants there is never any main trunk of 
that kind produced, but a variable number 
of fibres or filaments thrown out from the 
bottom of the stem, as we see from the 
bottom of a Hyacinth bulb when growing 
in a glass. The number of these and their 
vigour depend greatly upon the stimulus 
applied 10 the plant at the base of the 
stem when the roots are sprouting. The 
number is not fixed in any given plant ; 
it varies to a great extent in proportion to 



the supply of food furnished to the plant. 
But when developed in either ol these 
ways, plants do not all send their roots at 
once into the soil to absorb the food in the 
same way. We have ordinary plants 
growing down into the soil; then we have 
a large class growing in water ; and in ad- 
dition to these there are others which 
never make their way into the earth or 
into the water, but are supplied by the 
moisture contained in a damp atmosphere. 
Considerable difference must necessarily 
exist in the way in which these plants ab- 
sorb their food ; and not only is this the 
case, but we have plants which do not 
absorb their food from the soil or from any 
mineral sources. For example, we do not 
unfrequently find Clover fields in this 
country infested by a vegetable parasite, 
of which the plant before me is a speci- 
men, having brownish withered-looking 
stalks apparently destitute of leaves (the 
leaves being represented by scales), and 
terminating in pale brawnish flowers. — 
These flowers are as perfect as that garden 
Snapdragon, or the Foxglove, to which 
they are nearly allied, and they produce 
seed as perfectly as ordinary plants with 
proper leaves and well-developed struc- 
tures. This plant will be seen to be firmly 
attached to the clover — indeed when the 
sections are placed under a microscope 
the two structures are found to be organi- 
cally connected. The germination of these 
plants has been observed. When the 
seeds are sown they sprout in the ordinary 
way ; but if they do not find a plant of the 
kind upon which they are naturally para- 
sitic, they wither away; if they find a 
plant of the kind in the neighbourhood 
they send their slender rootlets into the 
root of the plant which they are about to 
infest, and very soon the structures be- 
comes completely grafted, after which the 
plant derives the whole of its nourish- 
ment from the root of the plant which it 
has attacked. Not only have these plants 
a particular constitution, but they infest 
particular species or groups. This small 
Broom (Orobanche minor) infests Clover, 
another kind infests Ivy, another kind in- 
fests bed-straw ; six or eight different spe- 
cies are known to botanists of this coun- 
try, and many more in foreign countries. 
This plant is an illustration of a peculiari- 
ty in the constitution of roots upon which 
depends the peculiarity of the entire plant. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



543 



It is a plant interesting to agriculturist, not ' 
on account of any beneficial results, but 
on account of the mischief it does. I 
have also here a specimen of the Dodder 
(Cuscuta), which has been so mischievous 
occasionally also in Clover fields, particu- 
larly in Norfolk. The plant has flowers 
like the Convolvulus on a small scale ; it 
belong to the family of the Convolvulacece, 
the same family to which belongs another 
pest, the Bearbind. This plant forms per- 
fect seeds like the seeds of the Convol- 
vulus, and the flowers are, in all respects, 
as complete as the flowers of that plant. 
When the seeds fall to the ground they 
germinate like ordinary seeds, they stretch 
out along the ground in a little narrow 
wire-like process, and if that does not 
meet with a clover plant it dies; but if it 
finds the clover plant, it makes its way to 
it, and the older part of the original root 
soon withers away. The part of the stem 
which is attached to the clover produces 
little papillae or peg-like processes of a 
delicate structure, which drive their way 
into the tissue of the stalk of the clover. 
The plant derives the whole of its nourish- 
ment, after the first early epoch of its 
growth, from the juices of the plant which 
it infests ; the plants are entirely parasitic. 
But the modifications of parasitism by 
means of roots are not exhausted by such 
plants as broomrapes and dodders ; for we 
have others which are imperfectly para- 
sitic, and which have in this kind of para- 
sitism a distinct constitution. Of these 
are the weeds often found in pastures, 
called the Eye-bright, the Yellow-rattles, 
and some others. I have before me a 
specimen of a Thesium, a plant also be- 
longing to this class, which is rather rare 
in this country. The roots at first attach 
themselves to other plants like the broom- 
rapes. A careful examination shows little 
suckers or disc-like processes upon the 
roots; but when the plant obtains a cer- 
tain degree of vigour it ceases to be para- 
sitic, it ceases to depend upon the nurse, 
throws up a stem, becomes covered with 
green leaves, and provides for its own 
sustenance. The Mistletoe is an example 
of parasite where the root ceases to exist 
at a very early stage of growth. When 
it germinates it produces a rootlet like anv 
other seed. It attaches itself to the 
branches of the trees it infests by the vis- 
cid gummy or mucilaginous matter sur- 



rounding the seed. If it falls upon an old 
branch covered with a corky bark it will 
germinate, but nothing more ; but if it falls 
upon a young shoot covered merely by a 
delicate thin rind and sticks there, when it 
begins to germinate the lower part of the 
stem spreads out to a kind of disc, and 
from the centre. This the little rootlet 
penetrates through the spongy parts be- 
neath the bark, making its way to the 
cambium, where the new growth of the 
nurse-plant will take place, so that the 
seedling is brought exactly to the same 
condition as a bud when it is grafted on 
the stock in the ordinary operations of 
gardening; an organic connection is set 
up, the tissues become vitally connected, 
and the plant becomes, as it were, a branch 
of the nurse-plant, and no longer produces 
any root structure. Still, though it has no 
root, unlike the broomrapes to which I 
have adverted, it does produce green 
leaves ; even its stem becomes green ; and 
it decomposes oxygen; therefore, though 
it does not absorb its own food, it per- 
forms some part of the processes of vege- 
tation, and takes a share in the elabora- 
tion of the food. There are interesting 
cases of peculiar constitution in plants, 
manifesting themselves in peculiar vital 
qualities, as they may be fairly called, in 
the roots. It certainly must be regarded 
as a vital peculiarity in these plants that 
they attach themselves in this way not 
merely to other plants, but to other par- 
ticular parts and even to particular species 
of plants. 

In preparing this lecture, I have noted 
down in regard to this subject some facts 
and conclusions as to the functions of roots 
generally in reference to the supposed 
phenomena of choice. The above are 
illustrations of what may be called in 
roots a choice of food, and they may be 
taken as serving, in part, as evidence on 
the general question. But we must not 
regard this kind of choice in the same 
way that we regard choice of food in 
man, for example. The plant cannot go 
and seek out what food it pleases, but it 
has a kind of negative choice. It cannot 
grow upon food that is unsuitable ; it must 
have that food which is suited for its oar- 
ticular constitution. If the food is indif- 
ferent, the plant will not grow, but need 
not be absolutely injured. If the food is 
noxious, the plant will be killed by it, but 



544 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



to grow properly it must have food which 
is favourable ; so that we may say there 
is a kind of choice, which, as already re- 
marked, is as it were negative. It has the 
power of refusing to grow unless proper 
food is supplied. That is the only way in 
which we can suppose that plants have 
really a choice. I think this statement is 
sufficient to explain many of the phenom- 
ena which have been brought forward, 
as tending to prove the existence of 
choice food in plants. The circumstance 
that a fair supply of food favourable to 
the plant exists in the soil is sufficient to 
account for the plant possessing abundance 
of that particular substance in its ash, and 
a greater abundance of that substance in 
its ash than another plant whose constitu- 
tion does not require that particular kind 
of food, and which has been well devel- 
oped in a different soil. In addition to 
this refusal to produce organization out of 
unfit food, we have certain phenomena 
which are partly chemical and partly phy- 
sical. The absorption of the root depends 
to a great extent upon what is called en- 
dosmosis — the power of the membrane of 
the rootlets to draw in fluids and solutions 
by which the root is surrounded with a 
certain amount of force, arising in many 
cases simply from the fact that the fluids 
within are denser than those without. 
But decompositions probably take place 
immediately inside the membrane of the 
rootlets, and the decompositions may 
cause differences in the proportional ab- 
sorption of different constitutions of the 
soil. That, however, is rather a specula- 
tive than an assured point. The greater 
part of the absorption of liquid food is de- 
cidedly a mere physical process. Suppo- 
sing the food to be favourable and acces- 
sible, and supposing the proper conditions 
to be fulfilled in the different species, the 
absorption of food is, to a great extent, a 
mere physical process. It is the result of 
the action of endosmosis. If you put a 
solution of gum into a bladder, and place 
that in water, the gum will attract the wa- 
ter with great energy, so that it will swell 
out, and if the proportions are suitable, 
may even burst the bladder. If the pres- 
sure is withstood there may be a filtration 
through the bladder from the tension pro- 
duced bj' - the excess of absorption. Some 
experiments have been recently made by 
the German physiologist, Hofmeister, 



showing that the endosmosis is the princi- 
pal cause of the flow of sap upwards into 
plants. More than 150 years ago Hales 
showed that such sap flowed out from 
plants, especially from the vine in spring, 
with considerable force. His experiments 
with glass tubes containing mercury 
showed that cut branches of the vine 
emitted the sap in spring, at the time of 
what is called the bleeding of the vines, 
with such force as to raise a column of 
mercury equal, in some instances, to an 
atmosphere. The same observation has 
been confirmed by other observers ; and 
Briicke has observed that the force de- 
pends upon the distance of the branch 
from the root — for instance, that a branch 
close to the root would lift 30 inches of 
mercury, while a branch 15 inches above 
the root would only lift half that quantity ; 
so that the branches and the stem acted, 
as it were, like intercommunicating tubes, 
and the pressure was diminished in pro- 
portion to the distance from the roots. 
Hofmeister has gone further than this, and 
has shown that the force lies in the roots. 
By fixing the tubes upon the roots them- 
selves, and in making some experiments 
on the common herbaceous garden plants, 
he has found that the same force exists 
throughout all of them, and throughout all 
seasons, modified by conditions of humid- 
ity of the atmosphere and soil. In one 
experiment on the common foxglove, a 
plant a yard high was cut off near the root, 
and a tube containing mercury, similar to 
a barometer tube, was fixed upon this ; it 
was found that the force of the sap driven 
out from the crown of the root by the ab- 
sorption of water from the surrounding 
soil would raise a column equal to 20 
inches of mercury. Even little seedling 
peas were found to be capable of forcing 
up a column of 1 inch of mercury. The 
structural conditions of the tissue of the 
root all tend to show that these experi- 
ments are worthy of credit; the condi- 
tions of the root are exactly those which 
would favour this endosmosis, and also 
this driving of the fluids upwards in the 
long tubes and canals of the woody tissue, 
when it was filtered out from the absorb- 
ing cells by the tension produced by ex- 
cessive absorption. In these experiments 
a most important difference in the pres- 
sure was found to result from the amount 
of evaporation going on in the leaves 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



545 



above. Where the evaporation was very 
rapid the pressure was removed, and thus 
no tension or gorging of the vessels or 
soils could result. This evaporation is 
important as connected with the influence 
of excessive vegetation in modifying the 
condition of roots. It is well known — it 
is shown by the experiments, I think, of 
most cultivators — that excessive develop- 
ment of the foliage is unfavourable to the 
development to the roots of plants in the 
first instance. We have not only to con- 
sider the different direction of the energy 
of the plant, and the tendency of the 
growth of the foliage itself, but I think 
the rapid evaporation from the leaves may 
cause too quick a flow of the sap through 
the structure, and prevent that elaboration 
which is necessary from taking place in 
the roots. I think all our observations 
hitherto tend to show that a certain amount 
of elaboration does take place in the roots 
themselves, and if there is too rapid a flow 
of the* nutriment absorbed by the roots 
towards the upper part of the plant, there 
is not a sufficient supply of elaborated 
nourishment in the roots,, and w r e get too 
crude a condition of sap in the upper part. 
In the cases of plants cultivated for their 
flowers, we see excessive luxuriance of 
foliage producing an indisposition to flower 
and a throwing back of the whole growth. 
The same thing occurs wherever we pro- 
mote too great luxuriance of foliage in 
grain plants, as when we stimulate wheat 
by excess of nitrogenous manures. There 
is too great a development of vegetative 
structure, and the same supply of climatal 
agency (heat, light) is incapable of thor- 
oughly ripening the seeds. We see the 
same in garden plants, where too rich a 
soil prevents the plants from flowering. 
Almost any common weeds if transplanted 
in a garden will run away and produce 
leaves, and perhaps flowers, but the seeds 
will scarcely ripen ; and even with culti- 
vated plants it is a common practice 
among gardeners to prune the roots, to cut 
off the supplies of nourishment, especially 
by withholding water, and thus cause the 
plant to turn upon itself as it were, and 
elaborate its food rather than devote it to 
the production of new tissues. 

The absorption of food by the roots is 
concerned not only with water, but with 
the most important of the materials out 
of which vegetable structure is formed 
35 



namely, nitrogen. There is little doubt 
that the greater part of the nitrogen con- 
tained in plants is absorbed by their roots. 
All experiments tend in this direction. 
When I say that nitrogen is the most im- 
portant of the substances absorbed by 
plants, that is 1 the conclusion derived from 
both chemical and anatomical investiga- 
tions into the structure of plants. I may 
direct attention to a paper I published in 
the last part of the Society's Journal for 
evidence of the importance of nitroge- 
nous substances, not only in the develop- 
ment of the tissues, but in the formation 
of the secretions or elaborated substances. 
Not only does the examination of the 
structures show this, but experiments with 
manures also thoroughly prove it. That 
nitrogen in excess will do mischief I have 
already stated, because it will produce ex- 
cessive growth and prevent proper elabo- 
ration ; but a certain amount of nitrogen 
is necessary in order to convert what may 
be called the wild plant into a tame one, 
to produce that full development of struc- 
ture which we consider necessary to the 
perfection of the plant. The cultivated 
plant has all its favourable characters more 
fully developed than the wild plant through 
this more abundant supply of food, and 
the most important of the stimuli in this 
food is undoubtedly nitrogen. The recent 
experiments of M. Boussingault on the 
growth of plants with or without nitrogen, 
and with and without phosphate of lime 
in combination, are very interesting in 
this respect. He grew sunflowers — 1st, 
in a mixture of pounded brick and sand, 
carefully purified: 2nd, in the same mix- 
ture with nitrate of potash and phosphate 
of lime added ; and 3rd, in the same brick 
and sand mixture with carbonate of potash 
and phosphate of lime (thus giving the 
alkali and keeping out the nitrogenous 
substances). The plants grown in brick- 
dust and sand, after struggling through a 
few weeks of vegetation, attained only a 
height of six inches, and they produced a 
flower about an inch across ; and the same 
result, with but little -difference, took 
place where the plants were grown in the 
same mixture with phosphate of lime and 
carbonate of potash. The phosphate of 
lime did not enable the plant to go beyond 
this starved condition ; and when the 
whole was analyzed, the plants were found 
to contain little more nitrogen than was 



546 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



originally present in the seeds. They 
were freely exposed to the atmosphere, 
but they were incapable of extracting from 
the atmosphere sufficient nitrogen to do 
much more than to keep them alive. The 
plants, however, in the brick-dust and 
sand, to which not only phosphate of lime 
but nitrate of potash had been added, 
grew between three and four feet high, 
and were equally high, and were as 
healthy and fertile as plants grown in a 
rich garden soil. As an instance of the 
vital powers of the different plants, I may 
cite some figures. The plant in brick- 
dust and sand alone produced, taking 
the seed as one, a dry product of little 
more than three parts ; while the one with 
nitrate of potash and phosphate of lime 
produced 198 parts ; and that of the phos- 
phate of lime and carbonate of potash 
about four parts. The plant in the nitrate 
of potash showed 200 times the quantity 
of nitrogen existing in the others. The 
result of the nitrogen present in the plant 
was shown also in the quantity of carbon 
fixed in the tissues — the substance of 
which the solid structure of the plant is 
chiefly built. The carbon fixed in the 
plant grown in the brick-dust amounted 
to little more than the 1| grain ; in the 
plant grown with the nitrate of potash it 
amounted to 120 grains, or eighty times 
the former. The carbonic acid, which was 
decomposed in (wenty-four hours by th? 
starved plant, was only 2-| cubic centime- 
tres : while that fed upon nitrate of pot- 
ash consumed in the same time 182 ; show- 
ing that the presence of nitrogen in the 
manure was that substance which not only 
produced the development, but produced 
the increased quantity of nitrogen in the 
product and the fixation of the carbon. 
These experiments, physical and chemical, 
bring the evidence from one side of the 
question to complete the reasoning fur- 
nished by the anatomical conclusions to 
which I previously alluded. The results 
are remarkable in the 1wo cases. Bous- 
singault's experiments shew that nitrogen 
is the efficient agent in the assimilation of 
food, and the anatomical examination of 
the tissues demonstrates the actual pro- 
cess of elaboration taking place in the 
midst of these nitrogenous substances. 

There are one or two other points to 
which I must briefly advert, as of inter- 
test in reference to this matter. I- may 



mention, in the first place, that we have 
lately had a new hypothesis as to action 
of roots from Liebig, which, however, can 
only apply to roots of a certain kind, and 
not at all to those growing in water or 
very wet soils. He has formed the sup- 
position that roots act not merely by ab- 
sorption of solutions, but by decomposing 
solid substances with which they come in 
contact. In this he endeavours to explain 
the abstraction from soils of substances 
apparently insoluble. He finds that not 
only do aluminous soils, as shown by Prof. 
Way, fix various useful substances, and 
prevent their filtering through, but that 
humous soils also have a similar power. 
Recent researches of Thenard show that 
| phosphates are rendered insoluble when 
| they come into contact witn alumina or 
'oxide of iron, and that these are de- 
composable again by soluble' silicates, and 
in that way the phosphates rendered 
available. Now, supposing the phosphates 
are taken up in solution, it would'appear 
to be requisite in a soil containing abun- 
dance of alumina that soluble silicates 
should be also present. But, as I have 
said, Liebig thinks the roots may be able 
to decompose and abstract parts of these 
insoluble compounds. There may be 
some truth in this ; and if so, we must at- 
tribute it to certain peculiarities in the 
constitution, as we may say, of the roots 
themselves. As an illustration of the pos- 
sibilit}' of some such process, I may direct 
attention to what takes place in the tungi, 
where we decidedly have a direct action 
of the surface of roots upon the media in 
which they grow. We know that the pro- 
cess of fermentation takes place during 
i the action of yeast on liquids with which 
'it is in contact: that is, the action of the 
surface of the membrane of the yeast and 
the interchange of the contents of the 
cells with the liquid that produces the 
conversion of the wort into the alcoholic 
fluid. It is the same with the plants that 
produce vinegar and that cause acid fer- 
mentation of vegetable preserves. There 
may be an action of this kind in the roots. 
The actual contact of the roots with the 
substances in the soil may be requisite, 
and in this way roots may btf able to ab- 
stract from the soil food not previously in 
solution, but in a state of fine subdivision, 
chemical action being rendered probable 
by the moisture present in the root. 






THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



547 



It would have been desirable perhaps 
to have directed }'our attention to some 
speculations with regard to the influence 
of phosphate of lime upon roots, but time 
will not admit of this, and moreover our 
knowledge on the subject is extremely 
limited. No doubt there is a kind of spe- 
cific action of phosphates of lime upon 
roots, that it does favour the production 
of roots at particular seasons, and under 
particular conditions of cultivation. How 
and why it does so, science, I think, is < 
unable at present positively to demonstate, • 
and it is too late to-day to enter into any 
speculations with regard to this point. I 
may say, however, that for the settlement 
of that point only carefully devised and 
extensive experiments can be of any ser- 
vice. In regard to such experiments, I 
will make one remark in conclusion of my 
lecture. I must differ, or apparently dif- 
fer, to a certain extent, from our profes- 
sor of chemistry in one opinion to which 
he gave expression in his late interesting 
lecture concerning the office of science in 
relation to practice. I am not of a san- 
guine disposition — am considered rather 
cautious than otherwise; but I must de- 
clare that I look upon science as not only 
the means of explaining what has been 
done, but as the great instrument by which 
we shall discover means of doing what we 
have never done before. It is quite true 
that in the present state of knowledge ag- 
ricultural practice may be in advance of 
science : theory has not worked its way 
up to the point in which it can explain all 
science, much more Jay down any new 
rules for guidance. That is the result of 
the condition of the particular branch of 
science : it is not the fault of the science 
itself. That it is unable to do so, arises 
from the condition in which the science is 
placed by the natural course of events. — 
Physiology depends for one complete set 
of its data upon organic chemistry ; or- 
ganic chemistry could never be properly 
worked out until mineral chemistry had 
made considerable advances; and even 
were these departments of inquiry perfect, 
there is still meteorology in its infancy, in- 
capable as yet of explaining peculiarities 
of climate, so as to enable us in some de- 
gree to foretell events with regard to wea- 
ther, as the astronomer does as regards 
the movements of the heavenly bodies. I 
do not consider that this'imperfect state of 



our information demands the conclusion 
that we are to give up the position of sci- 
ence as the leader of practice. I think 
that when we look upon the other branch- 
es of science which have to deal with sim- 
pler forces and less complicated questions, 
we have every reason to suppose that with 
proper prosecution of experimental inquiry 
in physiology, we may be able to use spec- 
ulation as a means of greatly improving 
and advancing our practical knowledge. 
When we see. the results of speculation in 
physic and chemistry, in the conquests of 
the powers of steam, electricity, light — 
all products of speculative or abstract sci- 
ence — I think we should not doubt that 
when physiology has ascended to the same 
relative stage, that branch of science will 
take its proper position, and be the guide 
and leader of practice rather than simply 
an humble follower in its footsteps. 



From Emry's Journal of Agriculture. 

Something of Plants, and How they Live. 
Plants feed themselves. They increase 
in stature because of nourishment. They 
receive what is required, and discharge 
from their roots what is not required, to 
assist their growth. What are plants made 
of? If every farmer could answer this 
question, and then provide the pet plant 
with such matter as it requires in the man- 
ufacture of itself, he would disperse a 
mist in which at least nine-tenths of our 
farmers are bewildered. Burn any dry 
vegetable matter. What becomes of it? 
You see nothing but ashes. This is not 
all of it. The balance has become dissi- 
pated in the atmosphere. That part which 
is nowhere — which has escaped in the air, 
or burned away, is the organic part — the 
ashes the inorganic portion. What did 
this plant come from? "Dust thou art, 
and unto dust shalt thou return." The 
part become air mu*t have originated in 
air; while the ashes have 'become earth, 
and originated in the soil. The organic 
part is air, the inorganic matter earth. 
Remember it. Nothing is lost. There 
has been no annihilation — only a change 
of form. The organic matter, which has 
burned away, consists of carbon, oxygen, 
hydrogen, and nitrogen. Carbon is a solid 
(charcoal,) and the last three named are 
gases. Carbon exists in all plants, and in 
combination with these gases constitute 



— ■ 



548 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



nearly the whole of most plants, ashes 
bearing but a small proportion to the whole. 
Carbon constitutes about half the dry 
weight of plants. Oxygen supports com- 
bustion. It unites with many substances. 
It is sometimes called vital oil', because 
necessary to respiration. Oxygen and 
carbon form carbonic acid, and united with 
hydrogen forms water. When united 
with iron, the iron becomes rusty. This 
rust is called oxide of iron. Oxygen united 
with nitrogen forms nitric acid. The two 
also compose atmospheric air ; and here 
witness the wonderful adaptation of the 
works of creation to each other ! If the 
atmosphere was pure oxygen, every liv- 
ing thing would soon decay of combus- 
tion ; but adding to one part of oxygen 
four parts of nitrogen, God has so diluted 
the exhilarating gas, as that in its place we 
have a delicious life-giving and life-pre- 
serving nectar — so pure and palatable that 
we never cease to thirst for it, yet the sup- 
ply is ample. -But there are other ele- 
ments in the atmosphere which the lungs 
of plants receive, and yet they are called 
impurities. We have seen farmers, for 
the want of proper knowledge, apply cer- 
tain compositions to a soil, when, instead 
of benefitting the plant, it drove away, 
and dissipated all that was giving life to 
it. We have seen ammonia, one of the 
impuiities above alluded to, allowed to es- 
cape from a manure heap, because of the 
want of the proper application to fix it 
there. Carbonic acid, water and ammonia 
are all essential to tiie maturity of most 
vegetables. Carbonic acid'vsihe most im- 
portant in its relations to plants, for from 
this source alone is their carbon obtained. 
It consists, as has been said, of carbon 
and oxygen. It is remarkable as being the 
first gaseous substance recognized after 
atmospheric air. Dr. Black, in 1757, call- 
ed it fixed air, because he found it fixed 
in common limes-Kone and magnesia. 
Plants, as we have^ before said, receive 
nourishment through their roots, and by 
their leaves. Carbon enters in the water 
by the roots, and is absorbed from the air 
by the leaves. Since carbonic acid is the 
source of supply of carbon only, to the 
plant, the oxygen must be separated from 
the carbon, and sent off into the atmos- 
phere. The gum portions of the plant 
exhales the oxygen under the influence of 
sunlight. Sunlight is essential to the de- 



composition of carbonic acid, and to the 
rapid growth of plants. When a plant 
decays, the carbon in the plant unites with 
the oxygen in the air, and becomes car- 
bonic acid. The same is the result where 
bodies burn. In the consumption of food 
and respiration, you are manufacturing 
and throwing off carbonic acid, which 
goes to assist again the formations of food 
for yourself or your dependants. Carbon, 
then, is certainly in a transition state, and 
though it constitutes so large a part of all 
vegetable and animal matter, yet it is all 
derived from the small amount of carbonic 
acid in the atmosphere ; and but for this 
constant change and exhalation of both 
plants and animals, the supply would be 
exhausted. The fire in your kitchen is 
constantly supplying the trees and vege- 
tables near your door with carbonic acid, 
which if exposed to the sun decomposes 
rapidly, and hence makes a rapid growth. 
The tree near your dwelling, though no 
better than the one planted at the same 
time, in the same manner, and in equally 
as good soil, in the orchard fifty yards dis- 
tant, is far outstripping the orchard tree 
in growth — simply because it is fed with 
more carbon. Trees are necessary near 
the house ; and in large cities, every man 
w r ho understands the laws of nature and 
of health' will provide 'these absorbents 
for the extra amount of acid generated. 
We frequently find in cities the leaves of 
plants rapidly forming, while in the coun- 
try the twigs are as bear of foliage as at 
mid-winter. We should not be misun- 
derstood. Carbon enters the plant in the 
form of carbonic acid. The carbon is re- 
tained until the plant decays but the oxy- 
gen is thrown off to unite with carbon 
again. Carbon is fixed in the plant until 
decay commences. The blood of animals, 
which contains carbon, unites with the 
air, or the oxygen of the air, as it is in 
haled into the lungs, and forms carbonic 
acid, without which process no animallpos 
could live. This carbonic acid is thrown as 
off, and feeds plants, which in turn feed gro 



animals again. 

We have said carbon is a solid, or, in 
other words, charcoal is a solid. It is 
light and porous, hence a good absorbent 
This is the secret of its value to the far- 
mer. It absorbs gases that may escape feci 
from plants or decomposing substances. 
It separates from water any impurities, de- 



li-Oi 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



549 



cayed animal matter, and purifies it. 
Hence, too, its value as a filter. It is of 
great value to the field, whether mixed 
with the soil or applied on the surface. 
It absorbs largely at common tempera- 
tures, and when heated by the sun, yields 
up its atmospheric treasures to assist the 
growth of plants and vegetables. You re- 
member the coal beds on the old farm 
" down East," where, no matter what the 
season, or its effect upon the balance of 
the crop, you were sure to find well-ma- 
tured com, a large growth of plump wheat, 
heavy oats, or enormous melons, within 
the area of the coal bed. Can you recall 
a time, a season, when there was not a 
marked difference between the products 
of the coal-bed and the rest of the field ? 
Had you ever investigated the subject ? 
You remember to have planted cucumbers 
and melons in your* garden, and to have 
heard some one, tooted for his success in 
growing these luxuries early and large, 
say that charcoal was a capital manure. 
You may have tried it with success ; but 
why were you content with the re- 
sult ? Why not seek for the reason ? How 
many lose the benefit of an extended ap- 
plication from the want of a spirit of in- 
quiry ! We hope the Farmers' Club will 
provoke and develop investigation. 

Charcoal absorbs offensive odours. Mix 
it with night soil, and it makes it dry and 
)ortable. Saved and applied, this is ren- 
dered a most valuable manure. Charcoal 
has great preservative qualities. It will 
keep meat sweet and pure a long time ; 
and who has not tried its effects in the pre- 
servation of the potato ? Who ever saw 
a watery potato grow on a coal bed ? Who 
ever saw small ones grow there ? We 
lever did. Mix it with musty grain, if 
you have any, or impure meat, and tell us 
}f its effects. Pack meat and vegetables 
n it, and they will not soon decay. It is 
i most unchangeable substance ; hence 
)osts, charred at the bottom, do not decay 
is soon as otherwise when set in the 
ground. Liquids passed through it lose 
heir colouring and bitter or astringent 
favour. Sugar-refiners discolourize their 
Drown syrups with its assistance. 

Thus, while we have not strictly departed 
Vom the text, we have given you some 
acts which may be of great value to you. 
Nq have deviated from our intended 
ourse. but our aim is to make these arti- 



cles as plain, practical, and valuable as 
possible. 

Remember that we have said, the or- 
ganic portion of plants consists of carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen and nilrogen. Water is 
composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Then 
water feeds the plant with these two 
gases. Burn the plant, and these gases 
escape in the form of vapour, which, con- 
densed, falls to the earth as rain. You 
may desire to know something of the 
character of these gases abstractly. Oxy- 
gen is heavier than the atmosphere ; 
it is a colourless gas, has neither taste nor 
smell ; inhaled by animals, its effects are 
exhilarating and exciting. We have seen 
it given to individuals for the purpose of 
exhibiting its effects upon their action. 
In some cases the most extraordinary 
movements are made. It is, of course, 
injurious, and were we to inhale only oxy- 
gen, we would soon be unable to inhale 
anything. About one-fifth of the air, one- 
third of the ocean, and one-half of the 
solid earth are oxygen. 

We extract the following passage from 
one of Johnston's lectures : 

" But the quantity of this substance, 
which is stored up in the solid rocks, is 
still more remarkable. Nearly one-half 
of the -weight of the solid rocks, which 
compose the crust of our globe, of every 
solid substance we see around us — of the 
houses in which we live, and of the stones 
on which we tread ; of the soils which 
you daily cultivate, and much more than 
one-half of the weight of the bodies of 
all living animals and plants — consists of 
this elementary body, oxygen, known to 
us, as I have already said, only in the 
state of a gas. It may not appear surpris- 
ing that any one elementary substance 
should have been formed by the Creator 
in such abundance as to constitute nearly 
one-half, by weight, of the entire crust of 
the globe ; but it must strike you as re- 
markable, that this should also be the ele- 
ment on the presence of which all animal 
life depends, and as nothing less won- 
derful, that .a substance, which we know 
only in the state of thin air, should, by 
some wonderful mechanism, be bound up 
and imprisoned in such vast stores in the 
solid mountains of the globe, be destined 
to pervade and refresh all nature in the 
form of water, and to beautify and adorn 
the earth in the solid parts of animals 



550 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



and plants. But all nature is full of sim- 
ilar wonders ; and every step you advance 
in the study of the principles of the art' 
by which you live, you will not fail to 
mark the united skill and bounty of the! 
same great Contriver." 

Oxygen supports combustion, and all 
substances which burn in the open air 
burn in it (oxygen) with far greater bril- 
liancy. We have said that plants exhale 
oxygen under the influence of sunlight, 
and w r e suggest a simple experiment by 
which this exhalation may be made per- 
ceptible. 

Let a sprig of mint be placed in a white 
glass globe, which is then to be filled quite 
full of spring water, and the mouth in- 
verted in a tumbler of water; it is then 
to be placed in the direct rays of the sun, 
and in a short time bubbles of gas will be 
seen collecting in the upper part of the 
glass, which is nearly pure oxygen. 

Hydrogen is fourteen times lighter than 
the atmosphere, and sixteen times lighter 
than oxygen, being the lightest substance 
known. It is combustible, but does not 
support combustion. The affinity of oxy- 
gen and hydrogen is very great, yet they 
do not combine spontaneously*. Hydro- 
gen is colourless, and does not support 
life. Animals die and plants wither when 
introduced into it. It is not necessary to 
the growth of plants. United with oxy- 
gen, it becomes water or the protoxide of 
hydrogen. Water is an essential to the 
plant, but nature has provided an ample 
supply. It is our province to regulate 
and modify this supply. Irrigation at the 
proper time is an immense stimulant, or, 
more properly, fertilizer. But our best 
soils, the most durable and reliable, re- 
quire drainage, and provision for feeding 
the plant with only the amount of water 
needed, and disposing of the surplus. 
We need write no " apostrophe to water." 
It may be of use and abuse. It is both 
used and abused. Let us learn to use it. 

Next in order of the organic portions 
of plants is nitrogen — one of the most im- 
portant organic constituents of vegetable 
matter. It constitutes about four-fifths of 
atmospheric air. Animals cannot live in 
it alone, yet they cannot be matured with- 
out it. Plants die in it, yet it is necessa- 
ry to the ir growth/ Reference has al- 
ready been made to its use to dilute the 
oxygen of the air, so as to render it pala- 



table and life-giving. Its existence has 
been known since 1772, and it was re- 
cognized as a constituent of the atmos- 
phere in 1775. It does not support com- 
bustion, but extinguishes all burning bodies 
immersed in it. It is not inflammable. 
It is generally supposed that plants get no 
nitrogen from the air. Johnston says, 
" Spring and rain waters absorb it, as they 
do oxygen, from the atmospheric air, and 
bear it in solution to the roots, by which 
it is not unlikely that it may be conveyed 
directly into the circulation of the plants." 
But plants are mainly fed by nitrogen 
through some of its compounds. Ammo- 
nia is one. It is composed of nitrogen 
and hydrogen. Seventeen pounds of am- 
monia contains about fourteen pounds of 
nitrogen and three pounds of hydrogen. 
It is important to the growth of the plant 
— one of the most important compounds. 
It is common — every farmer has to do 
with it and daily witnesses its effects— is 
made aware of its presence by his senses, 
yet scarcely heeds its value, and of- 
ten regards it as a noxious vapour which 
ought not to exist. But it does exist in 
the atmosphere everywhere where animal 
or vegetable matter is decaying. It is 
about three-fifths as heavy as atmospheric 
air.. Our readers will recognize it as spir- 
its of hartshorn, and it is sometimes call- 
ed alkaline air, or volatile alkali. It is 
colourless, does not support combustion, 
and is inflammable. Here is another won- 
der for you, reader — a combination of two 
colourless and tasteless gases and without 
smell, in the proportion of 14 and 3 pro- 
duces another gas that has pungent smell 
and a very perceptible taste. And is it 
not more wonderful, that it should exist, 
and enter so largely into all the successes 
and reverses of the farmer's operations, 
become part of his stock-in-trade, and yet 
create no inquiry into its properties, no 
curiosity as to its use or value ? It is es- 
caping yonder from that manure heap, 
from the liquid steaming excrements of 
your cattle. Here again you witness the 
value of absorbents to mix with animal 
manures. Charcoal or muck absorbs 
largely and should be largely used. Wa- 
ter absorbs ammonia over 700 and nearly 
800 times its bulk of it, and is made the 
medium to transfer the ammonia of the 
atmosphere to the growing plants. Am- 
monia is powerful in its effect upon the 






THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



551 



plant. It promotes its luxuriance and 
growth. It is mainly and perhaps wholly 
taken up by the roots of the plant from 
the soil, not being inhaled by the breath- 
ing leaf as is carbonic acid. 

Liebio: savs, "The effect of an artificial 



jays, 



supply of ammonia as a source of nitrogen 
is to accelerate the growth and develop- 
ment of plants." And he attaches great 
importance to this fact, and argues that it 
should be taken into account in gardening 
— especially in kitchen gardening, and as 
much as possible in agriculture on a large 
scale, when the time occupied in the 
growth of plants is of importance, as it is 
most certainly in our latitudes. Indeed 
it is the most valuable fertilizer contained 
in farm-yard manure, and it exists to a 
greater extent in the liquid part than in 
the solid excrement. And yet farmers — 
the great majority of them — provide no 
means for conveying this important ferti- 
lizer to the plant. 

The stable manure may be thrown out 
under the eaves of the stable, and into the 
street, with no absorbing mixture. /I he 
eaves of the stable have no fixtures to 
convey the water into a cistern for the 
use of the stock, but the dripping flood 
inundate's the manure heap, and leaches 
away into the street ditch, to be turned 
perhaps by a shrewd neighbour, if one 
happens to live lower down a declivity, 
into his own fields by a furrow, or five 
minutes' use of the spade, and irrigates 
his fields, furnishing his crops with a 
wealth of nutriment and stimulant — the 
gold of your manure. We have seen it 
done. We are not imagining anything. 
The same principle applied to commerce 
would ruin every man who indulged in it. 
Suppose the merchant should throw gold 
into the street, and depend upon the sil- 
ver or currency received for profits, and 
to replace and replenish his stock ; what 
would be thought of him? Does a farmer 
know these facts — know he is losing the 
best of his resources for the replenishment 
of his farm, and still neglect to take meas- 
ures to retain them ? Cannot afford to 
provide against this waste ? If God had 
not blessed us with a land unrivalled in 
fertility, and had not provided in nature 
compensation for the eonsumption of 
plants, man, if left alone, would soon im- 
poverish himself, and the earth would 
become barren and unfruitful. 



Ammonia does not enter the plant by in- 
halation (if we may use the term) through 
the leaves. It is a gas, but there are few 
plants that do not require it to knock for 
admittance at the roots, and in company 
(solution) with water; and here again we 
must urge your attention to the saving the 
liquid manure of your stock, so full of ni- 
trogen for the plant. It has been sug- 
gested lo leave the stable floor open, with 
a muck-bed under it, to receive the leak- 
age. Another plan is, to have a close 
floor, and litter the stable behind the stock 
with muck, sawdust, or tanbark-charcoal. 
And here we wish to say one word upon 
the use of muck as an absorbent. Igno- 
rant once of the philosophy of composting, 
we helped a man {then considered more 
progressive than his neighbours) to clean 
out a swamp of its muck deposit — a pure- 
ly vegetable substance. It was thrown 
around an orchard at once, at the roots of 
each tree. It had its effect, it is true ; 
the trees grew maivellously. But, if in- 
stead of depositing it thus to " save hand- 
ling," it had been hauled to the large shed' 
in the barn-yard, and then mixed with the 
stable manure, which was evaporating, 
and leaching under the eaves on the South 
side of the barn, we would have saved 
enough by the operation to have paid the 
expenses and produced more wonderful 
effects still. Why? Because that muck 
was pure and (almost) unadulterated car- 
bon — the best of absorbents, and that is 
why we urge composting with it; it saves 
for the use of the plant the ammonia in 
the manure mixed with it. Attend, then, 
to this matter, and save the liquid portion 
of the manure in your yard and stables. 

Deep plowing has to do with the pro- 
duction of ammonia. It enables the roots 
of plants to penetrate and fill the subsoil 
with vegetable matter, which by its decay 
in the confined atmosphere, where the ac- 
cess of the oxygen of the air is not easy, 
gives rise to the production of ammonia. 
When thus formed, it is chemically pre- 
pared, and enters the roots of the bearing 
plant to assist its growth. We said, the 
ammonia of the atmosphere is absorbed 
by rain > dews, &c, and returned to the 
roots ; hence, the necessity of rain and 
dews — the latter particularly, where vege- 
tation is rankest and growing most rapidly, 
requiring continual supplies of nitrogen. 
Who can estimate the value of a heavy 



552 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



body of snow during four months of the 
year succeeding a fruitful season? Here 
is matter for inquiry and reflection, fellow- 
farmer. How wonderfully accurate is the 
action of God's great laws of compensa- 
tion — of supply and demand ! 

We have hitherto been talking of the 
organic parts of plants — those parts that 
burn away, of which nothing visible re- 
mains after combustion. Those parts which 
remain in the form of ashes are called the 
inorganic — are derived by the plant from 
the earth, and when the plant is decayed 
become earth again — were obtained from 
the soil, and have become soil again by 
combustion. The inorganic parts of plants 
are in small proportion to the organic, and 
yet they are numerically greater. 

Let the reader remember that carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen are the 
four kinds of matter comprising the greater 
and organic portions of the plants ; and 
yet the inorganic portion, though smaller, 
consists of nine or ten different parts. 
We are now to consider these. We may 
learn something new, and digressions will 
be in order if we find it for the interest of 
the reader to extend our science to its 
practical application. It involves the ma- 
nure question at every point, and here we 
may discover, possibly, whether the rich 
and so-called exhaustless (/) virgin soil of 
the prairies, will need to be prostituted by 
the application of the foul stuff called 
barn-yard manure. 

Burn a plant, a mass of weeds, a stack 
of wheat or other straw, reader, and how 
little of it is left! this you have noticed. 
How small in proportion to the bulk con- 
sumed, and the bulk of ashes that remain ! 
This is the inorganic part; very seldom 



ashes, or inorganic part of the grain the 
straw yields. How long can you con- 
tinue to crop your land without impover- 
ishing it, by this no-return process? We 
want; you to have time to ponder upon the 
figures you may make, by calculating that 
five 7 per cent, of every ton of wheat-straw 
you take from your farm is actually taken 
from the soil, and must be supplied in 
some manner, and if you are not supplying 
it, you are growing poorer. Let the figures 
tell you how fast you are growing poorer. 
When you have aroused yourself from the 
stupor of insensibility, you will be in fit mood 
to search into the character of these several 
inorganic parts of plants; for it is not re- 
garded by moderns as " stealing trash" to 
steal our purse. 

Having sufficiently pondered on the 
amount of inorganic matter taken from 
the soil in every ton of straw, and which 
must be replaced or the soil is constantly 
impoverished, let us inquire what are these 
inorganic parts? Potash is an alkali — one 
of the four alkalies found in the ashes of 
plants. It is found in most plants. Fill 
a barrel with wood ashes, and leach with 
water — the ley contains the potash of the 
ashes. The pearlash of commerce is only 
potash and carbonic acid, a union of the 
two produced by the exposure of the former 
to the air, and if the quantity of carbonic 
acid is increased, saleratus is the result. 

Many of our readers, perhaps, have had 
experience in the manufacture of pearl- 
ash. In early days, when the heavy for- 
ests of the North and East were being 
cleared, it was no unusual thing for the 
settler to turn a penny by the rustic man- 
ufacture of this alkali into an article of 
commerce. We have not unfrequently 



amounts to twelve or fifteen per cent, of i found it in the large open fire-places of the 
the weight of the vegetable substance I borderers, and secured it for the good 
burned If it be straw you have burned, j dame's use, by using the "poker" among 
the weight of the ashes will seldom ex- the ashes. 

ceed four or five per cent, of the weight} Plants, trees, and animals require pot- 
of the straw consumed. Yet this part of, ash in their construction. Hence it must 
the plant is as important as any other, be found in the soil, and supplied if crop- 
comes from the soil and must exist in the ping has diminished the supply. 
soil, so that the plant may take up the I The importance of this supply in the 
proportions required in its structure — in 'soil will be seen when the reader under- 
its growth. 'stands that every acre of wheat ab- 

Burn a ton of straw, weigh the ashes, (sorbs over thirty-two pounds of potash 
and you, who return nothing to your fields from the soil, barley over sixty-eight 
in the shape of manure, estimate the pounds, red clover over one hundred and 
amount of inorganic matter you take from forty four pounds, and other common crops 
your farm annually, saying nothing of the' in different proportions. How is it to be 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



553 



upplied ? Remember this is only one of! 
he inorganic parts ihat you exhaust in this 
quantity from each acre of soil grown in 
vheat, barley, clover, &c, annually. Is 
t not a great exhausting process ? Is there 
10 necessity for supplying this food, of 
>lowing deeper, of manuring more? If 
our soil is wanting lime, ashes may be 
ubstituted. But this supply of inorganic 
natter in some form must not be withheld 
rom your farm. It is a great study to 
earn how to economically supply it — of 
;reat importance you should learn. Pot- 
sh may be used on sandy soils with good 
fleet, and is a valuable application as a 
op-dressing for young plants, jor insects 
o not like it. 

Soda is another alkali found in the ashes 
f plants, and is not unlike potash in its 
ffice in the construction of the plant, 
/ommon salt contains it ; hence the ap- 
plication of the thistle-killer — salt — to the 
oil furnishes soda for the plant, and is of- 
en the best application that can be made ; 
his, however, is a disputed question. In 
>assing, we wish to say that brine is a 
reat vermin antidote, and if carefully ap- 
lied to the soil and to the compost heap 
rill do quite as much good as harm. 
Caustic soda, produced by boiling the com- 
non carbonate of soda with quicklime, is 
langerous to the vegetable. Common 
alt and lime mixed together and used in 
:omposting is very valuable as a supply 
>f soda, for the plant is thus obtained. 

Lime. The reader may perhaps con- 
iider himself posted in reference to this 
ilkali. But its importance to the plant 
s oftener under than over-estimated, and 
t is often blindly applied, and often not 
tpplied at all when it should be. It sweet- 
:ns the soil, decomposes vegetable matter, 
md as a sulphate is a good absorbent of 
he different gasses. But the importance 
)f this inorganic part of the plant to the 
lgriculturist must be the subject of another 
:hapter. 

Phosphoric acid, although combining 
>vith any of the alkalies, is most impor- 
ant when compounded with lime. It is 
:omposed of phosphorus and oxygen. The 
A'hite smoke of a match when it is ignited 
s phosphoric acid, created by the union of 
:he phosphorus on the end of the match 
tfith the oxygen of the atmosphere. Its 
mportance will be understood when we 
:ell you it forms nearly one half of the 



ashes of wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat, 
barley, peas, beans, &c, and enters large- 
ly in the perfection of vegetables and ani- 
mals ; and yet it is found in limited quan- 
tities in most soils, particularly those where 
cultivation has not been remunerative — 
where the whole system has been to get 
all possible, and pay nothing to the soil 
for its harvest. This acid does not exist 
in nature in a free state, and hence, iso- 
lated, does not affect vegetation ; but as 
we have said, it unites with the alkalies 
and forms phosphates, which are essential 
to the growth of the plant, without which, 
perfection in the development of grains 
and roots cannot be obtained. It is solid 
and colourless, soluble in water, sour, cor- 
rodes and destroys animal and vegetable 
substances. It is found in combination in 
all plants, hence its necessity to them as 
an article of food ; and yet it must be di- 
luted or mixed, hence the double impor- 
tance of the different alkalies as fertili- 
zers. 

The intelligent, thoughtful reader will 
not wonder at the constant diminution of 
fertility in cultivated — aye skinned soils. 
What debts would some farmers have to 
pay, if the earth were to make the de- 
mand to each one, "pay that thou owest," 
in the shape of inorganic matter taken 
from their farms, and never returned ! It 
is estimated that in every hundred bushels 
of wheat sold, there are removed perma- 
nently from the soil on which it grew, 
sixty pounds of phosphoric acid ! and that 
for each cow kept on a pasture throughout' 
the summer, there are carried off in veal, 
butter, and cheese, not less than fifty 
pounds of phosphate of lime, of which 
perhaps nearly or quite one-fourth is phos- 
phoric acid. 

Warring says well, "This would be one 
thousand pounds for twenty cows ; and it 
shows clearly why old dairy pastures be- 
come so exhausted of this substance, that 
they will no longer produce those nutri- 
tious gases which are favorable to butter 
and cheese making." We may as well 
quote the next paragraph, and endorse it, 
viz : " That this removal of the most val- 
uable constituent of the soil has been the 
cause of more exhaustion of farms, and 
more emigration in search of fertile dis- 
tricts, than any other single effect of inju- 
dicious farming, is a fact which multiplied 
instances most clearly prove." 



554 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



He instances the once world-renowned 
wheat producing Genesee Valley. It is 
well known that its fame as a w 7 heat coun- 
try does not belong to the present. And 
yet how many of the Western farmers, 
or Eastern either, can tell to-day what 
phosphoric acid is, or that such matter 
exists? They have as little idea of it, its 
importance to the soil, its character, and 
how it is found, as they have of the size 
of brain of the inhabitants of the planet 
Saturn ; and how willing to let their chil- 
dren grow up in the same indifference to 
what grows, and what causes it to grow ! 
They want them to read, write, and ci- 
pher—it was the schooling they had, and 
they get along ! 

O fellow farmer, insist upon that boy 
and girl of yours knowing something of 
this earth, beside its shape, diameter, and 
circumference, and who circumnavigated 
it. Require that the teacher should at 
least know something of plants this sum- 
mer; be capable of teaching your child 
the beauties, peculiarities, and office of 
plants and flowers — in short, insist he 
must know something of botany. But we 
have left the acid, though we may have 
exhibited some acidity ; if so, we cannot 
help it, for we feel very much like scold- 
ing at the indifference manifest to these 
important departments of education.' 

Phosphoric acid is indispensable then ; 
it must exist in some form in the land. If 
you want intelligent animals, they must 
be fed with plants containing phosphoric 
'acid, for phosphorus is contained in and is 
necessary to the health of the brain. We 
have said enough perhaps to set 3^011 think- 
ing, to prove the importance of this acid 
in agriculture.. In combination with al- 
kalies we shall have more to say of it 
hereafter. 



The Lives of Eminent Men. 
In lately reading the life of the French 
mechanician Jacquard, whose name has 
been immortalized by his inventive genius, 
we were forcibly struck with a conviction 
of the important lessons conveyed in the 
simple narrative of his every-day transac- 
tions, and of the benefits that would ac- 
crue to the vouth of our country if the 
lives of such eminent men, whether dis- 
tinguished in the world of arts, letters, 
or other useful avocations in life, could be 
displayed before them in the same familiar 



and instructive form. Knowing full well 
the passion we are sometimes apt to con- 
tract for the most insignificant appendages 
to the favorite objects of our attention and 
regard, we do not wonder that the historian 
who properly comprehends his task does 
not hesitate to descend into what at first 
sight might be thought unimportant details. 
We think it -is much to be desired, and 
should always be an object of attention to 
those who are employed in writing the 
lives of eminent persons, or in compiling 
materials from the works of others, tc 
select such of their actions as are most 
characteristic of their genius and disposi- 
tion. A trifling and seemingly inconsider- 
able action, an expression or word in a 
man's unguarded moments at home or al 
ease among his most intimate friends, ofter 
conveys a perfect idea of his genius anc 
character, and serves as a key to most ol 
the greatest and important actions of hi* 
life. And if these inferior indications o 
a man's life ought not to be omitted, much 
less should the greater and more importan 
elements of his ability and character. 

It must be acknowledged in favor o 
those who undertake to instruct us in the 
transactions of past ages, who faithfully 
draw 7 from life, and accurately delineate 
the actions and characters of mankind 
that they open before us a noble fund o 
rational enjoyment, and are, at the same 
time, of the most important .service in di 
recting the minds of men to virtue, anei 
exciting them to an honorable and_w r orthj 
conduct. Whilst they are calling fort! 
into exercise the most generous principle 
of the human heart, in instructing us ii 
the nature and obligations of private am 
social virtue, it must be allcAved that the; 
increase our general knowledge. The ac 
tions and characters of men it is alike thei 
province to describe, with this principa 
difference, that the former represent then 
in the public and more active scenes c 
life, and as they affect the general cours 
of human affairs, whereas the latter, with 
out omitting the public, leads us into th 
more private and domestic situations 
makes us acquainted with the whole circl 
of a man's friends, lays open his connec 
tions, and correspondence, the plan of hi 
education, the method of his studies, hi 
leading views in life, and the manner i 
which he employed his time, and introdu 
ces us to the knowledge of a variety c 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



555 



circumstances of the greatest importance 
in judging of his character and manners, 
the whole affording very useful hints for 
others to improve upon. 

There have been many philosophers, 
mathematicians, mechanics, and others, at 
various eras of history, who have in a re- 
markable manner supported their charac- 
ters, distinguished themselves in their pro- 
fessions, and merited favor by the service 
they have rendered mankind, and whose 
lives if properly detailed, would serve as 
instructive lessons to others. To render 
them of general and extensive use, how- 
ever, they should not only be written with 
the greatest truth and exactness, without 
the errors too often consequent upon par- 
tialities of friendship or the influence of 
prejudice, but those gentlemen who have 
taken upon themselves the noble duty of 
perpetuating their memories and worth ■ 
should search into the records of the peri- j 
ods in which they existed, and collect and 1 
dispose other facts of interest which have, 
transpired in connection with them. Upon' 
such a plan as this it would be easy to see 
what advance any art or science had made' 
at a particular time, who were a man's 
predecessors in the same art or profession,: 
and what advantage he enjoyed from them. J 
As we come down, as materials increase,' 
and knowledge and arts advance, a more 
extensive account of such cotemporaneous 
and useful events may be given, and a 
correspondingly increased interest and; 
benefit attached to the lives of praisewor-| 
thy characters, so that in celebrating the 
virtues of good men who have been orna- 
ments of human nature, and whose works 
have benefited their fellow men, the can- 1 
did chronicler will not only perform a' 
highly useful and delightful duty, but con-' 
vey to his readers the most comprehensive 
and instructive lessons upon the subjects' 
pertaining thereto. — Scientific American., 



From the Washington Star. 

Early Ripening Wheat. 

The N. Y. Tribune says that J. Johnson, ' 
of Northern New York, the pioneer in the | 
science of underdraining" in this country,! 
offers a premium of $1,000 to any one 
who will tell him how to ripen his wheat 
ten days earlier than it ripens now. None; 
but observing farmers comprehend the vast 
benefit to the country which the acquisi-, 



tion of good wheat ripening thus early 
would be. It would do away with three 
fourths of the damage now done by the 
rust at the South, and by the midge at the 
North, as well as perhaps half the damage 
from the fly, joint worm, &c, which inva- 
riably affect tender and backward wheat 
first ; the more vigorous stalks being com- 
paratively free from their ravages. 

Our plan for trying to get an earlier ripen- 
ing wheat- that is, the plan we are pursuing 
—is as follows : To select for seod the pro- 
duce of the portions of the fields ripening 
first, and in cleaning it to as far as possi- 
ble rid it of every grain not entirely per- 
fect and well developed. To plow very 
deep in breaking up, and to fertilize high- 
ly ; and, further, to sow the seed so selec- 
ted on exposures suited for early ripening. 
We think that the result will be that in a 
few years we shall have a wheat which 
will outgrow almost all danger of the fly 
and rust — a vigorous wheat with early ri- 
pening tendencies as one of its particular 
characteristics. 

We are satisfied that with the seed 
plump and perfect, and the land properly 
prepared, the best time for sowing wheat 
in this region is between the 1st and 10th 
of October, as near as may be. The use 
of the drill will enable any farmer, even 
though designing to put in thousands of 
acres of wheat, to get it in between those 
dates unless rains prevent, which, our ex- 
perience teaches, does not often happen. 
A machine drill requires the services of 
two hands and three horses, and should 
plant fifteen acres per diem, which, to be 
ploughed in in the same time would re- 
quire the service of ten hands and ten 
horses. Additional hands are hardest to 
be obtained, every where, just when most 
needed by the farmer who does not resort 
to the drill and the machine reaper — at 
the seasons of planting and harvesting. 
These machines are, in fact, farm hands 
of the most valuable kind, requiring noth- 
ing for their support while their services 
are not needed, and being always ready 
to do efficient and invaluable labor when 
required to go to work. As the use of 
the drill enables the farmer to select his 
own time for getting in his crop, by mak- 
ing him entirely independent of the addi- 
tional, and, usually, unobtainable, labor 
(to his regular force) he otherwise invari- 
ably stands in need of in planting time, 



556 



THE SOUTHEKN PLANTER. 



so the machine reaper makes him entirely 
independent of assistance to his regular 
force in harvesting. A Manny and Wood 
reaper, with a hand to drive and another 
to rake, will certainly do the work of four 
best cradlers without the danger to health, 
if not life itself, consequent upon hand 
harvesting in July. Fifteen acres per diem 
is a fair average for the work of such a 
reaper. 

Every farmer knows the importance — in 
its effect on the value and quantity of his 
grain harvested — of being able to select 
his own time for cutting it. A lack of 
force, causing a delay of from one day to 
a week, owing to the great variableness of 
the weather just at that season, not unfre- 
quently makes a difference of from ten to 
twenty-five per centum in the money re- 
alized from the sales of the crop. The 
farmer who sows three hundred acres to 
wheat, if harvesting by hand labor alto- 
gether, should be able to run at least fif- 
teen cradles to be entirely certain that he 
will not be damaged by moist or cloudy 
weather Not one farmer in a hundred, 
planting no more than three hundred acres 
to wheat, is able to set such "a squadron in 
the field," in addition to the necessary 
force of binders and rakers. So, if he 
would use due precaution, he must resort 
to the machine reapers, keeping as many 
of them as his crop may require. He 
would make money hand-over-fist by hav- 
ing always on hand sufficient to cut his 
whole crop in four fair working days. We 
know, from experience, that the wear and 
tear of the Manny and Wood reaper, when 
kept properly preserved (when not in use) 
is so inconsiderable as to amount to almost 
nothing. Take it, ail in all, it is the far- 
mers' money-saver as well as his money- 
maker. Our only wonder is that any far- 
mer, who has as little as thirty acres of 
grain and as many of grass to cut annually, 
ventures to attempt to get on without one, 
and without a machine drill. But there 
"is no accounting for tastes" in agricultu- 
ral matters, as in all things else. 

We repeat, our plan for securing the 
wheat crop above and beyond most of the 
dangers that produce failures, is to seek 
to plant only the earliest ripened seed, as 
explained above, and to have at command 
the means of choosing our own time for 
both planting and harvesting, without going 
outside of our own premises for any assis- 



tance whatever. We may add, that the 
use of a drill certainly saves a peck of seed 
to the acre sown, and deposits the fertili- 
zer in the soil just where the farmer wants 
it ; while the use of the machine reaper 
secures the crop far better than that can 
be done by cradling — the per centage of 
difference being sufficient to make at least 
a fifth of what may be considered a fair 
profit on wheat-growing. 



Facts about Milk. 

The best Temperature to facilitate the raising, 
of Cream. — " Will cream rise on milk in a few 
hours in a room where the thermometer is as 
low as 35° to 45°, as is claimed by persons in- 
terested in the sale of Schooley's Preservatory\ 
Their philosophy is that the water of the milk 
is most dense at 39° or 40°, and the cream be- 
ing lighter, will rise best at that temperature." 
This is one of the three questions asked by a 
correspondent in Erie county, on which we will 
endeavor to throw a little light, and perhaps 
others may be disposed to continue the subject 
and draw interesting facts from their stores of 
experience. Milk is composed of 4i parts of 
caseine or curd, 3 butter, 4^ sugar, and 87 of 
water. The lower the temperature, of course 
the more dense the water composing so great a 
portion of the milk, until it reaches o^ , at 
which point water begins to expand with the 
decrease of temperature. The cream would. 
perhaps, rise more readily at about 39° than at 
any other temperature, were it not for the fact 
that the cream as well as the curd is made 
dense by the low temperature at which it is 
kept, in about the same ratio as the water, and 
perhaps greater. 

Every one of experience knows that very lit- 
tle cream will rise on milk kept at near the 
freezing point. This arises from the fact above 
mentioned, that water expands below 39£, while 
the cream and curd become more dense, so that 
at near 33° there is little difference in .gravity 
between the cream and water. At 40° the 
cream will rise, but still more rapidly at 50° ; 
and still more so, we judge from our OAvn ex- 
perience and observation at 60° or 70°, or even 
75°. From this fact we argue that the oily 
matter expands by heat more rapidly than wa- 
ter, and of course condenses by cold in the 
same ratio. It does not follow, by any means, 
that it is best to keep milk at such a high tem- 
perature, for the whole mass might become sour 
before all the cream would be separated and 
rise to the surface. By placing a pan of milk 
lover a slow fire and gradually increasing the 
I heat until it reaches the boiling point, all the 
I cream will rise^to the surface in a few minutes. 
I This would seem to prove that the temperature 
is favorable to the separation. For practical 
.purposes we think a temperature of about 50° 
! or 55° will be found the best. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



557 



The Philosophy of Churning. — The cream of 
milk is in the form of minute globules, the oily 
or buttery matter being covered with a thin 
coating of casein, something like the yolk of an 
egg. The object of churning is to break these 
globules, which it effects partly by the increase 
of temperature, and partly by the agitation. — 
During the operation of churning, the heat 
generally arises from five to ten degrees. In 
cold weather it is sometimes necessary to raise 
the temperature of the cream by pouring in hot 
water, or by some other means, and those who 
have had much experience in churning know 
from weary experience that it is impossible to 
make butter come with cold cream. The agi- 
tation is necessary, but the heat is indispensa- 
ble to break the globules of cream and form 
butter. Where the cream is raised by placing 
milk over the fire, in the manner previously al- 
luded to, the globules are broken by the heat 
alone, and the butter is formed without much 
churning. It can be finished or " gathered" in 
a few minutes in a wooden bowl, with a ladle, 
or in the churn. Butter thus made is relished 
by many for present use, though apt to have an 
oily taste. It is not made in this way in quan- 
tities or for preservation in this country, that 
we have learned. 

In Devonshire, England, where much butter 
is made, and of very superior quality, a system 
somewhat similar is practiced. As soon as the 
milking and skimming processes are over, the 
warm new milk is placed in a brass pan. A 
small quantity of cold water is placed in the 
pan, and here it stands in the day time for six 
hours, or at night till the following morning. 
It is then carefully placed near a slow fire, so 
as to be heated to a certain point, but not per- 
mitted to boil. It is a delicate matter to have 
a fire just brisk enough to prevent milk from 
curdling in summer, and still not so hot as to 
cause it to heave or boil. A firm consistency 
on the surface, and a tough consolidated ap- 
pearance are the criteriotis usually depended 
upon for the proper amount of heat. When 
sufficiently scalded, the pan and its contents 
are removed to a cool place in summer, and 
covered over, until cool, with a woolen cloth in 
winter, when the cream is taken off. The pro- 
cess of churning is very simple ; the cream is 
placed in wooden bowls, it is then briskly stir- 
red by the hand, or by a " whisk" of peeled 
willows until the butter-milk separates from 
the butter, which is usually effected in some 
ten minutes. 

We have never eaten butter made in this 
way that we thought first-rate, and always 
considered it injured by the heating. Butter, 
too, we think is injured in the same way by too 
rapid churning. The fact that one churn will 
make butter in a shorter time than another is 
no evidence of its superiority, as its rapid ac- 
tion may raise the temperature higher than is 
necessary or beneficial. 

The proper temperature for cream when plac- 



ed in the churn is about 55°, and this coolness 
it is difficult to obtain in the heat of summer, 
unless the churning is done very early in the 
morning, or the dairy-house is usually well 
adapted to the business. In skilful hands cold 
water is useful, and every dairy farmer should 
have an ice-house, where a constant supply of 
ice can be obtained for regulating the tempera- 
ture of the milk. In winter warm water and 
a warm room can be made use of as desired. — 
The temperature of Schooley's preservatory 
can be regulated very easily, and we think fa- 
vorably of it. We only designed to present a 
few facts on this subject, and have exceeded the 
space we proposed to occupy. It is, however, 
an interesting subject, and we would like the 
opinions of experienced dairymen. 

[Rural New Yorker. 



Overseer's Rules. 

The following rules were laid down by a good 
overseer in Jackson Parish, La., and published 
in the Times. Read them : 

1. Before going to bed, I will think over 
what I have to do the next day, and note it 
down upon my slate, in order that it may be 
recollected on the morrow. 

2. I shall rise early, and never let the ne- 
groes catch me in bed of a morning, but see 
that they are all put regularly to their work. 

3. After rising I shall not idle about, but go 
directly at the business of my employer. I shall 
see that the negroes are at their work ; that the 
horses have been fed, the cattle attended to, &c. 
If any of the negroes have been reported as 
sick, I shall at once see that proper medicine 
and attendance are given. 

4. Wherever the negroes are working, I shall 
consider it my duty to be frequently with them, 
in order that I may see how they get along. I 
shall not content myself with doing this once 
a day, but I shall do so repeatedly, observing 
every time what they are doing, and how they 
do it. I shall never permit them to do any 
work wrong if it takes the whole day to do it 
right. 

5. Negroes — I shall see that the negroes are 
regularly fed, and that they keep themselves 
clean. Once a week at least I shall go into 
each of their houses, and see that they have 
been swept out and cleaned. I shall examine 
the blankets, &c, and see that they have been 
well aired; that everything has been attended 
to which conduces to their comfort and happi- 
ness, 

6. Horses — I shall consider it my business 
to see that the horses are properly fed and rub- 
bed ; their stable is well littered. When har- 
nessed and at work, I shall see that their har- 
ness fits, and does not gall them, recollecting 
that these animals, though dumb, can feel as 
well as myself. 

7. Cattle — I shall daily see that the cattle 
have been penned, that they have good water 



558 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



to drink ; and I shall at once see how lean 
best procure a pasture for them. I shall let the 
cattle minder know that he is watched and held 
responsible for these things. 

8. Milch Cows — I shall contrive to procure 
these the best pasture, if possible. I shall feed 
them night and morning, and shall so manage 
it as always to have something to eat when 
penned. 

9. Houses, Fences, &c—I shall endeavor never 
to let these got out of order. The moment I 
discover any of them out of repair, I shall have 
them attended to, never forgetting that 'a stitch 
in time saves nine/ 

10. Carts, Wagons, &c — I shall observe the 
same rules about these as about the horses, &e. 
and shall never put off attending to them until 
I may want to use them, when I shall not have 
time to do so. 

11. Time — I will always recollect that my 
time is not' my own, but my employer's, and I 
shall consider my neglect of his business, as so 
much unjustly ttken out of his pocket. 

12. Visits — If anyone calls to see me I shall 
entertain him politely ; but I shall never for- 
get to attend to business on that account. — 
" Business first, and amusements afterwards" 
shall be my motto. If any of my friends are 
displeased at this rule, the sooner they cease to 
be friends the better. — Southern Cultivator. 



The Farmer. 

The man who stands on his own soil, who 
feels that by the laws of the land in which he 
lives — by the law of civilized nations — he is the 
rightful and exclusive owner of the soil he tills, 
is by the constitution of our nature under a 
wholesome influence not easily imbibed by any 
other source. He feels, other things being 
equal, more strongly than another, the charac- 
ter of a man as a lord of the inanimate world, 
of this great wonderful sphere which, fashion- 
ed by the hand of God, and upheld by his pow 
er, is rolling through the heaven, a part of his 
— his from the centre to the sky. It is the 
space on which the generation moved in its 
round of duties, and he feels himself connected 
by a link with those who follow him, and to 
whom he is to transmit a home. Perhaps a 
farm has come down to him from his fathers. 
They have gone to their last home ! but he can 
trace their footsteps over the scenes of his daily 
labors. The roof which shelters him was rear- 
ed by those to whom he owes his being. Some 
interesting domestic tradition is connected with 
e\ ery enclosure. The favourite tree was plant- 
ed by his father's hand. He sported in boy- 
hood' beside the brook which still winds through 
the meadow. Through the fields lies the path 
to the village school of earlier clays. He still 
hears from the open window the voice of the 
Sabbath bell which called his father to the 
House of God; and near at hand is the place 
where his parents laid down to rest, and where, 
when his time shall come, he shall be laid by 



his children. These are the feelings of the 
owner of the soil. Words cannot paint them ; 
they flow out of the deepest fountain of the 
heart; they are the life spring of a fresh, heal- 
thy and general national character. — Edward 
Everett. 



From the U. S. Economist. 

Exports of Wheat to England. 

The sources whence England drew her wheat 
last year, and for the first four months of the 
present year, were as follows : 



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In the last year hardly more than 10 per ct. 
of the grain was drawn from the United States, 
but more than half the flour. Abundance and 
cheapness in the United States, and compara- 
tive scarcity on the Continent, will give this 
country a market for the usual exports of 
brcadstuffs. The national exports for the year 
en ling June 30, 1857, were as follows, with 
the estimates for 1858 : 





1857. 


1858. 


Of Sea and Forest, 


$18,4::*.).355 


1 8,000,000 


Agriculture, 


16,736^458 


17,000,000 


Food, 


58,333,176 


51,000,000 


Cotton, 


131,5.75,859 


140^00,000 


Tobncro, 


20.200,772 


21,000,(0) 


Manufactures. 


33.501.383 


34,000,000 


Gold, 


00,078,352 


52,000,000 


Total, 


$338,985,065 


333,000,000 


Imports, 


336/JU,12<l 


27.1,511,000 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



559 



A Paper on Swine. 

Read before the Committee of the Worcester 
(Massachusetts) Agricultural Society.] 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, — With in- 
stinctive modesty • I appear before you as 
Chairman of the Committee on Swine, deeply 
feeling, as I do. the responsibilities of the posi- 
tion I have unwittingly, and I fear unwisely, 
assumed ; but, gentlemen, relying on your well- 
known courtesy, I have endeavoured faithfully, 
and to the best of my ability, to discharge the 
task which you have assigned me. 

It is placing one in a very awkward predica- 
ment, to be invited out to a dinner or evening 
party, and when the ices or jellies have disap- 
peared, to receive a quiet intimation from host 
or hostess, that the time is arrived when he is 
expected to be exceeding funny. Such a hint, 
however deliberately administered, would chill 
the heart of the merriest, and banish every 
thought of jest or humour, unless, like the 
farmer's farrow cow, the luckless individual 
possess the faculty of never dryingup, but is 
ever prepared to give down fun, frolic, and 
comical stories the whole year round. 

The traditions of the past, the hallowed usages 
of days gone by, all point to the report of the 
Pig Committee, as the peculiar and proper ve- 
hicle for fun in the celebration of our Society. 
Prosy we dare not be, merry we would be ; but 
the tricksy spirit which inspires with wit and 
humour is coy indeed, and comes not always at 
bidding, though wooed never so ardently. VV it, 
fun, and frolic are like the dew-drops that 
sparkle and glitter in the bright sunlight but 
for a moment ; sprite-like they come and 
go — whence or whither no one knows. After 
an earnest invocation to the Deity of Fun, that 
she will grant me a few ideas which may inter- 
est or amuse you, I proceed with the subject. 

Historically, socially, and gastronomically, 
the pig demands our careful attention. The 
connection with commerce, with the cuisine, 
and even with the great interest of fire insu- 
rance, have all made him an object of particular 
regard. In the early days of the Celestial Em- 
pire — as we learn from the veracious writings 
of the witty and voracious essayist, Charles 
Lamb — a wealthy Chinaman was so unfortu- 
nate as to have his dwelling destroyed by fire. 
Prowling around the smoking ruins, and seek- 
ing to save some of his valuables which the 
conflagration might have spared, his hand came 

contact with ttie smoking remains of a poor 
pig which had perished in the flames; instantly, 
smarting with the pain, he carried his hand to j 
his mouth, when a peculiar flavour greeted his 
palate, such as the gods (Chinese ones I mean, 
of course) might in vain have sighed for. Re-' 
gardless of pain he applied himself once more, 
and drew forth from the smoking cinders the 
remains of the pig. Carefully brushing off the j 
ashes, he regaled himself with the feast before . 
him, but closely preserved the secret he had ' 



learned In a few short months, however, the 
taste for roast pig came back so strong, that 
John Chinaman's house was burned down 
again, and again was a pig found in the ashes. 
This was repeated so often that the neighbours 
grew suspicious, and watched until they as- 
certained that the reason for the conflagration 
was the feast that invariably followed. Once 
out, the secret spread like wildfire ; every 
liill-top shone with the flames of a burning 
habitation — every valley was blackened with 
the ashes of a homestead ; but roast pig was 
dearer to a Chinaman than home or honour, 
and still the work of destruction went on. 
Alarmed at a course which bid fair to ruin 
every insurance office in the empire, the direc- 
tors petitioned in a body to the General Court 
of China, for the passing of an Act that should 
arrest the evil and avert their threatened ruin ; 
and a careful examination of the revised statutes 
of China would probably show stringent reso- 
lutions against the crime of burning houses for 
the sake of roasting pigs. 

Since the invention of the modern cooking 
stove, however, although incendiarism has de- 
creased only in a slight degree, still it has ceased 
to be attributed to this cause, and a juicy crack- 
ling is no longer suggestive of fallen rafters or 
a houseless family. 

There is an <§ld adage, " Give a dog a bad 
name, and his ruin is accomplished." Such 
may be true of the canine race ; but the noble 
family of animals of which I am treating furn- 
ishes a striking illustration that the proverb 
applies not to their numbers. A goose, it is 
said, saved lordly Rome by its cackling; and 
had not their list of Divinities just then been 
full, a grateful people would have found for 
him a sedgy pool and quiet nest in Olympus. 
How did the ancestors of that same people repay 
the pig for a service scarcely less important ? 

The veriest smatterer in the classics knows 5 
that, when from flaming Troy, if iEneas the 
great Anchises bore," seeking in strange lands 
a new home for his conquered people, a white 
sow, attended by thirty white little pigs, pure 
as herself, pointed out to him the scene of his 
future empire. But what did he and his peo-: 
pie do for the pig in return ? Did they load 
him with honours? Did they cherish hirawith 
corn? Did they treat him with respect ? No! 
with black ingratitude, which still merits the 
indignation of every admirer of the pig, they 
affixed to the animal the appellation of "Por- 
cus;" and " poor cuss" the pig would have been 
to the present day, had not the Latin tongue 
long since ceased to be the language of the 
world. But " poor cuss" he is no longer, when 
in Worcester county he spurns his classic name, 
and, adopting the vernacular, he "grows the 
whole hog," that he may " pork us," in return 
for the care which we bestow upon him. 

For the sake of our farmers, who are anxious 
to make a profit from pig-raising, it is greatly 
to be regretted that the thirty-at-a-litter breed, 



560 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



already alluded to, has disappeared from the 
face of the earth. Breeding swine with such a 
rate of increase must be almost as profitable as 
" shaving" notes at two per cent, per month ; 
but still the impression is irresistibly forced 
upon us, that, in a family so numerous, those 
who came last to dinner, at least in their infant 
days, would not have gained flesh very rapidly. 
Indeed, in such a family it would seem almost 
impossible to dispense with the services of a 
wet nurse, in order to bring up profitably the 
rising generation. 

The course of the pig, like that of the Star 
of Empire, has ever tended westward. From 
China we trace him to Italy, the gloomy 
mountains of the Hartz, the broad plains of 
Westphalia, the fertile valleys of France, and 
to the waving forests of " Merrie England ;" 
all have known him since the days when their 
bold barons and hungry retainers sat down to 
feast on the juicy chine of the wild boar, and 
the savoury haunch of venison. In green Erin 
piggy has been an important member of society ; 
true, he has shared his master's meal, and 
basked in the comfortable warmth of his cabin; 
but, like a " gintleman" as he is, he has ever 
paid the " rint ;" and St. Patrick, in the pleni- 
tude of his power and influence, never saw the 
day he could have banished him from that 
" gem of the ocean." 

When the pig first crossed to this western 
world remains in doubt. Whether he came 
with the Pilgrims, pressing with the foot of a 
pioneer the Blarney-stone of New England, and 
scanning with fearless eye the cheerless pros- 
pect before him, or whether, regardless of 
liberty of conscience, and careful only of his 
own comfort, he waited till the first trials and 
toils of a new settlement had been met and 
overcome, we* have no record; enough for us 
that he is here ; how or where he came con- 
cerns us not. He is among us and of us. From 
souse to sausage we have loved him ; from ham 
to harselet we have honoured him ; from chine 
to chops we have cherished him. The care we 
have shown him has been repaid a hundred- 
fold. He has loaded our tables, and lighted 
our fire-sides, and smiling plenty has followed 
in his steps, where hungry famine would have 
stalked in his absence. 

But still further towards the setting sun has 
been the arena of the pig's greatest triumphs ; 
there have been the fields of his widest in- 
fluence. Beneath the vast forests of Ohio, 
raining to the ground their yearly harvests of' 
mast — through her broad corn-fields, stretching 
as far as the eye can see, he has roamed, ami 
fed, and fattened. From him, and the commer- 
cial interests he has mainly contributed to 
establish, has grown a mighty State, scarcely 
second to any in this confederacy ; from his 
ashes has arisen a new order in society — the 
" Bristleocracy of the great AVest." 

A broad levee bustling with business, lofty 
and spacious stores and slaughter-houses, 



crowded pens, and a river bearing on its bosoi 
steamboats in fleets— all attest the influenc 
which the pig has exerted on the agriculturt 
and commercial interests of the great State ( 
Ohio. He has filled the coffers of her banker, 
and has bought the silks which cover her belle: 
He has built the beautiful palaces which ador 
the " Queen City of the West," and feeds th 
princely luxury of those who inhabit then 
There he is almost an object of worship, an 
his possession is considered as about equivaler 
to a patent of nobility. Fancy dimly paint 
the picture, when a few years hence, the wea 
thy pork merchant, who justly boasts hi 
numerous quarterings, shall, in the true spiri 
of heraldy, paint on the panel of his carriag< 
and on the escutcheon over his doorway, 
lustrious shield, bearing in brilliant colours 
single pig, his bristles all rampant, his ta 
closely curlant, and his mouth widely opan 
till the lions, the griffins, and the unicorns c 
the Old World shall fade into insignificanc 
before the heraldic devices of the New." 

George S. Tait, Chairman. 



From the Genesee Farmer. 

The Life of a Farmer— Healthful, Pleas 
ant, Profitable and Honorable. 

That the life of a farmer is healthful, ha 
frequently been shown by tables of comparativ 
longevity, and one of these for Massachusett 
shows that their lives exceed the general av€ 
rage by twelve years, and go nearly nineteen 
years above that of the common laborer, am 
eighteen above the average at death of thos 
engaged in mechanical pursuits. There seem 
to exist a sanitive influence in the varied em 
ployments of the agriculturist — in its fresh am 
suggestive surroundings. So the young mai 
to whom along life seems desirable, may choos 
the occupation of a farmer with the greates 
likelihood of seeing in their fullness the allottet 
years of man. For whenever and whereve 
such statistics have been gathered, they brinj 
facts to confirm the healthfulness and longevity 
of the tillers of the soil. 

That the life of a farmer is pleasant, seems 
at least, the opinion of the great mass outsidt 
the employment, if their professions are to bf 
believed. A city writer, speaking upon th« 
subject, remarks : " The man in active businesi 
in other departments, pictures for himself ii 
his retirement a rural home — a little farm wel 
tilled — and on that he hopes to end his da}'S 
Ambitious men, who have drunk deeply o 
fame, are at a stand when the tide of theil 
affairs are at a turn, whether to make new anc 
earnest efforts to struggle upward, or to buy t 
farm and in the peaceful labors it requires, tc 
enjoy a tranquil close of life." Merchants 
lawyers, and physicians, we may add, whec 
most rapidly accumulating fortunes, often stop 
to consider whether a competence and a snuji 
farm are not more desirable than wealth, amid 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



561 



the turmoils and cares of the city, and the 
vicisitudes of fortune to which its dwellers are 
exposed. Rural life and employment have the 
elements of the beautiful and the agreeable, 
or they would not possess so many charms to 
the occupant of all other departments of human 
enterprize and industry. 

Why then do so many young men, turning 
from agriculture as unworthy their attention, 
seek other employments, or crowd the mercan- 
tile or professional ranks? There may be 
various reasons for this. Some may desire a 
more speedy return for their labor, and think 
it found in daily or weekly wages, not consid- 
ering the uncertainty of constant employment, 
or comparing their actual profits with those of 
the working farmer. Others may be led away 
by the attractive and fashionable appearance of 
acquaintances who have. found employment in 
the city ; or by the hope of rivaling the one out 
of twenty who succeeds in making a fortune as 
a merchant, forgetting, meanwhile, the confine- 
ment and drudgery of the every-day life of 
their gentlemanly friend, and the nineteen fail- 
ures which have taken place while the latter 
has suddenly risen to wealth and notoriety. A 
large class are impressed with the idea that in 
cities exist greater facilities for finding a com- 
fortable living without much active labor ; and 
this thought has charms for the indolent which 
they cannot resist. How bitterly they will be 
disappointed, miserable multitudes, who are 
waiting with Mr. Micawber for " something to 
turn up," can sorrowfully relate. 

That the young man who has been liberally 
educated must study a profession — that in law, 
medicine, or theology, alone, can be found use 
for his learning — is an idea too prevalent even 
now. It will be a better day for all when it is 
discovered that the highest honors of the college 
do not unfit a man for the practical duties of 
agriculture — that it is not burying one's knowl- 
edge to graduate from the university to the 
farm. Some of our most successful agricul- 
turists have reached farming through law, 
finance, politics, literature, or merchandize; 
going by way of the professions to their present 
field of labor. When such men take the direct 
route, as they are beginning to do, farming will 
rank not only as healthful and pleasant, but as 
profitable and honorable in the esteem of men. 
Increase in position will give increase in knowl- 
edge and refinement, and make the life of a 
farmer always and everywhere, what it should 
be — the truest and manliest of all life on earth. 

J. II. B. 



From the Country Gcn'Ievwn. 

Differences in Soils. 

Soil is the earth wherein crops of every kind 
are produced. The component parts are argill, 
sand, water and air. Argill is the soft and 
unctious part of clay. Argill and sand con- 
tains each, in nearly equal degrees, the food of 
36 



plants. There are different kinds of soil, which 
may be divided into four classes, namely : Clay, 
Sand, Gravel and what is termed Peat Earth. 
There is, however, another kind of soil called 
garden mold, but, as it is mainly an artificial 
creation, it can hardly be ranked with natural 
or original soils. Loam, too, has been consid- 
ered by some as an original earth, but in reality 
it is an artificial soil, produced by calcareous 
matters, and animal and vegetable manures. 
In process of time the strongest clay may be 
converted into a loam, by repeated applications 
of the substance just mentioned. Sandy soils 
may also be converted into light loams by the 
application of lime^halk, marl and clay. And 
even peat rnay be turned into a black, soft loam, 
and rendered fertile and productive. 

A clay soil differs from all other soils, and is 
tough, wet and cold, and requires a good deal 
of labor to render it fit for bearing artificial 
crops of corn or grass. When once wetted it 
does not soon dry, and when thoroughly dry it 
is not easily wetted. When it is plowed in a 
wet state it sticks to the plow like mortar, and 
in a dry summer the clods can scarcely be 
broken or separated by the heaviest roller. 

Sandy soils are managed with much less 
trouble and at an expense greatly inferior to 
what clay soils require ; but the crops which 
are produced from them are generally of smaller 
value. There are several varieties of sandy 
soils, and in some artificial plants will not 
thrive unless a portion of good earth ,is previ- 
ously mixed. A true sandy loam resting upon 
a sound subsoil, is called the most valuable of 
all soils upon which all kinds of grain may be 
raised with advantage, and no soil is better 
adapted for turnips or grass. Sandy soils 
thoroughly invigorated with clay and marl, by 
judicious management, may be made to produce 
the largest crops. 

Gravelly soils freely imbibe moisture, and 
part with it with great facility. From the 
lightness of their texture, they are neither ex- 
pensive nor difficult in the means of cultivation. 
They are usually barren, but by frequent ap- 
plication of manure, and by frequent returns 
of grass, they may be made fertile and prolific. 
Deep plowing is essentially necessary, so that 
the surface soil may be augmented, and greater 
room given to the growth of the plants cultiva- 
ted on them. If shallow-plowed, it is either 
burned up in a day or two of drouth, or equally 
injured by an excessive fall of rain. 

Peat earth, probably, is an artificial soilmade 
and produced by certain substanses deposited 
upon the surface of the earth. Philosophers, 
however, disagree on this point. By one it is 
called a primitive earth ; by another, a vegeta- 
ble which grows and increases, and continues 
to increase until it destroys all other soils ; and 
by a third, that it consists of ligneous and 
aquatic plants. It has been said that one-fourth 
of the habitual globe is peat,_or moss earth, 
and it is, perhaps, surprising that so. little-is 



562 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



known on a subject of so much importance. | 
This-soil is friendly to the growth of oats, if i 
previously it has been summer-fallowed and 
enriched with manure. A heavy crop of wheat, 
if the season is favorable, may also be obtained. 

As to the uses to which soils may be most 
advantageously applied, it is requisite that clay 
soil be kept rich and full of manure, which 
qualifies it for carrying crops of wheat, oats, 
beans, and clover. Usually, clay soils require 
great industry and care, and a thorough knowl- 
edge in the dressing, to keep them in a proper 
condition. No soil is so ungrateful as this one, 
if allowed to get into a sterile condition ; but 
if manure is profusely a^ropriated with an 
occasional summer-fallowing, it will yield the 
heaviest and most abundant crops. 

Upon light soils the case is somewhat differ- 
ent. The facility with which they are cultivated, 
furnishes encouragement to keep them under 
the plow. Grasses flourish the best, and 
summer-fallow is rarely required. The best 
method, perhaps, of procuring wheat, is to sow 
upon a clover stubble, which gives an artificial 
solidity to the soil, and is thereby rendered 
capable of sustaining this grain until it arrives 
at maturity. W. R. P. 

Elizabeth, N. J., 1858. 




THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 



F. N. Watkins, Esq'r., at the office of the 
Farmers Bank of Va., at Farmville, is our 
authorized Agent to receive money due for sub- 
scriptions to this paper and to grant receipts 
therefor. Our subscribers in Prince Edward 
md the counties adjacent will please call on 
him. 



Common Errors of Farmers. 

Unfortunately for Virginia, there are yet 
within her borders too many farmers who will 
not listen to a cry for reform. They are joined 
to their idols and wish to be let alone. They 
resist every effort at improvement in agricul- 
ture that may be made by some neighbor who 
is disposed to keep pace with the "spirit of the 
age," and look with contempt on what they 
t?rm "book farming." However, we know of 
but one of even this class who carries his 



prejudices quite so far as to say, " Poor land 
is hard enough to work, God knows, without 
having it rich" — while many, judging them by 
the indifference and slovenliness displayed in 
their want of care for their farms, seem to en- 
dorse this opinion of their frank and loquacious 
brother. 

These tread in the footsteps of their ances- 
tors without troubling themselves to think 
whether or not theirs was the right path — which 
it might very well prove to be if they are trying 
to get to the "Almshouse." "Land Skin- 
ners" they are by name and practice ; and, for 
the good of the soil, for the sake of science and 
for the prosperity of their neighbors and them- 
selves, we regret they can so easily be found. 
We cannot hope to benefit this class by a word 
of remonstrance, but there are many other 
farmers who are guilty of errors detrimental to 
their own interests, from want of reflection and 
from negligence in superintending the adminis" 
tration of their affairs, who will hearken 
to counsel given with an earnest desire to 
benefit them. Wo beg them to listen to an 
enumeration of some of the most prominent 
faults in the agriculture of our State ; and, if 
convinced that they are aiders and abetters of 
these faults, we exhort them zealously to set 
about the work of reform. We proceed to 
particularize some of these errors, and 

1st. The folly of cultivating too much land 
for their force and capital. Under such cir- 
cumstances, the result must be that the land is 
deprived of the quantity of manure necessary 
to insure from it a generous yield, and the 
work done is of an imperfect character — insuf- 
ficient to reduce the soil to a condition of "good 
tilth." It must be evident to any man who is 
capable of understanding or observing the laws 
of nature, that one acre of well manured and 
properly cultivated land will produce, at a very 
moderate estimate, three or four times as much 
as one of poor soil and insufficient tillage. It 
is better for a farmer to gather a large crop 
from a small space ; because he will have less 
trouble and expense for himself, while hia 
" hands" and teams will not be required to 
" scatter" over a large space to secure a thin 
and indifferent crop — the necessary quality of 
all crops the produce of poor soil. It follows, 
then, that the farmer, by such a course of 
practice, saves trouble, time and money — the 



tnr 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



563 



"force" of the farm and teams have less labor 
and exposure to undergo. The wants of the 
farm can be better attended to, as the owner 
has an opportunity of seeing it often, and is 
thus kept "posted up" as to the condition of 
every part of it. Many a " wash" runs into 
a "gulley," many "abrasions" terminate in 
" galls" of considerable extent, because they 
begin in a distant field. Again, there is a pro- 
portionate diminution of expense and trouble 
in the items of fencing and draining. Finally, 
it is more economical, agreeable and profitable 
to work a farm of proper proportion to the 
force and capital located on it. " Anything 
worth doing at all, is worth doing well." 

The usual size of our farms (remote from 
eities) may be said to vary from 400 to 800 acres. 
These are generally divided into three fields—one 
of which is annually in corn, another in 
wheat; while the third, under pretext of being 
rested (/), is grazed and poached by all the 
stock of the farm. 

With such " skinning" as this to submit to, 
of course the land must every year become 
more and more impoverished — the owner add 
to his burden of anxiety and debt. After 
awhile he must "sell out" and remove to a 
"better country," to secure the probability of a 
supply of bread to those dependent on him ; or, 
worse still, he must see (what is repugnant to 
the feelings of every Virginia gentleman) some 
one or more of his negroes sold to meet his 
liabilities." There are many instances of 
just such management as this, in more States 
Ifchan ours. Many a place in the U. S., where 
capital, which would be of infinite service in 
supplying to the arable portions of the land the 
manure and necessary labor for its profitable 
cultivation, is " locked up" in useless acres. 
What, then, is the remedy for this evil ? 

We answer : sell from one-fourth to one half 
)f the land of every farmer who has pursued 
iuch a system of cultivation as we have des- 
;ribed and lay out the proceeds judiciously in 
mproving the acres he will have left. We be- 
ieve it would greatly benefit our State and 
people to do so. We should then have a dense 
)opulation in districts now almost deserted, 
vhich would give renewed impulse to agricul- 
ural improvement and incidentally benefit the 
nterests of every class. We have never seen 



hi acre of land made rich that did not pay a ferent kinds in the following proportions, v 



handsome profit on the cost of making it 
so — counting the great pleasure of seeing fine 
crops grow on spots hitherto barren as nothing; 
and pleasure should fill the heart of every man 
on witnessing an improvement of the soil, ef- 
fected by his own industry, liberality and 
perseverance. In England, the tenant, in order 
to make his living on his rented land, does not 
hesitate to expend for manures an amount of 
labor per acre necessary for certain seasons, 
which would pay for a "fee simple" right to a 
good farm here. 

" Good managers" have proved that it will pay 
to expend- liberal sums of money judiciously 
in improving and renovating the soil. 

If English tenants find it pays them to 
improve their landlords' farms, surely our land- 
owners here, who are not improving theirs, are 
behind the spirit and intelligence of the age. 
Well may they " find farming a slow business" 
who are themselves wanting in every element 
of agricultural progress. 

2nd. There is a lamentable state of indif. 
ference manifested in augmenting the quantity 
of manure and in taking care of and hauling 
out that which, without any special pains, ac- 
cumulates about the stock-yards. A great 
many of the stables are built upon the edge of 
a hill. The manure is thrown out in a heap 
near its brow, exposed to sun and rain. 

First, from beiug heaped in its fresh state, a 
rapid fermentation takes place— we should have 
said too rapid— bj which it becomes burnt or 
" fire-fanged ;" its gaseous constituents are 
evaporated, and it is left light, chaffy, mouldy 
and valuable for little more than the inorganic 
matters contained in it. Even the latter (the 
easily soluble portions of them) are washed 
out by the rain, and the bulk is injured from 
50 to 75 per cent, in value. When Guano is 
used for the wheat crop, how often is it the 
case, after the grain is sold, that even the straiv 
is thrown away and not allowed to return to the 
land — depriving it thus, with every crop, of its 
Lime, Potash, Soda, Phosphates, Sulphates, 
&c. 

100 lbs. of the ash of wheat strau\ which is 
5.10 per cent, of its original weight — as ascer- 
tained by the average of 8 different analyses — is 
equal to about 2,000 lbs. of straw in its unburnt 
state, and contains inorganic material of dif- 



564 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Potash, 12.14 

Soda, 0.60 

Magnesia, ------ 2.74 

Lime, ' 6.23 

Phosphoric Acid, - - - - 5.43 

Sulphuric " - - - - 3.88 

Silica, 67.88 

Per Oxide of Iron, - .- - 0.74 

Chloride of Sodium, - * 0.22 

Loss, 0.14 



100. 



It will be perceived, then, that these figures 
indicate almost the precise number of lbs. of 
these important fertilizers abstracted with every 
2,000 lbs. of straw from the land. If they are 
correct (and we do not doubt their truth) it will 
be well for every farmer to bear them in mind. 

Can any man, pursuing such a course of mis- 
management, expect to continue to make crops 
of wheat from the use of Guano ? At the 
present price ($60 per ton) we think it cannot 
make a profitable return But even at the 
former price of 4.5 to 50 dollars per ton, its 
use in the manner mentioned must be eventually 
a losing business to the farmer. But we believe 
if it can be bought at a fair price and is used 
dn proper quantities in conjunction with 
putrescent manures, and the supply of inorgan- 
ic matter is kept up for the soil by the use of 
Lime, (in small quantities) the wheat straw 
being returned to the land, that it will be of great 
benefit. 

We have seen it used in this way on poor 
land which was soon after able to bring a good 
crop of clover. We know farmers who make 
•large crops of grain by the use of Guano, who 
do not use their wheat straw as a fertilizer at 
all. It is allowed to remain in a bulk until 
it rots and mounts on the wings of every 
breeze to be scattered to the "corners of the 
earth," while the owner of the farm might 
say of his departed manure heap what an old 
wag said of the soul of a neighbor of his who 
had recently died, • 

"But, where k's gone and how it fares, 
Nobody knows, and — nobody cares." 

The excuse offered in extenuation of such 
carelessness is, "We have no time to haul out 
manure or straw." We say take time to do it. 
Haul out and distribute to your land every kind 
o-f manure on the farm that will make another 
stalk .of corn or of any other article of produce 
useful for food or luxury. One of the best 
"farmers we ever knew ; and, by the way, ho 



made money by farming, used to say, " Putting 
manure on the land is the very best farming 
any man ever does." We know it will pay, and 
advise everybody who owns land and has a 
stock of it on hand, if he has not time to get 
it out with his own force and teams, to hire 
those of somebody else to do it, even if he has 
to borrow the mouey to pay for the accomplish- 
ment of the job. Money thus expended will 
come back to his pocket, bringing with it a 
handsome profit. 

3rd. Improper cultivation or defective prepa- 
ration of the ground cannot make a crop. There 
is a great deal of ploughing done which deserves 
to be called by no better name than "mere 
scratching." Not only is the furrow too shal- 
low to allow the roots of plants easily to 
penetrate the soil, but no pains are taken to 
have the farrow slices lap well. Negligence in 
this matter is the cause of many a hole and 
sink in the surface. These are filled with 
water and injure plants near them as well aa 
prove obstacles in reaping, &c., and mar the 
beauty of a field, especially when the ground 
is " bedded." Ground should be thoroughly 
broken up with the plough if it is expected to 
bring it into " good tilth" afterwards. If hard 
at the time of ploughing and left in a " clodd v 
condition," break the clods. If the harrow 
does not break them sufficient!}', use a roller 
heavy enough to insure their reduction. 
In ploughing, the furrows should be run ic 
such a direction as to assist in draining. Lei 
the " water farrows" empty into the ditches 
and not (as is very often the case) run parallel 
with them. Here let us call the attention ol 
farmers to the fact, that nine-tenths of them, 
when they have cut a ditch to carry off the re-i 
dundant water in a field, leave the bank standing 
alongside of it, thus raising a dam whict 
catches the water and defeats the object of th( 
ditch. True, the water, in the course of time 
will sink and find its way into the ditch ; but. 
until it does, there must be a strip of "water 
sobbed" land along its edges of greater or lest 
width according to the shape of the surface 
around. The banks should be thrown off oj 
completely as possible. You can then cult! 
vate'to the water's edge ; secure more thorough 
drainage and get rid of the eye-sore of having 
a hedge of thorns, brambles and unsightlj 
weeds along the edge of every ditch. In all 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



565 



operations, have an eye to neatness 6f appear- 
ance where neatness is not incompatible with 
proper economy and progress. There is much 
truth in the old adage, " the neatest farmers are 
the best." 

We propose to show, in a future number, by 
what means the manure heap can be augmented, 
relying principally for so doing upon the re- 
sources of the farm. We refer our subscribers 
to older and more experienced heads than ours 
for instruction in draining, stock management, 
&c, and shall be glad to have lectures from 
them on these points. We are very well aware, 
too, of how much is yet due to our own farm 
in the matter of proper draining, and if we 
should attempt to lecture on this subject, should 
expect to have "Physician heal thyself" hurled 
at us. However, we will set about remedying 
this evil very soon, and will only remark further, 
that it is worth a ride to the farm of our friend 
F. G. Ruffin, Esq., to witness the effects, and 
learn the details of, a mode of draining at once 
economical and easy to carry into execution. 
His land has been greatly improved by draining 
effected principally with the plough; and most 
of the labor has been done with implements 
worked with horse power instead of the spade. 



Charcoal for Firing Tobacco. 

We are sorry we are a judge of the good 
quality of "the weed," after it has left the 
hands of the Planter and passed through tho; 3 
of the manufacturer — after it has been assorted, 
sweetened, pressed, greased, &c, by the industry 
of the " colored population" who manipulate 
it at the factories. But, on this part of the 
subject, we can speak with a full mouth, as we 
rarely part company with our " quid" from 
breakfast until bedtime. Like many others, 
we have often tried to give up using tobacco, 
but the effort is vain. Possibly we might (in 
our ci-devant character of Doctor), say some- 
thing of the evils too, of indulging in the waste 
of money and health, and the loss of cleanli- 
ness and proper digestion necessary before 
one can become a competent judge of the merits 
of a " quid" or good " cigar." But prudence 
suggests we should keep quiet here and stand 
"non-committal," lest we bring upon us anoth- 
er lecture, in addition to many already received, 
for the practice of a " bad habit." The vene- 
rable Dr. Chapman used to say, that the use of 



tobacco was so injurious and yile a habit that 
no man should ever acquire it. If unfortunate- 
ly acquired, it should at once be abandoned for- 
ever, "except upon a pinch." Suiting the 
action to tho word, he would deliberately fill 
his nostrils with snuff. • 

If then the habit of using tobacco cannot be 
cured, we will try to remove some of the 
difficulties in the way of curing it. 

The smell, or taste of smoke, is very objec- 
tionable in any tobacco, to nearly all persons 
who use it, as well as to the buyer. 

If wood (particularly oak) is used in "firing," 
it is almost impossible to divest the tobacco 
of both the smell and taste of smoke, which 
gives it,' after being manufactured, a strong, 
bitter, and disagreeable taste. Tobacco which 
is "sun-cured" is always free from this ob- 
jection, and generally commands a higher price 
in consequence. But it is a much more trou- 
blesome operation to scaffold in the sun, keep 
it out of the rain, and to chink the open houses 
with straw, &c, in damp weather, than it is to 
dry up the sap at once by means of fire. There 
is trouble enough connected with it, everybody 
knows who has ever raised it, from the time 
when the plant-beds are prepared until the 
money is received for the crop : so that any 
saving of trouble, in the process of curing, is 
worth the farmer's attention. 

We think the advantages of using charcoal 
for firing may be set down as follows : 

1st. The tobacco is left untainted by the 
smell or taste of smoke, while it is, in conse- 
quence, better for manufacturing purposes. 

The appearance, too, is said by some to be 
improved, as it generally has a glossy, silky 
semblance imparted to it. All the black stain 
of the coal dust and smoke is removed while in 
the course of stripping and handling. 

2nd. It is much less troublesome, and near a 
market for icood, is much more economical. 

3rd. There is little danger of having the 
Barn burnt down by sparks. 

As to the cost of charcoal, we cured last fall 
a house full, 22 ><j 28 feet long, with 9 tiers, for 
$13. We do not know exactly how many 
bushels were consumed, but 3 cords of good 
oak wood would be worth that sum. The char- 
coal made a very hot fire, and there were no 
sparks from it. In a conversation with a very 



566 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



successful Planter not long since, he described 
his method of tobacco-curing as follows : 

" I always try to get my tobacco to the house 
as soon after cutting as is practicable. As 
soon as the leaves are sufficiently wilted to per- 
mit handling without any danger of breaking 
them, I begin to haul in. For the leaves to 
wilter requires only a few hours. If the to- 
bacco is not already as yellow as I wish it, 
(which is seldom the case) in order to brighten 
the color, I crowd it close on the sticks, and the 
sticks sufficiently close together for the leaves to 
touch slightly. I leave a space on every tier of 
six or eight feet unoccupied, so as to have the 
opportunity, if it should be desirable, to give 
the tobacco more space. Having succeeded in 
obtaining as bright a color as I wish, my nex* 5 
step is to separate the sticks several inches 
before having a fire kindled of dry, half rotten 
pine wood. This should not be allowed to 
blaze — only to smoke. Fire from wood of this 
description will not make smoke strong enough 
to leave behind it either unpleasant smell or 
taste. It merely warms the tobacco faster than 
it would do from close crowding, and makes it 
yellow. When the color is sufficiently bright, 
I have fires of charcoal made up under each 
tier hot enough to raise the temperature of the 
house, (which should be close) to 110° or 120°, 
Fahrenheit. This heat should be kept up con- 
stantly. If it is, the tobacco will, in three days, 
be cured. I take it down forstrippiugas soon as 
I can, when it is in order. After stripping, it 
is again put on the sticks and placed on the 
tiers in the same close manner as when first 
brought to the house. If the weather should 
be unpropitious I can then separate the sticks 
and give it room so as to kindle a light fire 
under it at anytime I may think it desirable 
from dampness." 

We append an article from a correspondent 
of that excellent paper, the North Carolina 
Planter, on the same subject: 

Walnut Cove, N. C., July '58. 
To make low-ground Tobacco desirable for 
the Manufacturer, it is necessary for it to be 
cured yellow. Until very recently, the idea 
has prevailed, that Tobacco yellowed before fire 
is put under it, could not be cured yellow. 
This is a mistake, and I will endeavor to explain 
the treatment in a few words. As large To- 
bacco requires more time to cure it than small, ' 



necessity of cutting as near the same grade as 
possible, for the same curing. Do not put more 
than five plants on a stick, and have them at 
least twelve inches apart in the barn. Before 
housing put it on a scaffold near the barn door, 
just high enough from the ground to allow the 
tails of the Tobacco to rest, from 6 to 10 inches 
on the straw, with which the ground should be 
covered. As soon <is the Tobacco gets suffi- 
ciently limber, crowd it on the scaffold and 
cover it closely over the tops and sides with 
leafy brush, and there let it remain until it 
yellows. If it should rain on it, open it on a 
higher scaffold and let it dry, and if not suffi- 
ciently yellow, again crowd it. When it gets 
nearly yellow, build a log fire in your barn and 
keep it hot one day so as to dry the ground and 
walls thoroughly, and at night remove the fire. 
The next day house the Tobacco, and put from 
nine to fifteen small fires made of charcoal, at 
equal distances from each other, over the floor. 
By hanging a Thermometer on a bottom tier 
near the centre of the house, you may keep the 
heat regular. For the first ten or twelve hours, 
raise the heat to 95 or 100°; then increase it 5° 
every fifteen or eighteen hours according to the 
size of the Tobacco, until the leaf is nearly 
cured, then increase it 5° every two hours until 
165 or 170° are obtained, and continue at that 
until stem and stalk are thoroughly cured. 
The fires should be kept up night and day from 
the beginning to the end. The walls of the 
barn should be made close to exclude the air, 
and if it has a tight roof, a space two or three 
inches wide should be left under the eaves : but 
if a common slab roof, no space will be neces- 
sary as they are generally sufficiently open. It 
would be well to have air holes under the bot- 
tom of the house, that could be opened or closed 
at pleasure, and during the two first days of 
firing, keep them and the door standing open 
most of the time. 

In giving the degrees of heat and the changes, 
I may not be exactly correct, but by observing 
the following 1 think there will be but little 
difficulty in succeeding, as the best curers in 
Stokes county have never used a Thermometer. 
The nature of Tobacco is such, that if fire is 
forced too fast in the beginning, it will cause 
the leaves to cure of a dark rusty or greenish 
color ; or in a more advanced stage, if the heat 
is too great, there is danger of causing the To- 
bacco to sweat ; which would cause large red 
splotches to come on the leaves ; and if too 
slow (which I think is not often the case except 
when the fires are allowed to go out) there is 
danger of its drying up of the same color that 
it would in the sun or air. All of these things 
should be guarded against. If it should get in 
a sweat, which you can readily detect by fre- 
quently feeling the leaves, immediately pull 
down the fires and give it air freely by opening 
the door, &c. After it dries out of the sweat, 






and sappy Tobacco more than that which yel- you may proceed as before, but do not have too 
lows on the hill, you will at once see the much steam. By observing these rules I think 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



567 



the fibre may be cured as yellow as the leafy 
part of the plant. If too much Tobacco is put 
in the house at one time, it is almost impossible 
to keep it from getting in a sweat. 

With the hope that the above may prove 
profitable to your numerous readers, and par- 
ticularly to my esteemed friend "A Planter of 
Wake," I now close. 13 . 



Experiments in Pulling* Fodder and Cut- 
ting Tops. 

We have received from the Secretary of the 
"Hole and Corner Club of Dinwiddie and 
Brunswick," the following "Report" — with the 
expressed wish of the Club that we should in- 
sert it in our pages. We gladly do this and 
return our thanks to the Club for the paper. 
AVe hope they will continue to send us a report 
of every experiment which is conducted, as 
this has evidently been, with care and accurate 
observation, by any of their members, and 
which they may deem interesting or " profita- 
ble for instruction." 

An agricultural paper offers to farmers a 
channel for communicating to their whole fra- 
ternity their ideas on Husbandry, both theories 
and facts. In it, it is meet that they should 
freely discuss every subject which is likely to 
prove either beneficial or injurious to the inter- 
ests of so important a class. A paper thus 
used, must be the means of doing a great deal 
of good ; and we offer ours for such purpo- 
ses to all persons who are interested in the 
cause of agriculture. In our columns we shall 
cheerfully afford them room to " take counsel 
together," assured that a benefit must accrue 
in which we may be participants : 
Experiments reported to the Hole and Corner 
Club of Brunswick to ascertain the propriety 
of pulling Fodder and Cutting Tops. 

Mr. President : — In compliance with a reso- 
lution of this Club, passed at its last meeting, 
in reference to the result of an experiment I 
made with corn, I report 

That I selected three rows, contiguous to 
each other, and running parallel across a piece 
of ground of uniform fertility; the corn in each 
row appearing entirely similar in quality. 

No. 1. I stripped off the fodder about the 
20th of September and cut the tops about the 
1st of October, as I did my whole crop, which 
is the usual custom in this region. 

No. 2. I chopped down even with the surface 
of the ground, on the same day that I pulled 
the fodder of No. 1, and put it in small shocks 



of 30 to forty stalks to the shock, neither pul- 
ling the fodder nor cutting the tops. 

No. 3. I did not disturb till gathering corn- 
time ; neither pulling fodder nor cutting the 
tops. About the middle of November I gath- 
ered the corn, hauled, shucked and weighed 
the contents of each row separately — being 
particularly careful that not an ear was mis- 
placed — with the following result, viz : 
No. 1, weighed - - - 274 lbs. 
No. 2, " .... 26G " 
No. 3 ?> " t - - - - 316 " 
Thus showing a difference in favor of No. 3, 
over No. 1, of 42 lbs.; and over No. 2, of 50 lbs., 
there being between No. 1 and 2 a difference 
of 8 lbs. only. From the above it would ap- 
pear that the gain in the corn, by not pulling 
the fodder nor cutting the tops at all, over the 
usual plan of saving both, is a little over 15 
per cent., and over the plan of chopping down 
stalk and all at pulling fodder time, of about 
19 per cent. Now, when we consider the entire 
fodder crop, when well saved, as constituting 
about 25 per cent, of the value of the corn 
from which it is taken, apart from the cost of 
gathering and securing it, and the loss sustained 
in our tobacco from worms and succors while 
attending to the fodder, we may have a tolera- 
bly clear idea of the impropriety of pulling 
fodder at all ; and especially when our tobacco 
is to suffer by it. 

Respectfully submitted, 

W. F. Doyle. 
Dinwiddie Co., Va., Aug. 5th., 1858. 



Explanatory. 

Accidents will happen in the best regulated 
families, and everybody knows of the existence 
of a " Devil," in every printing office. He it 
is who bears the blame of all sins of omission 
and commission in the establishment. We but 
"give the Devil his due" in informing our rea- 
ders of the fact, that some of our cotemporaries 
were deprived of the credit due them for several 
articles copied by us in the August No., by 
his machinations. We would credit them now> 
but unfortunately, the copy has been lost, and 
we cannot say from what paper the article for 
Dairymen — the " Milk of Spayed Cows" — was 
taken. 

The letter of Mr. Lewis Bailey, on " Green 
Rye for Soiling Cattle," was addressed to the 
Editor of the Country Gentleman, published at 
Albany, N. Y., by Messrs. L. Tucker & Son. 
In this connection, we cannot help saying of the 
Country Gentleman, it is in our opinion, a very 
interesting and valuable journal for the farmer. 

In reference to the mistakes referred to 
(occurring in the August No. of the Planter), 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



our own awkwardness is to blame. We hope 
this will be excused, as we shall try to avoid a 
repetition of it. We wrote the name of the 
paper, from which we copied .the articles, on 
the back of the extract, and the printer thought 
they were good enough to pass into the farmer's 
treasury without being signed or endorsed by 
any one. Hereafter we will not " back a 
friend' 7 in such manner as to do him injury. 



Value of Agricultural Papers. 

We have ever been of the opinion that the 
Farmer who does not take an agricultural paper 
commits a great error, and does himself and 
those dependant upon him, great injustice. 
The money paid for a good agricultural paper 
is like seed sown in " good ground," bringing 
" forth fruit, some a hundred fold, some sixty 
fold, some thirty fold/' 

In confirmation of this opinion we give that 
of one of our North Carolina subscribers, who 
has been taking the Planter since its commence- 
ment. He says he " verily believes there is 
not a subscriber to the Planter in his county 
who makes less than fifty per cent, more than 
those who do not take it." A word to the wise, 
&c. 



Information Wanted. 

A subscriber asks for a receipt for making 
"Apple Wine." We cannot find such a thing 
among our exchanges or on the pages of any 
of our back numbers. 

Will some friend give us the information ? 
Also, for tlfe benefit particularly of a " Lady 
Friend," 'a remedy for the Roaches, 7 which 
pervade every part of the house, from the book 
case to the sugar dish. Chloride of Lime and 
several other preventives have been used with- 
out success. 



We call attention to the advertisement of 
Mr. L. Tudor in our columns. Mr. Tudor is a 
near neighbor of ours, and we have seen his 
Trees, which are very fine. We do not doubt 
that his stock can supply the wants of those 
who are about to set out young Orchards. 



Erratum. — In the September No. of the 
Planter, in the article on the " Character and 
Habits of Birds," on p. 503, last paragraph, 
first line, read {Icterus Baltimore) instead of 
(Ictuus Baltimore. 



To Subscribers. 

In consequence of the change in the Propri- 
etorship of the " Southern Planter," it is very 
important that our subscribers should remit 
the amount of their indebtedness with as little 
delay as possible. 

The amount due from each subscriber is in 
itself comparatively trifling, but in the aggre- 
gate it makes up a very large sum, and if each 
subscriber will consider this as a direct appeal 
to himself, and promptly remit the amount of 
his bill, it will be of infinite service to us. 

We commence sending with this number the 
bill to each subscriber who is in arrear, and 



To Postmasters and Others. 

We are satisfied, that with proper exertion, 
any person who will interest himself for us, 
will be able to make up a list of new subscri- 
bers for the * Planter," in almost any neigh- 
borhood, in this or any other of the Southern 
States. We offer, as an inducement to those 
who are disposed to aid and encourage us in our 
efforts to extend the circulation of this paper, 
the following premiums in addition to our 
hitherto published terms: 
To any person who will send us clubs of 

3 new subscribers and $6, — 

The So. Planter for 1857. 

6 new subscribers and $12, — 

The So. Planter for 1857 and '58. 

9 new subscribers and §18, — 

The So. Planter for 1857, '58 and '59. 

15 new subscribers and $30, — 

The So. Planter for 1857, '58 and '59, 
and a copy of the Southern Literary Messenger 
for one year. 

To single new subscribers we will send the 
present volume, (commencing with the number 
for January, 1858,) at the low price of $1 50> 
paid in advance. 

We call upon every one interested in promo- 
ting the progress and improvement of agricul- 
ture, to lend us his aid in contributions of 
original articles on practical or scientific agri- 
culture, in order that our paper may continue 
to be worthy of the confidence and support of 
those who have hitherto so liberally sustained 
it, and to whose interests its pages will con- 
tinue to be zealousl}' de* voted. 

August & Williams. 

July 1st, 1858. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



shall continue to do so until all shall have been 
sent out. We ask, as a favor, a prompt re- 
sponse from all. 

The bills are made up to 1st January next. 
The fractional part of a dollar can be remitted 
in postage stamps, or the change returned in 
the same. 

August & Williams. 

July 1st, 1858. 



For the Southern Planter. 

The Impropriety of Breaking Roots of 
Growing Crops. 

In the 7 month number of the Planter is an 
able article on the " Functions of the Roots and 
Leaves of Plants," to which is appended some 
remarks by the editor. In these remarks he 
takes exception to some propositions of the 
writer, and at the same time advances other 
propositions as facts, that appears to me may 
be doubted, though they are considered "in- 
disputable" by the editor. 

He says : " Now it is true, we think, that if 
the roots of the plants are disturbed when the 
plant is fructifying, injury is done thereby to 
the product; but while the plant is young, we 
think that with some sorts breaking the roots 
is a decided advantage. Thus the cabbage is 
always larger and better if ' pricked out' before 
it is transplanted — i. e. if it is transplanted, 
and as soon as it begins to grow transplanted 
again." Why is this advantage obtained in 
the caseof cabbages? Plainly because they are 
sown thickly to save labor, and then they grow 
"spindling," unless allowed more room. But 
sow them as thinly as when " pricked out," 
and they will make as good and as stalky 
plants, as if transplanted, if the soil is in 
equally good tilth. Who would think of trans- 
planting beets, parsnips, carrots, &c, for the 
main crops? Some of these are sometimes rais- 
ed in hot beds and transplanted for early use; 
but where is the reason that breaking the roots 
of these would not be as beneficial as for cab- 
bage? Of the cul'ture of tobacco, I know noth- 
ing, and am thankful that this detestable weed 
is not among the staples of this region, but I 
can readily perceive how " a close coultering" 
may induce "a much more vigorous growth" 
by loosening the soil around the plant, even if 
a few roots are broken. 

But of the cultivation of corn I profess to 
know something, and I well remember fifty 
years ago, when I first began to hold the shov- 
el plough, it was the practice to use a large 
single shovel, and plough deeply the last time 
before harvest, 'necessarily breaking the roots' 
and ridging the ground around the hills. This 
practice is one of the has beens here, and we 
should 



think it an insult to our good sense 
now, for any person gravely to argue a return the soil is" of morradVan\ugrto^the^pknrrhan 



to the old mode of cultivating that cereal. I 
have a relative here, a neat and good farmer, 
though somewhat old-fashioned, and not apt to 
take any new notion until fairly convinced, who 
some years ago was cultivating a field of corn 
adjoining a field of his neighbor's, and they 
Were going through their crops both. at the 
same time, just before harvest, my relative, as 
usual ploughing nicely and pretty deep, and 
hilling his corn beautifully, while his neighbor 
was skimming his ground with a double shovel 
plough, not even covering all the grass around 
the stalk. My relative rallied his neighbor for 
his indifferent work, and contrasted it with his 
own ; but mark the result, and it is a result of- 
ten occurring in our dry summers ; a drought 
of several weeks had just set it, and his corn 
fired badly, the lower leaves dying, thus injur- 
ing it materially, while that of his neighbor, 
who by his shallow ploughing, did not disturb 
the roots did not fire at all, but the leaves kept 
green to the ground. The editor speaks of the 
" tendency to run to stalk," but this only takes 
place when there is a want of mellowness in 
the soil, from heavy rain or other causes. This 
is particularly the case here this year. The soil 
made very compact by heavy rains, has caused 
a slender growth of stalk, and unless we have 
a good deal of wet weather until the crop is 
made, the ears must be small. The only 'pro- 
per time/ in my opinion, and according to my 
experience, to plough corn for the last time, so 
as to "give a deep tilth and necessarily break 
roots," is when we can have rain following, it 
then may "change its habit of growth," and 
" benefit the ear," but should a drought of a 
few weeks take place instead, as is often the 
case at that season of the year, such ploughing 
must be far more injurious than shallow plough- 
ing that merely keeps the surface mellow. — 
The evil effects of deep ploughing at such times 
lam well >atisfied from experience, are not com 
pensated by their occ sional advantages, and the 
idea that to break off the roots increases their 
number, may be true in that regard, but it 
remains to be proven that it increases their 
length, and it is their aggregate length, that 
gives capacity to obtain nutriment from the 
soil. When cultivators wish to retard growth 
they root prune, and how root pruning the corn 
by the plough can increase its growth, is about 
as reasonable an argument as that of the dram 
drinker, who drinks in cold weather to keep 
the cold out, and in hot weather to keep the 
heat out. 

The editor says, "the fact is indisputable," 
" that there is a tendency in every plant where 
vitality is impaired, to reproduce itself more 
quickly ;" but the instances that he gives of 
improvement in his cabbage and tobacco and 
corn plants, may be properly ascribed to the 
pulverization of the soil rather than to the 
breaking of the roots. It may be, and doubt- 
less is, often the case, that the pulverization of 



570 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



injury to it by breaking some of its roots, but 
we should ascribe the advantage to the right 
source, and not advance a principle that in one 
case is considered to promote growth and in 
another to retard it. Nature is uniform in her 
operations, and we cannot change her course 
at will to suit our fancy. It would be better to 
retain all the roots if possible. 

Believing that the proposition of the editor 
is based upon an erroneous principle, and is 
not in accordance with the facts instanced, I 
greatly prefer the principles advanced by the 
writer of the essay in question, considering 
them in the main correct. There is one prop- 
osition advanced however, that I think is be- 
ginning to be viewed in a different light, the 
result of which will ere long be ascribed to a 
different agent from that hitherto supposed. — 
It has long been the opinion of writers on veg- 
etable physiology, that carbonic acid gas im- 
bibed by the leaves and taken up by the roots, 
was decomposed by sun light, and thus prepar- 
ed for building up the carbon in the plant. — 
Sun light, doubtless, plays an important part 
in the economy of nature in vegetable growth, 
but it is beginning to be believed, and strong 
evidence is had, that electricity is the agent 
mainly instrumental in releasing oxygen from 
its compounds. In the arts we know that it 
does have that effect, and would it not be more 
consistent with reason to assign as a cause for 
an effect, one that we have evidence is capable 
of the effect, rather than one that we have no 
other evidence of producing the effect than that 
it is produced. It is not until recently that ex- 
periments in electricity have verified this con- 
clusion, but it would seem now to be pretty 
clearly ascertained, that this active agent, is so 
generally diffused in the atmosphere as to be 
within the reach of every plant that grows, 
and every plant is the medium of conveyance 
from the atmosphere to the earth, and vice ver- 
sa; and thus suiting its action precisely to the 
circumstances of the case. Every leaf, even 
every point of a leaf is a conductor, and as 
moisture is favorable to its conveyance, it is in 
precisely the condition most favorable to the 
decomposition of the carbonic acid in the sap, 
in its passage along the branches and trunk of j 
the plant or tree. The former theory was that | 
the inorganic materials necessary to growth j 
were conveyed by the sap to the leaves, and 
that by the operation of sunlight, were there j 
vitalized, and then returned by a downward 
flow of sap to build up the plant in its several 
parts. Ti»is is a roundabout way Q$ producing 
an effect, and not at all in accordance with the 
simplicity of nature's laws, where we are ac- 
quainted with them. They are remarkable for 
their simplicity. This theory was borrowed 
from the known circulation of the animal sys- 
tem, but now our abl-est botanical writers say, 
there's no such circulation in plants as there is 
in animals. Yardley Taylor. 



Tobacco Exchange. 

The following communication, intended for 
the August number of this paper, was received 
too late for insertion. To those interested in 
the subject of which it treats, it will have lost 
nothing of its interest, by the unavoidable de- 
lay in submitting it to our readers. — [Editor. 

For the Southern Planter. 
Frank G. Ruffin, Esq., late Editor, &c. : 

Dear Sir — The Bush and Briery Club have, 
by the publicly expressed opposition to the 
"Tobacco Exchange," provoked replies from 
several quarters; and especially have you, 
as late Editor of the Planter, in publishing 
certain "remonstrant resolutions" of the Club, 
thought proper, in "your quasi official char- 
acter," to make them a text to read us a lecture 
on "the code of moral obligations," "freedom 
of trade, of action, and opinion." To. these 
strictures of yours we are prompted to reply, 
even though we should still incur your un- 
favourable judgment for great moral obtuse- 
ness — and we do so not with a view of pro- 
voking farther discussion of the subject, but to 
elicit your views on certain "apprehensions" 
and facts connected with the establishment of 
this " Exchange," and not noticed heretofore 
by you. We do so, hoping that if we are mis- 
taken, you will, in some measure, enlighten 
our moral sense and set us rectus in curia. 
But until that is done, permit us here to say, 
that having taken the position that we do 
occupy in opposition to this Exchange, we will 
dare maintain it, even though we may not have 
the "congratulations of that large majority of 
planters who acquiesce in, or approve the re- 
form," of which you so boasting! y speak. Per- 
mit us, also, to inquire how you ascertained 
"that large majority," and if the returns were 
official. If it were practical, most gladly would 
we submit the question of This Exchange to a 
vote of the planters, and not fearing, would 
cheerfully submit to the result; and predict 
that the returns from the Rural Districts would 
rather set back our friend of the City and his 
Exchange. 

In the published Preamble of the Club, we 
set forth that, " apprehending that the establish- 
ment of a Tobacco Exchange in the City of 
Richmond,, is calculated to result in the trans- 
fer of the sale of all tobacco, carried to that 
market, from the hands of the planter to the 
commission merchant." You contend, in your 
article, that the " inducement is to improve the 
cumbrous machinery of trade, and the attempt 
is made to do it in conformity with the prece- 
dm.'s of other emporia. The question, then, is 
whether Richmond is ready to imitate their ex- 
ample; and in all such questions, the first 
motive of commerce is policy : as it is the only 
motive which the public cares to consider, for 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



571 



be its intents wicked or charitable, the public 
looks only to results." 

We thank you for this admission. You must 
allude to the great cities of New York, Balti- 
more, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans, 
as being the emporia referred to, as worthy 
precedents. You are aware, that in the North- 
ern cities referred to, you cannot buy or sell 
one share of stock, or sell one bushel of grain, 
except through the hands of the commission 
merchant; and at the South, even though you 
held all the cotton that grows on the Yazoo, or 
Mississippi Bottom, and go into one of these 
cities, you cannot dispose of a bale except by 
paying a commission to a factor. The question, 
then, is whether Richmond is ready to imitate 
their example" ? We cannot see by what code 
any privileged class shall appropriate to them- 
selves all the rights of purchase and sale at a 
public market, and permit no one else to come 
in and enjoy the advantages of the market ex- 
cept by paying them a bonus for so doing. We 
do not see wtar we, who grow the tobacco, 
shall not have the right of disposing of our 
own crops as we may think proper, be they in 
our barns, or in the warehouse in the city of 
Richmond ; and what policy of commerce can 
be promoted by forbidding our so doing, or 
paying a tax for the privilege — not for the 
benefit of commerce — but for the benefit of a 
combination of private individuals? The de- 
mands of commerce are not so unjust, and she 
asks no such an offering at our hands. And 
if " the cumbrous machinery of trade" moves 
so heavily as to require some improvement, we 
plead guilty to the obtuseness of not being able 
to see the necessity, or justness, of having it 
lubricated by a compulsory tax of 2£ per cent, 
on all produce sold in market. If Richmond 
is to become the great emporium for the sale 
and shipment of tobacco, you must see that the 
establishment of this Exchange, "in confor- 
mity to the precedents of other emporia," must 
also establish a tax, amounting to the commis- 
sion, on all tobacco bought in the upland mar- 
kets to be re-sold in Richmond, just as the 
dealer, in buying cotton in Memphis, must cal- 
culate the additional cost, and deduct it from 
the price paid, by being compelled to employ 
a factor in New Orleans to dispose of it to the 
shipper; all of which comes out of the planter. 
If we are not much mistaken, we recollect 
with pleasure your zealous and able advocacy 
of the abolition of all Inspection Laws, as im- 
posing unnecessary tax on the planter, and are 
at a loss to reconcile it with your support of a 
sys em now, which will, " in conformity to the 
precedents of other emporia," impose a com- 
pulsory tax on the tobacco alone grown by him, 
in many instances as great and greater than the 
whole amount he pays on all his property, 
personal and real, into the State Treasury, and 
of which tax now there is so much complaint. 
You have favoured us with statistics, showing 
the amount of Inspectors' salary &c., at Shockoe 



warehouse. We will now ask, and will be 
under obligations to you to give us some state- 
ment of the amount of tax the planter will be 
compelled to pay, in the way of commissions, 
on all tobacco sold in Richmond, when the Ex- 
change is perfected " in conformity to the 
precedents of other emporia." You can ap- 
proximate to the amount, by ascertaining the 
value of the tobacco trade for the past year, 
and give us the 2J per cent, of the amount, to 
say nothing " of the large and increasing trade 1 ' 
which the founders of the Exchange anticipate. 
We believe that the intent of the founders of 
the Exchange, " be it wicked or charitable," is 
to break down all inspections and warehouse 
sales — that their "policy" is to force all tobac- 
co into the Exchange, and thereafter into the 
hands of the agent; and that the result of its 
establishment will be " in conformity to the 
precedents of other emporia." " The public 
look# only to results," and profiting by these 
"precedents" — to prevent just this state of 
trade in the tobacco market that we demur — 
and for that reason we "do resolve, 

1st. That whilst we may use our commission 
merchants as agents for the sale of produce, at 
our option, we will not be compelled to resort- 
to their agency against our will," &c. 

We still advocate " freedom of trade, of 
action, and 'opinion," careless as to whose code 
it may offend. If the machinery of trade has 
become so cumbrous, and it is necessary to 
have an Exchnnge, we would ask, what ob- 
jections you can possibly have to an Exchange 
enacted by the law of the land, where all may 
have the same rights and privileges, that they 
now enjoy, defined by law ? In other words, a 
general place of sale, where all samples are 
! taken and each inspector sells the tobacco of 
! his warehouse in the order of the breaks of 
that day ? But you answer, that the planter 
now has the right to sell at the Exchange for 
the pittance of 12£ cents per hogshead — a sum 
less than he pays the Inspector. Not being a 
tobacco planter yourself, we perceive that you 
are not conversant with the tricks of the trade. 
7 Tis true, that we may sell at the Exchange for 
this small pittance, but what guarantee have 
we that we may do the same thing next year ? 
and besides, as you admit the crier is " bound 
not to collect at all" — you must see that not 
one planter in fifty could collect the proceeds 
of the sale of his crop, divided among half a 
dozen purchasers, without great loss of time 
and incurring expense. It is almost impracti- 
cable, as the counting-rooms of the dealers are 
scattered over a large portion of the city and 
unknown to the planter. And besides, we 
charge it upon the patrons of the scheme, that 
'this prohibition of the crier "not to collect at 
all," is one of the studied "intents" to force the 
planter into the hands of the merchant. After 
breaking down the inspection sales, (an intent 
which you will hardly deny for them,) if they 
do not have the hardihood to come right down 



572 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



for the 1\ per cent., this disability will be ef- 
fectual in consummating their designs. What 
other motive could they possibly havei 

But, again — I believe that it is conceded 
that the most, and best grade of shipping to- 
bacco, is grown in this region of the State. 
This high standard has been obtained by great 
care and skill, not only in growing the staple, 
but also in the handling, order, mode of prizing, 
and style of cask. Well, sir, a planter has his 
crop put up in the best English or Scotch 
style — bone dry — straight as candles — prized 
honest and with great care, exhibiting a beauti- 
ful exterior w 7 hen stripped, and a water-tight 
cask. For all of these things he gets well paid. 
(You, probably, are not aware that there are 
in the country some planters, and professed 
prizers, who do not put up their tobacco quite 
as honestly and carefully as others.) He 
sends his crop to a commission merchant, and 
at the same time directs it and marks the casks 
to Shockoe warehouse; for the reason, that 
since the establishment of this Exchange, that 
this is the house at which the dealers " most do 
congregate," and he is desirous that all may 
see his tobacco broke and inspect for them- 
selves. He knows that he has a very desirable 
crop, and orders his tobacco to be sold at the 
warehouse where all saw it, and at public 
auction. All of this, we contend, he has a 
right to do. What say you ? Well, sir, what 
does his agent do? He stops the tobacco at the 
depot, sends it off to Dibrell's — a new ware- 
house where but few dealers attend, and they 
have never had a public sale, unless very re- 
cently, — has it broken — inspected — and the 
samples taken to the Exchange and sold at 
auction, or privately, as may suit his fancy, 
and the planter loses all the benefit of his extra 
labour and care in preparing his crop for mar- 
ket. He returns to his principal an account of 
sales — compliments the skilful manner in which 
his tobacco is put up — lauds the sale as being 
the best of the season — is confident that no 
other house could have done quite as well — 
tells him that his directions, sending his crop 
to " Shockoe," were noticed, but for personal 
reasons he has determined never to have 
another hogshead broke at that warehouse — 
that We (commission merchants) have entered 
into a solemn and written pledge — having es- 
tablished an Exchange — "to restrict all offer- 
ings of tobacco, both public and private, there- 
at," and for this reason he could not obey his 
orders, and cooly solicits farther con- 
signments. "Now, this may or may not be 
very unwise, but whose 'rights' have they in- 
vaded, or what more have they done than as- 
sert certain privileges of their own?" We 
quote your own language and would be glad 
for you " to prove that the merchants are alto- 
gether right in this movement — exercising 
nothing but their undoubted privileges without 
the slightest 'invasion of the rights of the 
planter/ and pursuing, from whatever motive, 



the course of an enlightened and intelligent 
commercial spirit, whereby they confer a bene- 
fit on the very persons whose interests they are 
assumed to be assailing." We ask if the 
principal, when he thinks proper to employ an 
agent, has not the undoubted right to instruct 
and control him in that agency? If we, who 
hold the fee simple, have not the right to con- 
trol our possessions^ even though we think 
proper to give a commission of %\ per cent, in 
reversion to another? We do dare maintain, 
then, this pledge of the merchants, restricting 
all offerings of tobacco to this Exchange, and 
refusing to obey the instructions of the owner, 
as a violation of rights — a "violation of the 
long and well-established usage of the country — 
an invasion of the rights of the planter — by 
attempting to remove the sale of the great 
staple of the country from the places appointed 
by law for its inspection and sale." The law 
has established the warehouse as a place of 
inspection and public sale — " the long and well- 
established usage of the country" has pro- 
nounced it good, — the planter has rights estab- 
lished by law there, while he only can expect 
courtesies at the Exchange, subject to be changed 
or annulled, as may best suit the interest or 
caprice of the parties controling it. 

But you may say, that the planter is not com- 
pelled to employ the agent and go to the Ex- 
change — that he yet has the privilege he has 
had always of selling at the warehouse if, "un- 
der the doubtful construction of a most impoli- 
tic law, he elects — say — to sell through the in- 
spector." You must admit that either the ware- 
house sales, or the Exchange, must succomb. 
If not, you multiply places of sale, and your 
machinery becomes more cumbrous. That cum- 
brous as is the trade, it is not large enough to 
support two establishments in conflict. You 
must also admit, that the bald effort is made by 
the patrons of the Exchange to crush the ware- 
house sales — that their pledge, " restricting all 
offerings of tobacco thereat," proves it. If 
such be the case, we only ask that if the de- 
mands of commission merchants, their " in- 
vasions" and " restrictions" be thus modest 
now, in the name of the Prophet ! what will 
they be when your " cumbrous machinery of 
trade" will be improved "in conformity to the 
precedents of other emporia"? Pardon us for 
again reminding you, that "the public looks 
only to results." 

But we have written much more than we in- 
tended in the beginning, and must close. We 
are at a loss to find any argument set forth in 
our published remonstrance, that the establish- 
ment of the Exchange lowers the price of to- 
bacco, unless it is your deduction from the fact 
that the buyers cannot see the tobacco as it is 
broke at the various warehouses. And we 
have only to suggest to you, that the objections 
of JohnCaskie, William Gray, and other vete- 
ran buyers, is worth more to establish the fact, 
than any assertion of ours, or individual 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



opinion of yours, and we place them in the 
scale against both. And we would suggest, if 
you are not well informed on the subject, to 
consult with these gentlemen, and learn and 
report their preferences for seeing all tobacco 
broke before it is sold — their reasons for buy- 
ing planter's tobacco rather than reviews — the 
advantage of care and honest prizing — nice ex- 
exteriors, and good light casks. 

We have not contended *' that the law has 
ever appointed a place when and where only to- 
bacco shall be sold." The policy of the law is 
"freedom of trade — of action and opinion." 
But we do contend that the law has established 
the warehouse as & place of inspection and sale 
■ — free to all — where the planter has rights, and 
that the attempt on the part of a self-consti- 
tuted tribunal to break down the warehouse 
sales, is an invasion of these rights. If they 
succeed in this attempt, we do contend that 
the establishment of this Exchange will, ac- 
cording to your own '■'precedents,'" result in the 
restriction of all sales of tobacco thereat— in 
the transfer of the sales of all tobacco from the 
planter to the commission merchant; and that 
this will be a tyranny. Aye, sir! "the very 
essence of tyranny." We " thank thee Jew for 
that word." 

You also ask, "what motive could influence 
the buyers to enter into a conspiracy to com- 
pel the planter to pay commissions on his 
sales?" It is hard to judge men's motives; 
and we have only to refer you again to one of 
the results of the establishment of Exchanges 
according to your precedents. You must know 
that you, an outsider, cannot buy a share of 
stock at the Exchange in New York, and that 
if you desire to purchase cotton in New Or- 
leans, you must employ a broker to trade with 
the factor. There has ever been a considerable 
speculative trade in tobacco between Peters- 
burg and Richmond, and sometimes upland 
dealers make a handsome operation by slip- 
ping in on a crowded market in Richmond. 
Such has been the amount of this kind of 
trade, that already there are buyers in Rich 
mond who tender their services as tobacco 
brokers, to be employed at the option of out- 
siders, (as they are termed.) We have no 
doubt that many manufacturers, and other 
dealers, are actuated by motives of "economy 
of time, as well as to conduce to the comfort 
and convenience to all," but at the same time 
we can see an " inducement" 'in the "trade" to 
exclude these outsiders, or levy a contribution 
on them for the privilege of coming in. And 
this will be in conformity to your precedents. 

Your arguments touching the Inspector, and 
the objections brought against him, we do not 
notice, as we do not appear as the especial 
friends of the Inspector. We are fully aware 
that they have been "filibustering," as well as 
others, in raising their charges for selling, col- 
lecting, &c, and we desire to see them pnrned 
a little, and made to know that they are men 



under authority. We must say, however, that 
your fling — that we advocate a policy which 
offers an inducement, or rather bribe, "to him 
to neglect his legitimate business," and that 
" we hold this alternative, either that a useless 
office shall be continued that we may have the 
advantage of sales at less than the regular 
commissions, or that they shall have, for a 
small consideration, the benefit of services 
already pledged to the public for a very large 
one" — we regard as special pleadings, and not 
pertinent to the question at issue. 

In accordance with your example, and " in 
conclusion, we have to congratulate that large 
majority of planters who do 'not' acquiesce in, 
or approve the reform ;" that whatever be its 
temporary success, we have our relief from a 
tribunal rather higher than a self-constituted 
board, and that we are not yet sold to The To- 
bacco Exchange, though bequeathed to it by 
the late Editor of the Planter, by his "last 
will and testament." 

Bush and Briery. 



From the Germantoicn Telegraph. 

A Few Words to Young Farmers. 

'We find the following hints to young far- 
mers in the Country Gentleman, and lay the 
article, at the earliest moment, before the 
readers of the Telegraph. It contains sound 
sense, drawn, doubtless, from many years' ob- 
servation, and it should be regarded by those 
whom it is especially intended to benefit, as 
valuable information, which they should store 
up in their minds and make use of. 

"There seems to be a prevailing sentiment 
of aversion, not to say contempt, for their call- 
ing, among old practical formers. Their idea 
seems to be that a farmer can have no position 
in society, no influence among men — that their 
sons who follow in their footsteps, are doomed 
to endless plowing or pig- feeding, with no in- 
centives to mental culture, for which, indeed, 
they conceive there is no necessity if a man is 
to be a farmer. "Only a farmer" — "nothing 
but a common farmer," are expressions con- 
stantly in the mouths of such men when speak- 
ing of themselves or their class. No man can 
be happy who entertains such a feeling towards 
his business in life, or harbors contempt for 
the class of men among whom his lot is cast. 
To be successful in any avocation of life, be- 
tokens fidelity in its pursuit; but to be eminent 
— to be celebrated for conducting a business 
better than others have done or can do it, be- 
speaks an enthusiastic study for the sake of the 
thing itself . It is to "take a pride" in one's 
calling, be it what it may. 

" There are many farmers who deem their 
calling inglorious and humble, who have an 
ambition to see their sons elevated (as they con- 
ceive) to some profession, and their daughters 
idle ladies, forsooth. Accordingly, nothing is 
more common than to see young men, thrust by 



574 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



their parents into professions, id ling away month 
after month in a musty briefless law office with 
little or no business, making themselves de- 
spised by honest hard-working men, by their 
attempts to live without work, which has come 
to be a synonym for " living genteelly." Or 
perhaps the luckless wight is turned into a 
doctor ! to peddle drugs and to endanger human 
life by empiricism. Look at the swollen ranks 
of doctors and lawyers for proof. If, with the 
same education they have been obliged to re- 
ceive to graduate themselves as M.D.'s or law- 
yers, these same young men would go back on 
to the farm and labor earnestly and with the 
enthusiasm necessary to eminence in any pro- 
fession, the results would soon be manifest on 
the farms and farming systems throughout the 
country. 

" When we cast about for the reason 'and oc- 
casion of so much false philosophy among our 
farmers in directing the economy of life for 
their children, we find that it is mainly the 
ignorance of that class of men who decry " book- 
farminY' " larnin'/' and " eddication," for 
farmers. Foolish men, do not wonder that you 
are overlooked when occasion has need of 
a man, and that you have no position in society, 
and (taken as a body) little influence among 
men ! 

" There was a time when the farmers of New- 
England were an influential body of men, 
renowned for their many virtues. They bore 
themselves with all the innate but quiet dignity 
of men — men true to themselves and their 
calling, and true to others — true to the calls of 
patriotism, steadfast in the cause of right in 
legislative halls, in the jury-box, in politics, and 
in religion. The " homestead" was a nursery 
of domestic virtues and happiness, to which its 
nurselings looked back in the toils of after life 
with veneration and love. It was as near patri- 
archal as any form of domestic discipline could 
be in these latter degenerate days, and around 
the hearth-stone, and under the shade of the 
family trysting-tree grew and flourished every 
domestic virtue, and a patriotism under the 
teachings of good men and good women, that 
the artificial manners of now-a-days are choking 
out of life. " How are the mighty fallen !" — 
The " good man" of the farm is rarely looked 
up to and respected now as then, and farm-life 
has become a different kind of life. Why is 
this? It is because, and only because the body 
of farmers at present in the same section 
of country have not the same thorough educa- 
tion — simple, it is true, but none the less 
thorough, well-directed education that the men 
of old acquired, and that, too, at a time when 
the facilities for spreading education and useful 
knowledge were comparatively limited. It is a 
fact that in the farming community of New- 
England the standard of education is not as high 
as it was eighty years ago. The farmers of 
those days had more general information — more 
extended and profounder views of human life — 



more and fresher ideas. They had juster 
notions of morality, a correct acquaintance with 
the laws of the land enough to enable them to 
conduct business matters with better judgment 
and more securely than the same class of men 
at present, who can hardly make a trade with 
each other out of which a law-suit might not be 
hatched. How many out of a hundred of them 
at this day can write a free legible hand-writ- 
ing? — how many a terse, intelligible letter? 

" How many of us have seen the grey-haired 
veterans of a long, peaceful, rural life, men who 
made their mark in their day and generation, to 
whom we have looked up with respect — relicts 
of the giants of other days — going down with 
slow and measured pace to the impenetrable 
shades. And when shall we see their like 
again ? Not till the standard of education is 
raised among the tillers of the soil ; till the 
young man is educated on the farm and for it; 
till he is taught home habits and home enjoy- 
ments ; till he has that cultivation of the mind 
that fits him to enjoy books and sources of 
culture at home, as a relief from care and labor; 
till he can relish simple pleasures, and needs not 
the excitement of the turf and the noisy festivi- 
ties of a bar-room for his amusement. Farmers 
educate your children ; give them priceless 
boons, of which no money-panic, no commercial 
crisis, no prowling incendiary or midnight 
thief, no human agency, can rob them. Inspire 
them with a love of the beautiful, and to do 
this teach them that 4< a thing of beauty is a joy 
forever," by surrounding them with beautiful 
object, natural and artificial. 

" Teach them a love for the cultivation of the 
mind and the virtues of the heart, by surround- 
ing them with good readable books, and pro- 
curing for them the tutorings of enlightened 
teachers. This seems to sound chimerical and 
visionary as relating to farmers, but it is a prac- 
ticable thing — more feasible among ruralists 
than among any other class of men. The far- 
mer can do much more in this way for his 
children than the care-worn jaded man of a pro- 
fession, whose brain is always overheated, and 
whose time is too much occupied to pay the 
necessary attention to these minutiae. I am 
aware that these things cost money, and if 
really thoroughly entered into, will take a large 
dividend out of the yearly revenue, hut it will 
pay you better than any bank-stock or bond and 
mortgage. Make your home beautiful and 
pleasant to your children — make it the elysium 
of their childhood and youth — give them advan- 
tages for mental culture, and encourage them in 
it, and they will be far less likely to roam "out 
West" and leave j'»u alone in your old age; 
fewer of them will wreath the midnight bowl, 
and fill a drunkard's grave at six-and-twenty, 
and when you turn your face to the wall, you 
will feel conscious that you have discharged 
your duty towards them, and although perhaps 
yowr estate is not so large, you have taught 
them better how rationally to enjoy what you 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



575 



have left them ; filial love will watch over and 
guard your down-hill totterings, and keep alive 
your memory in gratitude more glorious than 
glittering monuments or ornamented shrines, 
and, like dew on Ilermon, shall fall holy tears 
for you departed. 
Swanton, Vermont. 



From the Rural New Yorker. 

The Soil. 

The soil is the farmer's capital — to make 



it pay him good profits, his business. His 
means are invested in land, and from its gen- 
erous bosom he must draw support for himself 
and family — house, food, clothing, fuel, books, 
papers, education for his children — all the ne- 
cessaries of life, without which man cannot 
live, and all these luxuries without which life 
is hardly worth the having. The President in 
the White House, or ministers at foreign 
courts, the American loungers in Paris or 
Rome, the missionary on the burning sands of 
Africa, the merchant in his counting-room, and 
the mechanic at his bench, all derive sustenance 
from American soil. Truly do the Scriptures 
Bay, " The profit of the earth is for all ; the 
king himself is served by the field." This fact 
no political economist can deny, no sophism 
can conceal. To keep his capital from depre- 
ciation, and in such a condition that it may 
he able to honour his many and necessary 
drafts, so as to be in no danger of a panic, and 
that no suspension may become necessary, is 
the great business of the farmer. It is, then, 
of the greatest importance that we should know 
the character of the soil which a kind Provi- 
dence has provided for our sustenance, and the 
best method of securing this desirable result. 

We need not tell American farmers that our 
soil differs in character, that we have clayey, 
loamy, and sandy soils — nor that these differ- 
ent soils require a different treatment, and are 
suited to different crops. And yet we often 
think those important matters are forgotten ; 
for how few, who send us reports of their crops, 
of their success, or their failures, give even a 
hint as to the nature of the soil in which the 
crops were grown, or the experiments tried! 

Then there is much need of information as to 
the best manner of cropping and manuring 
the different varieties of soil. We know of 
land in this section, that ten or fifteen years 
ago was considered so entirely unsuited to ag- 
ricultural purposes that it was thought no sane 
man would buy it for farming purposes. Star- 
vation or retreat was supposed to be the sure 
fate of any one bold enough to try the experi- 
ment. These lands are now the most produc- 
tive and valuable of any in this part of the 
State. This change has been brought about by 
skilful culture and a wise adaptation of crops 
to the soil. 

Every farmer should possess a general know- 



ledge of the formation, composition, character, 
and classification of soil, and on these points 
we shall endeavour to make the whole subject 
so plain that it will be understood and remem- 
bered by all. 

CHARACTER AND FORMATION OF SOILS. 

Soils are those portions of the earth's sur- 
face which contain a mixture of mineral, ani- 
mal, and vegetable substances in such propor- 
tions as to adapt them to the support of vege- 
tation. We quote from a valuable article in 
Morton's Encyclopedia : 

"On examining the various soils in this or 
any other country, they will be found to consist 
generally, 1. Of larger or smaller stones, sand 
or gravel. 2. Of a mere friable, lighter mass, 
crumbling to powder when squeezed between 
the fingers, aad rendering water muddy. 3. 
Of vegetable and animal remains, (organic 
matter.) 

" On further examination of the several por- 
tions obtained by means of washings, we find, 

" 1. That the sand, gravel, and fragments of 
stones vary according to the nature of the rocks 
from which they are derived. Quartz-sand, in 
one case, will be observed as the predomina- 
ting constituent ; in another, this portion of the 
soil consists principally of a calcareous sand ; 
and, in a third, a simple inspection will ena- 
ble us to recognize fragments of granite, feld- 
spar, mica, and other minerals. 

" 2. In the impalpable powder, the chemist 
will readily distinguish principally fine clay, 
free silica, free alumina, more or less oxyde of 
iron, lime, magnesia, potash, soda, traces of ox- 
yde of manganese, and phosphoric, sulphuric 
and carbonic acids, with more or less organic 
matter. 

"3. The watery solution of the soils, evapo- 
rated to dryness, leaves behind an inconsider- 
able residue, generally coloured brown by or- 
ganic matters which may be driven off by 
heat. In the combustible or organic portion 
of this residue, the presence of ammonia, of 
humic, ulmic, crenic, and apocrenic acids (sub- 
stances known under the more familiar name 
of soluble humus,) and frequently traces of 
nitric acid, will be readily detected. In the 
incombustible portion, potash, soda, lime, mag- 
nesia, phosphoric, sulphuric, and silicic acid, 
chloride, and occasionally oxyde of iron and 
manganese, are present." 

All cultivated soils present a great similari- 
ty in composition — all containing the above 
chemical constituents ; and yet, notwithstand- 
ing this similarity of composition, we observe 
a great diversity in their character. This is 
caused by the different proportions in which 
the constituents are mixed together, the state 
of combination in which they occur, and the 
manner in which the different soils are formed. 
All arable soils contain organic matter, vary- 
ing from half to twelve per cent. Good gar- 
den mould frequently contains from twenty to 



576 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



twenty-four per cent, of its own weight, and 
in peaty bogs from sixty to seventy per cent -• 



not uncommon. It was once thought that he 
richness of a soil was plainly inchoated by the 
proportion of organic matter it contained -but 
careful analyses of seven specimens of the best 
wheat soil of Scotland, and yielding about 
alike, being made, they were found to range 
from three to ten per cent. The poorest peaty 
boss, also, contain the greatest amount of or- 
ganic matter, while they are notoriously un- 
■productive. ., . , r , u - 

The organic matter in the soil is due, tor the 
greater part, to the vegetable remains of for- 
mer crops. The prairie soils are rich in or- 
ganic matter derived from the annual decay of 
the grass for centuries. The soil of the for- 
ests is enriched by the fallen leave*. 

The manner in which soils are formed can- 
not be doubted by any one who has observed 
the appearance of large rocky masses the bare 
surface of their smoother and harder parts, 
and the growth of mosses and smal plants on 
the more softened portions. The soil m valleys 
surrounded by rocky mountains shows very 
evidently that they originated m the dism egra- 
tion and decomposition of the solid rocks in 
their neighbourhood. One of the principal 
agencies in effecting a gradual disintegration 
of solid rocks in the oxygen of the atmos- 
phere. "Oxygen possesses a. great affinity 
for many mineral substances, and has, conse- 
quently a powerful tendency to form new com- 
pounds. Those compounds, or oxydes, being 
always more voluminous, looser, and less com- 
pact, are the primary cause of the bursting of 
many rocks, particularly those containing much 
iron In the course of the formation of these 
oxydes, the compact texture of the rock is 
broken up, and the whole mass of the rock 
gradually crumbles down." 

Another and powerful agency in the forma- 
tion of soils is the carbonic acid of the atmos- 
phere carried down by rain. Limestone is 
easily attacked by rain water, as the carbonic 
acid which the water contains dissolves the 
carbonate of lime. " On feldspar, granite, and 
other minerals consisting of silicate of alumina 
and an alkaline silicate, carbonic acid, and 
water exercise a highly important action Un- 
der their influence these minerals are decom- 
posed into alkaline silicates which in their 
turn o-ive rise to silica and carbonate of potash 
or soda, and into silicate of alumina, or pure 

° "riie lower orders of plants and animals take 
a very active part in the formation of soil Iron, 
solid rocks. The seeds of lichens and mosses 
floating in the air attach themselves to the sur- 
face of rocks which have become partially de- 
composed by the action of the air and ram, as 
before described, and finding here sufficient 
food, grow, thus keeping the surface of the 
rock moist for a longer time after rain, and 
giving the water a better opportunity to exer- 



cise its dissolving powers. Insects feed on 
the moss ; and both insects and plants die and 
decay. A thin layer of more fertile soil is thus 
formed, which is soon taken possession of by a 
higher order of plants and animals ; which in 
their turn die, leaving a better estate to the 
succeeding generation. 

Mechanical causes, too, operate upon rocks. 
The wind, thawing and freezing, and the prin- 
ciple of gravitation, effect them more or less. 



Boiling Potatoes. 

J Is there, among vegetables for everyday 
consumption, anything to compare to a well- 
cooked, mealy potato ? and is there anything 
poorer than an ill-boiled, watery potato ? And 
yet how seldom do you see, even among good 
livers, a first-rate dish of potatoes 1 A well- 
cooked, boiled potato is the happiest looking 
inamimate thing in creation. When they come 
to the table smoking hot, with their ' jackets 
on all bursting with the good inside, it is a 
sight to make" a dyspeptic good-natured, and 
ne"ver will fail to turn a sullen face into wreath- 
ing; smiles. Then let me say a few words about 
cooking this vegetable, and tell the way in 
which I have been most successful. 

To boil potatoes, let them lie in cold water 
six hours, at least, before boiling, (twelve hours 
for very old potatoes is not too long.) lhen 
put them into boiling water a little salted and 
the water should be kept at moderate boil till 
thev are done, which should be tested with a 
fork; then poor off the water and let them 
stand in the pot till dry. Great care should be 
taken not to let them boil a moment after they 
are done, as it will render them watery. 

An excellent plan to make old potatoes mealy 
is to turn them into a cloth and rapidly shake 
them about, or take them one at a time m a, 
cloth and slightly press them. 

The larger potatoes should be put into the 
pot before the smaller ones, that they may be 
equally done. j 

It requires from forty to fifty minutes to boiU 
old potatoes. New ones will take about hallj 
that time.— Homestead. 



To Preserve Dried Fruit from Moths. 
A fruitgrower gives, says the Louisville JouA 
nal the following reeeipe for preventing dried 
fruit being damaged by moths: 

Put the dried apples or peaches into a tin 
vessel with a perforated bottom ; cover closely 
with flannel ; place the vessel into a boiler o 
kettle containing two or three quarts of boil. nj 
water, having some sticks across the water td 
prevent the tin touching it; boil briskly and 
he fruit will soon be thoroughly heated v , .th 
out loss of flavour. Spread it out; the heat 
will soon evaporate the moisture-