&£ /'-es & - I '■ 9 VOL. XIX. [NOVEMBER] No. ILg ' '- Wished Months. Axjqvst & Wn . MAMS] Pi;(>I>1:n;T0ES< J- E. WILLIAMS, Edito DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND THE HOUSEHOLD ARTS. PRINTED AT RICHMOND, V - BY MACFAHLANE & FERGUSSON 1859! s3F fe 5 SOUTHERN PLANTER—ADVERTISING SHEET. "contents 683 687 688 688 689 690 690 691 692 693 698 700 701 703 Tobacco the Bane of Virginia Husband- ry, (No. 5,) • • r . \ ; The Two Great Evils of Virginia, and their One Common Remedy, . Salt a Preventive of the Firing of Tobacco, English Feeding, • Gold and Silver. • Draining Farm Lands, . Coolings, ■ Agriculture— Its Importance, Our Bedfordshire Farmer, . Sheep Husbandry in the West, . The Beneficial Influence of True Science, A Good Wife, who found "Good in Every- thing," • Scientific, • ' Manipulated Guano, Manufactures, • ' . . ' r t» •/ The Oldest Inhabitant's Opinion of Kail- Roads, . • _, * . * Are Birds worth their Keeping'? * F ow ls— How to make them Lay, . Pear Culture in the South, . Editorial Life--A True Pic.ture, . The Crow, . • • *. • Improved Land and Increased Value, Low Price of Southern Lands-Remedy, etc, The Cotton Crop of the Commercial lear just past, and its Prospects in the fu- ture, • A Useful Table, . Foreign Trade, • A Profitable Forty Acre Farm, How to Keep Cows, An Eloquent Extract, . Cross Breeding of Cattle, . • How to Test the Quality of Wool, . On Rearing Calves, How to Fatten Chickens, . Thorough Draining, The Four Organic Elements, . • High Farming— Prof. Mape s Farm— Su- per-Phosphate, . Stock, • • ' Fine Horses for Virginia, . Culture of the Chinese Potato, The Points of a good Hog, The Value of Bone-Dust, . . How to Shield the Grape Vine in Winter, Nothing but Leaves— The Bucket, . "Bringing our Sheaves with Us," . — BLANDER GAKBJSTT, tlarv Street, second door below 13tli street, Adioiiilus the Old Columbian Hotel, A * RICHMOND, VA., GENERAL COMMISSION MERCHANT, AND DEALER IN GROCERIES, Particular attention paid to the sale of all kinds of country produce : - Wheat, Corn, Flour, Tobacco, Oats, dec. I have made arrangements with Mr. Jno. M. Shep- P A RD,Jr, one of the best judges and salesmen of Tobacco in this city, to attend to the sale of all tobacco consigned to me. July 59— ly AYER'S ~« Cathartic Pills, FOR ALL THE PURPOSES OF A FAMILY PHYSIC, 676 1 are scTcomposed that disease within the range 677 of their action can rarely withstand or evade 679 them. Their penetrating properties search, and cleanse, and invigorate every portion oi the human organism, correcting its diseased action, and restoring its healthy vitalities. As a conse- quence of these properties, the invalid who iS bowed down with pain or physical debility is astonished to find his health or energy restored bv a remedv at once so simple and inviting. Not only do they cure the every-day com- plaints of every body, but also many formidable and dangerous diseases. The agent below named is pleased to furnish gratis my American Almanac, containing certificates of their cures and directions for their use in the following com- plaints: Costiveness, Heartburn, Headache answg from disordered Stomach, Nausea, Indigestion Pain in and Morbid Inaction of the Bowels, Flatulency, Loss of Appetite, Jaundice, and other kindred complaints, arising from a low state of the body or obstruction of its functions. 705 705 706 707 707 708 708 709 710 711 711 714 716 718 719 719 720 720 721 . 722 ■>» Ayer's Cherry Pectoral, FOR THE RAPID CURE OF Coughs, Colds, Influenza, Hoarseness, Croup, Bronchitis, Insipient Consumption, and for the relief of Consumptive Patients in ad- vanced Stages of the disease. So wide is the field of its usefulness, and so numerous are the cases of its cures, that almost every section of country abounds in persons publicly known, who have been restored from alarming and even desperate diseases of the kings by its use. When once tried, its superi- ority over every other medicine of its kind « too apparent to escape observation, and where its virtues are known, the public no longer hen- tate what antidote to employ ior the dutnssing and dangerous affections oi the V^™n*Y organs that are incident to our cl, mate. While many inferior remedies thrust upon the com- munity have failed and been discarded this has "ained friends by every trial, conferred benefits on the afflicted they can never forget, and pro- duced cures too numerous and too remarkable to be forgotten. PREPARED BY DR. J. C AYER & CO., LOWELL, MASS. PURCELL, LADD, & CO., Richmond. And by all Druggists. Aug. l859-6m. Sold by TH E Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts. Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. [Xenophon. Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of the State. — Sully. J. E. WILLIAMS, Editor. AUGUST & WILLIAMS, Prop'rs. Vol. XIX. RICHMOND, VA., NOVEMBER, 1859. No. 11, For the Southern Planter. Tobacco the Bane of Virginia Husbandry. No. 5. Arator, the tlistingushed leader among the writers upon the subject of Virginia (Agriculture, devoted a chapter to the poli- ics of agriculture. It seems equally ap- ropriate to introduce here, whatever can e justly said in relation to the morals of jur agriculture. It may be affirmed of our day and gene- ration, that although wickedness is rampant ind boldly makesfeariul headway in the world, Christian morality is making comparatively greater progress: — and, that public opinion s conforming itself to the general move- pent, and wide spread agitation of all the dements of society, — to a higher and higher standard of Christian moral rectitude. While there has always been an influen- zal class who have contended that mankind las ever been the same in every age, and herefore are destined to go on unchanged o the end, — thus nullifying the consolatory )romiscs of Holy Writ, for the conversion vf the world; there has also been an un- )roken band of believers, who have pro- ;ested against this doctrine of the philoso- phers of the day, and who, in obedience to application of like facts to different cases. Let us suppose that precisely such a case of want, destitution of means, and physical incapacity for enough exertion of labor to provide food and support, were to occur, as such cases do occur in thousands of in- stances, every year, in England, and in Massachusetts — of a widow or husbandless wife, with more young children than her means or labor can support. What would be, and what is the regular course of pro- cedure in Puritanical New England, or in Pharisaical Old England — of which all the pious and philanthropic loudly offer their thanks to God, that they are untainted by the sin of negro slavery? I assert and maintain, that in all such cases, in both these countries, and under the general ope- ration of their poor laws, all such helpless and destitute mothers, and their children, are consigned to pauper slavery — which certainly differs from negro slavery in seve- ral particulars, but in every one to the dis- advantage of the former, as being more hard to bear, more cruel, and injurious to all parties, and also growing more extensive in operation, and worse and worse, with the progress of time. One of these differences is that these pauper slaves are in England wholly, and in Massachusetts principally, of the superior race. Another difference is that negro slavery, in its comforts, provi- sion, and protection, as well as its required services, is perpetual on all the individual subjects and their posterity — and so much the better for the value of the service, and the well-being and contentment of the slaves. Pauper slavery is not the less con- tinuing unto death, to the aged, or the in- curably infirm. To all such, the bondage is literally perpetual, while the character of perpetuity does not, as in negro slavery, op- erate to increase kindness or comforts. Another difference, and a certainly occur- ring incident of every such case of pauper * This interesting question has been ably dis- cussed in the Address of Professor J. P. Hol- eombe to the Virginia State Agricultural Society, (1858,) on "The Right of the State to institute Slavery," &c. 2 ' slavery, is, that the children are separated from their mother, and from each other, without compunction, and arc put out to labor or service to whomsoever will relieve the parish of the whole, or even the small- est portion of the expense of support for each child. And these children are cm- tinucd to be held by a Succession of mas- ters, as slaves in every respect, but thai of having kind and interested care bestowed on them, until they reach 21 years of age. There will, indeed, then occur to each, a time of (so-called) freedom — but, in truth, of a different kind of slavery only, (that of labor to capital, or wages-slavery,) until the individual is again infirm, or in- cumbered with too large a family to be sup- ported — when recommences the operation of pauper slavery. The greater number of Eng- lish day-laborers, if they did not begin their lives in the poor-house, expect to close them there, in pauper slavery, severe privation, and misery. The cases, as yet, are fewer in New England — but the suffering and pres- sure of slavery, in each occurring case, is not less. For these pauper slaves, there can be no operative interest felt by their direc- tors or em ;loyers, except that of obtaining from them as mucn labor as possible, at the least expense of maintenance. The changes and intermissions of this slavery only make its inflictions the more severely felt. The perpetuity of negro slavery makes it the in- terest of every owner to be careful of his slaves' health and comforts, and produces attachment and kind feelings of regard in both parties. If the young victims of pau- per slavery are individually emancipated after a time, and probably only for a time, the system of this kind of slavery is not the less permanent, and increasing in oppression, on the whole class of the infirm and desti- tute, taken altogether. For every individ- ual who is discharged and released from this grievous bondage, there is another new sub- ject, or more than one, placed under it. Thus, however the individuals may be changed, the full number of pauper slaves is always kept up, and the measure of their suffering is never diminished, and cannot be diminished. But, it may be further objected, that the mothers and young children, subjected to pauper slavery, were not reduced to a desti- tute condition by the direct action of the government, as would be the case of negro wives and mothers left destitute by the act 872 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November of government proposed, in banishing or enslaving the husband or father. This cause of the lo.f* 7 or 8 acres, and on the two beds, the tobacco all around the two beds escaping. These {'acts, in relation to my own crop, induced me to make inquiries of other neighbouring crops, and 1 have ascertained that wherever salt was used, they have not fired, except in one instance, and that in a very small degree on a small part of the crop, and that generally where it has not been used they have fired. I could men- tion several instances where one crop has escaped, and an adjoining one has fired, as it had been applied or not. Salt then, it would seem, is a preventive of the disease in Tobacco called firing, and I should certainly so conclude did I not know that it requires a number and a series of experiments to confirm a theory. The fact.s I have stated, coupled with those stated by Doctor Spragins some time ago, I think are sufficient to induce planters, who have not used it heretofore, to try it here- after, and therefore they are communicated. W. M. Watkins. October Gth, 1859. From the Mark Lane Express. English. Feeding". If the Englishman of the present day is better fed than his ancestors, or than the native of any other country, the same im- provement is also extended to his domestic stock j for the wisdom and economy of good nutritious food for laying on fat and flesh are now thoroughly understood. Our cattle and horse kind are not left as in some countries, to collect a scanty provender from rank grasses in steppes, savannahs, or prairies ; to munch upon the sprouts or twigs of trees, or to luxuriate upon rank sea-weed or fish upon the sea-coast. The best pastures of natural and artificial grasses are prepared for their special behoof, hay is laid up for their winter store, green crops' and pulse are cultivated to a large extent, and the choicest oleaginous food, meals, and various delica- cies to gladden their palates, are imported to a large extent, while the best of shelter is also provided for them. We boil and steam theL" vegetables and roots, and treat them as kindly as our own children. Chemistry is continually brought to bear upon the an- alysis of the substances to be tried as cattle food, and those only selected for general adoption which are found to be most nutri- tious and fattening; while various experi- mentalists strive, from time to time, to make food-compounds for extensive ate, which shall combine fattening qualities with porta- bility. As do other country pays BO much attention to the improv. incut of breeding and fattening cattle for the market, so no country has experimented more on the nature and property of cattle-food. Every useful substance is pressed into^ requisition, from the chaff or straw of the barn to the more expensive meals or prepared food. When we look at the numbers and value of our cattle and sheep, the importance of making a due provision for their sustenance becomes evident. It is for this purpose chiefly that the large quantity of 17,000,000 to 20,000,000 tons of turnips and mangel- wurzel are annually grown in the kingdom for feeding our cattle and sheep in the win- ter. In Ireland 5,000,000 tons are annu- ally grown ; in Scotland 0,500,000 tons ; and in England fully as much must be grown, although we have no specific returns. When we consider that a beast will eat a hundred weight, and a sheep a quarter of a hundred weight per day, a due provision of this esculent root is certainly very necessary. But a number of other miscellaneous sub- stances are pressed into service from cheap- ness, or as being readily at hand. Brewer's grains and malt commings are readily pur- chased by some for feeding. Rye-meal, barley-meal, sago flour, Indian corn-meal, rice-meal, anything which can be obtained cheaply and in quantity, comes in useful for fattening calves, &c. Our American breth- ren have been growing tomatoes to feed their milch cows on ; but we should suppose the crop would scarcely be a remunerative one, or indeed in any way so beneficial as our or- dinary kinds of food. The sorgho stems would be far preferable, from their saccha- rine and fattening properties. But as an element in the meat-manufac- ture, whether in the building up and devel- opment of the young and growing animal, the maintaining of the produce of the dairy- cow, or the final preparation of the animal for the butcher, linseed is of the highest im- portance to the agriculturist. Linseed cakes have been shown by experiment to be far superior to Indian-corn, pulse, or any de- scription of food, for the production of fat. English oil-cakes are of course preferable, from being fresher, and containing more oil; but the consumption of foreign oil cake, as 674 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER [November we have shown on former occasions, is large- ly extending, and bids fair still further to increase — our imports now are about 100,000 tons, nearly half coming from the United States, and consisting chiefly of cotton-seed cake. Although all the cake imported is not applied to feeding purposes, some of the rape-cake being used for manure, still the bulk is for stock. In Ohio and the other leading American States, a large quantity of Indian-corn stalks are used for fodder, and the cob is ground up for feeding ; while in the West Indies the expressed stalks of the sugar-cane, and the tops which have been cut off, are highly relished by cattle. An article of cattle-food that has come largely into use of late years is the legume, known as " locust" beans, being the food of the carob tree ( Ceratonta seliqud), of which considerable quantities are now imported as cattle-food. They are grown and consumed to a large extent in Spain, Portugal, Crete, and the greater part of Southern Europe. In Sicily the amount gathered reaches 11,- 000 or 12,000 tons a year. They have long been used as food for cattle in Spain, and other quarters, and are even relished by the inhabitants, when fresh and ripe, from the sweet pulp they contain. About 3,000 tons are grown in Portugal, and 2,000 tons are shipped annually from Crete. The mean of three analyses gives 65 per cent, of sugar and gum, and about 25 per cent of nutri- tious vegetable matter. They are imported largely at Taganrog, and there is no doubt that their value as a feeding substance be- ing appreciated, a very greatly increased supply could be obtained from several quar- ters in the Mediterranean. How much of the science of farming and of all other arts depends upon the saving of material. ! upon imitating that beautiful law which chemistry teaches us, that in nature nothing is lost ! This was well demonstra- ted by Mr. Simmons in his recent lecture on the utilization of waste substances. We may add another instance pertinent to the subject under notice. In Edinburgh there is a distillery of great extent, where econo- my of heat and material is especially carried out. The " dreg," a waste product, was produced in such quantities that all the cows in Edinburgh could not consume it, and there remained an enormous surplus which had to be discharged into the water of Leith. This nuisance the modern Athenians pro- tested against as an outrage on their sweet- smelling city. Something had to be done. Seed-cake had been used by farmers, and it occurred to the proprietors that the " dreg," as well as oil refuse, might be pressed into a cake. Machinery was accordingly fitted up, dreg cake was prepared, and now the pro- prietors realize £60 a week from the waste, product, which, although so much despised in Edinburgh, is now sent to the farmers in all parts of Scotland, to be returned in the form of fat cattle and butter and cheese. A French veterinary surgeon, of the Im- perial Guard, has called the attention of the agricultural world to a biscuit-fodder for cattle in .times of scarcity occasioned by drought. It is composed of the usual prov- ender — hay, grain and pulse. To these may be added many others — such as the refuse of the wine-press, the pulp of various roots, the stalks of millet and maize, the leaves of the vine, the beet-root and of certain trees r and the sweepings of the barn and hay-loft, which contain a vast quantity of nutricious matter in the flowers and seeds of hay, which are generally thrown away. All these in- gredients are bruised and chopped together; a mucilage of barley-flour is added, with a little salt; and the mixture is then left to itself for a few hours until a slight fermen- tation has set in, w r hen it is put into square moulds, made into cakes, and left to dry in a current of warm air. Gold and Silver. The immense specie movement of the present year attracts increasing attention. The imports and exports of these metals in France, Great Britain and the United States for the first six months of the present year were as follows : U. States. France Gt. Britain., Imports $3,101,000 $119,548,101 $96,596,773 Exports 36,901,702 77,440,101 94,763,475 Excess imports $42,108,000 $1,S33,298 The United States, from Boston and New York, shipped nearly $37,000,000 in the first six months of the present year. That, however, which was shipped in the last half of July did not appear in the English re- turns for the first six months, since it had not arrived. The general result shows that in the aggregate France and England ab- sorb the metals largely, while the United States are undergoing rapid depletion. The exports in the last two months have been 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANT Kit 075 over 820,000,000. The English returns •ives 820,779,926 received from the United s in the first six months of the present year. which leaves $16,901,702 as the amount sent hence to the Continent and elsewhere. If we divide the silver from the <;old, we find the movement to have been as follows : Silver. Exports. Imports. Fran..-, $51,691,201 $26,179,810 Great Britain. 48,718,550 39,821,018 Gold. Franco, 25,763,321 93,412,101 Great Britain, 46,044,919 56,775,755 Of the English imports of silver $19,- 809,162 was from France, which would leave $82,000,000 of silver exported by France and England in 6 months. Of that amount $42,748,371 went from England to Asia. The North of Europe and Central America furnished England with the balance of her import. Asia absorbs a quantity of silver apparently equal to the whole production of California and Australia in gold, while France in the last six months has absorbed $67,700,000 worth of gold — more than equal to the whole production of California and Australia. In the same six months the United States have lost $20,000,000 more than the California product. Taking the two metals together, France is increasing her currency at the rate of $72,000,000 a year, and the United States is losing at the rate of $50,000,000 per annum. This is a strange state of affairs. That the United States should lose the product of California is not remarkable, but that it should lose double that amount, while the premium on gold is 2 per cent, in Chicago and St. Louis, is remarkable. Since the 1st Jan. 1856, France has lost $150,000,000 of silver, and gained $243,- 000,000 worth of gold ! The United States are estimated to have $100,000,000 of coin, and at the present rate of export in two years they will not have a dollar ! To what extent is the drain to go on ? — U. S. Econ- omist. "Worldly happiness is but a picture that is seen by the eye of sense in the false light of the present time, and therefore is imperfect- ly beheld. Judge not the merits of a man by his great qualities, but by his use of them. 43 Draining Farm Lands. The benefits resulting from the under- draining of farm lands has been a settled question for many years in those countries of the old world distinguished for science and skill in practical agriculture. It is also a settled question with some of our enter- prising fanners, but with the mass of them it is a new subject, so far as their own prac- tice is concerned. A healthful general in- terest is now felt in this matter by our agri- culturists; and this, we think, must eventu- ate in good results. Underdraining consists in cutting deep narrow trenches on lands, for the purpose of tapping undersprings near the surface, and also for carrying off rain water that would otherwise collect and stagnate near the roots of the plants. Some contend that under- drains should also embrace the feature of ad- mitting air and ventilating the under surface of soils. This question should never be touched upon in this connection; the removal of the surplus and stagnant water is the main object of drainage. Underdrainsare covered and placed at such a depth from the surface as not to interfere with the plowing or with other mechanical operations in the field. There are differences of opinion among practical men as to proper depth, and the requisite distance apart at which drains should be laid. This arrangement must de- pend in a great measure on circumstances. Deep drains are far more expensive to cut than shallow ones, but then a smaller num- ber are required in each field. At one period two-and-a-half feet drains were com- mon in Britain, now five-feet drains are be- coming more general. Four-feet drains sit- uated forty feet apart will afford effectual drainage to any field, but the proper depth depends almost entirely upon the nature of the land. If the cutting is through hard- pan, three-feet drains situated thirty-five feet apart will be the cheapest, and answer perhaps as well. They must be placed be- yond the reach of frost as an imperative condition ; when this is secured, they can be cut deep or shallow, according to the nature of the ground, so long as they are able to car- ry off the surplus and stagnant water. The material of which the drains are made is an important feature. The oldest drains were formed by cutting to the proper depth, laying up the cuts with a layer of cobble or loose stones, then placing some 676 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November brash-wood 01 straw over these, and filling up with the soil. These drains soon choke up with mud, and they have been mostly superseded by open drains, formed of un- itized tile or earthenware tubes, molded and burned like brick, and having joints or col- lars where the ends join. They are the most expensive drains at first, but the cheap- est in the end. One kind of tile consists of a flat bottom, with a semi-tubular top. They are laid down in such a manner as to lie in perfect line, with a slope of about one foot in the one hundred feet; this fall is sufficient to carry off the water. Tubes of about one and a half inches in diameter answer for the lat- eral drains; these should lead into one gene- ral or main discharing drain of large diameter. Where flat stones are abundant, very good open drains may be made by laying them on edge to form the sides, then covering them on the top with flat caps. Loose stones, if they can be obtained, should be laid upon the top of covered drains before the soil is filled in. Considerable engineering skill is required in laying out a field for proper drainage, so as to give all the drains the proper incline, and carry ofF the water by the natural slope of the land. As J;herc are elevations and depressions in most fields, no particular di- rections can be given for laying out all the drains in them — they must be planned ac- cording to the circumstances of the case. There are few of our farmers who have not sufficient ingenuity to engineer their own fields and lay out their own drains, if they apply themselves to the work. All stiff and springy soils should be drain- ed, and especially those which have clay subsoils, as these retain the water and form undersprings which injure the roots of the plants. One great object of drains is to tap shallow springs, and another is to carry the rain water down through the coil, and prevent so much surface evaporation, •. s it carries off the heat, and reduces the tem- perature of the plants and ground. Sandy soils with gravely under strata do not re- quire drains, as they afford good drainage from their very constitution. A recent number of the Mark Lane Ex- press (London) contains an article from its American correspondent — Mr. Henry S. Olcott, of this city — a scientific agriculturist and able writer on such subjects, which af- fords some very useful information on un- derdrawing. He describes the case of Mr. John Johnstone, an intelligent farmer who re- sides near Geneva, N. Y., as an instance of! great success in draining farm lands. He commenced operations about nineteen years ago, and has laid about forty-seven miles of j drains upon his farm. During one season, when six of his neighbors raised only seven bushels of wheat to the acre, his fields yield- ed twenty-nine bushels. This case is cited as positive proof in favor of the profits which may result to every farmer who undcrdrains his lands thoroughly. We know that the great majority of our farmers have not a sufficient amount of capital to carry out such a system of improved agriculture, but we think that most of them can do something, however little, to introduce and commence the work of progress in this department of practical agriculture. — Scientific American. From HalVs Journal of Health. Coolings. To make water almost ice cold, keep it in an earthen pitcher, unglazed, wrapped around with several folds of coarse linen, or cotton cloth, kept wet all the time. The evaporation from the cloth abstracts the heat from within, and leaves the water as cold as it ought to be drank in summer, consistent with safety and health. Cooling rooms: the least trou lesome plan is to hoist the windows and open the doors at daylight, and at eight or nine o'clock close them, especially the external windows and shutters, if there be any, except to admit barely necessary light. Churches may be kept delightfully cool in the same way, and thus greatly add to the comfort of public worship, leaving the win- dows open, but the lattice shutters closed, on the north side of the house, which will secure a thorough ventilation. Still greater coolness may be produced by having a large heavy cotton or linen sheet hung near each open window or door, and kept constantly wet; the evaporation produces a vacuum, and a continual draft of air is the result. In India and other eastern countries, common matting is used; long grass plaited answers a good purpose. In Germany, a broad vessel or pan is kept in the room, nearly filled with water — the pan, not the room — the surface of the water being covered with green leaves. To have delightful hard butter in summer, without ice, the plan recommended by that ex- 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. G77 cellcnt and useful publication, the Scicnfijh- American) a year ago, is a good one. Put a trivet on any open flat thing with legs', in a saucer; put on this trivet, the plate of but- ter, and fill the saucer with water; turn a common flower-pot upside down over the butter, so that its edge shall be within the saucer, and under the water. Plug the hole of the flower-pot with a cork, then drench the flower-pot with water, set it in a cool place until morning; or if done at breakfast, the butter will be very hard by supper time. How many of our city boarding-school girls, who have been learning philosophy, astrono- my, syntax and prosody for years, can, of their own.selves, write us an explanation, within a month. To keep the body cool in summer, it is best to eat no meat, or fish, at least not oftener than once a day, and that in the cool of the morning; making a breakfast dessert of berries of some kind. Dinner, light soup with bread; then vegetables, rice, samp, corn, cracked wheat; dinner dessert of fruits and berries, in their natural state, fresh, ripe and perfect. Touch nothing at all at supper, but a piece of cold bread and butter, and a single cup of some hot drink, or in place of these, a saucer of ripe berries, without sugar, milk, cream or anything else, not even a glass of water, or any other liquid, ior an hour after. To keep the head cool, especially of those who live by their wits, such as lawyers, doc- tors, editors, authors, and other gentlemen of industry, it is best to rise early enough to be dressed and ready for study, as soon as it is sufficiently light to use the eyes easily without artificial aid, having retired the evening before, early enough to have al- lowed full seven hours for sound sleep; then study for about two hours; next make a breakfast of a piece of cold bread and but- ter, an egg, and a cup of hot drink, nothing more; then resume study until ten, not to be renewed until next morning ; allowing no interruption whatever, until the time for study ceases, except to have the breakfast brought in. The reason of this is, the brain is recuperated by sleep, hence its energies are greatest, freshest, purest, in all men, without exception, immediately after a night's sleep, and every moment of thought, diminishes the amount of brain power, as certainly as an open spiggot diminishes the amount of liquid within. Nature may be thwrrted, and her plans wrested from her; and habit or stimulation may make it more agreeable to some to do their studying at night, but it is a perversion of the natural order of things, and such persons will be either prematurely disabled, or their wri- tings will be contrary to the right and the true. As the brain is more vigorous in the morning, so is the [body, and vigor of both must give vigor of thought and expression, that is, if the head has any thing inside. From the Valley Farmer. Agriculture— Its Importance. BY C. N. BEMENT. Agriculture is the body, whilst the other professions are members; and although the body and members are mutually dependent and reciprocally useful to each other, the body can exist without the members much better than the members can exist without the body. For the purpose of comparison, agriculture may be considered as a trade, an art, and a science. The trade is me- chanical, requiring muscular strength. It is imitative — it is to do a thing as one has been taught to do it before. The ox, in a measure, acquires it. He knows his master and his master's crib. He treads the ac- customed furrow, turns at the headlands, and obeys the driver's commands. The art implies co-operation of the mind with physical power. The mind contrives; it is a lever which greatly assists and abridges the labor of the hands. The mind, like the soil, makes returns in pro- portion to the culture which is bestowed upon it. Both are unproductive without culture. The mind is improved by obser- vation and reading, which makes it familiar with the best models of practice, and en- ables it to profit by the improvement of others. The science teaches the laws and propor- tions of inorganic matter — as of rocks, earths, manures, &c., &c. ; of organic mat- ter, as animals and vegetables; of their structure, food and uses; and the agency of heat, water, air, light and electricity in their development and maturity; the em- ployment and adaptation of these matters for the best uses of man. It contradicts the experience of ages and the labors of nations upon these interesting subjects, and makes them subservient to our wants and our comforts. The science is a collection of 678 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November facts and leading truths, illustrated in practice and confirmed by experience. Land and labor are the legitimate sources of public wealth. The first, to be produc- tive, must be cultivated; and the labor of doing this is abridged by the culture of the mind, which guides its operations. Without agriculture there is no wealth. Gold and silver are not wealth — they are its convenient representatives. Commerce produces no wealth — it simply exchanges it. Manufactures and the arts re-combine it. Agriculture is the prolific mother of wealth. The rest simply handle it when produced and delivered into their hands. The earth itself, originally, spontaneously produces wherewith to keep the race of man from starving — only whilst he is mak- ing ready to till the soil. Without it he soon degenerates into a wild animal, living here and there in small squads, a little \ superior to the other beasts of prey. The ! earth breeds savages. Agriculture breeds i enlightened nations. It breeds houses and i ships, temples and seminaries; it breeds the manufactory; sculpture, painting and music are its offspring. It would be folly to speak of the existence, or beauty, or power of any of these things, without agriculture. The pulpit, the professor's chair, the scientific laboratory, the tripod, the library, j the ship, trip-hammer, the loom and the . anvil — all would go down in one genera- j tion. It is by the superabundant produce and stability of agriculture that all things exist. Nor gold, nor silver, nor diamonds, could replace it. The state of husbandry, ! in any country, is the test of its enlighten-' ment. The thermometer of civilization j rises and falls as drives the plow. " You must send the plow," exclaimed a man who had traveled all over Christian missionary ground in heathen lands. A barbarian nation needs but to be plowed up — deep, subsoiled, continued, sowed, planted, and the inevitable Harvest will be an enlightened empire. A practical, working agricultural society will dig barbarism, and mental and physical and spiritual poverty out of a nation, ' as effectually as any powerful grubbing ma- chine will "shake out" the stubborn stumps. A few centuries ago, a learned writer describes the times in these words: "Rude were the manners then, the man and wife ate out of the same trencher; a few wooden- handled knives, with blades of rugged iron, were a luxury for the great; candles were unknown. One, or, at most, two mugs of brown earthenware, formed all the drinking apparatus in a house. Rich gentlemen wore clothes of unlined leather. Ordinary persons scarcely ever touched flesh meat. In noble mansions, a little corn seemed wealth." This is history. Any one of our neigh- bors, if compelled now to live as the highest and wealthiest of mankind lived in those days — such a neighbor would excite our sympathies. We would consider him as good as starving; would carry in gifts to supply his wants, and start a subscription among our friends to feed and clothe him. A few hundred years ago, and all the wealth of a nation could not buy a loaf of bread, such as you will see on any farmer's table at the present time. The fine flour could not be made. The table of our far- mer is much more princely in its furnish- ing, than was the table of a monarch then. We have now in common use several species of most delicious fruits then unknown. We raise several kinds of grain not then in use. The very word corn, then applied to wheat and barley, is now applied to a grain then undiscovered. Men then lived upon a few vegetables, with flesh on extraordinary oc- casions; and at their greatest feasts, their chief viands were flesh and wine. Their crops, as well as in the palmiest ancient times, rarely yielded over ten or twenty fold. Now a hundred fold is considered a very small return. Then, as in the ancient world, they gathered the harvest by pulling off the heads, pulling up the stalks, or by almost as slow a process of reaping with the sickle. Compare these methods with the great reaper now in use! that sweeps over acres in an hour, and leaves the glorious harvest on the fields of a farm in a day. Thus, formerly, the patient ox slowly trampled out the grain, week after week, and the winds of heaven and the fan in the hands of the laborer slowly and imperfectly separated the kernel from the chaff and straw. Now, the mighty thresher, with tumultuous whirl, takes into its crushing teeth thousands of sheaves in a day, and scattering the emptied heads, and straw, and chaff, in rich streams, the separated golden grain runs out upon the . avished sight, a 1 ready for the marts of trade — for food for man and fowl and beast, and for the hopper and the stones, swiftly driven by the vast and ponderous wheel. From its mighty pouch comes out flour, 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 079 white as the driven snow, which makes the kneaded bread better than the fabled am- brosia of the gods. Jn short, Agriculture clothes all — Agri- culture feeds all. From Dickens' 1 Household Wo> ds. Our Bedfordshire Farmer. It was harvest-time when we went down on eur first visit to the friend, whom for anony- mous distinction we will call the Bedfordshire farmer. We travelled by railroad of course, and were set down on a platform almost within sight of his hospitable chimney. In this road- side station, which is in effect an inland iron port, to a purely rural district, we have a speci- men of one of the mechanical revolutions of modern agriculture. The fat beasts and sheep of this parish formerly required four days to travel along the road to market, at a loss of many pounds of flesh, besides growing feverish and flabby from excitement and fatigue; they now reach the same market calm and fresh, in four hours. If news of a favourable corn- market have arrived by the morning's post, fifty quarters of wheat can be carried from the stack, thrashed out by steam-driven machinery, sold, and the money returned in much less time than it would have taken merely to thrash out fifty quarters by the hand-flail. The farmer himself met us on the platform — a disappointing personage, considering that he had been more than twenty years getting a living by growing corn and sheep; for he had not an atom of the uniform associated from time immemorial with the British far- mer — no cord-breeches, no top-boots, not even gaiters, no broad-brimmed hat, not a large red face or ample corporation — in fact, was not half so much like the conventional farmer as my friend and fellow traveller Nuggets, of the eminent firm of Nuggets and Bullion, who cultivates eight and a-half acres at Brixton, on the most scientific principles, at an annual loss of about twenty pounds an acre. The Bedfordshire farmer looked and was dressed very much like any other gentleman not obliged to wear professional black and white. His servant, too, who shouldered our carpet bags, wore neither smock-frock nor hob-nailed shoes ; he might have been the groom of a surgeon or a parson. The Grange presented what amateurs in French would call more disillusionment. A modern villa cottage, with one ancient gable and one set of Elizabethian chimneys, planted in the midst of a well-kept garden, with the regular three sitting-rooms of a suburban villa, reminded us that times were changed since Bakewell received crowds of visitors of the highest rank, including royalty, "clad in a brown metal-buttoned coat, a red waistcoat, leather breeches, top boots, sitting in the chimney corner of his one keeping room, hung round with dried and pickled specimens of his famous beasts." The book-shelves in one of our friend's rooms are filled not only with works on agriculture, but with histories, biographies, novels, and poems. The win- dows, fringed with monthly roses, look out upon the gardens, across a fence where a steep hill of pasture rises, once a deer park, still studded over with fine trees. There Suffolk horses, a long-tailed gray mare, some dairy cows, and Southdown sheep are feeding, and chewing the cud in the shade. Our first visit was to the farm buildings, di- vided by a road from the nag stables and offices of the house, which therefore is not troubled with either the smell or the dirt of the farm- yard. A picturesque untenanted dovecote, half covered with ivy, is the only remaining monument of the farming days when five year-old mutton was fed, and wooden ploughs were used. Pigeons don't pay in cultivated countries. On one side of the occupation road leading to the first field of the farm, were the sheds for carts and implements ; on the other the cattle yards, the feeding houses, the cart stables, the cow-house, and the barn-machinery and steam-engine. One-horse carts were the order of the- day, a system far preferable to w^agons, when each horse is well up to his work. Our friend's horses are always in good condition. The implements made a goodly display, eight or nine of Howard's iron ploughs, light and heavy, harrows to match the ploughs, a cultivator to stir the earth, and a grubber to gather weeds, drills and manure distributors, and horse-hoes, a Crosskill's clod-crusher, and a heavy stone-roller, a haymaking-machine and horse-rakes. These were all evidently in regular use; some for strong clay, others for light sand. The cattle yards form three-sided squares, the open side facing the road and the sun, the other three sides bordered with covered feed- ing sheds, or verandahs, about which there was nothing remarkable, except that the roofs were all carefully provided with spouts, by which the rain that would otherwise flow into the cattle yards and saturate the straw, was effec- tually carried away into the main drains. The floors of these yards are dish-shaped, slightly hollow.* In winter a thin layer of mould, covered daily by fresh straw, imbibes every particle of liquid manure. Under the treading of the beasts, which are turned in as soon as grass fails, there to feed on hay, turnips, and maugold wurzel, or corn, or cake, in turn, according to relative price and supply of the last — nothing is cheaper than oil-cake when it can be bought at a penny a pound — the straw made on the farm is converted into manure of the richest quality, which is in due time returned to the fields. In every yard was an iron tank filled with pure clean water, by a tap and ball, which 080 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November r eguloted a constant supply from a spring- filfed reservoir, established on the hill that overlooked the Grange. These iron tanks were substitutes for those foul inky ponds, to be found as the only drinking places on too many old-fashioned farms. In the stable, which was carefully ventilated, we found a team that had done a day's work of plough- ing, munching their allowance of clover and split beans. They were powerful, active, clean-legged animals, as unlike drayhorses as possible; the harness of each was neatly ar- ranged in a harness-room, not tumbling above the dirty stable, as too often seen. The feed- ing house, where twenty-five beasts could be tied up and fed, was placed conveniently near the granary, and here again at every beast's chain-pole a perpetually full tank was to be found. The doors opened, so that the manure of the feeding houses could straightway be added to the accumulation of the yard. Our Bedfordshire farmer does not indulge in fancy, in purchasing his cattle. Noblemen and owners of model farms adhere rigidly to some one breed, Devons, Herefords, or Scots, and have to pay an extra price to make up their number. He purchasses every spring or summer, at the ft^rs where cattle are brought from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, -Devonshire, Herfordshire, and Yorkshire, for the purpose, one hundred good two-year-old Devons, Here- fords, or Short-horns, or three-year-old Scots or Anglesea runts. These he runs on the in- ferior sward until winter ; then takes them into the yards and stalls, and feeds them well with hay and roots — not exceeding a hundred weight of turnips a day — more would be wasted; to this he adds, from time to time, lin- seed and barley meal, in preference to oil-cake, which he generally reserves for sheep. He has experimented with cooked food, but has not found the result in weight pay the cost and trouble. In the spring these beasts are put on the best grass, and sent off to market as fast as they become ripe, having left behind them in the yards a store of manure available for all the land within easy carting distance. On our autumn visit we saw in the empty yards and in the styes a few pigs of no par- ticular breed, but -all of that e^g shape which betokens rapid fattening. As there is no dairy, the Bedfordshire farmer finds it does not pay to breed pigs, or feed more than just enough to consume what would otherwise be wasted. Lastly, we came to a compact building form- ing the one side or wing of the cattle yards, marked by a tall chimney; here was a high- pressure steam-engine of six-horse power, un- der the care of a ploughboy, which put in motion the barn machinery, threshed and win- nowed the corn, separated it into wheat, first and second, tailings, cavings, and chaff, and carried the straw into the straw house, and the wheat into the granary. The same engine also put in motion stones for grinding corn or linseed, or crushed beans, and worked a chaff- cutter. The steam-driven barn apparatus has more advantages, and creates more profit to the farmer, than can be explained in a few words. Under the hand-flail system, a great barn was needed, where it was necessary to thrash, not when you wanted to send to market, but when thrashers could be had, and then very slowly, with great loss by imperfect thrashing and systematic pilfering. Our Bedfordshire far- mer having had- the building provided by his landlord, put up the steam-engine and ma- chinery himself, at a cost of five hundred pounds ; and now, with coals costing fifteen shillings per ton, his steam-engine thrashes and dresses two hundred bushels of wheat in one day, at a cost of one penny a bushel, which, with horse-power, would cost four pence, .and with flail thrashing, six pence a bushel. Be- sides this economy in time and money, there is an economy in space, as the corn can re- main in the rick in the field, until wanted. Some very pretty things have been said about the flail ; and thrashing does make a very pretty picture, although it is a most soul- deadening occupation. But to a thoughtful mind, there is something much more beautiful in the regularity with which the sheaves, de- livered from the cart, are consumed and dis- tributed. The steam-driven barn machinery was not a complete piece of work until linked, by the railway, with the corn-market. In Scotland machine-thrashing has long been uni- versal, but in England it makes way slowly, and is introduced with excuses in some counties — our poor-laws having been in the way. We next mounted our friend's hacks and climbed the hill to take a bird's-eye view of* the farms before descending into details. On our way we crossed a broad belt of grass fields which surround the house and garden, and are always mowed, other fields farther off being always grazed; by this arrangement it is thought that the best kinds of grass for feeding are cultivated on the one, and the best for mowing on the other; while the hay so grown near the yards where it is to be con- sumed, and near the manure heaps which re- store fertility to meadows. Meadows round a house are, it must be admitted, much more agreeable than ploughed land, besides having the advantageof keeping the cattle and horses grazing within an easy distance if not within sight. After ascending a hill, considered steep in the midland counties, we stood upon a sort of inland promontory, marking the division of the farm, all above being sand-land of the character well known as Woburn sand, and nearly all below stiff clay, being part of the rich valley which run3 on to the sea at King's Lynn in Norfolk. From this promontory we could review, as in a panorama, the farmer's crops — wheat in 1859] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 681 great fields of forty, fifty, and sixty acres — a golden sea, fast falling before the scythe and the sickle; barley not so ripe, some of it lying here and there in rucks as if a great flood had rolled over it; too much manuring swelled the ears without stiffening the straw enough, and so anxiety to raise a large crop had defeated ' itself. There were oats too, verdant ami fea- thery; beans, dark, ugly patches on the land- scape ; mangold, with rich dark green luxuri- ant leaves ; and fields of something that was not grass, though like it in the distance, be- ing, what is called in farmer's phrase, seeds, that is to say, artificial grasses, such as Italian rye grass, red clover, or white clover and tre- foil mixed, which form a rotation crop only to be grown once in four or in eight years, ac- cording to the soil. Experience and scientific investigation have but slightly and slowly added any new crops for the use of the farmer. When any one loudly announces a new crop, which will supersede all others in utility and profit, we may as safely set him down as a quack as if he announced a universal medicine. For Eng- land, wheat, barley, and oats, are the best cereal crops ; rye, except green to feed stock, is not in demand ; wheat in many varieties fits itself to suitable soils, the finest kinds cannot always be carried to a distant country without degeneration. The finest barley for malting is grown in a few counties on light soil, while oats attain a perfection in Scotland and Ire- land rarely to be found in districts where oat- meal is not the food of the people. The proportions which a farmer should grow of each crop will depend on his soil and on his market, supposing always that the landlord is, like our friend's landlord, sufficiently intelli- gent to allow his tenant to make the best of his land. For instance, having six fields on his clay land of about fifty acres each, he has found it convenient to adopt the following rotation : — First year, either a fallow or a fal- low crop, such as coleseed, tares, early white turnips, mangold, &c; second year, wheat; thi"d year, beans ; fourth year, barley ; fifth year, clover; sixth year, wheat, instead of the Scotch rotation, in which beans stand fifth, and the land becomes too full of weeds for a good crop. On the same land the rotation is — first, turnips; second; barley; third, clover; and fourth, wheat; white and red clover being used alternately. It will be observed that root crops form the foundation of this style of farming. Root crops do two things for the farmer; they pre- pare the land for corn crops, and they supply food for a great number of lambs and sheep. Under the old system, two hundred acres of this farm were poor grass pasture. Under the rotation named they feed more live stock than before, in addition to the crops of wheat twice in six years. Of course on six fields two are always in wheat. But on hundreds of thoutanda of acres of fertile under-rented land, the intelligent cultivation of roots is quite un- known; indeed, without security of tenure in leaso or agroement, it cannot be practised be- cause it takes six years to complete a never- ending circle of improvement. There are landed baronets, who having gone so far ahead as to adopt the short-horn, which superseded thei r grand fathers' long-cherish cd, long- horned, thick-skinned, Craven beasts, still look ask- ance at guano and superphosphate — the best food for root crops — as condiments of revolu- tionary origin; and as for leases, you may as well speak of confiscation at onco. As we looked down the beautiful fertile valley, and gossipped over the cardinal prin- ciples of good farming, we could see the marks of vegetation, and here and there a land- mark in a stately tree, where four miles of fences had seven years previously been clear- ed away, and superseded whenever fences were needed at all by double ditches, and rails arranged with mathematical regularity to protect growing thorns from the assaults of the beasts and sheep feeding around. Before coals came by canal and railway, hedges gave faggots for witter fires. Turning our nags' heads upwards, we next traversed the sand half of the farm, an undu- lating four hundred acres, sprinkled over with many pretty wooded dells and bordered deep belts of plantation, where our friend, having the game in his own hands, kept up a fair head of pheasants and hares. Farmers seldom object to the game they may shoot themselves. On the sand we found a different rotation, viz., turnips, barley, clover, and wheat ; nei- ther mangold nor beans. The prettiest sight was our farmer's breed- ing flock of South Downs, feeding on a hill of seeds: four hundred black-faced, close-fleeced, firkin-bodied, flat-backed, short-legged, active animals, without a hollow or a bump on any part of their compact bodies, as like each other as peas, and as full of meat. They were under the amiable care of an old shepherd,- a boy, and a dog of great dis- cretion — a real Scotch colley, who also attend to the whole sheep stock. It had cost our farmer twenty years of constant care to bring this flock to their present perfection, during which time he has tried and given up the long-woolled Leicester, of which half hia- sheep stock formerly consisted, findicg the South Down more hardy and profitable on his land and with his market. The total sheep stock always kept on this farm amounts to one thousand herd, of which what are not bred on the farm are bought. Thus in tho course of the year about one thousand sheep and lambs, and one hundred and fifty bul- locks, are sent to market. Now we had seen all the raw material for growing corn and wool. G82 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER [November Bullocks fed in yards in autumn and win- ter, on roots grown on well-drained, and hay on well-manured land, with corn and cake to finish thorn — these produce while getting fat, and tread down and solidify manure which is ready in the spring to be carted out where wanted, for growing more roots for green or hay crops. On the other hand, light land is consolidated and enriched by a flock penned upon it, and there feeding with tur- nips, corn, or pulse and cake. If they are store-sheep they are allowed to gnaw the tur- nips on the ground for part of the year; if they are young and to be fatted, the turnips are drawn, topped, and tailed, and sliced for them by a boy with a portable machine — a simple affair, and yet one of the most valuable of agricultural inventions. Thus feeding in the day, and penned successively over every part of a field at night, the sheep fertilize, and with their feet compress more effectively than any roller, light, blowing sand, and prepare soil which once would scarcely feed a family of rabbits on an acre for such luxuriant corn crops as we saw wav- ing around. % What neither farm-yard manure nor sheep- treading will do toward stimulating vegeta- tion and supply the wants of an exhausted soil, is done with modern portable manures, which do not supersede, but aid the home- made fertilizers of our forefathers. Cantering on, now pausing to examine a root crop, then pushing through a pheasant cover, then halting to chat with the reapers, we came to a field of wheat on sand inferior to the rest. The choicest seed from the Vale of Taunton Dean had been used: but it seem- ed that, in this instance, what suited a Somer- setshire valley did not thrive on a Bedford- shire hill. Such special experience a good farmer is continually collecting. Again : re- peated trials had convinced the farmer that guano, the most valuable oT all portable ma- nures, was wasted on the sand ; as, in the event of a dry season, the fertilizing powers were evaporated and entirely lost. On an- other fifiy-six acres of wheat a most wonder- ful crop was being moved, estimated at six quarters to the acre. The extra weight could only be accounted for by the field having been rolled with more than ordinary care with a heavy iron roller. Nevertheless, amateurs must not rush off to roll their wheat fields, because on a plastic soil it would be total ruin to reduce a field after rain to the consistence of smooth mortar. I have advisedly said, mow, not reap, sev- eral times in this narative. The Bedford- shire farmer has no doubt of the superior ad- vantages of the former plan. Nevertheless, he reaps a few acres as shelter for the part- ridges. Mowing is done by peace-work, at per acre. Formerly the harvesters received so much money per acre, and five pints of beer for a day ; but the farmer having one July day expressed his discontent to a party of mowers snugly lying in the shade, pipe in mouth and beer-can in hand, at the slow pro- gress of the work, was answered with fatal candour by a jolly foreman: "Maister, we come here to drink your good beer, and as long as you give us five pints a day we beant agoin' to hurry the work." From that sea- son an additional shilling per acre replaced the five pints of the mowing charter; and there is no lagging. Mowers are not the only people who like idleness and five pints of beer a day. It was brilliant weather on the second day of our visit. Carts, each drawn by one clean- legged horse, were at work at a pace that would have choked the old harry-legged breed. The picturesque wagon, w T ith its long team, is disappearing fast from modern harvest-fields. The horse-rake, following the binders, leaves little for the gleaners. While the carts were at work in one field and the mowers and binders in another — for there were two hundred acres of wheat on this farm — in a fallow-field a party of boys were cross-plowing with some of Howard's beautiful wheel plows, which can be managed by boys of thirteen, for such work the object being only to pulverize the land. On almost any land the superiority of the iron-wheel plow is incontestable. We rode back through a great grass field, well dotted with shady trees, under which shorthorns, Devons, Herefords, and black An- glesea runts were comfortably chewing the cud ; all the different breeds being found profitable to feed when bought at a proper price as the account books of our friend, carefully kept for twenty years, distinctly show. From the horned stock and the sheep, a draught of the fittest and fattest were sent to Smithfield every week from May to the following March, and replaced by fresh purchases from the neighbouring fairs. After dinner, while looking out between rosebushes at the cattle on the hills, we talk- ed, of course of framing past and present — of what practice and science had done, and what it could and could not do for farmers.^ In what we had seen there was nothing startling, although the results, as to quantity of produce in corn and meat in a year, would have been incredible if foretold to any brown- coated farmer in seventeen hundred and fifty- four. There was no land wasted by fences or devoured by weeds ; there was no time lost — one crop prepared the way for another; there was no labour lost — horses and men and boys were fully employed. The live stock for market was always full fed;, the breeding- stock was kept up by retaining only the best- shaped ewe lambs, and hiring or buying the best rams from skilled South-down breed- ers. So the farm was continually sending 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 683 to market a succession of lamb, mutton, and beef. All this requires for success some consider- able skill and experience, and not a little ex- pense. Twelve or thirteen hundred pounds a-year for rent, and as much more for \vngt\s ; two hundred a-year poor's-rates, no tithes; three hundred a year for corn and cake pur- chased ; one hundred and fifty pounds for portable manures. A capital laid ont in two hundred store beasts, which cannot be bought for less than ten pounds each, and four hun- dred breeding ewes, worth two pounds ten shillings each — also thirty carthorses, worth forty pounds a-piece on the average, and all the agricultural implements, too. So, in round numbers there was evidently without asking impertinent questions, some ten thousand pounds invested. The labour of this farm would in its num- ber astonish a farmer of the old school of anti- steam-engine prejudice, as much as the im- plements. It consists of about twenty men and thirty boys. Of these, six men are plow- men, and have the care of four horses each, being assisted by two sets, of which the younger consists of fifteen boys between the ages of eleven and thirteen, who are under the command of a steady experienced farm- labourer. He never has them out of his sight ; under his orders they do all the hand-hoeing of wheat, thin out turnips, spud thistles out of grass-land, gather the turnips into heaps for tailing, carry away the straw from the threshing-machine, bring the sheaves from the stack to the man who feeds the machine, and do other work suited to their strength. When the harvest is off, and repeated plow- ings have brought the couch-grass roots to the surface, they gather it in heaps and burn it. A great bare field dotted over with heaps of this troublesome weed, each on fire, and each industriously fed and tended by an ac- tive little boy, presented a very amusing sight to us in a second visit to Bedfordshire, in Oc- tober. Thus these boys are trained to work regu- larly at all kinds of farm labour, and form a regiment of militia from which the regular army of the farm is recruited. The most in- telligent are promoted to be plowboys, and grow up to be very useful men. They receive three shillings a-week wages, and every week, if well-behaved, a sixpenny ticket, which, once a year, in September, is converted into money to be laid out in clothes. The stoppage of a ticket — a very rare occur- rence — is considered not only a loss, but a disgrace. In harvest time they receive double wages, and double tickets. Such is a short view of the system on a well- manured corn and wool farm. If able to lay out the needful capital skil- fully, and manage the men, boys, and horses needed for a thousand acres of average corn and sheep land, the farmer, on an average of years, can reap a fair return for his risk and labour. Ho cannot under ordinary circum- stances, expect to make a fortune except by saving out of ordinary income ; for there are no patents, or secrets, or special undiscovered markets for farmers, as there are for clever manufacturers. Those who undertake to do wonderful things in agriculture invariably sac- rifice profit to glory. But the skilful farmer is not tide to a d;iy, a week, or even a month, except at harvest or seed time; he lives among pleasant scenes, socially and hospitably, and runs not the risks and endures not the sleep- less nights of the manufacturer, whose for- tune depends on the temper of a thousand hands, and the honesty or good fortune of debtors on the other side of the globe. •* ■» • • » From the Kentucky Farmer. Sheep Husbandry in the West. Sheep are among the most valuable do- mestic animals subjected to the use of man, feeding him with their flesh, clothing him with their wool, and enriching him by their rapid increase ; and, although they do not either draw or plow for him, yet, by proper management, they will greatly assist him to clean the weeds and briars and bushes from his farm, as they will devour almost every green weed but the mullen and pork. Though they do not appear to be of equal value in the West to the horse, or the cow, or the hog, yet it may be confidently asser- ted that in no other mode could our agricul- tural wealth be so suddenly and so greatly increased as by the general slaughter of dogs, which would certainly be followed by the universal introduction of sheep on the farms of our cultivated districts, and also by the general dissemination of millions of them over all the hilly and mountainous re- gions ; and quickly wool would become one of our largest exports, and millions of acres of waste lands would become a source of great revenue to the Commonwealth. But, notwithstanding the loss, vexation and insecurity occasioned by dogs, (which are the only obstacle to this unbounded success,) still almost every farmer will find it advantageous to keep. at least a few sheep; and the period of shearing is a good time to take a new, or an improved position on the subject. He who has no sheep should buy some now, and he who has some will find this the best time to improve them by selection, for now the bad ones appear in all their " naked deformity," and the good ones are seen in unexaggcrated excellence. 684 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November Every Bleep which is in declining years or is defective in size, form, thrift, or fleece, should now have a mark put upon it, and be in process of preparation for being con- verted into mutton before the next winter. An animal which will thrive in the open air, without shelter, with a constitution able to resist disease, and with power to cope with murderous dogs, with a large carcass of good mutton, clothed with a close and heavy fleece of wool of medium fineness — this is the animal which we want in sheep, and nothing short of this will meet the pub- lic taste. This we have already got ; or, if we have not, we may certainly obtain it, for a skillful, careful and persevering breeder will find the auimal almost as plastic in his hands, from generation to generation, as the potter does his clay. In the selection of a breeding flock the maxim that " like will produce its like," should be ever held in bright remembrance, and especially no male or female should be accepted which has the taint of hereditary disease upon it, for it will be probably transmitted to the offspring. Let the ewes be from one to five years old, with small heads without horns, and with rather long and smooth faces, straight broad backs and full round bodies. The fleece should cover the whole body up to the face and forehead, under the belly, and down to the knees ; and it should be as uniform in length and fibre, over the whole body, as possible ; and as free as possible from coarse and hairy locks on any part. A waivy appearance is not objectionable, but it should not amount to kinking and curling. A moderate de- gree of yolk is evidence of health, and con- ducive to health by rendering the fleece im- pervious to rain, and it preserves the tex- ture of the fibre; but an excess of it is exhausting to the animal, and promotive of foulness in the fleece, and should therefore be avoided. During the summer, the ewes should run apart from the bucks, and they should fre- quently be changed from one pasture to another, by which their fondness for roam- ing will meet with innocent indulgence ; they will subsist almost entirely on weeds of different sorts, and on briars and bushes ; and the health of the flock will be greatly promoted. When they begin to huddle to- gether in the shade, and to hang their heads and stamp their feet for protection against the sheep fy, additional exemption will be secured by smearing some tar on the forehead, and also on the nose, in the mu- cus of which the fly seeks to deposit her They should at all times have access to salt, and the best plan is to place it around the roots of some tree which you wish to kill, or some stump which you wish to ex- tract. The salt is made more conducive to health by the occasional addition of flour of sulphur, and also of wood ashes. A table-spooni'ul of flour of sulphur and and a pint of hog's lard mixed together, and a little of it smeared on the backs of each sheep when the fleece is short, will be the best protection against ticks. The mean period of gestation with ewes is about one hundred and four days; and in this latitude the best time for impregnation is about the middle of October, so that the lambs may come after the cold weather has passed, and the ewes may have green food in abundance when suckling their young. To facilitate copulation many very wooly ewes will require some clipping about the tail, (which should not be omitted,) previ- ous to the introductions of the ram. He should, if possible, be a paragon of excellence in every respect ; for every quali- ty which he has, good or bad, will be im- pressed, with almost unfailing certainty, upon his progeny. Those qualities of fleece or carcass which are the chief object of the breeder, should by all means be developed in the ram in the highest degree, and they should be deeply implanted in his character. He should be not less than one year old, and should by no means be in declining life or health. He should especially excell in the pecu- liar qualities of his breed, whatever they may be. He should have commanding size, and masculine appearance, broad shoulders and rump, wide back, full round body, deep brisket, and he should be covered all over with a full, close, uniform, soft and golden fleece ; and be in all respects the best of his breed; and it should be remembered that breed or blood is of no value except so far as it possesses and insures the qualities which are desired. When more than one ram is used in the same season, the ewes should be carefully selected, and be so bred that the superior excellence of each ram shall compensate, in the progeny, some fault or defect in the ewes ; for example 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 685 the smallest ewes (other things being equal,) should be bred to the largest ram, &c. Notwithstanding the astonishing fecundi- ty which has been ascribed to the ram, I Constitution! property adapted tu inch treat- ment in thlfl climate. Thej should he kept as quiet as may be convenient; and the constant presence of would not recommend (from my own expe-l Pal bullocks, or of sows and calves, will be rience and observation,) ever fifty ewes tola protection ■«■■■< rascally dogs, which be allotted to one ram; and that not more ' should not be allowed to run among them tban ten should be put with him at the first In the absence of all other and better laws time, and ten more be added at the expira tion of five days ; and so on until the whole fifty arc put with him. The energies of a buck will be greatly spared by putting each lot of ewes with him late in the evening, so that he will have the cool nights for his operations. To be sure that the ram is copulating well, it is desirable to smear his breast, be- fore introducing him, with some lamp black Venetian red, or Spanish brown, mixed with hog's lard, so that each ewe will be slightly colored on the rump after copulation. When two rams are used they should be kept in different enclosures, and should be smeared with different coloring matter; and when it is desired to know their progeny apart, the ram and his ewes may have similar holes put in their respective ears, by round force used for that purpose, and the similar holes in the ram's ears should be put in the ears of his lambs. When two or more bucks are used in the same season, this precaution will be neces- sary to prevent a ram from being bred to his own progeny in future, which should never be done if it is possible to avoid it, no matter how great is the excellence of the ram in question. Even after the ewes have all been bred and put together, it will be well to allow the best ram to continue lor a while with the flock, for some ewe may have missed conception ; he will be a protection to the flock, and even after conception his constant presence may not be without its effect in impressing his qualities and ap- pearance on his progeny. The other bucks may be put with the wethers, or even to- gether, by noticing that they do not fight for a few hours after being put together. During gestation the ews want no better keeping than the range of a woodland pas to prevent this, strychnine may be the in- dispensable though disagreeable revolt. The ewes being thus kept in good con- dition during the winter, as soon as they begin to expand their udders in the spring they should be put on a good pasture of fresh blue grass, timothy or small grain. If the meadow is luxuriant it will not be hurt by allowing the sheep to graze the foliage for awhile, but it should not be closely pas- tured. If any of the ewes become loose in their bowels and foul behind, they should have all the wool carefully cut away, and the af- fected parte should be carefully rubbed with dry ashes. For this purpose it is well to have, convenient, a pen large enough to contain the flock, in which should also be a few close and sheltered pens, in which to put a ewe which in future might disown her own lamb, or be made to take that of another. If any of them should be lame, they should now be carefully caught and exam- ined by at least two hands, to avoid worry- ing them in catching, or hurting themselves by struggling. Should the horn of the hoof have grown toe long at the toe, or be turned under the sole of the foot, pare it off carefully and closely with a sharp knife. Should a sore be found in the cleft on the heel of the foot, cleanse it well, and apply spirits of turpentine ; or an ointment of alum, bluestone, or verdigris, mixed with lard, tallow or tar, according as the reason and circumstances may require. Should ma- lignant foot-rot appear, pare with a knife, and then wash the diseased places well with a solution of chloride of lime to purify them, and apply and wash well with chlo- ride of antimony and spirits of hartshorn a few times. Rut the better plan is to pre- ture well set with blue grass, with a fresh ! vent all diseases by wide and frequent and plentiful allowance of stock fodder scat- crossing, by keeping the sheep in the open tered on the ground to them every other 1 air, and by often changing the feeding and day duringthe snows and cold of winter; and sleeping grounds, and by keeping them on during the severest weather they will need the highest and driest and poorest points of no other protection than their own fleeces if they have been bred with systems and the farm. As the period for yeaning approaches, the r,sf> THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, [November ewes should be put on good green pastures, and they should be kept on the best which can be afforded them after the lambs have come. They should not be allowed too much range, or be subjected to any un- necessary disturbance, while the lambs are coining, which might often cause them to loose or abandon their lambs while they are quite young. When the lambs begin to come, (which will be about the middle of March,) a care- ful and observant man should pass quietly among the flock at least twice a day, to render such protection and assistance as may be needed ; and for this purpose he may have some work, of any sort, not far from the flock. Should any crows be about, they should be well supplied with strychnine put on an after-birth ; or on the eyes and bowels of a dead lamb. Of course no honest dog or hog will have access to this pasture, and all others will deserve the same fate as / their murderous brother crow. Let the dead trophies be hung up by the legs, and the other crows will soon take warning, and give that pasture a wide berth. A case of natural labour will not last over two hours; and in a natural presen- tation the fore feet will first protrude, and be followed by the nose, &c. Should any difficulty be noticed by the shepherd the ewe should be driven to the pen, and be carefully laid upon her side, and the required assistance be given before the lamb has died. If twins present simul- taneously, one of them must be pushed back until the other is safely delivered ; when, after ten or fifteen minutes rest, the other may be assisted, if necessary. Some improper presentations may be turned suc- cessfully ; and where a large head is the only obstacle, all the assistance required will be slow and gentle pulling, in unison with the efforts of the ewe. At the close of such labours, the parent and offspring- should be left together on a straw bed, in the warm pen, for an hour or two ; and should the lamb fail to suck in that time, assistance should be given to it ; and as soon as the lamb is able to walk a little, it and the mother may be quietly removed to the pasture again. If a ewe should desert her own lamb, penning them together, and feeding the ewe bountifully for a day or two, will generally be all which will be ne- cessary ; but it will be proper to halter also a ewe to which a motherless lamb may be iven, until she shows attachment to it. As soon as the lambs have generally come, and not later than the first of May a cool evening should be selected, the flock, should be slowly driven to the pen, so as not to warm the blood of the lambs by undue exercise, and the shepherd should proceed to castrate, dock and mark them as quietly and as rapidly as possible. To perform the first operation, the at- tendant should hold the back of the lamb, head upwards, firmly against his breast, while he stands erect, holding the right legs in his right hand, and the left legs in his left hand, and holding the hind legs open. The operator should take off with a sharp knife, about one half of the scro- tum at a stroke, when the testacies will protrude ; a gentle stroke with the knife will bring the testacies through the inner skin, from which another cut will disen- gage it, and another will separate the cord, well drawn out, and near to the body ; and so proceed. Mark the ears, and then cut the tail off close, at a stroke; and then smear some tar and greese on the scrotum, head and tail, with a small paddle, all of which a dextrous operator will perform in from one to two minutes for each lamb. They should be laid quietly over the fence, out of the pen ; and the ews had better be kept within small range until morning, by which time the cool night will have closed up the veins and stopped the flow of blood, and the lambs will have regained their strength, and will be able to follow. Now will be a good time to attend to any ewes which will again require tagging and rub- bing with dry ashes. The lambs should be smeared on 'the back at shearing time with a little sulphur and lard mixed together; or about two weeks after shearing time they may be dipped, up to the eyes, in a decoction of to- bacco, made just strong enough, by experi- ment, to kill a tick, should they be infested with these vermin. After docking, &c, the lambs should be noticed to see if any flies have deposited their eggs on the bloody places, and the skippers, if any, should be carefully wash- ed off with a strong decoction of alder leaves or bark and soap, and more tar be added. About the first of August all of the buck lambs should be taken from the flock ; but 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 087 :i peculiar emphasis, in as iiiikIi M they not merely declare the Divine purpose — that man should be well accommodated, iod aid- ed, and oomfofted, in this his terrene abode ; hut that he should win every advantage hy the exertion of his higher faculties. Each benefit derived from a better knowledge of nature is a premium of mind — a booa given as the reward of intellectual effort : and while it dcclaresin one ol* its inscriptions that the maker of the universe! is the friend of man, in the other it exhorts man to be his own friend, by the diligent employment of his mental power*. Every branch of modern science abounds with instances of remote correspondences between the great system of the world, and the welfare of man in the artificial (the truly natural) condition to which knowledge raises him. If these correspondences were single or rare, they might be deemed merely for- tuitous; like the drifting of a plank athwart the track of one who is swimming from a wreck. But when they meet us on all sides and invariably, we must be resolute in athe- ism not to confess that they are emanations from one and the same centre of wisdom and goodness. Is it nothing more than a lucky accommodation which makes the polarity of the needle to subserve the purposes of the mariner ? Or may it not safely be affirmed bodi that the magnetic influence (whatever its primary intention may be)had reference to the business of navigation —a reform in- calculably important to the spread and im- provement of the human race; and that the discovery and the application of this influ- ence arrived at the destined moment in the revolution of human affairs, when, in com- bination with other events, it would produce the greatest effect? Ner should we scruple Every one is aware of the beneficial ten- 1 to affirm, that the relation between the in- dency of genuine science; but it is not, Iclination of the earth's axis to the conspic- perhaps, always duly remembered, that every i uous star which, without a near rival, attracts practical application of the principles of even the eye of the vulgar, and shows the mathematical, mechanical, chemical or phy-' north to the wanderer on the wilderness, or siological philosophy, is a new affirmation of. on the ocean, is in like manner a beneficent the Divine benevolence towards man. Shall [arrangement. Those who would spurn the we say, it is a fresh text, translated from the supposition that the celestial locality of the the ewe lambs may be suffered to remain a month longer, when they should be re- moved ; and they should not be bred to a ram until the fall after they are one year old. With, these simple precautions and this little care, one hundred ewes have raised from one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty lambs; and, by having taken the trouble of rising by hand, still more might have been raised. Nothing has been said about washing sheep. It is a troublesome operation, and a dangerous one to the health of both the sheep and the operator, and therefore should be avoided if possible. Such sheep with such fleeces as have been described, do not require to be washed before being shorn. The wool has just enough yoke in it to aid it in giving adequate protection to the sheep, and enough to prepare, it to be carded and spun into coarse fabrics just as it is taken from the sheep. Itwill also re- ceive bark and other domestic dyes, except indigo, without being washed. Such sheep will yield from eight to fourteen pounds of wool, which will readily sell at from twenty- five to thirty cents per pound. The fat weathers will sell as from ten to twenty-five dollars per head, as the mutton is equally as good as that of the South Down and there is much more of it. The shearing of the sheep is an opera- tion of so much importance that it will be made the subject of a separate article, at some future time. R. W. S. New Frankfort, Ky., June, 1859. [The Beneficial Influence of True Science] unwritten Bible of God's creation, corrobo- rating our faith in the paternal care of Him in whom we live, and move and have otw sun, immeasurably remote from our system, should have reference to the accommodation of the inhabitants of a planet so inconsid- being ? And this might be said even if erahle as our own, forget the style of the these beneficial discoveries were the results of chance. But when they come t«» us as the product of laborious intellectual opera- Divine works, which is. to secure some great or principal end, compatibly with ten thous-' ami lesser and remote interests. Man, if he tions, they assert the same great truth with | would secure the greater, must neglect or 688 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November sacrifice the. less: not so the Omnipotent Contriver. It is a fact full of meaning, that those astronomical phenomena (and so others) which offer themselves as available for the purposes of art; as, for instance, of nav- igation, or geography j do not fully or effec- tively yield the aid they promise, until after long and elaborate processes or calculations have disentangled them from variations, dis- turbing forces, and apparent irregularities. To the rude fact, if so we might designate it, a mass of recondite science must be ap- pended, before it can be brought to bear with precision upon the arts of life. Thus, the polarity of the. needle, or the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, are as nothing to the mari- ner, or the geographer, without the volumi- nous commentary furnished by the mathe- matics of astronomy. The fact of the ex- pansive force of steam must employ the in- telligence and energy of the mechanicians of an empire, during a century, before the whole of its beneficial powers can be put in activity. Chemical, medical, and botanical science is filled with parallel instances ; and they all affirm, in an articulate manner, the two-fold purpose of the Creator — to benefit man, and to educate him. * * * [Isaac Taylor.] A Good wife who Found "Good in Evfpry- thing." A farmer was once blessed with a good natured, contented wife ;• but it not being in the nature of man to be satisfied, he one day said to a neighbor, he really wished he could hear his wife scold once, for the nov- elty of the thing. Whereupon, his sympa- thising neighbor advised him to go to the woods and get a load of crooked sticks, which would certainly make her as cross as he could desire. Accordingly, the farmer collected a load of the most ill-shaped, crooked, crotchety materials that were ever known under the name of fuel. This he deposited in its place, taking care that his spouse should have access to no other wood Day after day passed without a complaint At length the pile was consumed. " Well, wife," said the farmer, " I am going after more wood ; I'll get another load just such as I got last time." " Oh yes, Jacob," she replied, " it will be so nice, if you will j for such crooked, crotchety wood, as you brought before, does lie around the pot so nicely." From the New York Observer. Scientific. THE DAY PROBLEM. The variation of clock time with the difference of longitude, presents to. a mind not accustomed to reflect upon it, a some- what serious puzzle. Yet I think it can be so unfolded, as to be plain to the most ordi- nary capacity. Clock time is relative, and varies in dif- ferent places as they vary in longitude. Taking any given point, all places east of it are in advance, and all places west of it, behind, in relative time ; the difference be- ing just one hour for every fifteen degrees of longitude ; and for every greater or less number of degrees, in the same proportion, greater or less than one hour. It is easy, therefore, to see, that if one journeys eastward or westward from any point, having with him the true time of his place of departure — say New Orleans — when he has reached Philadelphia or Santa Fe, or any places on their respective me. ridians, by travelling east or west; in the former case he will have gained one hour in relative time, and in the latter, he will have lost just one hour. And so of all greater distances, in the same proportion. Now let us apply these principles on a larger scale. A ship sails from the harbor of New York east 180 degrees of longitude, say to Ratavia, near the western end of the island of Java. In that distance, she will gain in relative time, 12 hours ; that is, when it is Saturday, 6 P. M., at New York, her point of departure, it will at the same time be Sunday, A. M., where she now is, at Ba- tavia — reckoning the days, in both cases, by the apparent revolution of the sun. Another ship sails from the same port of New York, westward, around Cape Horn, through the Society Isles, &c, passes north of Australia, and reaches at length the same point, the city of Batavia, making 180 degrees of longitude. She has lost in rela- tive time just 12 hours; that is, when it is Saturday, 6 P. M., at New York, it will be 6 A. M., of the same day, at the place where she now is. Therefore, in general, persons sailing in opposite directions, east or west, and arri- ving at the same meridian, whether in the same or in different latitudes, if they have 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 689 each kept a true account of the days of the week, by the rising and Betting nf the sun, will differ just twenty-four hours in relative time ; that is, whatever may be the day, and the hour of the day, in the reckoning of those sailing westward, it will be the same hour of the day, but one whole day in advance, with those that sailed eastward. And should the two ships, in the cases above stated, after a temporary stay at 13a- tavia, pursue their respective courses ; the eastward bound vessel doubling Cape Horn, and at length making the harbor of New York; while the one westward bound reaches the same point by the Cape of Good Hope, their difference of day-reckoning would amount to two whole days exactly ; that is, if to the sailors arrived by the way of the Horn, it is Monday, 11 A. M., to those who arrived by the other way, it will be the same hour of Saturday, while to the citizens it will be neither Monday nor Sat- urday, but the Sabbath day, and the church- going bells will be summoning the multi- tudes to worship God in his earthly courts. Again : suppose a company of Russian emigrants to sail from the port of Archan- gel, on the White Sea, eastward through the Arctic Sea, along the coast of Asiatic Russia, and through Bherrings' Strait, until at length they reach the western shore of North America. Suppose other companies, from time to time, to make Holland, France, Germany, and England their starting points, and committing themselves to the Atlantic and sailing westward, to find their way to the eastern shores of the same North America, and thence to spread westward, until they at length arrive at nearly the same meridian with the Russian emigrant. As both 'the eastward and the westward emigrants would carry with them the days of the week, reckoned by the rising and setting of the sun, it would of necessity re- sult, that the Russians, in the case supposed, would gain in relative time, in proportion to the longitude traversed, while the other emigrants would lose in the same propor- tion ; so that, if they all at last should set- tle on the same meridian, no matter what their latitude respectively, they would dif- fer just oue day in day reckoning; yet both would be right. Now the above sup- position has been realized, and is a plain, historical fact. Russia, of the one part, and Great Britain and the United States of the other part, have together practically wrought out the geographical problem of the aisoropeney of day reckoning, under (he above conditions. In the light of these facts one can easily understand, — what must seem an anomaly to the persoa who has not reflected on the subject, — why, at New Archangel, on the island of Sitka, near tin* western coast of North America, the day-reckoning should be one day in advance of the reckoning of Victoria, on A'ancouwr's Island, and of Washington and Oregon, just a little to the south. The one place being a possession of Russia, was settled by eastward emigration; while, with respect to the other places, the current on whose bosom was borne the pre- cious freight of letters and Christianity, pursued a westward course. The discrepan- cy in the above instance, and in the similar one which obtains between the southern and the central islands of the Pacific, will ever remain as incontestable and most stri- king memoriats of the great fact, that the tide of civilization reached those distant parts of the world, by flowing in opposite directions. W. P. V. Manipulated Guano. We notice by the last Southern Planter that Frank G. Ruffin, Esq., former editor of that journal, has commenced the Manipu- lation of Guano at Richmond. We also learn that several very respectable houses in Petersburg, Alexandria, and other places, are also engaged in the same business. In this city there are five or six establishments for the same purpose, and during the last spring we were induced to enter into it also, but on a very limited scale. The number of persons engaged in it will, no doubt, create a competition which will soon bring it to a fair paying price. Were it not for the difficulties thrown into the trade, by the attempts of the Peruvian agents to prevent manipulators from obtaining supplies of the Peruvian Guano — which is the main basis of the manipulated — and thus causing a heavy outlay of capital, which, under other circumstances, might be avoided, we think there would soon be room for a reduction in price. We have uniformly advised farmers to buy the ammoniacal and phosphatic gua- noes and manipulate for themselves; but if they are indisposed to take the trouble, then we will supply them with an article which we flatter ourselves will be found at least THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November equal to any prepared, from the effects of which on the spring crops we have some very flattering accounts. We make this statement at the risk of again being charged with being actuated by selfish motives, in our effort! to counteract the late monopoly in Peruvian guano. This mixture of Peru- vian and phosphatic guanoes has been found eminently successful in England, as well as in this country, and we have for years past been urging its adoption upon our farmers. We believe that the results of this article in England is the cause of the early and persistent efforts of the Peruvian agents and government to obstruct its free use here, and every means have uniformly been used by them to prevent the manipulators from obtaining supplies for their purposes. Rural Register. Manufactures. The principle of association in production has been invoked in many ways by writers and theorists, and various plans have been laid down, by which +he profits of labor might be increased in the hands of those who do the work, but without much success. The result has been almost inevitable, that some individuals get all the profits while the mass of laborers get only a precarious living. The principle of association in a division of labor is no doubt sound, and the greatest good has been derived from it. It is only its application which has been inju- rious. The communist principle of having all the workmen proprietors, has been tried in France thoroughly, and has failed com- pletely. It was found that the talents, ca- pabilities and business energy necessary to success, must be centred in a directing head, and that a small per cent, on the amount earned by each workman, did not more than compensate the owner for his services and risks. The workmen obtain more for their work where the owner is prosperous than where they are all proprietors, and divide the profits. In the United States, on the other hand, the corporate system has been tried, and may be said to have failed because the non-working officers get all the profits of the concern. A corporation is always a monopolizer. It is born of speculation. It commences in a grasping spirit, by purchas- ing large traets of land, in the midst of which it sets up its mills. It then draws to een subjected have caused the development f an amount of intelligence that elevates im many degrees above the majority, of the leathered race. There are few birds that equal the Crow n sagacity. He observes many things that rould seem to require the faculties of a ra- ional being. He judges with accuracy, Vom the deportment of the person approach- ng him, if he is prepared to do him an in- ury; and seems to pay no regard to one vho is strolling the fields in search of flow- rs or for recreation. On such occasions, >ne may get so near him as to observe his nanners, and even to note the varying hades of his plumage. But in vain does he sportsman endeavor to approach him. So sure is he to fly at the right moment for is safety, that one might suppose he could neasure the distance of gunshot. The voice of the Crow is like no other .otind uttered by the feathered race ; it is larsh and unmelodious, and though he is japable, when domesticated, of imitating mman speech, he cannot sing. But iEsop nistook the character of this bird when he epresented him as the dupe of the fox, who gained the bit of cheese he carried in his nouth by inducing him to exhibit his mu- ical powers. The Crow could not be fooled )y any such appeals to his vanity. The Crow is commonly regarded as a comely bird ; yet he is not without beauty. lis coat of glossy black with violet reflec- ;ions, his dark eyes and sagacious expres- ion of countenance, his stately and grace- ul gait, and his steady and equable light, ombine to give him a proud and dignified lppearance. The Crow and the Raven have ilways been celebrated for their gravity — character that seems to be the result of ;heir black sacerdotal vesture, and of cer- tain mauifi stations of intelligence in their way and general deportment. Indeed, any one who should watch the motions of the Grow lor the space of five minutes, either when lie is stalking alone in the field, or when he is careering with his fellows around some tall tree in the forest, would aeknow- edge that he denerres to be dmlled B grave bird. Setting aside the services rendered by the Crow to agriculture, I esteem him for cer- tain qualities which are agreeably associated with the charms of Nature. It is not the singing-birds alone that contribute by their voices to gladden the husbandman and cheer the solitary traveler. The crowing of the Cock at the break of day is as joyful a sound, though not so musical, as the voice of the Robin who chants his lays at the same early hour. To me the cawing of the Crow is cheering and delightful, and it is heard long before the majority of birds have left their perch. If not one of the melodies of morn, it is one of the most notable sounds that herald its approach. And how intimately is the voice of this bird associated with the sunshine of calm winterrdays — with our woodland excursions during this inclement season— with the stroke of the woodman's axe — with open doors in bright and pleas- ant weather, when the eaves are dripping with the melting snow — and with all those cheerful sounds that enliven the groves dur- ing that period when every object is valua- ble that relieves the silence or softens the dreary aspect of Nature ! From the Southern Cultivator. Improved Land and Increased Value. We would call especial attention to the following letter from Hon. B. P. Johnson, the able Secretary of the N. York State Ag- ricultural Society. It is of peculiar signifi- cance and value at the present time, when the subject of improving our lands is begin- ning to receive the earnest attention of our people : Editors Southern Cultivator — I re- ceived yours of the 27th ult., in due time, and, perhaps, I cannot better answer your inquiries, as to the improvement made by farmers here and the increased value of lands from improvements made, than by giving you the statements of some individ- uals which have come before our Society, and are entirely reliable. 702 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER [NOVEMBEI A farm, situate in this county, which, for fifty years, had been under a system of de- structive cultivation, taking everything off and returning nothing to sustain the land, came into the possession of. a farmer in 1845. The land was so exhausted that, for the first two years, little could be raised j but, by a judicious system of manuring, ro- tation of crops, &c, this farm, consisting of 185.} acres, gave a gross income of $4,852, and a net income, after deducting expenses of cultivation, of $2,678 16, in 1851 — six years from the time it was entered upon. The method of improving this land (a sandy loam soil) was by plowing under green clover — plowing at least 8 inches deep — applying manure generally as a top dressing (twenty to thirty loads per acre) to grain crops. The manure, mainly made from the droppings of cattle and horses kept on the farm, averaging about 300 loads (of 30 bushels) per year. Lime and plaster, used plentifully — stable manure and lime consid- ered the best manure for this land. The in- creased fertility of this land was secured by judicious culture. To show you what was the condition of the land when the farmer took possession of it, I give the statement of the former occu- pant : " I occupied the farm 16 years previous to your purchase j the farm was all the time in market ; I was a tenant at will, and had no incentive to improvement, so that the farm rather deteriorated under my manage- ment. I farmed it loith a view of getting the most out of it at the least possible expense. I paid one hundred dollars a year rent; some of the land was new when I went upon it and it paid me very well, but for the last few years the land was so worn down that I no longer considered it an object at the price I paid. With regard to the amount of sales of produce, I should think I must have sold about 400 dollars worth yearly. I do not think I left the farm any better off than when I came upon it 16 years before. I did not suppose the farm was capable of doing what I see you have made it do." It will be seen that the reason this man did not accomplish anything was, that he had no inducement, as he thought to farm well because the landlord would have the benefit of the increase as well as himself, and so he labored for his board and lodging for 16 years — the best part of his life. There are multitudes of such men who are owners of land and pursue the same deple ting system this man did, and then say farm k ing don't pay. ' Tis true, and always wil be, that such farming will never pay — it ii but using land as if it Was a plaything, anc after a little time may be thrown away. Ii i is proper to say, that this farm was advan tageously situated as to market ; but thai was as good for the tenant, during his 16 years, as the owner after him. It does noi $ militate against the certain success of the farmer by his pursuit, if he will avail him- self of the means adapted to secure the re- sult. Evidences are abundant that the fer- tility of the land cannot only be maintained, but increased in richness ; and there is ncj necessity of having this exhausting process) g continually going on. • Another case in the interior of the State — a farm redeemed from the forest. In 1839 the farmer commenced his operations^ in the wilderness : — land purchased, proba bly, at not more than $5 per acre. The for- est had to be removed and the land brought under culture, which was a work of time. A plan of gradual improvement was adopted in clearing the land and preparing the soil, which has resulted in success. The hard crust underlying the native soil was attacked year after year by plowing deeper each sea- son, bringing it up to the influence of air and water, forming a deeper and more valu able soil. While crops, formerly of wheat, averaged 10 or 12 bushels; corn 20 to 25 bushels ; now wheat (before the insect ap- peared) averaged 20 to 25 bushels, and corn full 60 bushels; and an equal advance in meadows — and this all accomplished by the labor of the farmer and his judicious man- agement.. In January, 1857, this farm, of 60 acres, of which 20 acres are in woodland and five acres in buildings, highways, &c, leaving only 35 acres under culture, gives the follow- ing result : Value of the stock, implemente, &c, on hand, $1,065 ; value of grain and other pro- ducts sold, $1,210 ; leaving, after all the expenses of the farm and family had been provided for, $468 to the credit of this lit- tle farm. During the period of its occupancy, and since the forest has been felled, it has been paid for, thoroughly drained, good and suffi- cient stone and other fences erected, weeds eradicated, neat and commodious buildings erected which are most attractive. And E < 859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 703 l' 1 iere the value of this land from its nominal •rice in 1839 (when it was bought) has been Tought to its present condition by a careful nd judicious management, ever keeping in iew that it must, each year, bo increased in ts value for cropping — judicious rotation of rops so that no one crop should exhaust nd run out the land. This farm is now worth $40 to $60 per ere. I could multiply these evidences, especial- y in our dairy districts, were it necessary. .Tie system of scourging the land and ex- lausting its life blood and then abandoning t for little, and fleeing to the cheap lands at he West, there to repeat the same course of xhaustion, is being arrested, and the man- gement of farm land is greatly improving nd the occupation of the farm is giving as nuch real and substantial comfort and inde- >endence as any other pursuit. And it will ontinue to be more and more successful, as nore skill audi ntelligence are enlisted in this mrsuit. I regret I could not answer, your letter nore fully and at an earlier day ; but a pres- ure of engagements is the only reason. I hall be pleased to answer any inquiries that rou may desire, as far as I can. I desire to lo all the good I can to the great agricultu- •al interest of our country — the foundation )f our prosperity as a nation, the conserva- ive element in our population, which will )e proven in the hour of peril, should it ?ver come (which may God in his infinite nercy prevent.) I am most truly yours, B. P. Johnson. State Agricultural Rooms, Albany, N. Y, ) May 25th, 1859. $ From the Southern Cultivator. Low Price of Southern Lands— Remedy Etc. Editors Southern Cultivator: — I im not farming to much extent, and it may, :herefore, be thought presumption in me to *ive my views on the following subject; but fter carefully and anxiously reading the irticle commenced in the May number and concluded in the June number of your valu- ible journal on " the Cheapness of Lands at the South, its Causes and Remedies," I iave determined to trouble you with my thoughts on that subject. If this article has but the effect to excite the minds of those oapable of unfolding that subject, I have effected my object. With this spirit [ send you this, which, should you think it worthy, give it a place in the Cultivator. I admit, with that article; the evils exist, ami would gladly see them remedied, but differ as to the causes and remedies. There are four causes of exhaustion to our soils, and, consequently, of lessening their value, viz : 1st. Our long hot summers. 2nd. Our heavy washing rains of winter. 3rd.. The things cultivated. 4th. The mode of cultivation. The first and second are peculiar to the South. They are the dark side of the pic- ture of our snowy fields and sunny skies. They cannot be removed, but may be greatly warded off. With them the North has little or no trouble. Any one who will carefully observe the effects of one of our long sum- mer drouths on the soil, will, unhesitatingly, say that it injures the soil more than any crop raised by us. By it nearly every liquid and volatile particle is evaporated. So £^at is this heat that in places it cracks the earth to the depth of twenty feet. In parts of Texas, well-diggers have seen traces of these cracks even deeper than that. 2. The Washing Rains of Winter.— The whole South is subject to tropical changes. The rainy season coming in winter. When it sets in, the rain falls in torrents. The earth is never frozen during our winters, but completely softened by these rains. In Texas, when rain sets in, it fills these deep cracks with the top soil, leaving gravelly- ridges between, resembling huge potato ridges. When these do not exist, owing to the unfrozen state of the ground, softened by the rains and our method of cultivation, the remaining portions of the soil are most- ly washed away. In the North their summers are short and warming — not burning ; and in the winter the earth is mostly frozen, the rain by free- zing and the snow, instead of washing, forms a mantle of protection. 3. The things Cultivated.— The principal objects are cotton and corn raised from year to year on the same ground without change, unless it be from cotton to corn and from corn to cotton. Annually extracting from the soil the ingredients which compose the food of those plants until the soil is ex- hausted of them, however plenty in other ingredients, and then thrown away. The author of that article says that " cotton, of 04 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER [NOVEMBE .. all our crops, is the least exhausting," &c. Cotton, as it has but few lateral roots and is sustained principally by one large tap root, may, of itself, take least from our soil ) but its clean culture and continued turning of the fresher soil to the burning sun makes it the most exhausting of all crops. Its clean culture and few lateral roots leaves the soil without anything to hold it together, and in the worst condition possible for our heavy winter rains. In the North, the principal objects of cultivation are grasses and the cereal grains, the stalks of which shade the ground in summer, and their rootlets form a complete tie to the soil against their thaws of spring. The stubble and stalks which they turn .un- der in the fall after the injurious heat of summer is over, forms a coat of manure which, by rotting, keeps the soil warm and mellow. 4. Our System of Cultivation. — As the author of the article truly remarks, "lands in the South arc bought with the calcula- tion of being worn out and deserted."' * The clearing is about one-fourth, done. For the first two years no crop is raised from shade and unbroken soil. As soon as trees die and the roots rot, the soil, for want of some- thing, to hold it together, from scratching instead of plowing, and that up and down hill, washes in a most frightful manner. Deep and horizontal plowing and hill-side ditching are ridiculed. Manuring is' almost wholly neglected except a handful of cot- ton seed in the hill. A very light and tem- porary affair. Our plowing averages from two to six inches deep. In the North, notwithstanding they have none of our winter washing rains, they horizontalize their plowing and efficiently hill-side ditch their lands. Their plowing averages from 5 to 15 inches deep. In ad- dition, they harrow and roll their lands after plowing until the soil is completely pulver- ized, and smoothed as near as may be. They manure without stint. REMEDIES. That author recommends stock and their raising as a remedy, by furnishing manure, The United States Economist, in speak- ing of the cotton crop, says ihtci the pros- peets are very favorable, and that it is not impossible that the exports of the coming year may be pushed to three and a quarter million.-, at a price equal to that of -1858, say, average $65 per bale, which would give an export value of two hundred^ and ten millions of dollars, and impart to the South- ern section of the country a greater degree of prosperity than ever yet fell to its lot. 710 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November From the Working Farmer. On Rearing Calves. BY HENRY C. VAIL. In our last article we gave several methods for rearing calves. Mr. Emer- son says : — " In Pennsylvania, heifers in- tended for milch cows are generally put to the bull at 15 or 18 months of age, in pre- ference to leaving them run to a greater age." Mr. Isaac W. Roberts, of Mont- gomery County, has been very successful in raising and fattening cattle, chiefly of the Durham breed. It is his practice to take the calves of this fine breed, and, when two or three weeks old, put them with common native bred cows. He weans at three or four mcnths old, when the calf is able to thrive well on grass alone, and' the native cow going dry, is soon fit for the butcher, at a price whieh will nearly, if not quite, pay for her first cost and a fine allowance for pasturage. He thinks that calves thus raised and entering the winter in good con- dition, being properly housed and fed du- ring cold and inclement weather, gain near- ly a year on such as are prematurely weaned or fed on skimmed milk. He entirely dis- approves of letting calves run three or four months with valuable cows intended for breeding, and especially where milking properties are to be retained. With all those who desire to possess an improved and select stock, it is deemed highly important that they should raise their own calves : and this is rendered the more important, from the high prices usu ally to be obtained fo» calves of the best breeds. Mr. Colman gives the- following information upon this subject, derived from his observations in Massachusetts : " A far- mer of my acquaintance in the interior, raises all his calves from a large stock of cows. His cows a/e known to be of prime quality. His heifers are allowed to come in at two years old, and are then sold with their first calf, generally for $35, which he deems a fair compensation for raising. His calves are fed mainly on skim milk and whey, until they can support themselves on hay and grass. His steers pay a propor- tional profit when sold at three to four years old." ' The English authorities say, that upon two cows calving at different times, seven calves may be fattened for the butcher in the courae of the year. More than this may be done if the calves are to be reared for stock, and if some little meal or vegeta- bles is added to their food. Mr. Jaques remarks on the subject of feeding calves, that he generally lets them take a portion of milk from the cows for about three months, and prefers keeping them in the stall until they are about a year old, thinking that he gets better forms, rounder barrels, straighter backs, greater broadness in the loin and hips, by this management. Calves turned to grass at two or three months old become pot bel- lied, their backs bent, acquire a narrowness in the loins, and seldom get over the defect entirely. I believe it is better to raise them in the stall or yard the first season, as their feed is much more uniform, and their growth not interrupted by sudden changes. They soon learn to eat hay; and carrots or potatoes cut fine for them, will be highly beneficial. In all cases the calf should be taken from the cow as soon after its birth as the cow's udder is brought into good condition and her milk fit for use, and then he should be fed by hand. " In my opinion," says a very intelligent farmer of Stockbridge, " calves raised for other pur- poses than veal, should be early weaned from the dam, and nursed at least one year upon food adapted to give firmness and ex- pansion of muscle, rather than to fatten them." Says another farmer, " One of the most important points in the feeding " of the calf, is to feed him well when the grass first fails in the fall by frost. If Suf- fered to* fall off then, he does not recover, and suffers more by scanty food than other animals." Some " premium " calves have been pro- duced by allowing them to take the cow's * milk for several months. We saw a large display of fine Devon stock in a western county of New York last year ; the young animals were larger than any of the kind we have before examined. On inquiry we found their great size and beauty owing to the fact that they had been allowed to run with the cow and consume all the milk. Some of the calves were seven or eight months old. This practice soon dries up a cow, and where milking qualities are to be kept up, should not be encouraged. On the farm of a celebrated breeder of Durham cattle, we saw several cows not able to supply milk enough to feed their calves. In such cases the whole energies of the aui- 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 711 mal seem to be given to beef making, com- mon cattle being provided to supply milk for the calves. The rearing of calves requires the exer- cise of a vast deal of common sense, which, in other words, means the exercise of judg- ment based on a perfect knowledge of their wants and capacities, kind of breed, struc- ture of system, and future uses to which they are to be put. Every farmer should bear in mind a few points. 1. No calf of decent proportions should be killed, as the country at large requires a greater amount of stock, and it will be a source of individual profit. 2. No calf should be allowed to run long with a dam intended for milking. . 3. Such food should be selected as will develop the strength and size of the ani- mal, rather than fatten it. 4. Never overfeed at any one time, and feed often enough to prevent absolute hun- ger. •5. Remember the necessity for shelter, and that it in part represents food: 6. Do no' forget that a young, animal should be kept gradually, but surely impro- ving, never receiving any check from ill- treatment and mismanagement, and it will be impossible to forget at the end of five years' trial the 7th Rule — Pocket the profits sure to re- sult from these hints. How to Fatten Chickens. It is hopeless to attempt to fatten chick- ens while they are at liberty. They must be put in a. proper coop, and this, like most other poultry appurtenances, need not be expensive. To fatten twelve fowls, a. coop must be three feet long, eighteen inches high, and eighteen inches deep, made en- tirely of bars. No part of it solid — neither top, side nor bottom. Discretion must be used according to the sizes of the chickens put up. They do not want room ; indeed, the closer they are the better, provided they can all stand up at the same time. Care must be taken to put up such as have been accustomed' to be together, or they will fight. If one «is quarrelsome, it is better to remove it at once; as, like other bad exam- ples, it soon finds its imitators. A diseased chicken should not be put up. The food should be ground oats, and may either be put in a trough or on a flat board running along the front of the coop. It may be mixed with water or milk ; the lat- ter is better. It should be well slaked, forming a pulp as loose as can be, provided it docs not run off the board. They must be well fed three or four times a day — the first time as soon after daybreak as possible or convenient, and then at intervals of four hours. Each meal should be as much and no more than they can eat up clean. When they have done feeding the board should be wiped, and some gravel may be spread. It causes them to feed and thrive. After a fortnight of this treatment, you will have good, fat fowl. If, however, there are but four to six to be fattened, they must not have so much room as though there were twelve. Nothing is easier than to al- low them the proper space ; it is only ne- cessary to have two or three pieces of wood to pass between the bars, and form a parti- tion. This may also serve when fowls are put up at different degrees of fatness. This requires attention, or fowls will not keep fat and healthy. As soon as the fowl is suffi- ciently fattened it must be killed, otherwise it will still get fat, but it will lose flesh. If fowls are intended for market, of course they are or may be all fattened at once ; but if for home consumption, it is better to put them up at such intervals as will suit the time when they are required for the ta- ble. When the time arrives for killing, whether they are meant for market or other- wise, they should be fasted, without food or water, for twelve or fifteen hours. This en- ables them to be kept some after being killed, even in hot weather. — London Cot- ton Gardener. from the Nf evaporation, and the abstraction of heat ; it contributes to the warmth of the lower por tions of the soil ; it prevents meadows from becoming impoverished ; it causes the poison- ous excrementitious matter of plants to be car- ried out of the* reach of their roots ; it pre- vents the formation of acetic and other or- ganic acids, which favour the production of sorrel and other noxious weeds, and it makes the surface soil of heavy lands light, and free from incrustation. From the preceding facts, your Committee are fully of the opinion, that this system- of underground draining would be of great pub- lic utility, and we cannot too strongly recom- mend it to every Horticulturist and Agricul- turist." Several of my neighbours have used some of the tiles which I procured from Albany, and although they cost us twice the Albany price, the freight exceeding the first cost, we are -satisfied that they are cheaper than stone at the cost of hauling. One thing we have determined on, that we will have the tiles at a cheaper rate, and if nobody offers them at a fair price, some of the members of the Rockingham Fair will establish works and make them for ourselves, before many months. Probably we may have to pay something for an education, as most people do, who engage in new enterprises, but the tiles are to be supplied at a cheaper rate than double the Al- bany prices. From the Rural Register. The Four Organic Elements. OXYGEN, HYDROGEN, NITROGEN AND CARBON. Many farmers are not familiar with the full meaning of chemical terms used frequent- ly by writers in agricultural works. The able editor of the Scientific American, is giving a brief description of the four organic elements, which we intended transferring to our col- umns, in order to assist such as are not fa- miliar with chemistry, to understand their im- port. We commence with : I. — Oxygen. Nine pounds of water consist of eight pounds of oxygen and one pound of hydro- gen ; 342 pounds of red-lead consist of 310 pnunds of lead and 32 pounds of oxygen ; 100 pounds of atmospheric air consist of 77 ponnds of hydrogen and 23 pounds of oxygen. One of the most curious facts of nature is the change in the properties of substances which results from their chemical combination. Ox- ygen and hydrogen combined together assume the liquid form; but oxygen on being com- bined wkh lead becomes solid, and the lead is no longer malleable, but may be pounded into powder. Oxygen, when separate or uncom- bined, has yet been obtained only in the gase- ous state ; but it is found in by far the largest quantities, in combination with other substan- ces, forming either solids or liquids. It has 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 715 strong affinity for more substances than any other of the elements. There is a great dif- ference among them in respect ; gold and platina are not disposed to combine with other things, they are old bachelors, but oxygen is a perfect Brigham Young — it wants to marry everything that it meets. It surrounds us on every side, but generally wedded to some other substance. It forms a portion of almost all the rocks which we see, and which make up the crust of our globe. Of 50 pounds of marble, 24 pounds are oxygen. In the three constituents of granite it forms 40 per cent, of the feldspar, just half of the mica, and more than half of the quartz. All changes in chemical combination are accompanied by alterations of temperature. When oxygen especially combines with any other substance there is always a great exhi- bition of heat, and generally of light. Al- most all fire is produced in this way. Burn- ing a body is generally simply oxydizing it. This was the great discovery of Lavoisier. He found that when a body is burned in oxy- gen the body is increased in weight precisely as much as the oxygen is diminished. If we take a tight jar full of oxygen gas and drop a piece of sulphur into it, the sulphur burns with intense brilliancy and disappears. But if we weigh the jar we find its weight ex- actly the same as the sulphur and the jar of oxygen added together weighed before. The sulphur was not destroyed by being burned, but combined with the oxygen to form sulphu- rus acid, which is a transparent and invisible gas. If we heat the end of a piece of iron wire red-hot, and introduce it into a jar of oxygen gas, the wire burns with the most brilliant scintillations, throwing down black scales. If we collect these scales and weigh them, we find that for every 117£ ounces of iron that were burned, we have 141 ounces of iron scales ; and if we weigh the jar of oxy- gen, we find that that has lost 24 ounces of its weight. When Lavoisier announced his discovery, all the chemists in Europe immediately sup- plied themselves with delicate scales ; and the weight of various substances, as compared with each other, has now been ascertained by diiFerent observers, thousands of times. A young chemist would ask no better passport to universal fame than the detection of a ma- terial error in one of .these weights. The combustion of a gas or of a volatile Bubstan. e, like sulphur or phosphorus, pro- duces flame ; while, if the substance is solid and not volatile, it burns without flame. The heat of our bodies is kept up by slow combustion or oxydation. The air, on entering the lungs, is spread through thousands of cells, where it is separated from the blood by exceedingly thin membranes, through which the oxygen of the air is absorbed by the blood. Here it enters into combination with the car- bon which has before been brought to the blood from the food taken into the stomach, burning the carbon as literally and truly as the coal is burned in the grate, and producing the same substance as the burning of the coal produces, that is, carbonic acid gas. Our lungs are perfect furnaces, which warm the body by a constant though slow combus- tion. II. — Hydrogen. Hydrogen makes its most common appear- ance to us in flame. Whenever we see a blaze, there are many chances to one that there hydrogen and oxygen are entering into combination ; in other words, that hydrogen is being oxydized or burned. There are a few exceptions : sulphur, phosphorus, and other volatile substances, as well as those gases which burn at all, burn with a blaze ; but most of the flames that we see — the blaze of an oil lamp, of a candle, of illuminating gas, of bituminous coal, of a wood fire, of nearly all fire — are, wholly or in part, the result of the combination of oxygen and hydrogen. In a blaze, tl\e heat and light are all on the out- side, as it inhere alone that the burning gas can come in contact with the oxygen of the air. If we take a blow-pipe and blow the air through the flame, we set the whole body of the jet of gas on fire, and increase the heat enormously. In the compound blow-pipe, pure oxygen gas is mixed with pure hydro- gen gas as they issue from the pipe, in the proportion of eight ounces of oxygen to one ounce of hydrogen, and the most intense heat is produced which it is possible to produce by combustion. Oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water in the proportion of one pound of hy- drogen to eight pounds of oxygen ; or more exactly, 1,000 pounds of hydrogen to 8,013 pounds of oxygen. Oxygen and hydrogen also form one other combination, in the pro- portion of 1,000 pounds of hydrogen to 16,026 pounds of oxygen. This compound is a syrupy liquid of a nauseous bitter taste, wtiich does not become solid even in a very intense cold. Without the interposition of other substances it is impossible to make oxy- gen and hydrogen combine in any other pro- portions except these two. If we mix 8,013 ounces of oxygen with 1,000 ounces of hydro- gen, and touch the mixture with a spark of fire, the two gases combine with a flash and a report, forming water. There is so much heat developed that the water at first is ex- panded in vapour and is invisible, but it soon cools and condenses into the liquid form. If there is a single grain of either oxygen or hydrogen more than the proportion above stated, such surplus will not enter into the combination, but will remain separate and will retain the gaseous form. The other com- bination, which forms the syrupy liquid, is of 16 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November just twice the quantity of oxygen to the same quantity of hydrogen. Water may be decomposed )>y means of a galvanic battery, and the oxygen all carried into one jar and the hydrogen, though eight, times as heavy, occupies precisely half the bulk of the hydrogen. High Farming— Prof. Mapes' Farm— Su- per-Phosphate. BY JUDGE FRENCH. The following, by Judge French, of Exeter, N. II., we copy from the NiBB England Farmer. Judge F. has recently returned from Europe, after having critically examined the methods pursued in England, France, Belgium, and elsewhere. Not many weeks ago, we published a pretty careful criticism upon the farming operations of Mr. Sheriff' Mechi, of Tiptree Hall, England, one of the highest farmers of that country, and our conclusions were, that although Mr. Sheriff Mechi might make money in England by underlying 170 acres of poor land with iron pipes, and pumping through them all his ma- nure with a steam engine — by under-draining five feet deep, and doing other things accord- ingly — yet' that his own statement showed that with American prices for the labor he charged, with American "prices for crops he credited, he would run his farm ruinously in debt. His success, we said, results through the low price of labor mainly — the price there being about half our New England prices. In the New York Weekly Tribune, of March 26, 1859, is an account of the farm of Prof. Mapes, near Newark, New Jersey. The ac- count is very interesting to farmers, because of its encouraging results. The farm contains 121£ acres, and the statement shows -that the expenses upon it for the year 1858 were $3,152.- 00, and the income' from it was $11,627 88, — leaving a net profit of $8,475 28, after paying all expenses and a fciir rent foe the land ! Only 33^ acres of the farm were in cultivated crops, the rest being grass and woods. . The account below gives the- items of income afhd expenses, with a balance which may challenge competition on either side of the water. Having some acquaintance with Prof. M., having seen his farm, though not in the grow- ing season, and having met his foreman, Mr. Quinn, both on and off the farm, and talked with him about the farm operations, we feel some confidence in our ability to form a correct opinion of this statement. That the Professor is a manoof great scir n- tific knowledge of agriculture, and of wonder- ful tact in his application of science to the culture of his crops, everybody who sees him and his farm will at once admit. He under- stands the theories of farming, and his farm shows that he makes his knowledge practical. He raises the very crops that pay the best in his market, and he gets the largest crops an the highest prices. His farm is not indeed a regular farm, but a little market garden, a nur- sery, a seed establishment, and a fruit garden- Yet these are departments open to many of us, and why cannot we make profit of them as well as he? To be sure, we cannot expect to get eight and twelve dollars per hundred for pears, if we could raise them in any great quantities, but our impression is, that nobody can show in this country better dwarf pear trees than Prof. Mapes. He is the inventor of Mapes' Super Phos- phate of Lime, and it is not strange that his rivals in patent manures should detract from him and his successful farming. Five thousand tons of this manure have, some seasons, been manufactured at the works in which he is largely interested, near his place. His farm is manured almost exclu- sively with this preparation, and acres were pointed out to us, on which were the finest fruit trees and beds of strawberries, besides the ordinary crops, which had received, for many years, no other manure. The Professor stated in our hearing, at the New York Farmers' Club, that stable manure could not be sold in his neighborhood for $1.50 a cord, to be hauled one mile, because the su- per-phosphate is cheaper, and bis* neighbors who were present suggested no doubt of his correctness. Yet at Exeter, it costs $5 a cord, besides hauling, and this is probably an ave- rage price in the larger towns in New England. After all our huts and yets, and apologies for Prof. Mapes' astonishing profits, there is a large balance of credit to be divided between his mode of culture and his super-phosphate. " How does he get so large crops at so little cost?" is the question. His explanation is found in three points — thorough drainage, deep and fine culture, and the use of super- phosphate. He under-drains with tiles from four to five feet deep; he sub-soils eighteen or twenty inches deep, and works his roots and hoed crops constantly in summer, and with a little sub-soiler, drawn by one mule, and with the horse-hoe; and he applies to every acre at the start 600 pounds of super-phosphate, and a less quantity in after years, according to the crop. That this manure does wonders on his farm is not to be doubted. We have ourselves tried it several' years, and always with favora- ble results, some of which have been published. We propose to continue our experiments the present year with one ton of the Nitrogenized Super-Phosphate now on hand. And a word, by the way, upon this subject may not be amiss. We do not believe that farmers should in general purchase their ma- nure, unless they are selling their crops. If they are, they must replace them by bringing on to the land the elements of fertility which have been carried away. This can only be 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 7V done by buying some or other of those ferti- lizers. Super-phosphate of lime is admitted everywhere to be, excepting guano, the very best of fertilizers, and guano is difficult to ap- ply properly, and is not adapted to all crops. The best fanners in England buy immense quantities of super-phosphates for their root crops in particular, and many of our farmers use it upon their potatoes and corn. Prof. Mapes has no secret as to his mode of manu- facture, but publishes it as follows: "The Improved Super-Phosphate of Lime was first invented, and was composed of 100 pounds of bone dust, dissolved in 50 pounds of sulphuric acid, to which was added oG pounds of Peruvian guano, and 20 pounds of sulphate of ammonia; 10') pounds of this mixture were found to be equal in amplication, both in power and lasting quality, to 185 pounds of the best Peruvian guano. "The Nitrogenized Super-Phosphate, which is found to be practically superior to the Im- proved Super-Phosphate, is composed of equal weights of Improved Super-Phosphate and dried blood ground." Probably any chemist in the country wil' pronounce a fertilizer, consisting of the above elements, valuable for almost all cultivated Crops, and we trust our farmers, in their pro- gress in agriculture, will not forget that there are manures, besides what are found in their barn cellars — manures which contain no seeds of weeds, which are light of freight and cheap of application. In a garden of vegetables, we should hardly know how to raise our crops, without a bag of super-phosphate at hand. A cabbage will fatten on it, like a pig on corn- meal. We have tried every variety of ferti- lizer, and have more faith in Mapes' Supers Phosphate than in any other manufactured article of the kind. We give the statement from the Tribune, as to Prof. Mapes' farm. Can any man show a better one? Does farming pay or does it not? The following excerpt iron) the farm book of Mr. Patrick T. Quinn, the manager of the farm, which has been duly certified to by him as correct, will show the actual sales and ex- penses of the last year : Sales from April 1, '58, to April 1, ; 59, inclusive. Timothy Hay, 50 tons, $750 00 Salt Hay, Sedge and Black Grass," 91 tons, 564 20 Asparagus, 40 00 Beets, 500 bus. (some sold by bunch,) 250 00 Greens, (Spinach, Sprouts, &c.) 108 00 Cabbage, early and late Cau- liflower, 675 00 Kohl Rabi, 19 50 -Carrots. 900 bushels, at 43c. 391 30 ^Celery, 195 20 Corn, shelled, 550 bushels, at S5c. 4 67 50 Corn, sweet, so oo Eg£ Plants, 51 00 Lettuce, 120 00 Melons, 43 60 Onions. 142 80 Tin snips, 250 bushels, at 3s. 09 75 Peppers, 6 00 Squshes, 55 00 Rhubarb, 310 00 Rndiskes, 65 00 Salsify (Oyster Plant), 25 00 Tomatoes, .15-00 Turnips, 1,200 bus. ;it 35a. 420 (in Potatoes, (mostly sold for seed,) 700 bushels, at $1, 700 00 Seeds, (all hinds.) 2.5-20 16 Hot-bed and eold frames, 315 17 Rhubarb plants. Grape vines, Raspberry, blackberry, "Currants and Strawberry plants, 1,017 00 Grapes, Strawberries. Rasp- berries and Blackberries, 375 00 Pears : Sales, 1857— $805 ) . 1858— $496$ av - sales > 610 40 Fruit wines on hand, 470 00 Corn fodder — Sorgho stalks and green rye, 240 00 Hogs, Milk and Butter, 386 00 Two choice Calves, 50 00 511,627 Total, 88 EXPENSES. Eight workmen, 8 months, at $20, $ L,280 00 Five workmen, 4 months." at $20, 400 0i 19,825 lbs. Super-phosphate of Lime, at 2 cents, 396 50 Rent for 534; acres, at $8, 426 00 Rent for 52 acres salt grass, at $1.25, 65 00 Taxes, 31 50 Wear and tear of tools, 100 00 Use of team, at $3 per day. 453 60 3,152 Total, M Total receipts, 11,627 ss Deduct expense s, 3,152 66 Net profits, $8,475 28 New Use of the Stereoscope. Professor Dove, a Prussian, has discovered that the best executed copies of steel or copper- plate engravings can be distinguished from the originals by placing them together in a binocu- lar stereoscope, when the difference between the print, produced by the original plate, and tlie spurious copy, is seen at a glance. This will be a sure method of detecting counterfeit bank bills. 718 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November t Sflutjmu ^Ianttr. RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. Stock. In our last number we called the attention of our Southern farmers to the fact, that we are an- nually paying out large sums of money to neigh- boring States for our supplies of mules, horses and hogs, which we thought could be raised at home at a cheaper rate than we have to pay for them. We will again urge upon them the importance of giving the subject some atten- tion, and offer some remarks upon the sort of stock which we should raise, in order to be re- munerated for our trouble. First, as to mules and horses. Mares of good size, compact, and well ribbed out, may be worked upon our farms for most of the year, and with a fair share of attention to their feeding and comfort, may be kept in good order, and these may produce a colt every spring, which, if a mule, is ready at two and a half years of age for use. .Its value depends upon size and form : but may be set down at a figure over f> 100 — while, if the owner has cared for it properly, and supplied it with food sufficient to keep it always in a growing condition, it is no high estimate to put the sum it will bring in market, or be worth at home, at nearly $200. The country farther South of us is so busily employed in making cotton at prices very remunerative, that they can afford liberal prices to the stock raiser for animals supplied to them; but we of Virginia cannot afford to raise our staples, wheat, corn and tobacco, at the present prices received for them, and buy mules at the sums tliey will bring even under the auctioneer's hammer. We must have them, and we cannot afford to own them unless we raise them ourselves. If a mule at three years old will bring $150, is there not a handsome profit to the breeder who raises him? We believe so, and hope the farmers of Virginia will speedily ascertain for themselves whether it is so or not. We have among us many mares of good size, and well formed for raising mules — many of which are never put to breeding unless they become unfit for farm use by some accident. They might raise a colt every year, and still perform almost, or quite as much labor as they now do, without any in- jury to them — while the owner would be greatly benefitted by the receipt of a sum every year sufficiently large in most cases to defray all the expenses of the keeping, leaving him as clear profit, the amount of labor performed by the mare. We hope that the Executive Committees of our various Agricultural Societies will offer at their annual Fairs a large premium to the man who shall exhibit the largest number of good mules raised on his own plantation, and thus draw the attention and excite the enterprise of our farmers to undertaking an important work of economy and improvement among ourselves. Of the science of breeding stock, we shall have but little to say, as the subject is so often thoroughly discussed in the columns of agricul- tural journals, by men of experience as well as science. We wish rather to aid the breeder iri his efforts to promote real and permanent im- provement in all classes of his domestic animals, by replacing the disgusting counterparts of "Pha- roah's lean kine" by well-bred and thriving stock, which would redound to his convenience, pleasure, and profit. We do not mean to praise any particular kind of stock, or to exalt the merits of one class at the cast of another — but merely to beg every man who raises an ani- mal on his premises, to try and have it of the best quality by bestowing on it the care which it requires to insure such a result. He must of course have a standard by which he shall measure excellence, and be regulated by it according to the use he expects to put this animal to — while he has no right to expect to raise animals possessing "good points'' which cannot be found in their progenitors. "Like begets like'' — and, consequently, he must select breeders with an eye to the almost cer- tain transmission of their qualities to the off- spring. Improvement in stock raising may be gradually accomplished by not very costly ex- periments in buying occasionally a good animal with the form and qualities we wish to copy, and crossing it with the best of the same kind we may have on the farm. The stock breeder . who raises entirely with a view of selling such animals, is compelled to have the very best quality of every sort of stock; and should^ be honest enough to sell only the good ones 1859.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 719 of his flocks and herds,. Unit the breed be not quickly depreciated and ruined. He cannot therefore sell animals intended for breeders at common rates, or in other words, for a price only equal to what the same amount of meat Would bring in market. But every fanner may work a great change in the appearance and profits of his stock by incurring only occasion- ally, the expense of pure basing such breeders^ and crossing judiciously and carefully. Who has not often seen the improvement manifested in our native stock by one cross with some of the improved breeds ? and on the other hand ? the ill. effects of turning out as breeders, every animal who could be traced to a blooded ances- try, whether it possessed the " good points " or not, have been equally manifested by the rapid deterioration of the breed, and its decline in public favor. Witness the excitement that once pervaded the country in favour of "Berkshire" hogs, and the speedy reaction produced against them. The first of the race imported to this country by Lossing, Brentnall, Allen, Bement and others, were really superior to any swine we had ever had in this country up to that time. But the ignorance of many breeders in turning out " culls and runts " together with the cupidity of some persons \yho wished to secure the high price for pigs which good ones did, and ought to have commanded, soon brought the whole stock into public odium, because under such circumstances, every man who bought an in- different animal, laid his faults to the breed in- stead of the breeder, or his own want of skill in selecting. The "Short Horns and Devons " (with- out any reference to any of the other breeds of improved cattle) serve to show to what a degree of perfection animals may be brought by pains- taking and proper diligence in selecting and de- veloping- certain points which may be desired for beauty, utility and thrift. These, with the different classes of horses, sheep, swine and poultry, serve to show that we. can raise ani- mals which shall be faithful copies of the models used — and hence the necessity of skill and attention in choosing proper models to copy. If a farmer has a fondness for stock, and likes to see and examine thoroughly every individual member of his flocks, and possesses the requi- site amount of knowledge to discover their good and bad points, it will always prove an inter- esting and profitable source of amusement to him. Many a weary hour will, in this way, be robbed of its ennui, and rrfany a small leak which would Otherwise happen to his pocket-book, be Stopped. The man who has no fondness for domestic animals, am! who cannot appreciate their beauty or good qualities, ought to be de- prived of them until his taste is developed by the want of the comforts and conveniences, which their possession now affords him. No man should own a horse who cannot ride him or minister to his wants — no man should have milk to drink who pays no attention to his cows. Let the farmers of old Virginia begin at once to take the necessary steps to raise at home, such animals as they want. Import (whenever it is advisable) such animals as may be needed to impart fresh vigor and value to the stock we now have, by proper cross-ing — but to all, of every variety, give that attention and care which will insure certain, steady and rapid im- provement. Fine Horses for Virginia. We have had the pleasure of seeing two fine stallions of the " Black Hawk " stock, and a mare and filly of good pedigree, which Mr. S. W. Ficklen, of Albemarle, has just brought on from Vermont, for the purpose of improving the breeds of horses here. The Black Hawks are deservedly, we think, popular in public estimation, and we are glad whenever we hear of a fresh importation of them among us. Mr. Ficklen spares no pains or expense to procure the best animals for stock breeding, and we hope may always meet with success in his laudable efforts to improve the animals and agri- culture of his native State. Several catalogues and papers (which we de- signed to notice) have been received, but in our efforts to gefthe paper printed and mailed be- fore the beginning of the exhibilion of the Vir- ginia Central Agricultural Society next week, we are compelled to defer them to a more conve- nient season. For the Southern Plan f er. Gnltnre of the Chinese Potato. Mr. Editor: The following is my experience of the culture of the Chinese Potato. Three years since, I sent $5 to a New York nurseryman and received 25 seeds enclosed in a tin box filled with sand, which was placed in a drawer near a fire place in which fire was never extinguished during the winter. In 720 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. [November the Bpring the seeds were planted, but only one germinated, the remainder being killed, notwithstanding their warm situation during the winter. The first and second years the vine of this forlorn hope grew, but neither bloomed nor bore. This, the third year, little seed appeared — such as those I pur- chased, — about on the vine, and in a month or two, pretty, little white blossoms burst forth, which were soon followed by pods filled with fine seeds. The plant is cer- tainly a cariosity, but to me not a profitable one. By this time the root is supposed to be "some," perhaps requiring a stump extrac- tor to bring it up, If such be the case I will inform you. I have waited, you perceive, a long time for my first taste of the " battattar" and if it should prove as good as old, I will send you a slice. Yours sincerely, YANG- SING.. Brunswick Co., Va., Sept. 1859. The Points of a Good Hog. A writer in the English Farm Herald very correctly describes the points of a good hog, according to our ideas ot what they should be. The Suffolk-is our favorite breed, to which the points here laid down will apply very correct- ly, except pendnh'usness of the ears. The ears of the Suffolk stand erect, and at about right angles with the forehead. 1. Sufficient depth of carcass, and such an elongation of the body, as will insure a suffi- cient lateral expansion. Let the loin and chest be broad. The breadth of the latter denotes good room for play of the lungs, and a consequent free and healthy circulation, es- sential to the thriving or fattening of any ani- mal. The bone should be small and the joints fine ; nothing is more indicative of high breeding than this ; and the legs shall be no longer than, when fully fat, would just pre- vent the animal's body from trailing on the ground. The leg is the least profitable por- tion of the hog, and we require no more of it than is absolutely necessary for the rest. 2. See that the feet be firm and sound ; that the toes lie well together, and press straightly upon the ground, as also that, the claws are even, upright and healthy. Many say that the form of the head is of little or no conse- quence, and that a good hog may have an ugly head ; but I regard the head of all animals as one of the very principal points in which pure or impure breeding will ho the most Obviously indicated. A high bred animal will invaria- bly be found to arrive more speedily at matu- rity, to turn out more profitably than one of questionable or impure stock: and such being the case I consider that the head of the hog is by no means a point to be overlooked by the purchaser. The description of head most likely to promise, or rather to be concomitant of high breeding, is not one carrying heavy hone, but too flat on the forehead, or possess- ing too long a snout; the snout should be short, and the forehead rather convex, curving upward ; and the ear should be, while pendu- lous, inclining somewhat forward, and, at the same time, light and thin. Nor should the buyer pass even the carriage of a pig. If this be dull, heavy and dejected, reject him on suspicion of ill health, if not of some con- cealed disorder actually existing, or just about to break forth; and there cannot be a more unfortunate symptom than a hang-down, slouching head. Of course, a fat hog for slaughter, or a sow heavy with young, has not much sprightliness of deportment. From the Rural Register. The Value of Bone Dust. Prof. Johnston, in one of his Lectures be- fore the New York State Society, presented the following views in regard to the action and effect of Ground Bones. We wish the farmers in every district of the country, would induce store-keepers at every cross-road and every village, to hold out inducements to the poorer classes to gather up the bones which are scattered about the road sides and com- mons, and have them either ground at home, or shipped to the nearest factories. The great difficulty in the use of bones, is the obtaining a supply. At some seasons of the year, there is no getting them for love nor money, unless engaged long before required. Prof. J. re- marked : "1 pass on to the subject of mineral ma- nures. Of these, first I shall speak of Phos- pate of Lime. I showed you a certain form of mineral phosphate of lime, which was ca- pable of being applied to the fertilizing of land. This phosphate of lime is brought in the form of bones, from abroad. These bones are boiled, crushed, and sold in the form of dust, which is applied to the land, and found to be exceedingly fertilizing. These "bones contain about 33 per cent, of animal matter or cartilage, which will burn away, or when boiled forms a glue, phosphate of lime and magnesia. These bones, therefore, are fertiliz- ing, because of the animal, as well as mineral matter contained in them; hence they will raise good crops where mineral phosphates would not, for if the plant requires organic as well as mineral matter, these bones supply it. But if the soil is rich in the form of organic matter which supplies nitrogen, then mineral matter alone without the animal would be more suitable; but if the soil be poor in both, then bones are better than either animal or 1859.] THE SOUTH KRN PL A X T E R 721 mineral matter alone. This is the explanation I milk, and is found by analysis. This lins of the failures of a trial of phosphate alone, or of burnt bone alone, instead of the natural bone. Some have found one better than an- other, and persons who have found the min- eral part to produce good effects, have assum- ed that that is the only fertilizing substance in the bone — others, have found the converse to be true, and the two classes are at logger- beads about it. But both are, in fact, consis- tent with each other; for the bones contain two elements, both of whjoh are necessary and been going on for centuries, and this continual drain of the soil going on, it became impover- ished. Bui tlje application e promptly attended to,) or pamphlets containing full •s, Apply to JOHN B. SARD7, Agent, No. 58 South St., corner of Wall St., New York City. MANIPULATED GUANO! MANIPULATED GUANO! offer to the Planters of Virginia a Guano prepared by us as follows : 000 lbs. of the best Peruvian Guano that can be procured ; 800 lbs. of the best Sombrero Guano, containing full 80 y cent of the Phosphate of Lime. 200 lbs. of the best Ground Plaster, for which we pay $2 ^ ton extra. lII well mixed together. 'lanters and others are invited to examine the article. From the best information we can ob- i, we believe the mixture is one of the best that can be prepared for the Virginia lands, rice to Planters. $48 ^ ton, or $2 #- ton less, where they furnish bags, 'ct— 1 For sale by EDMOND DAVENPORT & CO. SOUTHERN PLANTER— ADVERTISING SIIEE .MIL LEFEBVEE'S SCHOOL, Grace Street, Between 1st and Foushee, Richmond, Va. 'I'll' 'on of our School begins on the firm day of O , 1 359, and terminates on the lust of Jane, 1860. • Oar long experience in teaching, and the \ e we have received for so many ye have both enabled and encootnged us to make important improvements in our Institution. A course of Liti , Frt nch, German, Italia auish classics, (the four through the medium ol ihe French,) has been successfully tried during the lust session, and will be t tinned and enlarged in the n We have engaged Mr. Edward C. Ho\v,\ui> to take charge of the English pari of this course, as n the Rhetoric, BeMes<-Letl our Institution. Mr. IL is a gentleman i highest qualifications— and > will lie. duly appreciated. We won d nestly recommend our Literal iduuting pupils. new house which we have erected will gre_at.lv add to the conveniei il as to the co the \ oung Ladies hoarding in our family'. Two Young Ladies only will occupy one room, except when three would desire to occupy the same chamber. HUBERT P. LEFEBVRE, A. M., Principal, Natural Philosophy, Literature, Moral and Mental Philosophy, French. WILLIAM G. WILLIAMS, A. 13.,' Vice Principal^ Astronomy, Mathematics, Chemistry, Histon I i EDWARD C. MOWAKI), Literature, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres, Reading. MRS. GRACE BENNETT, English Branches. MISS MARY C GORDON, English Branch MISS ELIZA BARTLETT, English Branches. MADAME L. V. BLANCHETT, Fr. nch Go SENOR CARLOS CARDORVEZ MERA, Spanish and Italian. MADAME MARIE ESI I v Va Music. 8IGNORINA ANTONIETTA ERBA. Vocal Music. SIGNORINA M AIUE T TA ERB .\ l'iu JOHN A. CALVO, Drawing and Painting. WILLIAM F. GRABAU, Piano, Organ, Sucre. VI ti C. W. THILOW, Piano. HENRICH SCHNEIDER, Harp. O. ERICSSON, Guitar. TERMS. For Board, ..... For Washing, ..... For Lights, . . ... For Fuel, ..... For English Tuition. . . . For Modern Languages, each, For French, when studied exclusively of the Etiglish branch. For Latin, . . ... For Literature, ..... For Music on Piano, Guitar, Organ or Singing For one lesson (of an hour) a week, $200 (JO 20 01) 10 (0 10 00 40 00 20 00 40 00 20 00 20 00 ° 40 00 80 00 For four lessons (,>f on hour) a week, For Sacred Music in elo For the use of Piano, . . M For Drawing, from Models, . . ♦. |! For Drawing, from Nature, . . . 40; For Painting In Water Colors, . .in For Oil Painting, . . . .' , Primary Department, for children in I years ol age, . . . ^ EF'Nu extra charges. All letters to be addi For two lessons' (of an hour) a week, 80 00 [ HUBERT P. LE FEBV RE,' Richmond I For three lessons (of an hour) a week, 120 00 aug— tf JP^Ij^TS. JPXlN'TS."jPAJLlSfT8j P9ROBLL, LADD & CO., DRUGrGrllSTS, No. 122 Main Street, comer 13th, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, Offer at low prices, a large, and well assorted stock of articles in their line — embrai PAINTS, COLORS, VARNISHES, OILS, &.G. LEWIS' WHITE LEAD, MACHINE OIL, NEW J. WHITE ZINC, Horschead brand, PARIS GREEN, CHROME GREEN, CHROME YELLOW, VERDIGRIS, TURKEY UMBHE, TERRA DI SIENNA, LAMP OILS, LINSEED OIL, SPTS. TURPENTINE. All Colors for Painters, Coach Makers, and others, Dry and in Oil, Paint Brushes, Sand Paper, and a large stock of bi WINDOW GLASS, ompri ed to take orders for Impo PoMied Plate, Sky Light and Ornamental Glass* V3F ' d forwarding all —and the quality warranted. PURCELL, LADD & CO, Druggists, !22 Main Street. R.i»d