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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER; 

©ebotetJ to Sigrfculture, horticulture, auto the ftmtseftolfc arts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. 

Xcjyyplwn. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of the 
State.— Sul/ij. 



C. T. BOTTS <fc L. M. BUHl^OOT, Editors. 



Vol. II. 



RICHMOND, OCT03ER, 1842. 



No. 10. 



AGRICULTURAL LETTER FROM 
GEN. WASHINGTON. 

We are indebted to ihe kindness of an old 
friend for the following valuable document; va- 
luable not only because of the revered source 
from which it emanates, but because it affords 
many excellent lessons from an able and practi- 
cal farmer; it is too strongly characteristic of 
the American hero. We see here the exercise 
in private life of that attention to detail, that 
inflexible devotion to order and discipline, which 
so eminently mark the public character of Wash- 
ington. No one can read this letter without 
seeing at once that the writer was an industrious, 
sound, practical farmer. He, whose indomitable 
energy had given freedom to a world, did not 
esteem the most minute details of agriculture 
unworthy his attention. 

It will probably surprise the reader to find 
Gen. Washington insisting upon the use of har- 
rows and cultivators in the cultivation of his 
corn ; this we have been accustomed to plume 
ourselves upon as a much more modern invention. 

This letter, directed to his overseers, is taken 
from the manuscript copy in Washington's own 
hand writing, and, as we are informed, now ap- 
pears in print for the first time. 

Philadelphia, \Uh July, 1793. 
Gentlemen, — It being indispensably necessa- 
ry that I should have some person at Mount 
Vernon through whom I can communicate my 
orders; — who will see that these ordeis are ex- 
ecuted ; or, if not obeyed, who will inform me 
why they are not, ; — who will receive the week- 
ly reports and transmit them ; — receive money 
and pay it ; and in general to do those things 
which do not appertain to any individual over- 
seer — I have sent my nephew, Mr. Howell 
Lewis, (who lives with me here) to attend to 
them until I can provide a manager of established 
reputation in these matters. You will, there- 
fore pay due regard to such directions as you 
may receive from him, considering them as com- 
ing immediately from m} 7 self. But that you 
also may have a general knowledge of what I 
expect from you, I shall convey the following 
view (which I have of the business committed 
Vol. 2—28 



to your charge) as it appears to me, and direct 
you to govern yourself by it : as I am pursuaded 
nothing inconsistent therewith will be ordered 
by Mr. Lewis, without authority from me to 
depart from it. 

1st. Although it is almost needless to remark 
that the corn ground at the farm you overlook 
ought to be kept perfectly clean and well 
ploughed — yet, because not only the goodness 
of that crop depends upon such management, 
but also the wheat crop which is to succeed it, 
I cannot forbear urging the propriety and ne- 
cessity of the measure in very strong terms. 

2d. The wheat is to be got into the barns or 
into stacks as soon as it can be done with any 
soil of convenience, that it may not (especially 
the bearded wheat, which is subject to injury by 
wet weather,) sustain loss in shocks — and be- 
cause the shattered grain in the fields may be 
beneficial to the stock ; but no hogs are to be 
put on stubble fields in which grass seeds were 
sown last fall, winter or spring; other stock, 
however, may be turned on them, as it is rooting 
that would be prejudicial. 

3d. The whole swamp from the road from 
Mauley's bridge up to the lane leading to the 
new barn, is to be got into the best and most 
complete order for sowing grass seeds in Au- 
gust — or, at farthest, by the middle of Septem- 
ber. The lowest and wettest part thereof is to 
be sown with timothy seed alone. All the 
other parts of it are to be sown with timothy 
and clover seeds mixed. The swamp on the 
other side of the aforesaid lane (now in corn and 
oats) is to be kept in the best possible order, 
that the part not already sown with grass-seeds, 
may receive them either this autumn (as soon 
as the coin can be taken off wiih safety) or in 
the spring, as circumstances shall dictate. 

No exertion or pains are to be spared at Dague- 
run to get the swamp from Manley's bridge up 
to the meadow above, and the two enclosures 
in the mill swamp, in the highest order for grass, 
to be sown in the time and manner above men- 
tioned. But that no more may be attempted 
ihan can be executed well, proceed in the fol- 
lowing order with them accordingly as the wea- 
ther may happen to be, for this must be con- 
sulted, as dry weather will answer to work in 
the low parts best, whilst the higher grounds 
may be worked at. any time. 

1st. Begin with the swamp from Manley's 



218 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



bridge upwards, and get all that is not already 
in grass well prepared for it, and indeed sown. 
2d. That part of the lower meadow on the mill 
run, which lies between the old bed of it and 
the race, and within the fences. 3d. After this 
is done, take that part in the enclosure above 
(which was in corn last year) lying between 
the ditch and fence of No. 1, up and down to 
the cross fences. 4th. Then go over the ditch 
and prepare slipe after slipe as the ditch runs 
from the one cross fence to the other, and con- 
tinue to do this as long as the season will be 
good, or the seed can be sown with propriety 
and safety. 

I conceive that the only way to get these 
grounds in good order and with expedition, is 
to give them one good ploughing and then to 
tear them to pieces with heavy harrows. Whe- 
ther it be necessary to cut down and take off 
the weeds previous to these workings can be 
decided better by experiments on the spot than 
by reasoning on it at a distance. My desire is 
that the ground shall be made perfectly clean, 
and laid down smooth ; without which meadows 
will always be foul — much grass left in them, 
and many scythes broken in cutting what is 
taken off. 

4th. The buckwheat which has been sow T n 
for manure ought to be ploughed in the moment 
a sufficiency of seed is ripe to stock the ground 
a second time ; otherwise, so far from its an- 
swering the purpose of manure, it will become 
an exhauster. For this reason, if the ploughs 
belonging to the farm are unable to turn it in 
in time, those of Muddy hole, Dague run and 
Union farm, must combine to do it, the work to 
be repaid by the farm which receives the benefit, 
as soon as the work is accomplished thereat. 

5th. Where clover and timothy seeds are 
mixed and sown together allow five pints of the 
first, and three of the latter to the acre ; and 
where timothy only is sown, allow four quarts 
to the acre. Let the seed be measured in the 
proportions here allotted and put into a half 
bushel, and the half bushel filled with sand or 
dry earth, and extremely well mixed together 
in your own presence or by yourself, which will 
answer two good purposes, viz : 1st, to prevent 
theft, for seeds thus mixed, would not sell — and 
2dly, the seedsman being accustomed to sow a 
bushel of wheat to the acre would be at no loss 
to cast a bushel of this or anything else, regu- 
larly on that quantity of ground. 

6th. It is expected you will begin to sow 
wheat early in August, and in ground perfectly 
clean and well ploughed. I would have, and 
do accordingly direct that not less that five pecks 
of seed be sown on each acre. The plan of the 
farm over which you look is given to Mr. Lewis, 
from which the contents of each field may be 
known. And it is mj 7 express direction that 
every watch, and the best attention may be 



given, to see that this quantity actually is put 
in ; for I have strong suspicions (but this ought 
not to be hinted to them) that the seedsmen help 
themselves to a pretty large toll. 

7th. As soon as you have done sowing, and 
even before, if it can be done conveniently, you 
are to set heartily about threshing or treading 
out the wheat ; and as fast as it is got out, to 
have it delivered at the mill or elsewhere, ac- 
cording to directions. The longer this business 
is delayed, the more waste and embezzlement 
will there be of the crop. The wheat is to be 
well cleaned ; the chaff and light wheat are to 
be properly taken care of for the horses or other 
stock — and the straw stacked and secured as it 
ought to be against weather and other injuries ; 
and until the whole be delivered it will require 
your constant and close attention. 

8th. The oats at the farm you overlook, are, 
I presume, all cut ; in that case, let all the 
scythes, and cradles, and rakes which you have 
received, be delivered over to the mansion house ; 
or if you choose to keep them against next har- 
vest, you must be responsible for them yourself. 

9th. The presumption also is, that the flax is, 
ere this, pulled ; let it be well secured, and at a 
proper season stripped of its seed and spread to 
rot. During this operation let it be often and 
examined, that it be not overdone, or receive in- 
jury in any other respect by lying out too long. 

10th. Get the cleanest and best wheat for 
seed, and that which is freest from onions. I 
would have about one-third of my whole crop 
sown with the common wheat ; one-third with 
the white ; and the other third with the yellow 
bearded wheat. The overseers (with Davy, as 
he knows the state of his own farm and the 
quality of the wheat which grows upon it,) may 
meet and decide among themselves whether it 
would be best to have some of each of these 
sorts on every farm ; or, in order more effectu- 
ally to prevent mixture, to have one sort only 
on a farm. In the latter case, the cutting of 
that which ripens first, and so on, must be ac- 
complished by the force of all the farms, instead 
of each doing its own work. If the seed on 
one farm was to be sown on another, especially 
if seed which grew on a light soil was to be 
sown on a stiff one ; and that which grew on 
a stiff one, sown on light ground, advantages 
would unquestionably result from it. 

11th. The potatoes at the mansion house 
must be worked by the ploughs from Union 
farm, and when this is required, it would be 
best, I conceive, to accomplish the work in a 
day. 

12th. It is expected that the fences will be 
made secure, and no damage permitted within 
them by creatures of any kind or belonging to 
any body — mine any more than others. 

13th. The greatest attention is to be paid to 
the stocks of all kinds on the farms ; and the 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



219 



most that can be made of their manure and lit- 
ter. They are to be counted regularly, that no 
false reports may be made ; and missing ones, 
if any, hunted for until found, or the manner of 
their going can be accounted for satisfactorily. 

14th. A weekly report, as usual, is to be 
handed to Mr. Lewis. In this report, that I 
may know better how the work goes on, men- 
tion when you begin to plough, hoe, or other- 
wise work in a field, and, and when that field 
is finished. The increase, decrease and changes 
are to be noted as heretofore — and let me ask — 

15th. Why are the corn harrows thrown 
aside, or so little used that I rarely of late ever 
see or hear of their being at work 1 1 have 
been run to very considerable expense in pro- 
viding these and other implements for my farms ; 
and to my great mortification and injury, find, 
generally speaking, that wherever they were 
last used there they remain, if not stolen, till re- 
quired again ; by which means they, as well as 
the carts, receive so much injury from the wet 
weather and the heat of the sun as to be unfit. 
for use: to repair or supply the place of which 
with new ones, my carpenters (who ought to 
be otherwise employed) are continually occupied 
in these jobs. Harrows, after the ground is 
well broken, would certainly weed and keep the 
corn clean with more ease than ploughs. I 
hope, therefore, they will be used. And it is 
my express order that the greatest care be taken 
of the tools of every kind, carts and plantation 
implements, in future — for I can no longer sub- 
mit to the losses I am continually sustaining by 
neglect. 

16th. There is nothing I more ardently de- 
sire, nor indeed is there any more essential to 
my permanent interest, than raising of live fences 
on proper ditches or banks; yet nothing has 
ever been, in a general way, more shamefully 
neglected or mismanaged ; for instead of pre- 
paring the ground properly for the reception of 
the seed, and weeding and keeping the plants 
clean after they come up — the seeds are hardly 
scratched into the ground and are suffered to be 
smothered by the weeds and grass if they do 
come up : by which means the expense I have 
been at in purchasing and sending the seeds 
(generally from Philadelphia) together with the 
labor, such as it is, that has been incurred, is 
not only lost, but (and which is of infinite more 
importance to me) season after season passes 
away and I am as far from the accomplishment 
of my object as ever. I mention the matter 
thus fully to show how anxious 1 am that all 
these seeds which have been sown or planted 
on the banks of the ditches should be properly 
attended to ; and the deficient spots made good 
if you have or can obtain the means for doing 
it. 

17th. There is one thing I must caution you 
against (without knowing whether there be 



cause to charge you with it or not)— and that 
is not to retain any of my negroes who are able 
and fit to work in the crop, in or about your 
own house, for your own purposes. This I do 
not allow any overseer to do. A small boy or 
girl for the purpose of fetching wood or water, 
tending a child, or such like things, I do not 
object to j but so soon as they are able to work 
out I expect to reap the benefit of their labor 
myself. 

18th. Though last mentioned, it is not of the 
least importance, because the peace and good 
government of the negroes depend upon it — and 
not less so my interest and your own reputation. 
I do, therefore, in explicit terms enjoin it upon 
you to remain constantly at home, (unless called 
off by unavoidable business or to attend Divine 
worship) and to be constantly with your people 
when there. There is no other sure way of 
getting work well done and quietly by negroes j 
for when an overlooker's back is turned the most 
of them will slight their work, or be idle alto- 
gether. In which case correction cannot re- 
trieve either, but often produces evils which are 
worse than the disease. Nor is there any other 
mode but this to prevent thieving and other dis- 
orders, the consequence of opportunities. You 
will recollect that your time is paid for by me, 
and if I am deprived of it, it is worse even than 
robbing my purse, because it is also a breach of 
trust, which every honest man ought to hold 
most sacred. You have found me, and you 
will continue to find me faithful to my part of 
the agreement which was made with you, whilst 
3'ou are attentive to your part ; but it is to be 
remembered, that a breach on one side releases 
the obligation on the other. If, therefore, it shall 
be proved to me that you are absenting yourself 
from either the farm or the people without just 
cause, I shall hold myself no more bound to 
pay the wages than you do to attend strictly to 
the charge which is entrusted to you by one 
who has every disposition to be 

Your friend and servant, 

Geo. Washington. 



AGRICULTURAL PREMIUMS. 

The Editor of the "American Agriculturist," 
amongst some excellent advice, as to the man- 
ner of conducting agricultural exhibitions, re- 
marks, 

" We now come to a very important sugges- 
tion — it has been asserted that committees as 
heretofore formed, were little better than secret 
conclaves, whose reasons for their decisions were 
just as impenetrable as those of the Venetian 
Senate or Spanish Inquisition ; and very many 
have consequently declined exhibiting, till they 
can publicly know by what principles their ani- 



220 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



mals or manufactures are judged. For these 
reasons we would respectfully suggesl, that on 
the second day of the exhibition, the chairman 
of each committee mount the rostrum, the ani- 
mal or manufactured article be brought out be- 
fore the public, and then the explanations for 
their decisions be set forth at large. 

" We are free to assert, that there can never 
be any general fixed scientific improvements 
made till such a course is adopted ; and if a 
member of any committee has not sufficient con- 
fidence in his knowledge and judgment, and 
the moral courage to proclaim the same pub- 
licly and his reasons therefor, he is undeserving 
a place on that committee. What a school 
would this be to the rising, and aye to much of 
the risen generation. A person might learn 
more by attending one such day's exhibition 
and explanation, than from studying books, and 
plates, and animals, unaided by the opinions of 
others, for a month. 

"As awards are now managed, they become 
as variable as the wind. What was declared 
to be best yesterday, is denied to-day, and both 
subverted to-morrow ; while, perhaps, on a fourth 
exhibition, the first may again come uppermost ; 
and all this without the slightest enlightenment 
and explanation to the public. All, therefore, 
but the few who stand aloof with superior know- 
ledge are at a loss, and left to grope in the dark, 
without chart or compass to steer by." 

That the grounds of the award should be 
fully explained, there can be no manner of doubt, 
not only for the satisfaction of the competitors, 
but for the instruction that judicious comments 
may afford the spectators. But instead of " the 
chairman's mounting the rostrum" we would 
respectfully prefer the example set in the full 
and elaborate reports made in writing by the 
committees generally of the Agricultural Socie- 
ty of Henrico, and amongst these, we would 
point particularly to the report of the Farm 
Committee of 1841, which we esteem a model 
of that kind of wi inner. 



For the Southern Planter. 
BLIGHT AND RUST IN WHEAT. 

Botanists have long known that the blight 
and rust in wheat are occasioned by the growih 
of minute parasitic fungi on the leaves/stems, 
and glumes of the living plant — though the 
question has been raised, whether they are not 
diseased parts of the structure on which they 
appear rather than the product of separate germs, 
but it is now generally admitted that they ori- 
ginate from distinct germs introduced from with- 
out. In order to show that this is probable, it 
is necessary to premise that the striped appear- 



ance of the surface of a straw, which may be 
seen with a common magnifying glass, is caused 
by alternate longitudinal partitions of the bark ; 
the one imperforate and the other furnished with 
one or two rows of pores, or mouths, shut in 
dry, open in wet weather, and well calculated 
to imbibe fluid whenever the straw is damp. 
By these pores, which exist also on the leaves 
and glumes, it is presumed the seed of the fungi 
gain admission, and afterwards germinate and 
push their minute roots into the cellular texture 
beyond the bark, where they draw their nourish- 
ment by intercepting the sap that was intended 
for the nutriment of the grain. Sir Joseph 
Banks thinks that the leaf is first infected in the 
spring or early in the summer before the plant 
sends up its shoot of straw, and that the fungus 
is then of an orange color; and after the straw 
has become yellow the fungus assumes a deep 
chocolate brown : each individual is so small, 
that every pore on a straw will produce from 
twenty to forty fungi, and every one of these 
will at least produce an hundred seed : in this 
way a few diseased plants scattered through a 
field will soon infect a whole neighborhood. Sir 
Joseph thinks that a fungus will mature its seed 
in a week, so that by the latter end of summer 
from this prolific increase the air is loaded with 
seed, ready whenever a gentle breeze, accompa- 
nied with humidity, shall give the signal, to in- 
trude themselves into the pores of thousands of 
acres. 

Mr. Knight entertained the opinion, that so 
much water is, under particular circumstances, 
absorbed by the leaves that it produces a de- 
rangement of function to which he ascribes the 
attacks of mildew, fungi, upon plants. He sup- 
posed their attacks to depend upon the want of 
sufficient moisture from the soil, while there is 
an excess of humidity in the air. At a parti- 
cular season if damp and cold weather succeeds 
that which has been warm and bright, the wheat 
crop is generally much injured by mildew. He 
suspects that in such cases an injurious absorp- 
tion of moisture by the leaves and stems of the 
wheat plants takes place, by which a retrograde 
motion of the plant's fluids are produced, so that 
the ascent of the true rays or organizable mat- 
ter contained in the seed vessels is retarded, and 
thus becomes the food of the parasitical fungi, 
which then only may grow luxuriant and inju- 
rious. 

It has been long admitted b} r farmers that 
wheat in the neighborhood of a barberry bush 
seldom escapes the blight — and it is well known 
lhat near the village of Rollesly, in Norfolk, 
England, where barbeny bushes abound wheat 
seldom escapes the blight — and it is well known 
to botanists that the leaves of the barberry are 
very subject to an attack of a yellew parasitic 
fungous, longer but not otherwise different from 
the rust in wheat. Sir Joseph Banks observes, 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



221 



it may be well to remark, that although the 
seeds of wheat are rendered by the exhausting- 
power of the fungus so lean and shrivelled that 
scarcely any flour fit for the manufacture of 
bread can be obtained by grinding them, these ! 
very seeds will answer the purpose of seed-corn 
as well as the fairest and plumpest sample that j 
can be obtained, and in some respects, better ; 
for a bushel of much nubbed corn will contain | 
one-third at least more grains in number than a 
bushel of plump com; so that three bushels of 
the one will go as far in seeding as four of the | 
other. Eighty grains of the most blasted wheat ' 
of the year 1804 were sown in a pot and se- 
venty-eight produced healthy plants. There are 
ten species of fungi described by botanists is at- i 



tacking wheat, viz* iEcidium and Puccinia. 
iEcidium, sometimes known as the red gum — 
this species usually grows inside the glumes of 
the calyx, and when it bursts it emits a bright 
orange color, and is thought not to injure the 
grain materially. Puccinia — this attacks the 
stems and leaves of wheat principally — having 
at first an orange colored appearance, and then 
changes to a chocolate brown color, and is very 
hurtful to the quality of the grain of such plants 
as it infests. 

The views of some of the most distinguished 
writers on the subject of Blight and Rust are 
submitted to the Editors of the Planter by their 
correspondent. 

A Naturalist, 



HOISTING MACHINE 




» B 



The cut above is taken from the American 
Mechanic, and represents an apparatus admira- 
bly adapted for the hoisting of ponderous bodies. 
It is thus described. Two horizontal axles with 
pivots at the ends, A, A, and B, B, have their 
bearings in an iron strap which has an eye at 
C, at the top, and another D, at the bottom. 
On the axle A, is a drum, round which is coiled 
a small rope ; and at each end of the drum is a 
small pinion. On the axle B, are two geer 
wheels, the teeth of which work in those of the 
pinions. Another rope is attached to this axle 
by one end, while the other end passes down 



and through a block with a single pulley, and 
up again to the eye D. Now we suppose the 
drum to be ten inches in diameter, and the pi- 
nions two inches; the geer wheels fourteen 
inches, and the axle D, two inches. Then a 
force of one pound being applied to the small 
drum rope, would be equal to five pounds on the 
teeth of the geer wheels, and thirty-five pounds 
on the rope of the axle D ; and this force being 
doubled by the single pulley, would produce a 
force on the weight attached below, equal to 
seventy pounds. Thus one man alone would 
be able to hoist a weight of 7,C0O lbs. 



222 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



Although this simple and admirable fixture 
may appear to be more peculiarly valuable to 
the mechanic, the merchant, and the sailor, we 
have presented it to our agricultural readers be- 
cause it has occurred to us that it might be ad- 
vantageously used by them in constructing a 
machine for which at this time there is a great 
and growing demand in Virginia. We mean a 
Hay Press. How can a simpler or more effi- 
cient press be constructed than by means of this 
apparatus ? Prepare a box of the usual form 
for the reception of the hay ; let another box 
moving up on guides fit in it ; fill this last with 
stones, or any heavy weight, until the required 
pressure is obtained. This box will, of course, 
be the weight attached to the pulley to be hoisted 
by the apparatus we have described, the power 
of which can be increased at pleasure. We 
have no doubt that the necessary pressure may 
be thus obtained with more facility and econo- 
my than by any other means we have ever seen 
employed. We should be glad if some of our 
farmers or mechanics would try the experiment, 
and apprize us of the result. 



Red Hills, Aug. 20, 1842. 
To the Editors of the Southern Planter: 

Gentlemen, — Below you have for publication 
in the " Planter," a condensed report by a Com- 
mittee of the "Albemarle Hole and Corner Club, 
No. 1," of experiments made by various mem- 
bers of the Club on the relative weight of wheat 
gathered in various stages of ripeness. It may 
be proper to remark that the greater weight of 
the wheat gathered in the dough state over that 
thoroughly ripe in the experiment made by Dr. 
F. Carr, in which respect his observation differs 
from those of the other experimenters, is proba- 
bly owing to the fact that the wheat (thorough- 
ly ripe) in his statement was taken from a shock 
in the field which had been exposed to much 
wet weather, and therefore was very damp. 
Respectfully, &c. 

Frank Carr, 

Cor. Sec'y, Albemarle Hole and Corner Club, No. 1. 



ALBEMARLE HOLE AND CORNER CLUB, 

No. 1. 

The Committee, to which the reports of Ex- 
periments on Wheat cut in different stages of 
ripeness were referred for the purpose of extract- 
ing the general results for publication, have dis- 
charged the dut}', and make the following report: 

All the experiments seem to the Committee 
to have been made with commendable care and 
accuracy ; three parcels of wheat were cut in 



every case, — one in the rn.Uk state, that is, when 
the milk could be pressed in small quantities, 
and the straw under the head was still green. 
One in the dough state, that is, when the grain 
was tough, though still compressible between 
the finger and thumb, and the straw yellow — 
and one in the ripe state, that is, when the grain 
was hard, and the straw apparently dry. The 
samples of wheat were all cured in the shade ; 
when rubbed out they exhibited the following 
results : 

Experiment by Daniel F. Carr. 

The same measure containing, 
Of ripe wheat 462 grains, weighed 252 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 
Of dough wheat 499 grains, weighed 258 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 
Of milk wheat 623 grains, weighed 241 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 

Experiment by Dr. Frank Carr. 

The same measure containing 
Of ripe wheat 827 grains, weighed 8 drachms 

17 grains. 
Of dough wheat 874 grains, weighed 8 drachms 

20 grains. 
Of milk wheat 1000 grains, weighed 8 drachms 

3 grains. 

Experiment by William W. Minor. 

The same measure containing 
Of ripe wheat 35 grains, weighed 24£ grains, 

Apoth. weight. 
Of dough wheat 45 grains, weighed 24 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 
Of milk wheat 45 grains, weighed 22 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 

Experiment by Richmond Terrell. 

The same measure containing 
Of ripe wheat 58 grains, weighed 35 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 
Of dough wheat 60 grains, weighed 33 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 
Of milk wheat 79 grains, weighed 31 grains, 

Apoth. weight. 

Experiment by Hugh Minor. 

A measure of ripe wheat containing 387 grains 
of wheat, balanced exactly, the same measure 
containing 415 grains of wheat in the dough 
state — and the same measure containing 559 
grains of wheat in the milk state, required 66 
grains more to make it balance the other samples. 

Taking the ripe wheat as the standard, the 
Committee conclude from the foregoing experi- 
ments, that the loss by cutting wheat in the 
dough state is between 5 and 8 per cent, and the 
loss by cutting wheat in the milk state is between 
40 and 50 per cent. 

Notwithstanding the result of these experi- 
ments clearly prove the advantage of cutting 
wheat ripe, yet the Committee respectfully sug- 



J 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



223 



gest the opinion that it would be better to begin 
to cut a crop of wheat in the dough state, than 
to wait until it gets fully ripe ; inasmuch as the 
loss and labor are both greater in cutting ripe 
wheat, and the risk to the crop from storms and 
other causes is also considerably increased by 
letting it stand to get ripe. All these certain 
and contingent losses this Committee estimates 
at more than 8 per cent, while the loss from 
cutting in the dough state ranges from 5 to 8 per 
cent, supposing that the entire crop were cut in 
that condition — but in truth, by beginning to 
cut a crop of wheat in the dough state, at least 
one-half the crop would necessarily be cut in 
the ripe state, so that the loss would be only 2| 
to 4 per cent. — a loss so trifling as fully to war- 
rant the Committee in the expression of opinion 
they have made. 

All which is respectfully submitted to theClub. 
Hugh Minor, 
Franklin T. Minor, 
Wm. W. Minor, 

Committee. 
August, 1842. 



TOBACCO. 
Some curious and interesting facts elucidating 
the chronological history of this valuable plant, 
published in the Northern Light, have been co- 
pied into the congressional document to which 
we have already referred. We make the fol- 
lowing extracts : 

CHRONOLOGY AND STATISTICS OF TOBACCO. 

BY JOEL MUNSELL. 

In 1496, Romanus Pano, a Spanish monk, 
whom Columbus on his second departure from 
America had left in that country, published the 
first account of tobacco, with which he became 
acquainted in St. Domingo. He gave it the 
name of cohoba, cohabba, givia. 

In 1519, tobacco is said to have been disco- 
vered by the Spaniards near Tobasco, though it 
is assigned to the next year. 

In 1535, the negroes had already habituated 
themselves to the use of it, and cultivated it on 
the plantations of their masters. Europeans 
likewise already smoked it. We also find a 
passage in Carder's Voyage, that it was used 
in Canada. 

In 1559, tobacco was introduced into Europe 
from St. Domingo by a Spanish gentleman 
named Hernandez de Toledo, who brought a 
small quantity into Spain and Portugal. In 
the same year, Jean Nicot, envoy from the court 
of France to Portugal, first transmitted thence 
to Paris, to Glueen Catharine de Medicis, seeds 
of the tobacco plant ; and from this circumstance 
it acquired the name of Nicotiana. 

In 1565, Conrad Gesner became acquainted 



with tobacco. At that time several botanists 
cultivated it in their gardens. The same year 
Sir John Hawkins carried tobacco from Florida 
to England, where " all men wondered what it 
meant." 

In 1570, they smoked in Holland out of co- 
nical tubes, composed of palm leaves, plaited 
together. 

In 1575, first appeared a figure of the plant 
in Andre Therot's Cosmographie. 

In 1585, the English first saw pipes made of 
clay among the natives of Virginia, which had 
just been discovered by Sir Richard Grenville. 
It appears likewise that the English soon after 
fabricated the first clay tobacco pipes in Europe. 

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
they began to cultivate tobacco in the East In- 
dies. 

In 1604, James I. of England endeavored, by 
means of heavy imposts, to abolish the use of 
tobacco, which he held to be a noxious weed. 

In 1610, the smoking of tobacco was known 
at Constantinople. 

In 1615, tobacco began to be sown about 
Amesfut, in Holland, which afterwards became 
famous for its cultivation. 

In 1616, the colonists began to cultivate to- 
bacco in Virginia. It is not known whether the 
plant was indigenous, or whether it came from 
a more southern country. It is supposed the 
seeds were from Tobago. But it seems to have 
been in use among the Virginia Indians at the 
time they were visited by ihe English, and was 
called by them pelun or petum. Clarigero says 
" tobacco is a name taken from the Haitino lan- 
guage." 

In 1619, James I. wrote his counterblast to to- 
bacco, and ordered that no planter in Virginia 
should cultivate more than one hundred pounds 
a year. He also prohibited its sale in England 
or Ireland until the custom should be paid and 
the royal seal affixed. Ticcnty thousand pounds 
were exported this year from Virginia to Eng- 
land, the whole crop of the preceding year. 

In 1620, ninety young women were sent over 
from England to America, and sold to the plant- 
ers for tobacco, at one hundred and twenty pounds 
each. 

In 1622, the annual import of tobacco into 
England from America for the last seven years, 
was 142,058 pounds. 

In 1639, the Grand Assembly of Virginia 
passed a law, that all tobacco planted in that 
and the two succeeding years should be de- 
stroyed, except such a proportion to each planter 
as should make in the whole 120,000 pounds, 
and that the creditors of the planters should re- 
ceive 40 pounds for every 100 pounds due them. 

In 1653, smoking began in the canton of Ap- 
penzel, in Switzerland. 

In 1690, Pope Innocent XII. excommunicated 



224 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



all who should be guilty of taking snuff or to- 
bacco in the church of St. Peter, at Rome. 

In 1709, the yearly exports of tobacco from 
America, for the last ten years, were 28,858,666 
pounds; of which 1 1,260,659 pounds were an- 
nually consumed in Great Britain, and 17,598,- 
007 pounds in the countries of Europe. 

In 1719, the Senate of Strasburg prohibited 
the culture of tobacco, from an apprehension 
that it would diminish the growing of corn. 

In 1724, Pope Benedict XIV. revoked the 
bull of excommunication published by Innocent. 

In 1732, tobacco was made a legal tender in 
Maryland, at one penny a pound. 

In 1747, and the two years previous, there 
were annually exported to England from the 
American colonies 40,000,000 pounds of tobac- 
co, 7,000,000 of which were consumed in Eng- 
land. The annual revenue was about 4,500,000 
dollars. 

In 1775, the annual export of tobacco from 
the United States, for the last four years, was 
one million pounds; for the last thirty years, it 
averaged 40,000,000 pounds. Of the total se- 
ven years exportation, 33,974,949 pounds were 
captured by the British. 

In 1789, the quantity exported from the U. 
States, together with the two previous years, 
averaged about 90,000,000 pounds. 

In 1820, the quantity of tobacco grown in 
France had doubled in three years, being 32,- 
887,500 pounds. 

In 1828, the revenue on tobacco in the State 
of Maryland was $27,275. 

In 1830, the revenue on tobacco and snuff in 
Great Britain was nearly $13,000,000. 

In 1834, the value of tobacco used in the 
United States was estimated at $16,000,000, of 
which $9,000,000 were supposed to have been 
for smoking Spanish cigars, $6,500,000 for 
smoking American tobacco and chewing, and 
$500,000 for snuff. 

In 1838, the annual consumption of tobacco 
in the United Stales was estimated at one hun- 
ted million pounds, valued at twenty million dol- 
lars cost to the consumers, being seven pounds 
to each individual of the whole population. 

In 1840, it was ascertained by a committee, 
appointed to procure and report statistical infor- 
mation on the subject, that about one million Jive 
hundred thousand persons were engaged in the 
manufacture and cultivation of tobacco in the 
United States, one million of whom were in the 
States of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and 
Missouri. Allowing the population of the whole 
country to be seventeen millions, it will be seen 
that nearly one -tenth are in some way engaged 
in the cultivation or manufacture of this article. 
The value of the export during that year was 
nearly $10,000,000. 

Albany, September, 1841. 



WHEEL CARRIAGES. 

Doubts are entertained whether, in the im- 
proved state of our roads, the dishing of wheels is 
not highly objectionable. The greatest strength 
is undoubtedly obtained by having the spoke 
perpendicularly under the weight ; on a level 
surface this would be obtained by a flat or level 
wheel, with the felloes in the same plane with 
the spokes, and with a straight axle; but it 
was imagined that from the inequalities of the 
ground, the axle was oftener inclined than level r 
and when one side is lowest the weight coming 
upon it, the spoke is placed at right angles un- 
der it by the dishing of the wheel. Much even 
of the doubtful advantages of dishing, it will be 
seen then, depends upon the liability of the axle 
to be thrown out of level. But the uncertain 
advantages of this form are more than counter- 
balanced by the indubitable increase of friction 
derived from it. The wheel, instead of being 
disposed of itself to run forward in a straight 
line, as it would be if cylindrical, is thus con- 
verted into a frustrum of a cone, and if left to 
itself, when rolled forward would describe a cir- 
cle round a point which would be the apex of 
the cone if complete. Hence, there would be a 
constant tendency to rub against the lynch-pin, 
which is obviated, without decreasing the fric- 
tion, by the bending forward of the axle, called 
the gather, whereby the fore part of the wheels 
are thrown nearer together than the back. 

But the most objectionable form of all is that, 
wherein the wheel is dished, but the axle is bent 
downwards, so as to bring the lower spokes per- 
pendicularly under the axle. Here, you have 
all the friction of the dished wheel, without any 
of the advantages of the inclined position of the 
spoke when the carriage falls into a rut. In- 
deed, it is but making one evil to remedy an- 
other, and by means of the two to bring you 
back to the point from which you started. As 
to the appearance, no one can doubt that our 
preference for dished wheels is entirely the effect 
of custom, and if some of our amateur coach- 
men would lend their aid to the introduction of 
level wheels, Fashion would soon render them 
pleasing, and her potent ladyship, for once in 
her life, might boast of having rendered herself 
useful. 



PATENT MANURE. 
We alluded rather jocosely in a former num- 
ber to the pretensions of a Mr. Bommer, of Con- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



225 



necticut, to the discovery of a process, by which, 
for a mere song, manure of the best quality was 
to be made of any thing and every thing. The 
following extracts from Mr. Bommer's circular 
will interest even those whose late experience has 
rendered them a little wary of grand schemes 
for sudden riches. The truth is, the daj' is so 
rife with humbug, that even a good thing, if it 
pretends to too much, is looked on with suspi- 
cion, but we should remember that an excess of 
scepticism is not less dangerous than an undue 
degree of credulity. 

"A new invention has been made to produce 
as much manure as we may please in fifteen 
days wilhout any cattle, a manure, as rich as 
farm manure, and more lasting, and at very little 
cost; by which also is made earth manure, to 
be used as a substitute for common manure and 
compost ; by which farmers are taught the means 
of increasing considerably stable and yard ma- 
nure, and the method of preparing manure of 
different degrees of strength, and dressing for 
early garden produce. This method, teaching 
the whole art of making and preparing manure 
for use, holds decidedly the most important place 
in the system of agricultural economy ! 

" This invention is the fruit of many years of 
exertion and chemical labor, and the result of 
repeated and various experiments. 

" The secret of the invention to make the 
manure is accurately described and specified in 
my method secured by patent. The prepara- 
tion of said manure is very simple and easy, 
and every farmer by following my method can 
exactly count upon certain success. 

" This manure is a composition of animal, 
mineral, and vegetable substances, consequently 
designed by nature for their nutriment. 

" We may, therefore, abandon, for the future, 
the partial use and application of every kind of 
merely stimulating manure, such as lime, plaster 
of Paris, ashes, &c. the more readily, as these 
stimulants are not only expensive, but when 
employed alone they draw all vegetable moisture 
from the soil hy their corrosive heat, and sooner 
or later make the ground entirely barren. This 
is a truth which all enlightened farmers will 
readily admit. 

11 The merit of my method essentially consists 
in the four following important points : 

"1. In being able to reduce in a short time all 
kinds of straw and ligneous weeds to a rich, 
nutritious and durable manure, such as wheat 
straw, bailey, rye, buckwheat, and other black 
grains ; stalks of Indian corn, rice, and other 
plants ; dried or green potato tops, leaves, stalks, 
and roots of all kind of plants ; green or dried 
reeds, green rushes, sea weeds, sea rushes, hea- 
ther broom, stubble ; in fact, every thing belong- 
Vol. 2-29 



ing to the vegetable kingdom, and a great many 
other things lying about farms which are often 
allowed to go to waste. Even the ground itself 
may be converted into the best manure, or com- 
post. 

" 2. In the combination or alliance of fecun- 
dating substances, the use of which when se- 
parated, would not and could not produce the 
desired effect. 

" 3. In the production of a considerable quan- 
tity of factitious water, which, when combined 
with other ingredients, forming lees, furnishes 
the farmer with a fertilizing liquid, the commix- 
ture of which in either vegetable or mineral 
substances, gives a manure of the richest kind. 

"4. In the production of a quantity of nitrate 
of lime and caustic potash ; of ammonia and 
saltpetre — four substances which modern che- 
mistry has found to contain the most fecundating 
properties possible. 

" From all this it is clear that my method em- 
ployed on farms offers the following advantages : 

"1. That those who have straw will be able 
to change the same into manure immediately 
after the crop is housed, or at any required time. 
Those who have not straw may use any green 
or dry substance instead, and that those who 
have neither straw or the substances above men- 
tioned, may change the very soil itself into a 
very good earth manure, and in any spot they 
may choose. 

"2. That a farmer can make with the great- 
est ease, in a few days, earth manure, or com- 
post which will answer all the purposes of ani- 
mal manure, and excel in their fecundating pro- 
perties all other ordinary composts, which by 
other means can be had hardly in one year, 
more frequently only in three years. That this 
earth manure may be used in the spring to 
quicken the growth of seed that has suffered 
from the rigors of the winter; to manure wheat 
previously sown without manure ; it will be a 
great benefit in planting Indian corn ; for top- 
dressing of artificial and other meadows ; it is 
the greatest use in gardens, mulberry and other 
fruit trees, keeping at once the ground moist, 
and producing rapid vegetation. 

" 3. That the farmer will have the advantage 
of being able to make his manure heaps when, 
where, and as he pleases ; he will be able to 
open them when they are in the best state with- 
out losing any of the fecundating moisture. 

" 4. By means of the lees, which this method 
will inform him how to make, it will be easy for 
him to give to his farm-yard manure more invi- 
gorating properties, and he may increase its bulk 
at pleasure. Farm-yard manure, in fact, should 
be used only as the leaven to make the different 
heaps required. 

" 5. By the great quantity of moisture enter- 
ing into the materials, the weight of such of 



226 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



them as are dry, will be increased fourfold ; that 
of the others is more than doubled. 

" 6. This method enables the farmer to con- 
nect entirely his manure heaps, that is to say, 
he will be able to make them in all their parts 
equally good and fertilizing. The lees, which 
distribute the saline and soluble particles in a 
regular and uniform manner, will produce an 
even crop throughout the field. 

" 7. By the high degree of heat to which in 
that course of making it attains, the germinating 
power of all weeds found the materials thus 
submitted to decomposition will be utterly de- 
stroyed. Hence manure made after this method 
never reproduces weeds. 

" 8. The farmer will also be able to graduate 
his manure. He may have it of any degree of 
strength he wishes. This will enable him to 
forward the growth of plants in a manner hither- 
to unknown. 

" 9. By means of manure thus graduated at 
will, market gardeners will have their produce 
much earlier in the market than heretofore. — 
They will be able also to heat their hot beds 
anew by means of the lees without distributing 
the frames. 

" 10. In fine, the lees by which the manure 
is made are prepared cold, and without any pre- 
vious chemical preparation ; the majority of the 
ingredients may be found at hand on almost 
every farm, and cost nothing ; and water which 
is the basis of the system, is of no more ex- 
pense. All here concur to render the method 
trulyeconomical. Such are the principal grounds 
on which the system is recommended. 

" My method rests solely upon facts which 
are the results of numerous experiments. I 
have explained it in simple terms, without mak- 
ing use of any technical expressions; it is as 
easy to understand as to put in practice. Thus 
clearly and simply detailed I present it to the 
public, having proved by repeated public experi- 
ments in presence of enlightened farmers, that 
all I have said is true, and that the advantages 
to be derived from its adoption are real, and not 
visionary. 

" Therefore, agents, having all due authoriza- 
tion, and furnished with printed copies of the 
method, have been appointed in all the principal 
towns in each State. These agents will deliver 
a copy to each purchaser, on his declaring the 
name, residence, and extent of cleared land. 

" To facilitate the purchase of the method, 
the price is fixed at the following moderate rates : 

" Cleared land, intended for agricultural pur- 
poses, (wood land excepted,) under thirty acres, 
$8; more than thirty, ten cents per acre addi- 
tional. On payment of this sum the method 
becomes the property of the purchaser for ever. 

" The following commendatory notice of this 
valuable discovery is from Professor Eli Ives, 



M. D. one of the Vice-Presidents of the United 
States Agricultural Society : 

11 Rev. E. Barnett : Sir, — I have examined 
the pamphlet of Mr. Bommer on the subject of 
manufacturing. His method is founded on cor- 
rect philosophical principles, agreeable to those 
recently advanced by Leibig. If the farmers 
can be induced to purchase the right and tho- 
roughly execute his plan of making manure, in 
my opinion, it will very much increase the value 
of the farms in the State of Connecticut." 



For the Southern Planter. 
TOBACCO. 

I noticed in the two last numbers of the 
Planter some reports and observations on the 
subject of tobacco, which, to my view, seem a 
a little defective. I design briefly and in a con- 
densed manner to supply one important omission 
only at this time. As the time approaches for 
putting the knife to the crop, my observations 
will be confined to the operation of cutting and 
the flavor. The most common arrangement is 
cutting and housing, but as flavor depends upon 
the time of putting the knife to the plant, I have 
united them, as no one quality is more essential 
to tobacco than a good fine flavor. One of the 
greatest errors in the management of this crop 
consists in cutting it prematurely. Premature 
cutting is, if I may so express it, a radical de- 
fect, which no subsequent management can 
supply or remedy; as all tobacco cut before it 
is fully ripe, will be defective in flavor, color, and 
weight ; and I believe that from twenty to thirty 
per cent, is generally lost on this crop from want 
of attention to this single point. I maintain, 
that no principle is better established than that 
a dull, dingy hue will inevitably be the aspect 
of all that is cut green, cure it as you may, and 
that much of the substance, as well as weight, 
will thereby be lost ; and that any rich plant 
cut in perfection, fully ripe, no matter on what 
soil it is grown, may be cured of good color and 
flavor, that will be lasting. 

A gentleman of my acquaintance, twelve or 
thirteen years ago, subjected himself and a piece 
of ground to my control and instruction in the 
cultivation and management of a crop of tobac- 
co. He had ceased to cultivate the plant for 
some years before, his bad success in the first 
instance having lead him to abandon its culture. 
The Blue Prior was chosen, as being less sub' 
ject to those defects while growing, the offspring 
of unpropitious seasons, than any other kind of 
tobacco with which I was acquainted. The 
crop was permitted to remain in the field until 
it was fully matured. My engagements not 
permitting me to see the crop about this time, 
my instructions were that the knife should not 
be put to the plants until ten days had elapsed 
after he considered the crop ready for cutting 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



227 



When exposed in market, it very readily com- 
manded ten dollars per cwt. In what manner 
is this simple unsophisticated fact to be ex- 
plained? The gentleman had no confidence in 
his own skill in the management of tobacco, but 
by permitting it to mature fully, he sells readily 
at greatly more than the average market price. 
The true secret of the whole matter is comprised 
in the simple fact, that the crop was permitted 
to mature fully, the soil was good, and this was 
the one thing needful to insure all the rest, and 
to supply any deficiencies or errors in other re- 
spects. 

As many planters have very indefinite ideas 
on the subject of ripe tobacco, I will give a cri- 
terion by which they may be governed. Let 
the yellow spots which first appear on the upper 
side of the leaf be fully visible on the under 
side. This appearance will rarely deceive them 
in the Blue Prior, and indicates the plant in its 
highest state of perfection. When your plants 
are fully ripe, always cut before a rain. To- 
bacco is an aromatic plant, and is composed of 
the richest, strongest, and most delicious ingre- 
dients, as well as the most delicate and volatile ; 
all of which lie on the upper side of the leaf, 
and are liable to be washed off and destroyed 
by rain, and if the growing season is far ad- 
vanced, the plants never recover these qualities. 
By this process, the alcohol, the oil, the sugar, 
the mucilaginous wax and gums, the acids, and 
nitre, with all the volatile salts, are protected 
and retained. 

The next process in order is that of firing, cur- 
ing, or more properly drying. Such a degree of 
heat only is required as to throw off the watery 
particles of the plants, without causing any ac- 
tion among its chemical properties, whereby a 
decomposition would be effected and all the va- 
luable and volatile substances cast off. Exces- 
sive firing destroys the elasticity of the leaf, and 
makes it crisp. There is a rule which I have 
found to apply very w r ell in drying. I increase 
the temperature of my barns ten degrees every 
four hours, until the leaf is dry. The curing 
has always been pronounced to be perfect. 

I have already written more than I intended 
or promised I would do, so I cannot at this time 
enter into further details, 

G. 

Wyllicsburg, Charlotte. 

We are sorry we did not receive the above in 
time for our last number, when it would have 
been more in season. However, it is never too 
late to do good. We have no personal acquaint- 
ance with our correspondent, but, knowing his 
real name, we learn he is one of the most expe- 
rienced and successful planters in the celebrated 
county of Charlotte. We shall be much obliged 
to him to furnish us any " further details," 



For the Southern Planter. 
DISTEMPER IN DOGS. 

Messrs. Editors, — I believe that it would be 
gratifying to many of your readers, who are 
lovers of the sports of the field, to know a cer- 
tain cure for that dreadful malady in young 
pointers and setters, commonly called distemper. 
I have frequently tried it, and have never failed 
of a cure in a single instance, where the puppy 
was strictly attended to. 

As soon as the animal is discovered to be 
sick, give it a table spoonful of table salt forced 
down its throat, holding the mouth together 
until the animal has swallowed it — turn him 
loose, and watch him closely, and if he does not 
vomit in twenty minutes, repeat the dose until 
he does; let him rest from the exertions half an 
hour, and then burn under his nose tar, feathers, 
and a small quantity of brimstone, until a run- 
ning at the nose is discovered. Repeat the dose 
of salt every morning, and the smoking three 
times a day until a cure is effected. I have 
raised many valuable dogs, and have had the 
distemper among them often, and have never 
yet lost one. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

A Venator. 



KEEPING EGGS. 
The following is an extract from a letter pub- 
lished in the Cultivator. We have seen the 
plan frequently recommended before, and call 
the reader's attention to it at this time particu- 
larly, because the present low price of eggs af- 
fords a fair opportunity for trying it. 

11 Having tried many ways of preserving 
eggs, I have found the following to be the easi- 
est, cheapest, surest and best. Take your crock, 
keg or barrel, according to the quantity you 
have, cover the bottom with half an inch of fine 
salt, and set your eggs in it close together on 
the small end; be very particular to put the 
small end down, for if put in any other position, 
they will not keep as well, and the yelk will 
adhere to the shell ; sprinkle them over with salt 
so as to fill the interstices, and then put in an- 
other layer of eggs, and cover with 6alt, and so 
on till your vessel is filled. Cover it over tight 
and put it where it will not freeze, and the eggs 
will keep perfectly fresh and good an}' desirable 
length of time. My family have kept them in 
this manner three years, and found them all as 
good as when laid down. I believe we have 
never had a bad egg since we commenced pre- 
serving them in this manner. The trouble is 
comparatively nothing, for when we have a do- 
zen or so more than we wish to use, we put 
them in the cask and sprinkle them over with 
salt j and when at any future time we wish to 



228 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



take them out, they are accessible and the salt 
is uninjured. But mark ! the eggs should be 
put down before they become stale, say within 
a week or ten days after they are laid. 

" Every man by this process may have eggs 
as plenty in winter as in summer; and farmers 
who make a business of selling their eggs, may 
easily calculate the profits of preserving them 
m summer and selling them in winter. Eggs 
where I live, sell frequently in summer at eight 
cents, and in winter as high as thirty-seven and 
a half cents per dozen. In view of these va- 
rious considerations it must be evident that no 
investment that a farmer can make, will yield 
so great a profit as a few dollars in domestic 
fowls. They will cost, probably in no case, 
more than fifty cents each per year for their 
food ; the trouble of taking care of them is fully 
counterbalanced by the pleasure they give ; and 
they will or may be made to produce each on 
an average, from 200 to 250 eggs, besides an 
occasional brood of chickens. 

11 The theory of your correspondent B. in your 
March number respecting animal food being ne- 
cessary to the production of eggs, does not cor- 
respond with my observation of facts. I have 
for years been obliged to shut up my fowls dur- 
ing most of the summer, where they could nei- 
ther get insects nor any kind of animal food, 
and yet they continued to lay as much as any 
I have ever known to run at large. 

" The banishment of cocks too, which he re- 
commends, I have tried, and abandoned it as 
unnatural and worse than useless ; for with a 
good attendance of the male, say one to six in 
summer, and one to four or five in winter, I have 
always found the hens to be most profitable. 

H. A. P. 

Buffalo, March, 1842." 



BUG WASH. 
Dr. Feuchtwanger is, we believe, a great 
man ; we therefore copy the following from the 
American Agriculturist: 

" The following preparation will effectually 
exterminate all caterpillars, snails, bugs, beetles, 
earth fleas, leaf lice, ants and other insects on 
fields, trees, bushes, and hedges : 

" Take diluted Pyroligneous acid, one gallon ; 
white oak bark, one pound ; urine, half gallon ; 
garlic, half pound. After soaking the oak bark 
and garlic for two days in the acid and urine, 
strain them off and sprinkle once a week or of- 
tener, the trees infected with insects, or the pea, 
cabbage, &c. and they will be preserved for the 
season. 

" This fluid has proved very successful in the 
experiments made by 

Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger. 

New York, April 20, 1842." 



POTATO. 
The introduction of this valuable root to the 
gardens and tables of the people received for 
more than two centuries an unexampled opposi- 
tion from vulgar prejudice which all the philo- 
sophy of the age was unable to dissipate until 
Louis XV. of France wore a bunch of the 
flowers of the potato in the midst of his court 
on a day of festivity: the people then for the 
first time obsequiously acknowledged its useful- 
ness, and its cultivation as an article of food 
soon became universal. 



GRAFTING. 

Some of our most beautiful forest trees, as 
the holly, the hickory, &c. are most difficult to 
transplant. It has sometimes occurred to us 
that country gentlemen, desiring to domesticate 
these noble ornaments of the forest, might amuse 
themselves by making experiments in grafting 
them upon stocks more readily removed. We 
have been induced to call their attention to the 
subject, by meeting with the following para- 
graph, communicated to a southern paper by 
Mr. Scott, of South Carolina : 

" This season T grafted the different species of 
lilac on the common ash, in accordance with 
some information I received from a friend, (Mr. 
WolrT, Jr.) while I lived in Paris. I do not re- 
collect to have seen any account of any one 
having tried the same in this country. We 
have grafted about three dozen ashes, varying 
from four feet to ten feet in height, with the 
common and Persian lilac : and I am happy to 
say that the result has exceeded my most san- 
guine expectations ; for we have grown about 
twenty-five healthy plants, with branches from 
one foot to eighteen inches long, which I hope 
in another year will be covered with bloom. 
They were grafted in April, after the lilacs had 
made considerable shoots. I would, therefore, 
advise that the scions be taken off in January 
or February, in order to retard their vegetating 
too soon for the stocks. Would not the pendu- 
lous ash form a beautiful object by having its 
branches grafted with Persian lilac % n 



NECESSITY OF ECONOMY. 

There have been few years in which the ne- 
cessity of economy in the farmer, and general 
prudence in the management of his affairs, has 
been more apparent, than the present. The 
low price of produce, and small decline in the 
price of labor; the difficulty with which remu- 
nerating sales arc made of animals and farm 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



229 



crops, and the general firmness of price in the 
articles he is compelled to purchase ; all indicate 
the propriety of paying particular attention to 
his income and his expenditures. This is parti- 
cularly the case with him who is in debt ; or 
who having little in advance, is dependant on 
the annual proceeds of his farm, and his labor, 
for support. There are a few classes that the 
pressure of the times, the price of produce, or 
the scarcity of cash, scarcely reaches. They 
are those who subsist on the fees of office, or 
the interest of their money. Such do not stand 
in need of lessons of economy. 

But it is well for all to remember, that there 
is a wide difference between economy and parsi- 
mony ; between prudence and covetousness. If 
reform in expenditure is proper, the farmer should 
see that it falls on those things which are least 
essential to his present or future prosperity. It 
would be the height of folly to commence a sys- 
tem of curtailment by dispensing with any of 
the necessary implements of the farm ; the want 
of these, would certainly produce the evil he 
designs to avoid. Equally erroneous would he 
be were his retreschment to fall on any of those 
things necessary to enlarge and inform the mind ; 
and thus promote the intelligence, respectability, 
and consequent happiness of himself and fami- 
ly. Far better would it be to dispense with a 
new coat, than with the means of instruction ; 
to forego the dainties or luxuries of the table, 
than to starve the mind. The importance of 
this point cannot be too strongly urged on the 
mind of the farmer ; or the truth too forcibly or 
frequently impressed, that economy, or w T e should 
rather say parsimony, here, is a serious crime, 
and the means of inflicting irreparable injury. 
So too, if the farmer concludes to have little to do 
with his mechanics, when he requires the product 
of their skill, and is able to reward their labor, he 
is indirectly injuring himself, and positively injur- 
ing them. He is compelling them to forsake their 
work benches, or their anvils, and commence 
farmers, a result which w T ould have a tendency 
directly, by increasing the quantity of produce 
thrown into the market, to reduce the price of 
his own, and thus injure himself. Besides, the 
mechanic cannot be dispensed with by the farmer, 
and the soundest dictates of economy would de- 
mand that he should receive the encouragement 
and support, his merits and his wants require ; 
or his services, when most wanted, may not be 
•within reach, or available. It is not in these 
and similar things, that economy should be be- 
gun ; but let the farmer, when he is tempted to 
purchase any thing, ask whether it is necessary 
to possess it : and if he will further make it a 
rule to invariably pay down for what he pur- 
chases, he will be astonished at the aid it will 
give him in becoming properly economical. — 
Thousands of farmers have been ruined by hav- 
ing such excellent credits. A man's credit is in 



some respects like his stomach ; neither can be 
overloaded or overtasked with safety ; and the 
surest sign they are in a healthy condition, is 
when their functions are performed without his 
cognizance or attention. — Cultivator. 



The Troy papers state that Mr. Burden, the 
ingenious worker of iron in that city has invented 
and successfully applied machinery to the fabri- 
cation of horse shoes. A bar of iron is put into 
the machinery, which converts it rapidly into 
well fashioned horse shoes, punched with nail 
holes, and ready to be put on. 



SOUTHERN PRODUCTS. 

A great many baneful errors have prevailed 
with respect to the capabilities of our climate 
and soil that are daily fading before the light of 
experience and a better system of husbandry. 
Amongst these we reckon the idea formerly very 
prevalent, that our climate was too hot to grow 
hay, that it would burn, and that we must de- 
pend upon the North for this great article of 
animal consumption. The truth is the greater 
attention of the northern farmer to the lesser 
crops has been followed with a success that had 
induced the belief, that we could grow nothing 
but wheat and tobacco, rice and cotton, in the 
South. Those great staples have engrossed too 
much of our attention — they have appropriated 
our best lands, and secured our entire care; 
whilst the hay crop, the most profitable that is 
made, has been neglected, with the unauthorised 
presumption, that the climate was unsuitable, 
the ever ready excuse for bad husbandry. It is 
a little remarkable, that as our lands became 
more and more worn, the climate became un- 
suited to a greater number of crops, until we 
had begun to believe that the generous products 
of nature were confined to the frigid regions of 
the North. But as necessity drives us to a bet- 
ter system of cultivation, it is astonishing to find 
how much better the climate is adapted to vege- 
table growth. Strange to tell, in the sunny 
fields of the South, where we have but a glimpse 
of the chilling storms of winter, we are begin- 
ning to raise fruits almost equal to those that are 
matured by the glimmerings of sunshine that 
illumine the miserably curtailed summer of the 
North. We have even seen Irish potatoes sold 
in the Richmond market fully equal to any that 
are exhibited in Boston, and our poor taste has 
confirmed us in the opinion expressed by natur- 
alists generally, that it is to the glowing regions 



230 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



of the South that we are to look for highly fla- 
vored fruit. Let us make our lands rich and 
cultivate them carefully and we may trust to 
our climate, inferior to none in the world, to do its 
part. We have formerly expressed the opinion 
that rich land is the best antidote to all the evils 



to which the wheat crop is subject : we will here 
add that we know a gentleman who has four 
lots of ten acres each, made extremely rich, from 
one of which he never fails to raise a splendid 
growth of wheat in defiance of the casualties to 
which the balance of his crop may be subjected. 



ESPY'S VENTILATOR 




We present above, a sectional view of Mr. 
Espy's Invention for ventilating Ships, Hospitals, 
Prisons, Mines, Cisterns, Vats, Sinks, &c. — also 
for producing a strong draft in Chimnies, flues 
of Steamboats, Locomotives, &c. 

Description. — A, denotes the chimney. B, 
a sheet iron pipe secured upon the top of the 
chimney. C, a collar of sheet iron fitting loosely 
over the pipe B. D, a hollow cone, also made 
of sheet iron, into which the collar C, enters. 

E, a vane, to keep the cone pointed to the wind. 

F, a perpendicular iron rod, on which the cone 
and collar revolve, a, a, b, b, c, c, and e, arrows 
showing the course of the current of air. 

Now suppose the wind to blow in the direc- 
tion of the arrows a, a, — it will pass along the 
surface of the cone to its base, when it will con- 
verge as represented by arrows b, b, and c, c, and 
produce a vacuum at O, the open end of the 
cone, thereby causing a strong current of air to 
rush up the chimney A, in the direction of the 
arrow e. 

This apparatus is, we believe, perfectly adapt- 



ed to effect the object for which it is intended, 
and may be invaluable to such of our readers 
as are afflicted with that greatest of human evils 
a smoking chimney. The inventor deserves al- 
most as much of mankind as if he had freed 
them from its usual concomitant, a scolding 
wife ; though that Mr. Espy is that inventor, 
we are not so clear for an apparatus, exactly 
similar in principle to the one described, has 
been, to our certain knowledge, revolving round 
an old chimney top in Richmond for the last 
twenty years. At any rate, it is simple and 
cheap, and no one hereafter should complain of 
a smoking chimney. 



DIGESTIBILITY OF FOOD. 

In the course of some experiments on a young 
Canadian's stomach, by Dr. Beaumont, the fol- 
lowing facts in regard to the digestibility of va- 
rious articles of food were ascertained : 

Farinacea. — Rice, boiled soft, was digested in 
one hour; sago, an hour and three-quarters. 
Tapioca and barley, two hours. Bread, fresh, 
three hours ; stale two. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



231 



Salmon, salted and 



Vegetables. — Potatoes, roasted, two hours and 
a half; boiled, three hours. Parsnips and beans, 
two hours and a half. Carrots, boiled, three 
hours and a quarter. Cabbage, raw, two hours 
—vinegar much assists in digestion. Beets, 
three hours and three-quarters. 

Fruits. — Apples, sweet and ripe, one hour and 
a half; mellow, two hours ; hard and sour, near- 
ly three. A mellow peach, an hour and a half. 

Fish and Shellfish. — Trout, boiled or fried, one 
hour and a half. Codfish, cured and boiled, 
two hours. Oysters, undressed, nearly three 
hours; roasted, three hours and aquarter; stewed, 
three hours and a half, 
boiled, four hours. 

Poultry. — Turkey, roasted, two hours and a 
half; boded, five minutes more. Chickens, fri- 
casseed, two hours and three-quarters. Wild 
goose, roasted, two hours and a half. Fowls, 
boiled or roasted, four hours. Roasted ducks, 
four hours ; and, if wild, half an hour more. 

Butcher's Meat. — Soused tripe, pig's feet, boiled 
or fried, one hour. Venison steak, boiled, one 
hour and thirty-five minutes. Liver, calf's or 
lamb's, two hours. Sucking pig, two hours 
and a half. Mutton, broiled or boiled, three 
hours; roasted, a quarter more. Beef, fresh, 
boiled or roasted, three hours ; lightly salted and 
boiled, thirty-six minutes more — old hard, salted, 
four hours and a quarter. Pork steak, boiled, 
three hours and a quarter ; stewed, three hours ; 
lately salted and boiled, four hours and a half; 
roasted, five hours and a quarter. Veal, boiled, 
four hours — fried, half an hour more. 

Eggs. — Raw, two hours ; roasted, a quarter 
more ; soft boiled, three hours ; hard boiled or 
fried, half an hour longer. 

Milk. — Two hours. Custard, baked, two 
hours and three quarters. Butter and cheese, 
three hours and a half. Apple dumplings, three 
hours. Suet, four hours and a half. Oil, some- 
what longer. Calves-foot jelly, half an hour. 

It wdl be seen that of farinaceous substances, 
rice is digested more easily, and old bread more 
rapidly than new ; and that oily food is particu- 
larly indigestible. 



BLUE INK. 

Dissolve one ounce of gum arabic in a pint 
of water. In a part of this gum- water, grind 
a small quantity of Prussian blue ; you may 
thus bring it to any depth of color you choose. 
Indigo will answer this purpose very well, but 
it is not so fine a color, nor will it remain sus- 
pended so uniformly in the water. 



COLIC. 
Under this head we have chosen to place the 
following extract from the valuable report for- 
warded to us by Dr. Harrison, of Prince George. 



We know, by experience, the value of laudanum 
as a remedy for the violent pain to which the 
horse is subjected under the common name of 
colic. We have never known it fail to afford 
temporary relief which would be rendered per- 
manent by the action of oil, or any gentle pur- 
gative. 

We hope Dr. Harrison will not forget his 
promise of continued contributions to the Planter. 

" Our animals generally are exempt from epi- 
demic diseases of a fatal character, and our 
knowledge of the other diseases are so limited 
that their description and treatment would pos- 
sess but little interest ; but we would take this 
occasion to declare the convictions of our mind 
that too little attention is paid to veterinary prac- 
tice. Frequently fine animals are lost from sheer 
ignorance on our part. The most prevalent 
disease, and at the same time the most distress- 
ing and fatal, to which that noble and valuable 
animal, the horse, is subject, is colic. It is pro- 
duced from indigestion, impropriety either in the 
quantity or quality of food, over exertion, hard 
rides, suddenly cooling when over heated, large 
draughts of cold water when very warm, and 
other irregularities. This and its kindred affec- 
tions of recent origin is manifested by restless- 
ness, rolling over, lying down, turning up the 
nose, or the head to the side, abdominal disten- 
sion, loss of appetite, and sometimes flatulence. 
A variety of remedies are in general use for the 
cure of this disease, and each practitioner has 
his favorite remedy. An ounce or two table 
spoonsful of laudanum has invariably succeeded 
in our hands. This remedy has been produc- 
tive of such salutary effects, that we are almost 
induced to pronounce it a specific for colic and 
other spasmodic affections suddenly introduced. 
Our mode of administering this remedy is some- 
what peculiar. It is first combined with a pint 
of water, poured into a bottle, the horse's head 
is elevated, the neck and mouth of the bottle is 
introduced into one of his nostrils, and the reme- 
dy is administered with a great deal of facility 
and in a much shorter time than is customary. 

" The above remedy has frequently succeeded 
after the ineffectual exhibition of other remedies, 
and in one instance when a prepossession ex- 
isted against the remedy, it was stubbornly op- 
posed, and only recurred to, as a dernier resort, 
but with its accustomed success. This remedy 
operates, and its action is based upon, true phy- 
siological grounds, for its action is twofold, both 
acting as an anodyne and anti-spasmodic, which 
effects being produced, the disease is overcome. 
If constipation should succeed, it may be easily 
overcome by any of the neutral salts. 

" The above course of treatment is only ap- 
plicable to the primar}' form of the disease, and 
that immediately after its occurrence, but when 



232 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



the disease has existed for some time, and fever 
and its attendant symptoms exist, bleeding, pur- 
gatives and injections constitute our safeguards 
against injury." 



For the Southern Planter. 
TOBACCO. 

Messrs. Editors, — My object is to say, or ra- 
ther to ask, something about tobacco. Does it 
not seem to you, that there can be no substitute 
for the tobacco crop in all that section of Virgi- 
nia lying within tide water and the mountain, 
the ridge of lands dividing the waters running 
south into the James, and North Carolina? 

A querist from Nottoway has asked some 
questions touching this subject, which I do not 
think have been attended to; — I should be glad 
to see some answers to them. 

He asks, can we afford to make tobacco at 
five dollars ? I should think not, if the system 
of things, which has been in operation for many 
years past, should be attempted to be maintained. 
But let reckless speculation cease, and ruinous 
extravagance be curtailed, — let men stop the 
creation of artificial wants, let not quack legis- 
lators be eternally making infractions upon the 
laws of nature, which must always sooner or 
later, be followed by the appropriate penalty — 
let such things be done, and, I think, we may 
get on pretty well with five dollars for our to- 
bacco. 

But our lands in this part of Virginia are 
well nigh all cleared up, and farmers are begin- 
ning to use the axe with a more cautious and 
sparing hand. What then is to be done? Some- 
thing must be done, which has not been prac- 
tised for the last twenty years, for if the sterility 
and poverty of our lands are suffered to go on 
in the same ratio for the next twenty years, there 
are numbers of farms, which I could name, that 
could not afford a livelihood to those who now 
inhabit them. 

For tobacco, it is quite certain, we must have 
manured lots. How shall a farmer with ten 
hands so manage, as to have a lot of a hundred 
thousand tobacco hills in cultivation every year ? 
or say, seventy-five thousand 1 I have seen no 
accounts of experiments made on high land, but 
I believe it is pretty well known that low land 
lots, when once made rich, may be kept so, by 
being sowed in oats, and cultivated in tobacco, 
alternately. 

I have high land lots only, and am convinced 
I shall not be able to keep them up by any sup- 
plies of manure, which my farm-pen and stables 
may yield. I must try and make them help 
themselves. I commenced the trial in the spring 
of 1S41, by sowing and turning in a crop of 
oats. 

The season proved rather dry for oats, and 
when turned in (about the middle of July) the 



crop was not so heavy as I wished. To make 
amends for the deficiency, and to shade the 
ground, I sowed corn and covered it in with the 
oats. The corn soon came up, and grew rapid- 
ly. Just before the setting in of frosts, I turned 
that in also — not fully, however, for the ground 
was so very light from the previous fallow, and 
the crop so abundant, that it was impossible to 
hide the whole of it. 

In the spring, when preparing the land for 
tobacco, I found that many of the stalks, which 
had been put well under ground, still preserved 
their green appearance, but were soft, and when 
mashed, would throw out a juice that was thick 
and acid. I liked such appearances very well. 

But here is the 17th August, and the experi- 
ment determines nothing in its results. The to- 
bacco was planted the 24th May, and grew off 
finely. The rains set in, and have kept up till 
now, which checked the tobacco, and caused 
the leaves to be narrow and small. And now 
it is firing rapidly. 

Well, I have another lot, which I am subject- 
ing to the same experiment. The crop of oats 
was very heavy. The corn sown, when they 
were turned in is now growing with great ra- 
pidity, and by frost, will be four to six feet high. 
I am hesitating about the best plan to dispose of 
this corn. Must I turn it in as I did last year, 
cut it down and let it lie and rot on the ground, 
or take it to the laboratory of the stable and 
farm-pen % 

A. Z. 

Amelia, 17th August 1842. 



For the Southern Planter. 
SASSAFRAS. 

Messrs. Editors, — In the number of the Planter 
for the present month a correspondent inquires 
how a certain mode, recommended as calculated 
to destroy the growth of sassafras bushes, must 
be carried into effect under certain circumstances, 
which he mentions. Now, although I cannot 
give him the exact information that he desires, 
yet I think that I can put him upon a plan, by 
the adoption of which, the evil of which he com- 
plains can be exceedingly alleviated, although 
not eradicated, for that I believe is next to an 
impossibility. It is simply this. Let him turn 
his horned cattle upon those parts of his fields 
where the sassafras is growing, in the months 
of August and September, and he will find that 
they by biting and trampling will so disable and 
cripple the bushes, that their growth will be re- 
tarded in a very great degree in the following 
spring. I think that this mode of treating them 
is preferable to that of keeping the sheep upon 
the fields for such a length of time. As to the 
destruction of the clover, which "An Inquirer" 
wishes to avoid, 1 think that he will find that 
the injury done the clover will be amply coun- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



233 



terbalanced by the benefit he will derive from 
the crippling of the sassafras bushes. I have 
been informed of another mode of preventing 
the encroachments of the sassafras ; it however 
has not come under my immediate observation, 
and I can merely tell it to you as it was told to 
me ; it is to permit some one or two sassafras 
bushes, in different parts of the fields where 
there seems to be a probability of being a patch 
of them, to assume the shape of trees, in which 
case they are not so apt to send forth shoots as 
when constantly and entirely grubbed up; for 
in this plant, like the fabled hydra, when one 
head is destroyed it is instantly replaced by two 
others. There is, I understand, in this county a 
remarkable proof of the efficacy of the mode here 
described of destroying the sassafras. In two 
adjoining fields the two opposite methods have 
been pursued, and in that where the bushes were 
allowed to become trees, there are few or no 
young ones to interfere with the grain crops, 
whilst in that where they were grubbed up, they 
are exceedingly numerous and troublesome. 

If you think this communication likely to be 
beneficial, you of course are at liberty to pub- 
lish it. 

I am, &c. &c. X. 

Hanover, July, 1S42. 



STONES ON CULTIVATED LAND. 

It is an error to suppose (says the Boston 
Mer. Journal) that stones should be entirely re- 
moved from land which is under cultivation. — 
Those stones, which would be in the way of 
the scythe while mowing, of course should be 
removed, but all the smaller stones should re- 
main ; and if wholly or partially embedded in 
the soil, they preserve the moisture during a 
drought, and thus serve materially to increase 
the crop. The following article from the Gen- 
tlemen's Magazine, published in 1773, is to (he 
point : 

" It has been long known to experienced far- 
mers, that taking away very small stones and 
flints is detrimental to ploughed lands in general; 
but more particularly so to thin light lands, and 
all lands of a binding nature. It was, however, 
never imagined that the damage could be so 
great, as it is now found to be, since unusual 
quantities of flints and other stones have been 
repeatedly gathered for the use of turnpike 
roads. In the parish of Stevenage, in Hertford- 
shire, there is a field known by the name of 
Chalkdell-field, containing about two hundred 
acres ; the land in this field was formerly equal, 
if not superior, to most lands in that county ; 
but lying convenient for the surveyors of the 
roads, they have picked it so often, and stripped 
it of the flint and small stones to such a degree, 
that it is now inferior to lands that were former- 
ly reckoned not much above half its value, acre 
Vol. 2-30 



for acre. Nor is it Chalkdell-field alone that 
has materially suffered in that county by the 
above mentioned practice; several thousand 
acres bordering on the turnpike roads from Well- 
wyn to Baldoch have been so much impover- 
ished, that the loss to the inheritance forever 
must be computed at a great many thousand 
pounds. What puts it beyond a doubt that the 
prodigious impoverishment of the land is owing 
to no other cause but picking and carrying 
away the stones, is, that those lands have gen- 
erally been most impoverished which have been 
most often picked ; nay, I know a field, part of 
which was picked, and the other part ploughed 
up before they had time to pick it, where the 
part that was picked lost seven or eight parts in 
ten of two succeeding crops; and though the 
whole field was manured and managed in all 
respects alike, yet the improvement was visible 
where the stones had been picked off, and ex- 
tended not an inch farther ; an incontestable proof 
of the benefit of the stones." 



For the Southern Planter. 
BRIERS. 

Messrs. Editors, — In looking over your Au- 
gust number I find a request from Mr. William 
Massie for information as to the best mode of 
getting rid of briers. 1 presume he alludes to 
those briers which run upon the ground, com- 
monly known by the name of dewberry. The 
blackberry brier grows up with a perpendicular 
stem, and is easily eradicated ; but the brier in 
question, is surprisingly difficult to remove. — 
This arises from the depth of its roots and their 
various branches, which run and spread over the 
land at the distance of six or eight feet, and 
from the multiplicity of joints in those spreading 
branches, which put out roots and enter the 
earth, and ultimately, if undisturbed, form a 
complete mat over the ground. Some of my 
fields were formed}'' much infested with this pest, 
which has been happily nearly removed. The 
best mode to get rid of them that I have disco- 
vered, is to have them cut up (or at least the 
tops cut off below the surface) several days before 
ploughing for corn or other grain, and suffer them 
to wilt or dry before following with the plough ; 
else every branch will produce a new growth 
from each joint, thereby increasing the crop of 
briers, probably, tenfold: especially after the spring 
ploughing for corn, when the earth is cool and 
moist, will the branches multiply. If the land 
is planted in corn, in the month of June, just 
before harvest, turn in all hands with grubbing 
hoes, and take up by the roots, the remaining 
briers, which may have escaped the implements 
of cultivation, and then again in the month of 
August, use the same process. 

Uprooting on the wane of the moon in Au- 
gust, the Dutch say will prove most destructive. 



234 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Remember to cut them up several days before 
ploughing, so that the tops are lifeless before 
being turned in. The strict observance of this 
process will effectually eradicate this great an- 
noyance of the farmer. 

S. Davis. 

Brucetoivn, Frederick. Va. 



GRANARY. 

On a late visit to a branch of the Cooper fa- 
mily, New Jersey, I observed that the granary, 
or place for stowing away grain of different de- 
scriptions, was fitted up with bins in the shape 
of very large and strong iron-bound casks of the 
usual shape ; and in these the wheat, &c. was 
preserved for any period, no matter how long, 
without fear of weevil, grain-worm, or any other 
species of vermin, or damp and mouldiness ; the 
grain being introduced by means of a funnel 
through the bung-hole, which, when the cask is 
full, is very carefully closed and made air-tight ; 
the casks also being kept in repair and perfectly 
air-tight, the hoops being driven occasionally to 
cause them to become so. Now by this very 
simple arrangement, the whole crop of grain on 
a farm may be preserved for years, as perfectly 
free from dampness or disease of any kind, as 
though it had been kiln-dried ; the convenience 
of stowage being as great as in open bins ; the 
casks standing on low tressels or sleepers, ad- 
mitting a bushel measure under, they can be 
rolled on to the bung; or the grain might be 
drawn off by a large tap made for the purpose. 

And this mode of packing would be efficient 
in the preservation of many other articles, which, 
if too bulky for admission through the bung- 
hole, could be performed by removing one of the 
heads and replacing it when the cask was full, 
seeing that the hoops were driven so as to insure 
perfect closeness. Thus might fruit-trees, flow- 
ers, and fruit itself, be preserved during long 
voyages, and we could be supplied with the 
choicest specimens of either, from the most dis- 
tant parts of the globe. — Farmers' Cabinet. 



SICK HEADACHE. 

Two teaspoonfuls of finely powdered char- 
coal, drank in a half tumbler of water, will in 
less than fifteen minutes give relief to the sick 
headache, when caused as in most cases it is, 
by superabundance of acid on the stomach. 



For the Southern Planter. 

HARVEST DRINK. 

Messrs. Editors, — In former times, my hus- 
band (John Dumpling) and all 6ur neighbors, 
used to think there was no getting through har- 



vest without drinking whiskey. Three black 
bottles a day, he and his hands used to drink ; 
four or five cutters there were, and as many ty- 
ers. They drank an amazing quantity of wa- 
ter, too : it kept a stout lad of fifteen, constantly 
agoing, with a pail on his head. 'Twas the 
water that alwaj's hurt them, when \hey were 
hurt. They would often have a cramp in the 
stomach, and drop down in the hot sun, as if 
dead, after drinking so much : and then, the 
whiskey always recovered them. The whiskey 
never made them fall : no, no, it gave them new 
strength and briskness. To be sure, other bad 
accidents did sometimes happen. Cradles and 
blades got broken. Ugly cut the mowers would 
give, in pushing to take the row from one an- 
other. Quarrels arose of evenings; and now 
and then, the folks fitt. A mighty heap of 
wheat was left uncut, or lying helter-skelter 
about the field. And when harvest was over, 
the cradlers were so broken down, that it was 
almost a week before they could well do any 
other work. 

The change now is a wonder to every body. 
For three years, John's hands or himself have 
had no whiskey, at any kind of work. Well, 
you would laugh to see how different harvest 
is, from what it used to be. The folks don't 
drink a fourth part of the water: a small one of 
the drap-shot gang brings a plenty for them, be- 
sides shocking after two good tyers. No bad 
accidents seem to happen. Nobody has cramp 
in the stomach, or falls down with the heat, as 
if dead. No broken cradles, or blades — no ugly 
cuts — no quarrels, or fights. Then, after har- 
vest, the people are all as fresh, and ready for 
other work, as if they had only been planting 
peas, or pulling fodder. And the wheat is so 
much closer cut, and cleaner got up, that my 
old man says the crop turns him out a'most a 
fourth more than it used to. Capting Jones and 
Major Crane, and at least a dozen besides in our 
neighborhood, all do like John, and say the same. 
The Capting and he said the other day, that 
two hundred farmers in Albemarle went through 
last harvest without any intoxicating drink. 
What they gave their hands was buttermilk, or 
molasses and water with a touch of vinegar, or 
plain water. 

A happy change it is, Messrs. Editor, forme. 
I am a happy wife now. John never comes 
home from court cross and staggering. He does 
not go security for an} T body unless it is perfect- 
ly safe ; never games, or fights, or falls off of 
his horse. The children run to meet him, not 
at all afraid. And I have not dreamt that I 
was sleeping with a whiskey barrel these two 
years. We are all cleverly dressed ; the win- 
dows are glazed, the door hung on good hinges ; 
the fences and farm all in neat order ; very, very 
different from old times. And the little Dump- 
lings ! It would do your heart good now to see 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



235 



them. For rosy checks and healthy, full shaped 
limbs, they are a match for any body's children. 
I do wish, gentlemen, you would tell all the 
farmers and planters who read your paper, that 
the main point in farming is to take the pledge, 
like my husband and neighbors. At least, any 
person would say so, judging by the alteration 
in their houses and lands, and wives and chil- 
dren, since they took the pledge. 
Your friend, 

Dorothy Dumpling. 



P. S. — John says, that he, Capting J. and 
five or six others at meeting t'other day, under 
the big oak before sermon, all agreed that their 
negroes don't now drink half so much whiskey 
of their own getting, as they used to — don't go 
the groceries a fourth as often, and don't do a 
tenth of the stealing. For (says the Capting) 
nine-tenths of negro roguery is for the sake of 
whiskey. By not having it at any of their 
work, they have lost the relish for it. D. D, 

Albemarle County. 



GALVANIC PLANT PROTECTOR 




The above is a very ingenious and philosophi- 
cal apparatus for the protection of plants from 
insects. We imagine, however, that it is likely 
to prove more interesting in description, than 
useful or economical in practice. 

"Editors of the Cultivator, — The London Me- 
chanic's Magazine contains an ingenious appli- 
cation of galvanism, for the purpose of prevent- 
ing the attacks of molluscfe on dahlias, and 
other delicate plants. I send you the above 
drawing of it, in hopes that it may prove useful 
to that portion of your readers who are florists, 
and that some similar arrangement may be de- 



vised for preventing the ascent ot worms and 
insects on our fruit trees. The original inventor 
of this apparatus has tested its utility during 
twelve months, and not a plant thus protected 
was injured ; while those which were unpro- 
tected, suffered severely. The Protector is a 
conical ring of zinc, four inches deep, adjusted 
to the interior of the flower pot, the top end of 
which, a, 6, is flanged off about half an inch, 
and cut into vandyked points ; immediately un- 
der the flange, and on the outside of the ring of 
zinc, a ring of copper, E, F, is neatly fitted. 

" In order to use the Protector, press the in- 
ferior edge of the zinc ring, c, d, into the earth, 
until the inferior edge of the copper ring, x, y i is 



T 



236 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



about one and a half inches above the surface 
of the soil. The molluscee may crawl up the 
zink with impunity; but on coming in contact 
with the copper, they receive a shock which 
causes them to fall back to the ground. If the 
larger of this tribe attempt to stretch across and 
above the copper belt, avoiding contact, they 
would be incapable of holding by the points. 
The Protector acts in wet or dry weather, and 
is always in action. There is nothing said in 
the memoir, respecting the influence of the in- 
strument on the growth of the plants under its 
protection, but my impression is that the con- 
stant electric action must stimulate the growth 
of the plant, and increase the size and beauty 
of its flowers. 

N. N. D." 



RAISING CHICKENS. 

It has been remarked that a hen with one 
chicken will scratch as many hours in a day as 
a hen with a dozen. If you would raise a large 
brood let three hens have their eggs to sit on, 
all commencing at one time. After hatching, 
put one of the hens in a coop in the garden, and 
in the evening take all the chickens from the 
other two and put them under the first. She 
will take charge of all, and leave the other hens 
at liberty to lay more eggs. 



TO PREVENT THE ROTTING OF POSTS 
IN THE GROUND. 

Place ashes or lime on the surface of the 
earth around the posts. This will render them 
twice as durable, and will prove a great saving 
where the fence is costly. Lime mortar has 
been recommended to encase all that part of the 
post which is under the surface; but this is not 
necessary, since the bottom of the post will often 
last as long as the top. 



GERMINATING SEEDS UNDER COLORED 
GLASS. 

The following remarks by Mr. Hunt, the Se- 
cretary of the Royal Polytechnic Society, in 
England, relate to a most curious discovery — 
and one which may prove very useful to the 
cultivators of rare exotics. We hope some of 
our readers will be stimulated to repeat the ex- 
periments, and to send us the results. 

" It is scarcely necessary to explain that every 
beam of light proceeding from its solar source, 
is a bundle of different colored rays, to the ab- 
sorption or reflection of which we owe all that 
infinite diversity of color which is one of the 
greatest charms of creation. These rays have 
been long known to possess different functions. 

11 The light which permeates colored glass, 
partakes to some considerable extent of the cha- 



racter of the ray which corresponds with the 
glass in color ; thus blue glass admits the blue 
or chemical rays, to the exclusion, or nearly so, 
of all the others ; } 7 ellow glass admits only the 
permeation of the luminous rays ; while red glass 
cuts off all but the heating rays, which pass it 
freely. This affords us a very easy method of 
growing plants under the influence of any par- 
ticular light which may be desired. 

"The fact to which I would particularly call 
attention is, that the yellow and red rays are de- 
structive to germination, whereas under the infiu- 
ence of violet, indigo, or blue light, the process is 
quickened in a most extraordinary manner. 

" The plants will grow most luxuriantly be- 
neath glass of a blue character ; but beneath 
the yellow and red glasses the natural process 
is entirely checked. Indeed, it will be found 
that at any period during the earfy life of a 
plant, its growth may be checked by exposing 
it to the action of red or yellow light. 

"It is with much satisfaction that I find the 
results to which I have arrived, corroborated by 
Dr. F. R. Horner, of Hull." 

Blue glass for hot-beds could be very conve- 
niently employed. — Neiv Genesee Farmer. 



VELVET CARPET. 

Most people have seen a beautiful article of 
paper hangings, usually termed "velvet paper," 
the figures on which resemble fine cassimere of 
brilliant colors. The velvet carpet is made on 
a similar principle. The base is of cheap and 
strong cotton sheeting. The figures are formed 
of old woollen cloths of various colors ground 
up fine, and secured to the base by a strong co- 
pal cement. The rich and elegant figures are 
rapidly formed by a peculiar process and opera- 
tion of machinery. This carpet is calculated to 
be very durable, and will come into market 
cheaper than any other kind, for handsome floors. 
American JSIechatiic. 



SURPRISING PROPERTY OF OIL. 



The action of oil, in stopping the violent ebul- 
lition of various substances, is truly surprising. 
It is well known, that if a mixture of sugar and 
honey, or the like, be boiling upon a fire, and 
boiling over the vessel, the pouring in of a little 
oil, makes it immediately subside. In many 
cases, the marking of a circle round the inside 
of a vessel, in which liquor of this kind is to be 
boiled, with a piece of hard soap, will, like a 
magic ring, confine the ebullition to that height, 
and not suffer it to stir any further. 

This is wholly owing to the oil, or fat, con- 
tained in the soap; but there is, besides these, 
another very important use of oil, on a like oc- 
casion, which is, the pouring of a little of it on 
any metalic solution while making. This re- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



237 



strains the ascent of the noxious vapors, pre- 
serves the operator from danger, and at the same 
time, by keeping down the evaporating matter, 
gives redoubled strength to the menstruum. — 
Pliny has mentioned an extraordinary effect of 
oil, in stilling the surface of water, when it is 
agitated with waves, and the use made of it by 
the divers, for this purpose. 



HOW TO COOK CUCUMBERS. 

We have seen a recipe to cook cucumbers, 
somewhat after this fashion : 

Take the cucumbers and after cutting off the 
rind, cut them into slices, then cut up a few 
onions with them, pepper and salt them to your 
liking, and add vinegar to them — and then, — 
open your window and throw them away. 

This is the usual way of preparing them for 
the table, and doubtless, the recipe is so worded 
as to impress the idea of their unhealthiness, and 
we must confess, that we are among those who 
have so esteemed them. But if cooked as below 
stated, we conceive them not only to be whole- 
some, but among the most palatable vegetable 
dishes with which the table can be garnished. 
Our method is this: 

Pare off the rind, then cut the cucumber into 
slices lengthwise, dust either side of those slices 
with corn meal or wheat flour, pepper and salt 
them to please your taste ; this done, fry them 
brown, and you will have one of the most deli- 
cious dishes that you can imagine, combining 
in their flavor those of the oyster plant and egg 
plant. Of their healthfulness, thus cooked, there 
can be no question, and of their palatableness, 
it is only necessary that you try them, to say 
with us that they are exquisite. — Am. Farmer. 



HOGS. 
The following article, from Bell's Life in Lon- 
don, pointing out as it does a new use for that 
valuable, and now fashionable, animal, the hog, 
may furnish a valuable hint to the breeders of 
the different varieties, whereby their manifold 
qualities may be much enhanced ; and the stock, 
that next arrive at a thousand w r eight on a gal- 
lon of corn, may, possibly, excel their competi- 
tors in the more sportsmanlike quality of pointing. 

"A Pointer Sow. — A correspondent, under 
the signature of ( Norwich,' asks in your paper 
of the 6th instant — ' Was there ever a sow in 
this country that would find and point at game, 
and was shot to as a regular pointer V Allow 
me to state that there is a notice of one having 
been taught to perform the service of a pointer, 
and find game. A gamekeeper of Sir Henry 
Mildmay broke a black sow to find game, back, 
and stand to her point nearly as steadily as a 



well-bred dog. The sow was a thin, long-legged 
animal of the New Forest breed. When young, 
it manifested a great partiality for some pointer 
puppies, and it occurred to the gamekeeper that 
as he had often succeeded with obstinate dogs, 
he might attempt to break a pig. He enticed 
her to follow him by bits of barley-meal pudding, 
which he carried in one of his pockets, while 
the other was filled with stones, which he threw 
at his pupil when she misbehaved, as she would 
not allow herself to be caught and corrected like 
a dog. Under this system she proved tolerably 
tractable. When she came on the cold scent 
of game she slackened her trot, and gradually 
dropped her ears and tail till she was certain, 
and then fell down on her knees. As soon as 
the game rose she returned, grunting for her re- 
ward of pudding. When the gamekeeper died, 
his widow sent the pig to Sir H. Mildmay, who 
kept it for three years, and often amused his 
friends by hiding a fowl among the fern in some 
part of the park, and bringing out the pig, which 
never failed to point at it in the manner de- 
scribed. Some time after, a great number of 
lambs were lost, nearly as soon as they were 
dropped, and a person being sent to watch the 
flock, detected the sow in the act of devouring 
a lamb. This carnivorous propensity was as- 
cribed to her having been accustomed to feed 
with the dogs on flesh ; but it obliterated the 
memory of her singular sagacity, and she was 
killed for the benefit of the widow of the game- 
keeper who trained her. 



GRAFTING A WHOLE TREE. 

A neighbor of Van Mons, the celebrated Bel- 
gium horticulturist, having a good apple tree of 
some ten feet in height which he was obliged to 
cut down, Van Mons determined to make an 
effort to preserve it entire, by grafting it on one 
of his own, but of inferior fruit. A tree of the 
same size was selected, which was cut square 
off a little distance above the ground, the sur- 
face of both made smooth, and the graft or ra- 
ther tree placed in its new position by the opera- 
tion of pin grafting. Grafting clay was placed 
around the junction, earth heaped over the spot, 
and the tree strongly secured by stakes. A 
union between the parts was soon effected, and 
the second year the tree fruited as well as for- 
merly. 



TO CURE SHEEP-SKINS W^ITH THE WOOL 
ON, 

Take a spoonful of alum and two of saltpe- 
tre ; pulverise and mix well together, then sprin- 
kle the powder on the flesh side of the skin, and 
lay the two flesh sides together — leaving the 
wool outside. Then fold up the whole skin as 
tight as you can and hang in a dry place : in 



T 



238 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



two or three days as soon as dry take down, and 
scrape with a blunt knife till clean and supple. 
This completes the process, and makes you a 
most excellent saddle cover. If when you kill 
your mutton you treat the skins in this way, 
you can get more for them from the saddlers than 
3'ou can for the wool and skin separately dis- 
posed of otherwise. 

N. B. — Other skins which you desire to cure 
with the fur or hair on may be treated in the 
same way. — S. W. Farmer. 



APPLES FOR STOCK. 

Under this head, a " Practical Farmer," in the 
Boston Cultivator, says — " Last year I butch- 
ered a hog sixteen months old which weighed 
500 lbs. For some weeks before bringing him to 
the tub, he ate nothing but boiled apples." Corn 
meal cooked was offered him, but refused ; the 
pork was of the best quality, and though 
moon was not consulted in killing him, the 

"Meat ne'er shrunk a bit i' the pot." 



MISCELLANY 



At the earnest request of some of our most 
valued subscribers we have determined when- 
ever we can do so conveniently to renew our 
head of Miscellany, which we have for some 
time permitted to be crowded out by the press 
of Agricultural matter. 



PASSION. 



Horace Walpole tells the following story of a 
passionate man : 

" Gen. Sutton, brother of Sir Robert Sutton, 
was very passionate : Sir Robert Walpole the 
reverse. Sutton being one day with Sir Robert, 
while his valet de chambre was shaving him, 
Sir Robert said, 'John, you cut me' — and then 
went on with the conversation. Presently, he 
said again, 'John, you cut me' — and a third 
time — when Sutton, starting up in a rage, and 
doubling his fist at the servant, swore a great 
oath, and said, ' If Sir Robert can bear it, I can- 
not, and if you cut him again I'll knock you 
down.' " 



CROWDING THE PROFESSIONS. 

One of the ablest periodical writers of Great 
Britain, speaking of the ambition in that coun- 
try of adopting professional life of all kinds, and 
of the rush, if we may so call it, into the pro- 
fessions of "law, physic and divinity," thus points 
the mind's eye to the general consequences, or 
some of them : 

" But thousands have died of broken hearts 



the 



in these pursuits, thousands who would have 
been happy behind the plough or opulent behind 
the counter ; thousands in the desperate strug- 
gle of thankless professions look upon the sim- 
plicity of a life of manual labor with perpetual 
envy ; and thousands, by a worse fate still, are 
driven to necessities which degrade the princi- 
ples of honor within them, accustom them to 
humiliating modes of obtaining subsistence, and 
make up, by administering to the vices of so- 
ciety, the livelihood which was refused to their 
legitimate exertions." 



STAYS. 



Lady Mary Wortley Montague says : " One 
of the highest entertainments in Turkey is hav- 
ing you to their baths. When I was introduced 
to one, the lady of the house came to undress 
me — another high compliment to pay to stran- 
gers. After she had slipped off my gown, and 
saw my stays, she was much struck at the sight 
of them, and cried out to the ladies in the bath, 
1 come hither, and see how cruelly the poor Eng- 
lish ladies are used by their husbands ; you need 
not boast, indeed, of the superior liberties allowed 
you, when they lock you up thus in a box.' " 



FIGHTING ON ONE'S OWN HOOK. 

At the battle of Yorktown, whilst the aids of 
the American Chief were issuing his orders 
along the line, a man was discovered a short 
distance from it, who presented rather a grotesque 
appearance, being dressed in the coarse common 
cloth worn at the time by the lower orders in 
the back country, with an otter cap, the shape 
of which very much resembled the steeple of a 
meeting house, and a broad leather apron. His 
equipment consisted of a small woodchuck's 
skin, sewed together in the form of a bag, and 
partly filled with buck-shot, an ox-horn filled 
with powder, and an old rusty gun ; which mea- 
sured about seven feet eight inches from the 
muzzle to the end of the breech, and which had 
probably lain in the smoke ever since the land- 
ing of the pilgrims. One of the aids passing 
him in the course of his rounds, inquired of him 
to what regiment he belonged. " I belong to no 
regiment," said the fellow ; after he had fired 
his "long carbine." A few moments after, the 
officer rode by again ; but seeing the fellow very 
busy, and sweating with exertion, he once more 
inquired to what regiment he belonged. "To 
no regiment," was the answer, the speaker at 
the same time levelling his piece at a "red 
coat," who was preparing to fire, but who drop- 
ped dead before he had half raised his gun. 
" To what company do you belong ?" " To no 
company!" "To what battalion do you be- 
long ?" " To no battalion !" " Then where 
the devil do you belong, or who are you fight- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



239 



ing for T " Dang ye," said the fellow, " I don't 
belong any where, I'm fighting on my own 
hook!" 



MARRYING YOUTH AND AGE. 

Gumilla relates in the History of the River 
Oronoco, that there is a nation which marries 
old men to girls, and old women to youths, that 
age may correct the petulance of youth. For, 
they say, that to join young persons equal in 
youth and imprudence in wedlock together, is 
to join one fool with another. The marriage of 
young men with old women is, however, only a 
kind of apprenticeship, for after they have served 
for some months, they are permitted to marry 
women of their own age. 



IT NEEDS GENIUS TO DISCOVER GENIUS. 

Strange as it may seem, Robinson Crusoe 
was hawked about through the trade, as a work 
of neither mark nor likelihood, and at last ac- 
cepted as a proof of especial condescension, by 
an obscure retail bookseller. It is singular, but 
not less true — and we leave our readers to draw 
their own inference from the fact — that almost 
every book of any pretensions to originality, has 
been similarly neglected. Paradise Lost with 
difficulty found a publisher ; while the whole 
trade vied with each other in their eagerness to 
procure the works of such dull mechanical wri- 
ters as Blackmore and Glover. Gulliver's Tra- 
vels lay ten years in manuscript for want of due 
encouragement from the booksellers ; and in our 
time, and in a higher branch of literature, the 
Miseries of Human Life, and the still more in- 
genious Rejected Addresses, were refused by the 
trade with indifference, if not contempt. To 
crown the list of works thus misunderstood, Sir 
Walter Scott has left it on record, that Waverly 
was actually declined three several times by the 
acutest publisher of his day ; and at last ushered 
into the world, after it had lain twelve years un- 
noticed in its author's desk, with doubt, hesita- 
tion and indifTerence.-r- Credite Posteri. 



imposed on us in every station in life. There 
is nothing worth having that can be had with- 
out it, from the bread which the peasant wins 
witli the sweat of his brow, to the sports by 
which the rich man must get rid of his ennui. 
The only difference betwixt them is, that the 
poor man labors to get a dinner to his appetite, 
the rich man to get an appetite to his dinner. 
As for knowledge, it can no more be planted in 
the human mind, without labor, than a field of 
wheat can be produced without the previous use 
of the plough. There is, indeed, this difference, 
that chance or circumstances may so cause it, 
that another shall reap what the farmer sows ; 
but no man can be deprived, whether by acci- 
dent or misfortune, of the fruits of his own stu- 
dies; and the liberal and extended acquisitions 
of knowledge which he makes are all for his 
own use. Labor, my dear boy, therefore, and 
improve the time. In youth our steps are light, 
and our minds are ductile, and knowledge is 
easily laid up. But, if we neglect our spring, 
our summers will be useless and contemptible, 
our harvest will be chaff, and the winter of old 
age unrespected and desolate." 

Again: "Read, my dear Charles, read, and 
read that which is useful. Man differs from 
birds and beasts, only because he has the means 
of availing himself of the knowledge acquired 
by his predecessors. The swallow builds the 
same nest which its father and mother built, and 
the sparrow does not improve by the experience 
of its parents. The son of the learned pig, if it 
had one, would be a mere brute, only fit to make 
bacon of. It is not so with the human race. — 
Our ancestors lodged in caves and wigwams, 
where we construct palaces for the rich and 
comfortable dwellings for the poor ; and why is 
this, but because our eye is enabled to look upon 
the past, to improve upon our ancestors' im- 
provements, and to avoid their errors? This 
can only be done by studying history, and com- 
paring it with passing events." 



WHY WOMAN WAS TAKEN FROM THE 
RIBS. 

Mathew Henry says : " Woman was made 
of a rib out of the side of Adam ; not made out 
of his head, to top him — not out of his feet, to 
be trampled upon by him — but out of his side, 
to be equal with him ; under his arm, to be pro- 
tected ; and near to his heart, to be beloved." 



WALTER SCOTT'S ADVICE TO HIS SON 
CHARLES. 

"I cannot too strongly impress upon your 
mind, that labor is the condition which God has 



JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 

A member of Congress made a three days 3 
speech. In the course of it, discovering symp- 
toms of impatience in the House, he remarked 
that " he spoke not for that House nor for that 
generation — he spoke for posterity." Mr. Ran- 
dolph interposed, "you will speak to them, sir, if 
you speak much longer." 



WOMEN. 



Francis I. of France, was the first monarch 
who introduced ladies at his court. He said, in 
a style of true gallantry, that a drawing-room 
without ladies was like the year without the 
spring ; or rather like the spring without flowers. 
At no time of life should a man give up the 



240 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



thought of enjoying the society of women. " In 
youth," says Lord Bacon, " women are our mis- 
tresses, at a riper age our companions, in old 
age our nurses, and in all ages our friends." 

Fontenelle bei.ng one day asked by a lord in 
waiting, at Versailles, what difference there was 
between a clock and a woman, instantly replied, 
"A clock serves to point out the hours, and a 
woman to make us forget them." 



MUNCHAUSEN. 

Many doubts have been expressed whether 
such a person ever existed : the following brief 
sketch, by Mr. Lieber, a learned German, sets the 
matter at rest ; Jerome Charles Frederic Von 
Munchausen, the original of the well known 
narrator of wonders, was a German officer who 
served several campaigns against the Turks, in 
the Russian service. He was a passionate lover 
of horses and hounds ; of which, and of his ad- 
ventures among the Turks, he told the most ex- 
travagant stories ; and his fancy, finally, so com- 
pletely got. the better of his memory, that he 
really believed his most improbable and impos- 
sible fictions, and was very much offended if any 
doubt was expressed on the subject. In relating 
these monstrous lies, his eyes would shine and 
stare out of his head, his face became flushed, 
the sweat rolled down from his forehead, and he 
used the most violent gestures, as if he were 
really cutting off the heads of the Turks, or 
fighting the bears and wolves that figure in his 
stories. Having become acquainted with the 
poet Burger, at Pyrmont, and being pleased 
with his society, Munchausen used to relate 
those w r aking dreams to him; and the poet af- 
terwards published them, with his own improve- 
ments, under the title of Wunderbare Abenthe- 
ner und Reisen des Herrn Von Munchausen, 
translated from the English, 1787. A part of 
them had already appeared in the third volume 
of the Delicice Academical under the title of 
Mendacio ridicula. The wit and humor of the 
work gave it great success, and it was trans- 
lated into several foreign languages. When it 
appeared in England, the British reviewers la- 
bored hard to show that it was a satire upon the 
ministry. Munchausen was very angry with 
the liberty thus taken with his name, and Bur- 
ger became involved in some difficulties in con- 
sequence. 



OBTAINING AN INTRODUCTION. 

A poor young fellow in France, who was des- 
titute of employment, fixed his eye on a small 
office, the salary of which was far from being 
considerable. It was in the patronage of a no- 
bleman, to whom the candidate had not access, 
but he was acquainted with M. de Ville, who 
pretended to have some influence with the no- 



bleman, to whom he promised to introduce him. 
This he neglected to do so long, that the purse 
and patience of the candidate were exhausted. 
In this dilemma, he resolved to do that for him- 
self, which he despaired of from the friendship 
of his acquaintance. Seeing the duke one day 
on the mall, he suddenly stepped behind him, 
and tapping him familiarly on the shoulder, ex- 
claimed, "Ah ! how do you do, my old friend V 7 
The duke turned round with astonishment, when 
the ingenious intruder assuming all the marks 
of embarrassment and confusion in his counte- 
nance, begged pardon for his mistake. " I took 
you, sir," said he, " for M. de Ville, whom I have 
been looking for all over the mall, as he is this 
day positively to introduce me to his highness 
the duke, a favor I have been expecting every 
day for nearly a month." The nobleman smiled 
at the seeming singularity of the adventure, and 
replied, " Pray, w T hat may be your business with 
his highness ? I think I possess some influence." 
The candidate then explained his views, and his 
wishes, producing testimonials of his character 
and abilities. Great men are generally fond of 
such adventures, and this one ended to the satis- 
faction of both parties; the young man obtained 
the situation, and proved himself worthy of it. 



CONTENTS OF NO. X. 



Washington's Letter — An original agricultural letter 
from Gen. Washington to his manager, p. 217. 

Premiums — Hints upon the proper mode of managing 
agricultural premiums, p. 219. 

Rust — An essay upon its natuie and causes, p. 220. 

Hoisting Machine — Description of, with cut, p. 221. 

Albemarle Hole and Corner Club, No. 1 — Experiments 
on wheat, p. 222. 

Tobacco — Curious statistics, p. 223. 

Wheel Carriages — Remarks upon the proper construc- 
tion of wheels, p. 224. 

Patent Manure — Mr. Bommer's, p. 224. 

Tobacco — Proper time of cutting and mode of curing, 
p. 226. 

Distemper — In dogs, to cure, p. 227. 

Eggs — To preserve, p. 227. 

Insects — A wash to destroy, p. 228. 

The Potato — Difficulty attending its introduction into 
Europe, p. 228. 

Grafting — May be resortGd to with advantage in yard 
trees, p. 228. 

Economy — Proper view of, p. 228. 

Smith — Its climate and soil underrated, p. 229. 

Ventilator — Espy's, description of, with a cut, p. 230. 

Food— Digestibility of different kinds, p. 230. 

Colic — To cure, p. 231. 

Blue Ink — Recipe for making, p. 231. 

Tobacco — How can the cultivation be continued in 
Virginia, p. 232. 

Sassafras — To destroy, p. 232. 

Stones — Should not be taken from land, p. 233. 

Briers— To get rid of, p. 233. 

Harvest Drink — Letter from Dorothy Dumpling, 234. 

Granary — Mode of preserving grain, p. 234. 

Sick Headache — Remedy for, p. 234. 

Galvanic Plant Protector — Apparatus for protecting 
plants from insects, with a cut, p. 235. 

Chickens — To raise, p. 236. 

Misccliciny— Variety of, p. 238.