THE SOUTHERN PLANTER; 

ScboteB to agriculture, horticulture, an* tiie ^ouscholti Bvis. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. 

Xenophon. 


Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of the 
State. — Sully: 


C. T. BOTTS, Editor. 


Vol. IV. RICHMOND, OCTOBER, 1844. No. 10. 



For the Southern Planter. 

A NEW REMEDY TO PREVENT THE DE- 
STRUCTION OF TOBACCO PLANTS BY 
THE FLY, AND MELON VINES BY THE 
BUG. 

Mr. Editor, — There was organized last win- 
ter in this neighborhood, " The Central Hole 
and Corner Club of Lunenburg County," of 
which I am a member. It is one of our rules 
at each regular monthly meeting to appoint 
committees to make observations and experi- 
ments on any subject, or subjects, which may 
be suggested by a member ; each member of 
which committee is required to report the results 
to the Club, with all the concomitant circum- 
stances as soon as they can be ascertained. — 
Last spring I was appointed on a committee 
with three others "to make experiments on the 
best mode of Raising Tobacco Plants — the 
kind of manure best suited to them — the proper 
time for its application, and the expedients to 
prevent the ravages of the fly amongst them." 
This subject has occupied rny particular atten- 
tion for several years, and I have been endeavor- 
ing especially to devise some means to prevent 
the destructive ravages of the fly. My object 
in this communication is to give you the result 
of my experiments on this branch of the sub- 
ject, as reported to the Club. 

I had this spring three plant patches on which 
I experimented, which I shall designate by the 
Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Nos. 1 and 2 were standing 
patches, on different branches, both of which 
have been burned and underlaid every year for 
several years. They are in the open field, and 
both this year surrounded by crops. The soil 
as far as I can see is the same. No. 1 was 
burned and sowed about Christmas, and No. 2 
on the 16th of February. About half of each 
was underlaid at the time of burning and sow- 
ing. No. 3 was a high land patch, also in the 
field surrounded by crops. It was in plants for 
the first time last year, and was re-burned and 
sowed on the 19th of February last; it was 
never underlaid. When the plants got about 
3quare, the flies made their appearance, and the 
weather being dry, they in a few days made 
sad havoc among them. I had a bushel or two 
of dry ashes put into a large tub and added 
train oil enough (say one gallon of oil to the 
bushel of ashes) to dampen and flavor the ashes 
Vol. IV.— 28 



completely ; this was well stirred and mixed 
with the hand, and sowed broadcast over Nos. 
2 and 3. The fly disappeared from them, but 
went on and destroyed No. 1 almost totally. This 
experiment I tried last year with about the same 
results. All this, however, may be mere coinci- 
dence. The fly may have been in both eases 
about to leave the patches at the time I applied 
the remedy. I, however, feel encouraged to try 
it again and all I desire at present is, to call the 
attention of planters to the subject and ask them 
to try the experiment for themselves, and report 
the result. It is a cheap experiment and re- 
quires no labor or skill in its application, and if 
it proves on farther trial to be successful, it will 
be of incalculable value to our State. Our finest 
plant land has been cut down by our ancestors, 
and we are compelled to go into the open fields 
for our plant beds, where we always suffer more 
from the fly than we do in the forest. Nothing 
is mote important in the whole culture of to- 
bacco than good plants in good time, and if we 
can devise means to protect them from the fly, 
we must inevitably succeed. From what I can 
learn at least one-sixth of the present crop has 
failed to be planted on account of the fly, and 
another sixth planted late and with indifferent 
plants. 

Before leaving the subject I would advise, if 
the fly does not leave on one application of the 
remedy, to repeat it two or three time, though I 
have not found it necessary. 

This same mixture (ashes and oil) has been 
tried at my suggestion by a friend of mine on 
cymlins and cucumber vines at the rate of one 
quart to the hill, spread close around the plants, 
with, I am informed, entire success. It com- 
pletely prevented the depredations of the bug. 
This, too, is worthy of a farther trial. My at- 
tention was directed to this mixture by the 
known abhorrence which all the insect tribe 
have for train oil. Experience has long proved 
to me, that it is the very best remedy for lice on 
hogs, cattle or colts, we have, and reasoning from 
analogy, I was induced to try it on plants. 

I will here mention that the Cuba and Trina- 
dad tobacco seed you were kind enough to send 
me in the spring of 1843, 1 sowed carefully, but 
they did not vegetate. They were either too 
old or were damaged. I should be glad of a 
like favor should it ever be convenient. 

While I have pen in hand, I will beg leave, 



218 



TEIE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Mr. Editor, to say a few words on another sub- 
ject. I sincerely wish you could by some means 
or other induce your correspondents to write 
over their own names. It would make the 
Planter still more interesting. I have no doubt 
if all were required to do so, most would get 
over their false modesty, and at all events we 
should have more reliable suggestions and fewer 
vagaries. For one, I never adopt or regard the 
suggestions of an anonymous writer. I take it 
for granted that if he is certain he is telling the 
truth he will not be ashamed to sign his deposi- 
tion. I really think if a man advises others to 
make important changes in their management 
and cultivation, and induces them to do so, by 
recording extraordinary success, he is morally 
bound to hold himself responsible — responsible 
to the agricultural public. If he draws upon 
his fa,ncy for his facts, which is too often the 
case, we should know his name, and we then 
should be prepared to place a proper estimate 
on his facts when he appears subsequently. — 
Men will promulgate opinions and slate the re- 
sults of experiments under cover of an incog, 
which they would not venture to do over their 
own names, and it is this inaccuracy and reck- 
lessness of anonymous writers, which so im- 
pair the value of our public journals — we are 
so often deceived, that we lose confidence in all 
the statements and recommendations which we 
see, and believe nothing but what we have tried 
ourselves and so our sources of improvement, 
become narrowed down to our own personal ex- 
perience. I believe that anonymous communi- 
cations did more to break down the Farmers' Re- 
gister than any other one cause. Its sheets 
were constant^/ filled with the long, visionary, 
speculations and absurd theories of these writers, 
which were attempted to be sustained by fanci- 
ful facts, until the paper became almost a pro- 
verb, and few had the temerity to appeal to its 
columns as authority in support of their views. 
It is this which has brought " book farming" into 
such deserved disrepute. Men whose manage- 
ment is so notoriously bad, as not to be listened 
to by their neighbors, ought not to be allowed 
to palm their advice off upon the public over 
anonymous signatures, merely to insure a hear- 
ing. This is too often done. And if, Mr. Editor, 
we want short, practical, reliable, communica- 
tions, and an interesting, valuable agricultural 
journal, let us go for the honest impress of the 
planters first. 

Wishing you success in all your enterprises, 
I remain yours. &c. 

N. A. Venable. 

Our own estimate of anonymous correspond- 
ents coincides exactly with that of Mr. Venable. 
A speculation or theory may be as good over a 
false as a real name, but it is not speculation 



that we want — our object is to obtain the result 
of well conducted experiments, and three fourths 
of the communications made to us, depend for 
their value upon the veracity of the narrator. 
Of what worth is the evidence of an unknown 
witness whose name is not heard and whose 
face is not seen 1 We know that it is a kind of 
delicacy, we think a very false one, that induces 
some of our best correspondents to withhold 
their names from their communications. But a 
consideration of the injurious effect upon the 
interest and usefulness of their essays, should 
serve to overcome any such feeling. For our 
own part, we would recommend our readers to 
pay very little regard to anonymous communi- 
cations, unless the obvious justice of the rea- 
soning they contain, is sufficient to recommend 
them. We always postpone an anonymous 
communication, even of superior merit, to one 
with the real name attached. 



From the American Agriculturist. 
RAISING TURKEYS. 

Heretofore I have had so much difficulty in 
raising turkeys as to be almost discouraged, but 
of late have been very successful, in consequence 
of pursuing the following mode recommended 
to me by a lady, who said that she had no trou- 
ble with them: 

When first hatched give no feed for twenty- 
four hours, then give a little curd made from 
buttermilk, increasing the quantity as they grow 
older, at the same time feeding the hen with 
whole corn. They should be secured from the 
wet, and by no means have Indian meal; but 
with the curd they may have in moderate quan- 
tities, wheat bread soaked in buttermilk, or 
crumbs of the same. I believe Indian meal is 
fatal to the greater part of the young turkeys 
which die in the attempt to raise them. To al- 
low them to wander too much is attended usu- 
ally with considerable loss. I have found it a 
very good plan to make an enclosure of boards 
six feet square or so, and twelve to eighteen 
inches high, and set this in a grass field during 
fine weather, in which to confine the young tur- 
keys. This is removed occasionally from place 
to place, the chickens thus get all the fresh 
green food they may need, besides an abundance 
of insects. 

Chales Starr, Jr. 

Mendham, JV. J., July, 1844. 



ELECTRICITY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 
It has been long known that electricity pos- 
sessed the power of promoting the growth of 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



219 



plants in a very astonishing degree, but we find 
in the New York Farmer and Mechanic a com- 
munication from Mr. William Ross, in which 
he gives an account of the most practical appli- 
cation we have ever seen. The following is his 
statement: 

" I had potatoes planted on the 6th of May, 
and as a first experiment with Mr. Bain's dis- 
covery, I procured a sheet of sheathing copper, 
which is about five feet long and fourteen inches 
wide," and cut a piece of sheet zinc the same 
size as the sheet of copper. 



w 



Surface of ground. 



1 00 feet. 



c, in the above diagram, represents the sheet of 
copper buried in the ground at one end of the 
rows, and z the sheet of zinc buried at the other 
end of the rows, and 10 is a copper wire which 
is attached to both the copper and zinc. The 
result of this arrangement is, that the two me- 
tals form a galvanic batteiy, being in metallic 
connexion by means of the wire 10, and the 
moisture of the soil completing the galvanic cir- 
cuit, which last is necessary before any chemical 
action takes place. The potatoes were planted 
in drills, but as the copper was only five feet 
long, only three rows could be influenced by it. 
The potatoes were only once hoed, and from 
circumstances never earthed up. On the 15th 
of June some potatoes were taken by the fingers 
from these rows, varying from one inch to one 
and a quarter in diameter; and those exhibited 
at the New York Farmers' Club, July 2d, were 
about two and a half inches in diameter, and 
were dug from the same three rows. Some of 
the adjoining rows were tried, but few of them 
had potatoes larger than marrowfat peas — cer- 
tainly none larger than a boy's marble." 

From a subsequent communication of Mr. 
Ross we make the following extracts: 

"For experiment, the writer would suggest 
that at one end of several rows, in a tolerabhy 
long field, a plate or sheet of common thin 
sheathing copper be placed on its edge, just so 
deep as that the upper edge may be within one 
or two inches of the surface of the ground — and 
at the other end of the same rows, a sheet of 
zinc of the same size, placed in a similar man- 
ner. Connect, them together by a copper wire, 
the shorter the better, and take care that the 
wire and sheets are in perfect contact when the 
battery is complete. As soon as the copper and 



zinc are moistened by the damp soil, action will 
commence by the decomposition of the moisture 
in the soil — the oxygen combining with the 
zinc, and the hydrogen travelling through the 
soil to the copper surface, where, unless taken 
up by the plants, it escapes into the air. Part 
of the alkaline water in the soil dissolves the 
oxide formed on the zinc plate, and the action 
continues till the zinc is all dissolved. Neither 
the copper sheet or wire is acted upon by the 
oxygen — consequently they do not waste, and 
the whole expense will be every year oi two for 
a new sheet of zinc to replace the one worn out. 
The wire will not require to be insulated, and 
may lay on the surface of the ground, or be at- 
tached to a fence. 

" Whatever metals are adopted for forming 
the batteiy, it is essential, or in fact indispensa- 
ble, that they be in metallic contact — otherwise, 
the electricity will not be set in motion. The 
usual method of doing this is by connecting 
them with a wire or strip of metal, for which 
use copper is b}' far the best, owing to its excel- 
lence as a conductor, in addition to its great 
flexibility. It is not enough that a hole be made 
in the plates, and the wire passed through them, 
but the parts of the wire, as well as the plates 
which come in contact, must be cleaned by 
scouring or otherwise, so that all rust be removed 
from them to the clear metal. The wires may 
then be soldered to the plates, or passed through 
holes, and firmly twisted together, so as to press 
the plates with some force : the parts so in close 
contact will remain clear as long as the battery 
is in action. 

"Mr. Bain has found that when the plates 
are near together, their action is much more 
feeble than when they are far apart. This to 
the farmer is of great advantage in every way, 
both in labor of putting it down, and in the eco- 
nomy of materials." 



SALTPETRE ON SEEDS AND PLASTER ON 
FLOWERS. 

Hart Mussy, Esq., of this village, took a 
small portion of the corn with which he planted 
a field, and soaked it in a solution of salts of 
nitre, commonly called saltpetre, and planted five 
rows with the seed thus prepared. Now for the 
result : The five rows planted with corn prepared 
with saltpetre, yielded more than twenty-five 
rows planted without any preparation. The 
five rows were untouched by the worms, while 
the remainder of the field suffered severely by 
their depredations. W 7 e should judge that not 
one grain saturated with saltpetre was touched, 
while almost every hill in the adjoining row suf- 
fered severely. No one who will examine the 
field can doubt the efficacy of the preparation. 
He will be astonished at the striking difference 



220 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



between the five rows and the remainder of the 
field. 

Mr. M. also stated the result of another expe- 
riment. Fie has a fine, thrifty, healthy apple 
tree, about twenty-five or thirty years old ; but 
it has never, in any one year, produced over 
about two bushels of apples. While in blossom 
last spring, he ascended the tree and sprinkled 
plaster freely on the blossoms, and the result is 
that it will this year yield twenty bushels of 
apples. — Concordia Intelligencer. 

For three years we have published from time 
to time experiments and statements showing the 
value of the saltpetre soak for corn and other 
seeds, and yet probably not one-tenth of our 
readers use this or any other soak. For several 
years we have soaked all our corn with the most 
gratifying results. None of it has ever been 
touched by the grub, against which we, there- 
fore, regard the saltpetre as a perfect protection, 
and it grows with a rapidity that shames the 
sluggishness of grass and weeds. We planted 
some corn this year, on the 6th of May, soaked 
as usual, and in just twenty-eight days it stood 
twenty-two inches high — ground rich but not 
manured this 3 7 ear. A pound of saltpetre in 
enough water to cover a bushel of corn is about 
the proportion. — Louisville Journal. 



CHERRY BOUNCE. 
The best we ever saw was made as follows: 
A demijohn was filled with ripe morello cherries, 
and the very best apple brandy was poured on 
them until it ran over. After standing long 
enough to extract the flavor of the cherries, it 
may be drawn off as it is wanted, and sweetened 
to the taste. In this way, without the admix- 
ture of sugar, the brandy and cherries will keep 
and improve for an indefinite period ; in a tem- 
perance neighborhood at least, but not in the 
region in which we obtained this recipe. 



WEEDS. 



Now is an excellent time to destroy weeds, 
as the rankest and most pernicious of them are 
in flower, and you thus prevent their seeding 
your own and neighbors' land. If cut down 
close to the ground in full bloom, some kinds 
will be totally destroyed ; others will not rise 
again that year, or if they do, so feebly as to do 
little injury, and there is no danger of scarce 
any running to seed. The most effectual means 
which we have found to destroy the hardier 
weeds, such as mulleins, thistles, burdocks, &c, 
is to place half a table- spoonful of salt upon 
each stem immediately after being cut close to 
the ground. If there be a great number, after 
mowing them, scatter salt plentifully upon the 



land, pasture, sheep there, and they will most 
invariably be destroyed in a season or two. The 
salt acts beneficially with the sheep-dung in en- 
riching the land. To increase the feed, plaster 
maybe sown at the rate of 1| to 2J bushels 
per acre. — American Agriculturist. 



GIVING CREDIT. 

The American Agriculturist takes us to task 
for not giving him credit for an article in our 
last number upon the use of Lime and Char- 
coal. We were not aware that it was customa- 
ry to credit an extract from a public address to 
any but the author. However we take great 
pleasure in awarding to Mr. Allen all the honor 
that he conceives to be due him for being the 
first to make the extract from Mr. Partridge's 
address. 



For the Southern Planter. 
IMPROVEMENT. 

Mr. Editor, — It having been my misfortune 
to own poor land, and to be without money to 
improve it, I was much cheered at the following 
caption of an article which appeared in the last 
number of the Southern Planter, to wit : " How 
Poor Men may Make Poor Land Rich." This 
struck me as being the desideratum at which I 
had so long aimed ; I, therefore, read the article 
with avidity, but lo ! my spirit quailed when I 
found that lime and plaster were " indispensa- 
ble." It is true your correspondent has sug- 
gested an economical way to obtain these arti- 
cles under certain circumstances ; but suppose I 
am located in a neighborhood where there are 
no oyster-shells and oyster-houses, and without 
money to buy plaster ; I am barred these bene- 
fits. Permit me, therefore, to suggest a course, 
which is better calculated to attain the end pro- 
posed by j'our correspondent, The wife and the 
necessary farming implements being obtained, 
to put his land (the poor man's) in good arable 
condition, let him plant, his corn in well pulver- 
ized earth, and go to his ash banks and piles of 
horse manure, and take therefrom a quantity 
sufficient to drop in each corn hill, one quart (a 
pint of leached ashes will suffice) so long as his 
manure lasts, and w r ork his corn without refer- 
ence to the application of manure, and my word 
for it, he will improve double the quantity of 
land and make double the quantify of corn that 
he would have done had he have applied his 
manure broadcast ; and I have little doubt but 
that the double quantity of land thus manured 
will yield more wheat ; for from my experiments 
in this way, I find the manure diffused through 
the beds to an extent that no one can conceive, 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



221 



who has not experimented in this way. The 
second crop the beds will be reversed, and the 
same course pursued, by which a more general 
diffusion of manure will take place. I am fully 
persuaded that the small quantity of manure 



recommended in this article will produce double 
the quantity of grain that a broadcast applica- 
tion of the same would, and leave the land better 
every year. A Patron. 

July 23, 1844. 



THE MARL INDICATOR. 




The following, taken from an old number of and the adjoining country, that the growth of a 
the Farmers' Register, may be new and interest- , certain plant, in running water indicates, with 
ing to many of our friends in the marl region : \ absolute certainty, the presence of marl, or beds 

of fossil shells, somewhere higher up the stream. 

It ha3 been long and generally believed among The great value of any such indication, to those 
the marling farmers of King William county 'who are searching for marl, is obvious. We 



222 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



were informed of the peculiar rule of location of 
this plant several years ago, by our friend and 
correspondent, Dr. William B. Westmore, then 
a resident of King William, and, at that time, 
requested such particular information as would 
enable us to identify the plant, and, by publish- 
ing the description, to furnish all the readers of 
the Farmers' Register, the means to avail of its 
use, in showing the before hidden presence of 
marl on their lands, or in their neighborhood. — 
Dr. Westmore caused a correct colored drawing 
to be made of the plant, by a good artist who 
happened to be at his house ; and from the 
drawing we have, had engraved the representa- 
tion which accompanies this article ; and which, 
with our own description may enable persons 
without botanical knowledge, to identify the 
plant. But to those who possess any thing of 
that knowledge, (to which we have no preten- 
sion,) a much surer means of identification is 
offered in the following report of the botanical 
character of the plant, which was furnished at 
our request by a correspondent, who is much 
better informed on the subject, and to whom the 
growing plant was exhibited. His report was 
as follows : 

" I carefully examined the plant you pointed 
out to me, when here, as indicating the presence 
of marl in the earth, or as growing only in 
streams supplied with calcareous matter. — 
Though the flowers are very small, the botani- 
cal character is obvious, and easily determined. 
The plant belongs to the second class and first 
order of the artificial system, (diandria monogy- 
nia,) and to the genus Veronica of that order. — 
Loudon describes eighty-four species of this ge- 
nus, only one of which ( Veronica Virginica, with 
a variety, Incarnaia,) is American. This plant 
does not agree with any of the numerous spe- 
cies described by Loudon, and I very much 
doubt whether it is described by any botanist. 
I would, therefore, be inclined to consider it a 
new and important species. Its botanical de- 
scription is — root fibrous, stem smooth, leaves 
opposite, amplexicaul, lanceolate, slightly ser- 
rate,flowers racemose,axillary,calix four-toothed, 
corolla light blue, entire base; lip four parted, 
capsule two-celled. Should this be (as I think 
there is every probability) an entire new species 
of Veronica, would you permit me the liberty of 
suggesting a specific name — Veronica Rvffinia'! 
If its presence is a sure indication of marl, it is 
a highly important plant, and your name is al- 
most identified with marl." 

We beg leave to decline the unmerited honor 
above proposed, as we have no claim to the dis- 
covery — and but only that of having appreciated 
the facts, as soon as they were heard of, and 
now of making them public. We should think 
the name of Westmorea more appropriate : but 
our friend Westmore also waives all claim to 
the discovery, and says, that he does not know 



who first noticed the connexion of the plant 
with marl. And if, contrary to the present sup- 
position, the plant should in fact have been long 
on the catalogues of botanists, it will not the 
less deserve to be considered, for its peculiar 
quality now just brought to light, as a new and 
important agricultural discovery. We prefer for 
its name the descriptive one of the "Marl In- 
dicator." 

But we have further evidence of this being 
in truth a new species, in the opinion of our 
friend and correspondent, Gideon B. Smith, of 
Baltimore, to whom we sent the drawing to 
have it engraved, accompanied by a statement 
of the peculiar value of the plant, and a copy 
of the foregoing botanical description. His an- 
swer says — 

" I cannot determine the botanical character 
of the plant from the drawing, but it certainly 
appears to be a Veronica. The description of 
the plant and the drawing agree perfectly, so 
far as I can follow the latter — the characters of 
the coralla, calyx and capsule not being distinct 
in the drawing. [Owing to their small size.] 
The plant is new to me ; it is not described by 
Loudon, nor, so far as I can find, by Elliott, nor 
any other botanist to whose works I have access. 

"It will be a curious and valuable discovery 
for the agricultural interest, should it prove to 
be in fact an indication of the presence of cal- 
careous matter, and I shall certainly bear it in 
mind in all my botanical rambles." 

We readily found this plant growing in se- 
veral of the rivulets flowing through different 
beds of fossil shells, or marl, on our farm. For 
the fact that it is yet to be found in none other 
than such streams, we have as yet to rely on 
the information of others; and on the certainty 
of its absence as well as its presence agreeing 
with the absence and presence of marl, obviously 
depends the value of the " indicator." 

The plant is an evergreen ; it grows only in 
shallow water. The stalk is seldom more than 
a foot high ; though we found some two and a 
half feet. It is so succulent and tender, that it 
droops and withers very quickly after being 
pulled up, and left dry ; but when immediately 
placed with the roots in a bottle of water, it 
continued to live, and to throw out successive 
flowers for several weeks. It was in flower in 
May, and had not ceased to flower in the begin- 
ning of September. The flowers are very small, 
of a pale blue, or nearly of a lilac color, and 
appear in small clusters, or strings. 

We have taken much trouble and incurred 
some expense, to enable our readers to identify 
this plant. It is hoped that many will search 
for it, and test its alleged peculiarity of location ; 
and if observation should serve to disprove that 
peculiar character, it is further hoped that such 
observation and facts will be communicated for 
publication. To correct erroneous opinions, and 



. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



223 



mistaken facts, is as useful and as necessary to 
agricultural knowledge and improvement, as to 
announce new and undoubtedly true opinions 
and facts. 

As no calcareous earth exists in the tidewater 
region of the southern States, except the fossil 
shell deposite, or marl, as commonly termed, of 
course the growth of this plant, when found 
any where in that region, will always indicate 
that form of calcareous earth only. But if it 
grows among the mountains, and in more north- 
ern as well as more elevated lands, it will proba- 
bly be found in all limestone streams. 



HOARSENESS. 

One drachm of freshly scraped horseradish 
root, to be infused with four ounces of water, in 
a close vessel, for two hours, and made into a 
syrup, with double its weight in vinegar, is an 
improved remedy for hoarseness; a tea-spoonful 
has often proved effectual ; a few tea-spoonfuls, 
it is said, have never been known to fail in re- 
moving hoarseness. 



For the Southern Planter. 
GREEN OATS FOR COLTS. 

JWr. Editor, — I noticed in the Planter for July 
a caution against turning colts in upon green 
oats, as they are considered poisonous. During 
the last spring I had the misfortune to lose a 
very fine mare with a colt fifteen days old at her 
side. I turned the colt in upon an oat lot, where 
it is now, and to all appearances doing remarka- 
bly well. 

Very respectfully, 

B. H. Brown. 

Gravel Hill, Buckingham, July 1, 1844. 



TO PROTECT HENS FROM VERMIN. 
A gentleman from Hanover requests us to 
state the fact that pennyroyal woven into their 
nests will perfectly and certainly protect hens 
from the annoyance of vermin. He generally 
makes the nest entirely of this strong scented 
herb. 



SHEEP KILLED BY BRINE. 

Some farmers keep a trough of salt in their barn 
yards, so that their cattle, horses and sheep may 
have access to it whenever they are "salt hun- 
gry." • Thi3 may be a good plan ; but the 
trough ought not to be exposed to the rains. A 
farmer in a neighboring county recently lost 
two sheep in consequence of their drinking of 
the brine made by the rain falling into a trough 
of salt kept in his yard. They had not been 
salted for a considerable time, and on corning 



into the yard drank freely of the brine, and died 
in a very few minutes. 

We never heard of sheep eating so much 
salt, when given to them dry, as to kill them ; 
but in this instance they were probably both 
thirsty and "salt hungry" at the same time, 
and hence they drank so large a quantity of the 
brine that it proved fatal to them. 

JWaine Farmer. 



The following articles are from the Foreign 
News Department of the American Agricul- 
turist : 

Substitute for Guano and Bones. — Mr. 
Dinsdale advises the collection of human urine, 
giving to it about fourteen pounds of sulphate 
of magnesia (Epsom salts) to every hundred 
gallons, and adding lime in the state of hydrate 
(that is, slaked.) Such a mixture contains all 
the elements of bones and guarif ; and although 
more than one private empiric and public com- 
pany have adopted the process, for profit, it still 
remains comparatively unknown. I calculate 
more than one hundred gallons per month are 
thrown away in every minor farm house, while 
in towns there is great waste' in this way. 

Guano a Preservative of Flowers. — 
Those who are lovers of flowers, and delight in 
having them constantly in their rooms, may 
continue to keep them fresh for a very considera- 
ble time, by putting into the water a' pinch of 
Peruvian guano, which is rendered immediately 
soluble and taken up by the cuttings. Guano 
is essentially different from all other manures : 
it possesses most of the t:onstituents of plants, 
and contains a great portion of salt and other 
antiseptic, and yet the most fertilizing ingredients. 



For the Southern Planter. 
MATTERS AND THINGS IN GENERAL. 

From a Housekeeper's, Omnium Gatherum. 

Hemp sown around a hen-yard or around a 
cabbage patch will keep off vermin. 

Hollow Horn. — A writer in the Louisville 
Journal recommends to saw off the horn. Try 
it in an extreme case. 

Removing Unpleasant Taste in Milk. — 
Dissolve a piece of saltpetre, about the size of a 
hazelnut, in warm water, and mix with a gallon 
of new milk immediately after being strained. 
Very innocent — will make milk cast cream bet- 
ter. — Cultivator. 

Manure for Vines, — The cuttings chopped 
fine and dug in. — Liebig, 347. 

Rheumatism. — Take one pint of bruised 
mustardseed; soak one night in two quarts of 
milk ; boil and strain the milk and add good old 



224 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



Madeira wine till a whey is formed ; strain and 
bottle. Drink a wine glass three times a day. 
Mrs. Parson S. is the author of the above. 

Colic in Horses. — Soap suds, freely admi- 
nistered, has effected many cures. 

Flowers, to Preserve. — Drop a little salt 
in the water in which the flowers are placed. 
Try it, young ladies. 

Joint-Felon. — Apply equal parts of soft- 
soap and slaked lime; put on a piece about the 
size of a pea, and scrape off every fifteen or 
twenty minutes. 

Frozen Limb or Burn. — A poultice of In- 
dian meal and yeast, Mr. Fessenden says is good. 

Cologne. — Oil of lavender half an ounce, 
oil of rosemary one drachm, essence of lemon 
two drachms, oil of cinnamon sixteen drops, 
bergamot two drachms ; put the whole in three 
pints of alcohol, shake well and often. 

Shaving Soap. — Take common (store) tur- 
pentine soap, scrape it fine, dissolve in just 
enough French brandy to dissolve. 

Honey, its Anti-Septic Property. — The 
best mode of conveying grafts, vine cuttings, 
&c. is in a tin case or cylinder filled with honey. 
Melons and fruits are preserved this way in 
Italy. — Farmers' Register, 520. 

Flies, to Prevent Attacks and Injuries 
to Pictures, Furniture, &c. — Let a bunch 
of leeks soak four, five or six days in a pailful 
of water, and wash your picture or any other 
piece of furniture with it. It will drive flies 
away. — Old Boston Times. 

John Smith. 



EXTRACTS. 

Agriculture feeds us, to a great extent it 
clothes us, and without it we could not have 
manufactures, and we should not have commerce ; 
these all stand together like pillars — the largest 
in the centre — and that largest is Agriculture. — 
Webster. 

Our farmers sometimes put out their money 
in some joint stock company, to convert sunshine 
into moonshine — or he buys shares in some gold 
mine. Rely upon it, our richest mine is the 
barn-yard, and that whatever temptations stocks 
or shares may offer, the best investment for a 
farmer is live stock and plough shares. — Biddle. 

Steam has given to England the equivalent 
in labor to four hundred millions of men. 

"Flowers are God's smiles," says Wilberforce; 
they are as beautiful beside the cottage as the 
palace, and may be enjoyed by all. Let every 
one study then, and work, to make whatever place 
they may be in, so attractive that the hearts of 
the absent ones shall go back to it as the dove 
did to the ark of Noah. 

o. p. a. 



CULTIVATOR ALMANAC FOR 1845. 
We observe that Mr. Tucker, of the Albany 
Cultivator, has prepared an Almanac for 1845 
similar to his 1844 edition. From the table of 
contents, and from the Almanac of the present 
year, we have no doubt that it contains much 
valuable matter. It is illustrated with thirty en- 
gravings, and sold (we suppose at the agencies 
of the Cultivator) at the low price of two dol- 
lars per hundred and fifteen dollars per thousand. 
" Booksellers or others, can have editions printed 
with their imprint, and occupy the last page with 
an adveetisement, for five dollars extra on the 
first thousand copies." 



From the New England Farmer. 
HILLING AND NOT HILLING POTATOES. 

I left two rows in the piece unbilled — that is, 
making only a very slight hill at the first hoe- 
ing, and not enlarging the hills at the two sub- 
sequent hoeings. The whole piece was hoed 
three times in the course of the season, and at 
each of these times the hills in all the rows save 
these two, were increased in size, as usual. At 
harvest, I measured the product of two rows on 
each side of the two unhilled, and the last gave 
five pecks more (and larger potatoes) than the 
mean product of the other four. By making 
large hills, I suspect we deprive the crop of an 
important share of the beneficial influences of 
sun and atmospheric moisture. 

Potatoes need a free and mellow bed to grow 
in, but this is not best secured by increasing the 
size of the hill after planting — it should be done 
before that, — at least, so that I have been led to 
think from recent observation. 



DOWNING'S WORKS. 

We are pleased to see that Mr. A . J. Down- 
ing, of Newburgh, New York, is about issuing 
a second and enlarged edition of his very va- 
luable treatise on " Landscape Gardening," as 
also of his "Cottage Residences." Messrs. Wi- 
ley & Putnam, (Mr. Downing's publishers) have 
published a work of this author on " Fruits." 
A friend has promised us a notice of these works 
as-soon as he has received them. We hail with 
an unaffected expression of pleasure, these books, 
and we hope to see them in the libraries of many 
Virginia gentlemen. The American public has 
been placed under obligations to this author for 
his contributions to the improvement of the do- 
mestic architecture and rural taste of our coun- 
try, and we verily believe that he will effect a 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



226 



great change in the opinions of his readers with 
reference to theory and practice of Landscape 
Gardening. 



Although a little too diffusive and general in 
its nature for the circumscribed limits of the 
" Planter," we make room for the following, be- 
cause we are lead to believe it is the precursor 
to other essays of equal intelligence and of a 
more practical and agricultural character : 

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CUB CREEK 
AND STAUNTON RIVER AGRICULTURAL 
CLUB. 

Gentlemen, — In compliance with your request, 
and after expressing to you my acknowledg- 
ments for presuming that 1 might suggest any 
thing worthy of your attention, I now undertake 
to offer some remarks connected either imme- 
diately or remotely with the laudable object of 
your Association. I say either immediately or 
remotely connected, for I am not inclined, nor is 
it my intention to rule myself to any very nar- 
now nor even rectilinear course of observation. 
And as time, which in its course over human 
affairs never fails to leave a trail behind it, seems 
to have trodden much more heavily on my or- 
gans of verbal articulation than on those em- 
ployed in writin<r, you will, I doubt not, readily 
acquiesce in the medium of communication 
which I adopt. Of one thing, however, gentle- 
men, I would premonish you, that the commu- 
nicative faculties of persons approaching, as I 
am, the confines of octogenarianism, seem some- 
times under the influence of the law in physics 
called the vis inertia of matter ; and in obedience 
to which all bodies continue in their existing 
condition, whether of motion or rest, until that 
condition be changed by some external force. — 
Having now propelled me into motion, you will, 
therefore, have to extend indulgence to me and 
cultivate patience in yourselves until I shall 
strike against some sufficient obstacle to further 
progress. 

Under the severe pressure of the present 
drought there can be no difficulty in the selec- 
tion of a subject for remark. The drought itself 
stands in front of every thing now presenting 
claims on our attention ; and it is a subject not 
merely of local and temporary, but of general 
and permanent, interest to the agricultural com- 
munity. 

On a retrospect of the weather for twenty or 
thirty years, nay, for more than half a century 
past, we shall find its characteristic features to 
be variableness and irregularity; and particu- 
larly that during the whole season of the culture 
and maturation of our principal crops, corn and 
tobacco, we are liable to severe and destructive 
droughts. Is it in our power to prevent or in 
Vol. \S.-Vi 



any degree to diminish the injurious effects of 
these calamitous visitations? 

To some, perhaps, this inquiry may at first 
sight appear not only futile but presumptuous. 
They may consider droughts as Providential in- 
flictions ; and in regard to which patience, peni- 
tence and humble deprecation constitute our only 
duties — that it would be even impious to endea- 
vor to prevent or diminish their destructive con- 
sequences. 

I am under no apprehension that this superfi- 
cial objection to our proposed inquiry would be 
offered by any of those to whom this communi- 
cation is more immediately addressed ; but as it 
wears a grave aspect, and as its discussion may 
present views, not universally familiar, of the 
moral and physical relations in which we stand 
to some of the objects around us, I ask indul- 
gence while I bestow on it some attention. 

Drought certainly stands on the same ground 
with every other physical evil ; they are all re- 
sults of the operation of the laws of nature, es- 
tablished by the great Author of nature ; and if 
for that reason we may not rightfully counteract 
the operation of any one of these laws, it is 
certainly our duty to acquiesce unresistingly in 
the results of all. But this principle would not 
only expose us helpless victims to every sort of 
evii, but would soon exterminate the human 
race. Cold and hunger, destitution, pain and 
disease, all resulting from the operation of the 
laws of nature, would soon sweep mankind from 
the face of the earth. We have been so often 
told to follow nature, that the precept seems to 
have acquired the dignity of a moral maxim ; 
but if taken as a rule of conduct without much 
qualification and exception, our fate would soon 
resemble that of the Indian, who, in attempting 
to cross the river a few miles above the falls of 
Niagara, instead of addressing himself vigo- 
rously to his paddle, continued to indulge his 
natural inclination in frequent intercourse with 
his only travelling companion, a bottle of whiskey, 
until becoming drowsy, the usual consequence 
of inebriation, he concluded still to follow nature 
still further by lying down and going fast asleep 
in his canoe. Neither the tremendous catastro- 
phe which immediately succeeded, nor its illus- 
trative relation to the doctrine inculcated, re- 
quires description or explanation. 

So far from being impious or presumptuous, 
it is the great duty and business of our fives to 
endeavor as far as possible to defeat the laws of 
nature, whenever they operate injuriously to 
ourselves. For exemplification, let us attend to 
some of the occupations of the husbandman. — 
Does he find it necessary in the first place to 
build a house? In procuring the materials he 
forthwith attacks and desolates the establish- 
ments of nature all around him. What is his 
ultimate object ? To protect himself from the 
excessive heat of summer and the still more in- 



226 



THE SOUTHERN PLAN T E R 



tolerable cold of winter, both of which are the 
necessary results of the laws of nature which 
regulate the annual and diurnal motions of the 
earth. In clearing land for cultivation, all he 
cuts down, grubs up and destroys, had been 
planted, nourished and watered by the hand of 
nature. While breaking and pulverizing the 
soil he is violating the law of cohesive attrac- 
tion by which all bodies are held together, and 
even the solid parts of our own prevented from 
crumbling into impalpable dust. In draining 
swamps and ponds he conducts water away 
from places whither it had been carried and 
where it was reposing in obedience to the laws 
of hydrostatics, which are merely part and par- 
cel of nature's code. This principle applies to 
all he does. In lifting the smallest thing from 
the earth he has to contend with, and even to 
overcome the great law of gravitation ; in obe- 
dience to which even the heavenly bodies bend 
down their submissive orbits. This state of con- 
flict is not confined to the human race — it per- 
vades the whole animal kingdom. Not only 
are all struggling against the laws of inanimate 
matter; but every species, not excepting man, 
while in a state of nature, is at war with every 
other species; nay, every individual with every 
other individual, even of the same species. — 
Among the inferior races of animals, both wild 
and domestic, this general hostility is quite ob- 
vious to common observation. And if it be less 
apparent in man in the social state, it is because 
the anti-social and belligerent principles of his 
nature, which had full sway before, are now 
under legal restraint. But in proof of the ex- 
istence and even prevalence of these principles 
in human nature, without referring to the his- 
tory of the race, every page of which is smeared 
with human blood, we have only to point at the 
civil and criminal codes of the most civilized 
and refined communities. 

But whence this universal antagonism, this 
battle-royal of the animal kingdom? It pro- 
ceeds from this great paramount law of animal 
life, which together with its penalty may be ex- 
pressed in two words EAT or DIE. This in- 
exorable and immutable law is inscribed by the 
Author of nature on the constitution of every 
living creature, and keeps the whole animal 
creation in motion and in perpetual quest of 
food ; each species and individual scuffling and 
fighting with its competitors for the same sort 
of food; or, as the case may be, with respect to 
appetite, strength and other physical circum- 
stances, either pursuing its fellow-animals with 
blood-thirsty eagerness, or straining every nerve 
to escape the talons or fangs of its ruthless 
pursuer. 

A remission of the intensity of this general 
conflict may occasionally take place in conse- 
quence of great physical or moral calamities, 
such as severe winters or very unfruitful sum- 



mers, the ravages of war or widely destructive 
epidemics. These dreadful visitations by cur- 
tailing the numbers of different, species of ani- 
mals generally leave, for a time, a more plentiful 
supply of food to the survivors. But the prolific 
faculties of every species is such, and especially 
under the favorable circumstances of plenty of 
food as soon to carry up the numbers again to 
the suffering and scuffling point. 

But whilst engaged in a necessary conflict 
with foreign powers we must not neglect the 
civil war which is, or ought to be, at the same 
time carried on within us, among the different 
principles of our own nature. Our passions and 
natural propensities, are ever on the watch for 
opportunities to rise in rebellion against reason, 
their rightful sovereign. In endeavoring to sup- 
press these restless insurgents we cannot do bet- 
ter than to take the experienced veteran, St. 
Paul, for our leader : I say experienced, for he 
too, found " a law in his members warring 
against the law of his conscience," and has 
given a particular description of the most suita- 
ble armor, offensive and defensive ; and more- 
over, left us the most approved system of tac- 
tics for this species of warfare that has ever 
been published. 

But I really fear that we are likely to digress 
even from our digression. To that, therefore, if 
not yet to our main subject, we return, by ob- 
serving that the apparently severe law, which 
goads into incessant activity every form and 
grade of animal life is not confined to that de- 
partment of nature; but is coextensive with all 
organization. The inhabitants of the vegetable 
kingdom must also eat or die. Theirs too, is a 
life of perpetual conflict as well with each other 
as with the natural tendencies of unorganized 
matter. Their roots are scuffling for food and 
moisture below the surface while their leaves 
and blades are contending for light and air above. 
And no inconsiderable part of the business of 
the cultivation of the soil consists in interfering 
in this contest and showing foul play, if I may 
adopt a pugilistic phrase, in favor of those arti- 
cles which he grows for his own use. They 
also counteract, control and modify according to 
their own necessities the laws of inanimate mat- 
ter. In spite of gravitation they carry their 
food from the root upwards, whilst in exercising 
the vital energy of their organs, they laugh to 
scorn all the laws of chemical affinity, combina- 
tion, and decomposition. 

The preceding representation of organized na- 
ture may to some appear gloomy and repulsive. 
There is in the ear of gentleness no harmo- 
niously responsive chord to the quick respirations 
of toil, the clamors of strife, and conflict, or, the 
shrieks of carnage. But perhaps on this sub- 
ject the feelings of exquisite sensibility might 
be rectified by considering whether she herself 
be not a carnivorous animal and how often 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



227 



her own teeth and tongue have been stained 
with blood. Thus qualified, she might with a 
greater degree of impartiality approach the in- 
quiry whether the doctrine of Pope may not af- 
ter all be correct, that 

'■ Discord is harmony not understood, 
And partial evil universal good." 

And perhaps after due consideration at length 
may be prepared to assent to the ultimate con- 
clusion of the poet just quoted, that, with refer- 
ence to the whole universe and the general laws 
by which it is governed, " whatever is, is right." 
There are certainly many things, which on a 
superficial view appear to be great evils, but 
which on proper examination, are found to be 
no evils at all. In this predicament stands the 
necessity of exertion. Intellectual and muscu- 
lar exertion are the parents not only of every 
physical comfort, but of all human excellence. 
To these we are indebted for the sound and 
healthy state, as well as for the progressive im- 
provement of all our faculties and organs. And 
the necessary results of habitual and permanent 
inaction would be morbid imbecility, degenera- 
tion, and the descent of the human race on the 
general scale of animal existence. And this 
downward course of civilized man would not be 
towards the condition of the savage, who is con- 
stantly stimulated to vigorous exerlion by the 
evils of hunger and cold and by the perils of 
hostile attacks, but toward the state of the harm- 
less oyster adhering to its native rock, and the 
whole business of whose life consist in the periodi- 
cal opening of its shell about one-tenth of an 
inch for the spontaneous entrance of nourishment. 

It may tend still further to reconcile us to our 
unalterable destiny, of incessant action against 
universal reaction, to consider that in obedience 
to this law our welfare and happiness chiefly 
consist. The gratification of the senses, it is 
true, form an item, but it is comparatively a 
small item in the general aggregate of human 
enjoyment; and in this respect every man pos- 
sessed of the necessaries of life, nay, every brute 
animal in a similar situation, stands nearly on the 
same level. Indulgence in sensual pleasure can, 
from the laws of the animal economy, occupy 
but little of our time, and it constitutes but a 
small part of the busines of life. Our happiness 
or misery depends chiefly on the manner in 
which we pass those comparatively long inter- 
vals of time which lie between the points of 
sensual gratification ; and that these intervals, 
comprising almost the whole of life, are most 
agreeably and happily employed in active, in- 
teresting occupation of body and mind is a pro- 
position, the truth of which is attested by uni- 
versal experience. 

The acting, thinking man is, therefore, the 
only happy man ; and on the contrary, the ab- 
sence of all motive and object of action consti- 



tute the wretched condition, called in French 
ennui and in Latin tedium vita:, and from the op- 
pressive burden of which many, all hough sur- 
rounded by all the blessings and comforts of life, 
have sought refuge in suicide. 

All hough there is a pleasurable feeling re- 
sulting from the sound and healthy action of all 
the bodily organs, and which is probably com- 
mon to every grade and species of animal life, 
yet this of itself is far from constituting the 
highest attainable degree of human happiness. 
In addition to this corporeal activity the mind 
also, as has been already intimated, must be oc- 
cupied and interested, the intellectual faculties 
exerted, and the social and moral affections ha- 
bitually exercised. 

It is difficult to imagine a situation on this 
earth more favorable to a combination of all 
these elements of happiness, than that of the 
agriculturist. Oh ! fortunatos nimiwn, exclaims 
the poet of Mantua, sua si bona norint agricolas. 

Nor can the cultivator of the soil reflect with- 
out proud complacency, on the dignity and im- 
portance of his occupation — not only as being 
connected with all human science, but also as 
constituting the broad basis of every human 
interest. 

But I suspect the reader is ready to sajr, if 
agriculture be this all-important concern it cer- 
tainly claims a less interrupted attention than it 
has received since its assumption as the princi- 
pal topic of this communication. 

I acknowledge that I have committed myself 
rather more unreservedly than I expected or in- 
tended to their erratic guidance of ideal associa- 
tion ; but in so doing, I have only been indul- 
ging myself in the privilege with which Elihu 
the son of Barachel the Buzite* has invested, 
"length of days and multitude of years," and 
of which privilege I gave premonition at the 
beginning, that 1 was duly sensible. I now, 
however, claim the merit of returning to my 
subject, and am ready to resume the inquiry, 
how we may best counteract the injurious ef- 
fects of the severe summer droughts lo which 
our climate is liable? But really, Mr. Editor, 
and you, gentlemen of the Club, I am ashamed 
of the graceless length to which this article has 
been already extended, and must, therefore, com- 
mit what I have to suggest on this subject to a 
subsequent communication. 

William F. Rice. 



Dr. Beekman stated in his Address before 
the late New York State Agricultural Fair in 
Rochester, that ten millions of cattle, and forty- 

* If any reader should exclaim, who the devil is 
he, I answer, search the Scriptures, where you may 
not only find out something about Elihu the son of 
Barachel the Buzite, but perhaps, also, learn the in- 
decency of taking the name of a certain personage 
in vain. 



228 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



four millions of sheep, are kept in England, ad- 
vantageously, on a territory but little larger than 
the State of New York. This is not far from 
twice the number of sheep now in the whole 
United States. The English cultivators of the 
soil, harvest, annually, according to Dr. Beek- 
man, two hundred sixty-two millions bushels of 
£rain. 



From the Farmers' Cabinet. 
WORN-OUT LANDS. 

In the American Farmer of December 27th, 
appeared an extract from a communication by 
John Jones, of Wheatland, to the Farmers' Ca- 
binet, in which he makes allusion to the asto- 
nishing effects brought about in the renovation 
of worn-out lands in Delaware, by Dr. Noble, of 
Philadelphia. On land which cost but fifteen 
dollars per acre, and produced but five bushels 
of wheat three years ago, by the application of 
eight loads of manure, costing, freight included, 
less than one dollar and fifty cents per load, the 
Doctor has raised forty-seven bushels of wheat 
from one acre, and from the remainder rather 
less, the average being an enormous increase 
over the produce of former years. The Editor 
of the American Farmer expresses an "increase 
desire" to learn the secret by which the Doctor 
has been enabled, at the small expense of less 
than twelve dollars per acre, to effect such as- 
tonishing results. 

We would inform him there is no secret what- 
ever in the method pursued, but such as any 
farmer might discover for himself, if he would 
but take the trouble to read some of the nume- 
rous works upon the application of chemistry to 
agriculture, lately published. Knowing by che- 
mical analysis or examination, the composition 
of the grain and straw of wheat, and that of 
the soil, it was an easy matter to apply those 
materials which were needed, in order to produce 
a healthy and vigorous growth. He prescribed 
for his wheat and soil as he would for a patient, 
and with equal success ; health and strength 
have been restored to the suffering subject. 

Now, as to the sources of the manure which 
he has made use of, we will say a word ; it is 
in the power of every farmer, near large cities, 
to procure the materials which are needed to 
enrich the soil. 

The Doctor formed a compost obtained from 
various sources, consisting of the refuse of tan- 
ners, soap boiling establishments, &c; in short, 
of such animal and vegetable substances as con- 
tain soluble salts, or which can be made subser- 
vient to the growth of plants. In the selection 
of these substances he was guided by their com- 
position, as made known by chemical analysis. 
"Give/' says the rational agriculturist, "to one 
plaint such substances as are necessarj' for its 
development, but spare those which are not re- 



quisite, for the production of other plants which 
require them." 

"An empirical," or quack system " of agri- 
culture, has administered the same kind of ma- 
nures to all plants, or where a selection has been 
made, it has not been based upon a knowledge 
of their peculiar composition." The phosphate 
of soda or lime, the silicate of potash, ar.d sul- 
phate of ammonia, or other salts containing 
these in other combinations, are necessary for 
the production of wheat ; these have been sup- 
plied by the Doctor, and why should we be as- 
tonished at the results which have followed their 
application 1 He has adopted the scientific me- 
thod of manuring, and if his knowledge of the 
composition of the soil and wants of the crop 
was exact, and his conclusions correctly drawn, 
he could not err in the application of his ma- 
nures. His is indeed a triumph of science over 
the old fashioned, uncertain, and empirical mode 
of farming; here is an example worthy the at- 
tention of every farmer, and especially should it 
be considered by those whom prejudice has so 
blinded that they cannot perceive the vast bene- 
fits arising from the judicious application of 
scientific knowledge to agriculture. It is indeed 
" creditable to the Doctor as a scientific farmer ;" 
we hail him as a benefactor, and desire that he 
maj 7 persevere in that path of usefulness in 
which he has found both pleasure and profit. 

J. S. L. 

Philadelphia, Second month 6th, 1844. 



For the Southern Planter. 

Wheatland, Mecklenburg, Aug, 13, 1844. 

Mr. Botts : 

Dear Sir, — The enclosed letter was written 
by a negro man sold by a nephew of mine a 
year or two ago to go to Missouri with his wife, 
and as I esteem it the most honest account of 
matters in that country, 1 have thought proper 
to enclose it to you for publication in the Planter. 
Yours, respectfully, 

P. C. Venable. 

Upper Missouri, July 1, 1844. 

Dear Mother, — I am well and hearty ; my 
wife is also enjoying good health at this time. 
I have lost my two youngest children, Bob and 
Harriet, since I have been out here. She has a 
baby six weeks old, named Priscilla. I am 
very desirous to see you and my relations ; wish 
you would write to me on the receipt of this, 
and let me know how you are and who has 
died since I left. 

This is a very fine fat country, though I can- 
not like it ; it is too scarce of water and a great 
deal more sickly than where I come from, though 
I have not had much sickness myself, I would 
advise none of my friends, black or white, never 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



229 



to come here if ihey can help it, for it is too cold 
a country : if you don't take good care of your- 
self you will take the head pleurisy and die in 
three days. In the summer time the people 
have to drive their stock three to five miles to 
water, and in the winter they have to haul ice 
and melt it to water them. The most of people 
have to strain the water that they use to drink 
and cook with, on account of waggle tails. I 
think the reason why so many people move to 
this country, those that are here wont write the 
truth, and when the} 7 go to the old country they 
wont tell the truth. I have eaten no good corn 
bread since I have been in this country — the 
meal is all like ground hominy — ground by horse 



mills — and I am living in the healthiest part of 
the State, and the best watered. M3' master 
talks of moving back in the course of two or 
three years, as he is very much dissatisfied, and 
I hope to see you all again before I die. 

It is my desire for all my religious friends, 
both white and black, to pray for me, for I am 
so dissatisfied in rnind I cannot pray for myself. 
1 had rather live in Old Virginia in the piny old 
field, work all day and part of the night and 
live on peas and potatoes, than live here and 
have as much hog and hominy as I can destroy. 

I have nothing more at present, but remain 
Your affectionate son until death, 

John Preston, 



For the Southern Planter. 
BOLTON HOISTER. 




Mr. Editor, — Jonathan Pindar (a cousin of 
the celebrated Peter) tells a story of a Dutch- 
man who went to mill once a week with a 
bushel of wheat in one end of his bag and a 
stone in the other, to balance it. The reason he 
gave for this was, that his father, his grand- 
father and his great grandfather had done so 
before him ; of course it was all right. Now, 
Mr. Editor, I go for all rational improvement. — 
Whatever lessens labor, saves time, and in other 
respects answers a good end, must be valuable. 
We have, in my humble opinion, too much of 
this skipple stone, Dutch work about us. But 
to the point. When in the State of Missouri, 
last year, my attention was called to a very 
simple and useful small affair for the purpose of 



filling tobacco barns, and I had one made, and 
filled seven large barns with it in a hurry. I 
found that it saved time and labor, and answered 
a good end ; that I could fill two barns sooner 
than one in the ordinary way, without risk or 
danger, as all hands were on the floor, except 
one man above, to take and place the tobacco 
slick — no handing from tier to tier. I have en- 
deavored to give you a draft of it above. 

A is a piece of timber about four or five inches 
square, with any kind of a roller in one end of 
it, and fastened with a string or rope at the other 
end, to keep it from tilting, say about six feet 
long — it lies across two joists, and may be moved 
at pleasure. 

B is a piece of timber two or two and a half 



230 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



inches square, and two feet or two feet three 
inches long, with a piece of plank fastened to 
the middle of it, with a hole in one end for a 
a rope, and in this piece of timber there are two 
teeth about seven inches long, not loo much ele- 
vated, upon which the tobacco stick is placed, 
near a balance and ready for hoisting. 

C is the rope by which it is hoisted. At the 
word hoist, it is carried up easily between the 
tiers, to the top of the tallest barn — commence 
filling at one end of the house. 

Only one hand is required above, standing on 
a short plank, who takes the tobacco off and 
places it, and the weight of B brings it to the 
floor again, where the hand stands who hoists. 

D simply represents the joists which cross 
the tobacco barn. 

My much respected friend, Gen. Lewis Bolton, 
of Blufion, on the Osage river, was the first 
who told me of this, and I believe him to be the 
inventor and first user. I, therefore, call it the 
!l Bolton Hoister." D. M. 

Amelia County, Va., July, 1844. 



THE PEACH. 

With the fertile soil of our country, we have 
but little diificulty in growing peach trees until 
they are three or four years old, when they are 
attacked by the worm in the root, or a disease 
called the yellow, and frequently by both. In 
either case the tree dies in two or three years. 

The following remedies have been found per- 
fectly successful in preventing the worm in the 
root. When a tree is first set out in the orchard, 
apply three quarts of fresh or unleached wood 
ashes, and add ashes every spring. Another 
method is to pour chamber-lye around the roots 
of the trees several times during the spring and 
summer. 

The method pursued by Mr. Pell, of Pelham, 
Ulster count}', New York, is to put one-half 
peck of fine charcoal to the roots of each tree 
when first set out in the orchard, and adding a 
quantity each spring. — B. G. Boswell, Phila- 
delphia. 



of buckwheat, and turn them in just when they 
get into bloom, taking care at each ploughing in 
of such green crops, to sow a bushel of plaster 
per acre, on his field ; and if possible to spread 
on each acre twenty-five bushels of lime and 
two of ashes. With such a preparation of any 
field, which might have been originally adapted 
to wheat culture, we would not only promise 
him a remunerating crop of wheat, but a good 
growth of clover afterwards, provided he sowed 
the seed thereon. So also, would we pledge 
our word, that with similar preparation, excel- 
lent crops of corn might be grown ; or, indeed, 
any other of the cultivable grains or grasses; 
for all that either the one or the other wants, is 
food, and that would be furnished by the means 
we have pointed out. And if the condition of 
production is to be continued, all that is neces- 
sary to be done, is, to repeat the means of im- 
provement indicated in our preceding remarks. 
American Farmer. 



MANURES. 

With regard to what particular kinds of ma- 
nures are best, were we asked the question, we 
would say, that all are good — that of the animal 
and vegetable kinds, every thing susceptible of 
rotting, is good to be converted into manure — 
that where the farmer has not the facilities for 
making a supply to meet the demands of his 
farm in his barn-yard and stables, he should 
make the turning in of green crops a part of 
his system of husbandry. 

If his lands are too poor to yield clover for 
such purposes, let him sow two successive crops 



For the Southern Planter. 
THE CULTIVATION OF INDIAN CORN. 

Mr. Editor, — In your number for this month, 
I observe a communication on corn by Mr. Wm. 
B. Easley, of Mecklenburg. Mr. Easley is op- 
posed to the mode of superficial cultivation ad- 
vised by Judge Buel, and you side with Mr. 
Easley. Asa young farmer, I am diffident in 
opposing his practice, and your authority, and 
would not do so if I could not state facts to bear 
me out against you both.. 

I know that a good deal must depend on the 
nature of the soils operated on ; and the plan of 
cultivation which would ruin a crop for Mr. 
Easley might make one for us. His land is a 
dry, stiff, clay soil. The south-west mountain 
land, which I till, is a light, loamy clay, easily 
tilled when once well broken up, and soon mel- 
lowed by exposure to sun or frost. Deep plough- 
ing, with a subsoil plough, if necessary, and 
thorough harrowing might give Mr. Easley's 
land the advantages of mine for corn. But of 
this I know nothing. Some allowance too may 
perhaps be made for the kind of corn, though it 
is presumed that all good farmers reject the gi- 
gantic varieties, as neither heavy nor prolific. 

The mode pursued in cultivating my crop, 
acknowledged, though no merit of mine, how- 
ever, to be one of the very best in the county, 
has been as follows: The land, a naked fallow 
of eighty acres, was broken up before Christmas 
as deep as three-horse ploughs could do it. Ear- 
ly in March it was well harrowed, leaving the 
whole completely pulverized. It was then laid 
off in deep furrows five feet apart with a heavy 
two-horse plough ; planted two and a half feet 
apart in the step, and covered with the hoe. — 
The corn is of the kind known among us as the 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



231 



red-cob variety, the stalk rather under size, but 
large, compared with any at the north. When 
about six inches high, it was harrowed over 
without taking out the front tooth of the harrow, 
so as to cripple the springing grass and fill up 
the planting furrow. Both these purposes were 
well accomplished. It was then thinned to two 
stalks in the hill, and as soon as the grass began 
to spring again, cultivators, followed immediate- 
ly by hoes, went over it. As soon afterwards 
as necessary, the final working was given by 
what are called skimmers in the lower country, 
and scrapers here — an implement of which every 
farmer should have a full supply. This mode 
of cultivation, as you perceive, has been entirely 
superficial. The storms have been attended with 
the usual gales, and the last rain we had, on 
the 26th of July, was accompanied with a vio- 
lent wind. The corn was then in the worst 
condition for standing a blow, being full eared, 
very luxuriant, full of sap, and unusually large 
for its kind. The ground too was saturated 
with water from previous rains. But on looking 
through the crop the next day I thought it less 
prostrated than any I had ever seen. I have 
not yet housed it, of course, but on examination, 
it appears very fine, and but for a drought of 
twenty-six days would have come fully up to 
my desire. It was the earliest crop in the neigh- 
borhood, though not planted until the 15th or 
20th April, which I think the best time in this 
climate; and I ascribe its forwardness to non- 
disturbance of the roots, whrch were thus 
enabled to feed the stalk continually, and to 
the mellowness and consequent moisture of the 
soil which was not stirred and exposed to the 
sun. 

A year ago, I had an opportunity of observ- 
ing a fact confirmatory of that I detail, on the 
adjoining farm of rny father-in-law, Thomas 
Jefferson Randolph, Esq. Accidentally, he was 
unable to " give the dirt" to a part of his corn. 
A violent gale came on late in August, when 
the corn was formed but not filled ; and the part 
that had been " sided" was blown nearly flat, 
whilst the other was comparatively erect. Mr. 
Randonlph pointed it out to me, and we could 
tell the difference to the line. 

I am also at liberty to state that my friend 
and neighbor, Col. Thomas Macon, made an 
experiment last summer to test the virtues of 
superficial culture, which, as far as it goes, 
strengthens rny position. His crop was managed 
in the old way with the plough and coulter, but 
he treated four rows, indifferently selected in the 
body of the field, according to Buel's plan, and 
he 3ays that the closest scrutiny has failed to 
detect the slightest difference between those 
rows and the balance on both sides of them. I 
think it probable that measurement will show a 
considerable per cent, in favor of the experiment. 
Admitting equal products, however, the saving 



of at least cne-half the labor is, I should think, 
a very decisive fact. 

It seems too, other things being equal, that 
this mode of cultivation accords with reason. — 
The coronal, or "prop," roots generally put forth 
before the dirt is given to the corn. When that 
is done, these are covered up and fresh ones are 
formed above. It takes time, and sap, which 
is drawn from the whole plant, to perfect this 
second growth, which after all, may not, and 
sometimes does not, attain sufficient size and 
length to answer its natural end. It certainly 
delays, and to some extent, exhausts the plant, 
as every additional draught upon it must. 

I confess I see but one difficulty in the way 
of Judge Buel's plan on such lands as the south- 
west mountains afford — it may cause them to 
wash. On that point I am not satisfied, but 
endeavoring lo become so. If it be an objection 
it is fatal. 

I have hesitated, Mr. Editor, to send you this 
communication. It is long, though as much 
compressed as I could make it ; and the harvest 
is not appropriate to discuss the seed time. But 
it is perhaps better to meet objections at the 
threshold, and my piece is submitted accordingly. 
Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Frank G. Ruffin. 

Shadwell, Albemarle, Sept. 3, 1844. 

W T e do not think either ourself or Mr. Easley 
have been exactly understood. It is very com- 
mon in this climate to see extensive injury aris- 
ing from the prostration of our corn at different 
periods of its growth ; the level mode of cultiva- 
tion recommended by Judge Buel does seem to 
ns as less calculated to guard against the effect 
of high winds than the old mode of "earthing" 
the corn. By this latter process the stalk is in- 
duced to put forth additional " prop roots," which 
its frequent prostration now seem to render de- 
sirable. We were willing to take, at any rate 
to record, the opinion of so distinguished a planter 
as Mr. Easley for the product of the two modes. 
We have, however, met with several other gen- 
tlemen since the publication of Mr. Easley's 
communication who concur with Mr. Ruffin in 
preferring the level and superficial mode of cul- 
tivation, upon the ground that it affords an equal 
product, with less labor. We happened to visit 
the farm of one of these gentlemen who defends 
and practices this level mode, and certainly his 
crop had suffered materially from being blown 
down by the wind ; whether it would have been 
saved by ridging, we are unable to say. For 
our own part, we have been inclined to think 



232 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



that the way to make a great crop of corn was 
to make the land rich, fallow deep, pulverize 
well, plant closely, and cultivate frequently and 
deeply with the coulter. If the soil is deep and 
well broken up the roots of the corn have a 
perpendicular instead of a lateral tendency, and 
there is little danger of injuring them by deep 
cultivation. 

Mr. Ruffin need make no apology for the sea- 
son at which his communication appears. In- 
dian com is a privileged question, and is always 
in order. 



For the Southern Planter. 
THE BARBERRY. 

Mr. Editor, — In the July No. of the Southern 
Planter was published a communication from 
Clayton G. Coleman, Esq., of this county, re- 
questing information, whether the Barberry bush 
possesses the property of communicating the 
rust to wheat. If }'ou think proper to publish 
the following facts and remarks, they are at your 
service : 

I am informed that my grandfather moved 
his family from the county of Hanover to the 
county of Amherst about the year 1750, and 
that my grandmother carried a Barberry bush, 
as a "God send," which was planted in the rich 
soil of the mountains. She lived to a very old 
age, and was often delighted to cut a branch 
from her bush, to relieve, or cure the diseases 
or some of them, to which the sons and daugh- 
ters of Adam were subject. About the com- 
mencement of the present century I came into 
possession of the land on which she died and 
with it the Barberry bush, perhaps not inferior 
in size and beauty to the one in the garden at 
Jerdone Castle. The garden, yard, &c. was 
attached to an adjoining field on which grew 
several fine crops of wheat before I parted with 
.it; I never saw on the wheat a particle of rust 
although I have frequently seen the wheat 
touching the bush. 

I became an inhabitant of the county of 
Louisa about thirty years past and found on the 
plantation I moved to a Barberry bush, about 
the size of the one I left. In making some ar- 
rangements in the garden it became necessary 
to remove the Barberry bush, which I declined 
doing until I had several of its descendants in a 
state of thriftiness. I have three of them planted 
on the side of the pnblic road, all of which are 
not equal in size to the parent stock from the 
frequent cutting of the branches for medicinal 
uses. 

My wheat has occasionally been injured by 
the rust since I moved to the county of Louisa ; 
and so has the wheat of those who never had a 
Barberry bush ; even those who have destroyed 



them have shared the same fate. I have seen 
the Barberry bush have the rust ; so has oats 
and rye ; the brier bush has the rust frequently, 
and so has the cotton plant ; in fact there are 
few subjects in the vegetable kingdom, but, 
what some years or some time in the year 
have the rust. Does the Barberry bush com- 
municate the disease to all of its fellow subjects, 
or is there not a general cause in nature which 
operates upon them all? Wheat has sustained 
much more damage from the rust since the com- 
mencement of the nineteenth century, than it did 
during the letter part of the eighteenth century, 
when the Barberry bushes were much more nu- 
merous than they are now. The mania for de- 
stroying the Barberry bush has pervaded almost 
the whole country, and but few of the family are 
now left. Has the bush become more malignantly 
destructive as its numbers have decreased? I 
think not. It will be remembered that the Hes- 
sian Fly made its appearance about the com- 
mencement of the present century ; since which 
time wheat, instead of being seeded as formerly, 
in the month of August, is now seeded in the 
months of October, November, and even as late 
as December, in order to guard against the ra- 
vages of that little destructive insect. Thus the 
farmer by endeavoring to keep clear of scylla 
runs into charybdis ; — to avoid the fly by early 
seeding he seeds late to be destroyed by the rust. 
It is wrong that the innocent Barberry bush 
should feel the vengeance of the sufferer. 

We are informed by history, in by-gone days, 
that the pleople " Down East" took it into their 
wise heads, that their cattle died in consequence 
of being shot with hair balls by a certain class 
of old women which they called witches, and 
that man}' of those witches suffered death by 
water and fire for the supposed crime of shoot- 
ing their neighbors' cattle with hair balls, when 
no hoie was to be found through which the ball 
passed. Had those shrewd people fed their 
cattle as well then, as they do now, and put 
them in as warm houses in that cold climate as 
they at present do ; it would have saved the 
lives of many a cow and many an old woman. 

If the farmers of Virginia will make their 
land rich enough to bear seeding two or two and 
one-half bushels of wheat to the acre, and will 
cultivate the forward family of wheat and seed 
it in the month of September, it is my opinion 
they will have no occasion to use violence to- 
wards any of the relatives of " the God send" of 
my good old Grandmother. 

Respectfully, Sir, 

Yours, &c. 

Wm. Crawford. 
Locust Grove, Louisa Co., Jlug. 15, 1844. 

p. S. — Wheat which has been injured by the 
rust, will produce a good crop of sound mer- 
chantable wheat the next year. W. C 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



233 



GREAT WASTE OF MANURE. 

Not upon ouv land, for although injudicious 
application may be considered a species of waste, 
yet there is not so much to be complained of in 
regard to the application as the worc-application 
of manures. The waste is in not saving, in 
not accumulating, every thing of the kind which 
will fertilize the soil from which we take our 
crops. We know from our own personal expe- 
rience and observing others, that twice as much — 
nay, three times as much manure may be saved — 
we will say saved — not manufactured, but saved, 
as there now is. How many sink spouts are 
there in the country, that are almost hourly 
pouring out their contents, to be floated away, 
no where in particular, and "to waste their fra- 
grance on the desert air ?" How many stables 
are there in the country, where there is not even 
the shadow of a fixture to save the urine and 
liquid particles of manure which are continually 
made there 1 Nearly all the barns are without 
sheds for manure. All that the cattle make 
during housing time is thrown out of the win- 
dows, where it is exposed to the weather. The 
arrangement seems to be the very best in the 
world to dissipate the valuable parts and leave 
the poorest. It is, first a layer of manure — then 
a layer of snow — then manure — then a heavy 
rain — then a strong wind and sunshine — then 
manure, and so on. In the spring, we shovel 
in what there is left us, and which is of such 
strong and stubborn material that the combined 
attacks of snows and rains, and freezing and 
thawing, and sunshine and winds, could not 
overcome, and this we apply to nourish our crops, 
and to supply the delicate and fine vessels of the 
rootlets with nourishment. Isn't this admirable? 
A little care and attention, and a small amount 
of labor, would enable the farmer to preserve and 
apply his manure in a much more judicious and 
saving manner. We do not hesitate to say, that 
we have found by experience, that when stable 
manure is housed until it is applied to the earth, 
it is one-third better — more efficacious, because 
more full of the necessary materials for feeding 
vegetation. Liquid manures are seldom, if ever, 
used among us. In Flanders it is a very com- 
mon thing for a farmer to pay ten dollars (forty 
shillings of their money) for the urine from a sin- 
gle cow during the year. And what is the re- 
sult of such saving ? Why this: More human 
beings are comfortably supported on a square 
mile than in any other country on the globe, 
unless it may be China, where equal attention 
is paid to these savings. There are various 
modes adopted for saving these things. One is 
to have cisterns into which it may run. The 
cheapest mode is to have some kind of compost 
which will absorb it. We find in the last New 
England Farmer a communication from Dr. 
Ja.ckson, giving a very cheap but excellent mode 
Vol. IV.— 30 



of concentrating and preserving these fluids. — 
His plan is the following: "Take twenty mea- 
sures of dry peat and one of ground gypsum, 
and mix them together. Place barrels half full 
of this mixture in places where urine may be 
collected, and it will be found that the salts and 
ammonia of many barrels of urine will be con- 
solidated in this mixture, without giving the 
slightest odor, or being in any way offensive, 
for the salts are taken up, and the carbonate of 
ammonia, formed by decomposing urea, is im- 
mediately absorbed. 

" This method of getting rid of a nuisance 
and of consolidating a valuable liquid manure, 
full of the most useful salts, ought to receive at- 
tention. A mixture of peat or swamp muck 
and gypsum (plaster of Paris) will also serve 
to absorb all the disagreeable gases of vaults, 
which will be converted into fertilizing com- 
pounds with the sulphuric acid of the gypsum 
and the organic vegetable acids of the peat." 

Here, then, is a very simple but at the same 
time very efficient mode of securing the valuable 
ingredients of the sink and other disagreeable 
but necessary places about our premises; one 
which every farmer can adopt. A small pit, 
made with a covering to keep out sun and rains, 
filled with the above materials, would be a little 
mine of wealth to every farmer, and we may- 
say a mine of health too, for it would swallow 
up all the pestiferous and noxious gases which 
must invariably arise from the decomposition of 
such offal. — JSIaine Farmer, 



CURE FOR HOVEN. 

Take \ lb. of lard, 1 pint of milk, boil both 
down to a pint, mixing them well together. — 
Give half of this immediately at blood heat, 
and the remainder soon after. — Central N. York 
Farmer. 

We have no doubt of the efficacy of the above 
cure ; we cured a very bad case of hoven in a 
young Durham heifer two and a half years old, 
by a very similar treatment. Our dose consisted 
of a pint of fish oilj a pint of molasses, two 
ounces of ginger, the whole mixed in a quart of 
hot water. We divided and gave the mixture 
in two doses, the second dose in an hour after 
the first, taking care to keep the animal moving 
until the medicine operated. — Ed. Jim. Farmer. 



For the Southern Planter. 
THE TRANS-ALLEGHANY COUNTRY. 

Mr. Editor, — Having just returned from a 
trip to the mountains of Virginia, I propose to 
hole!" a little talk with you upon the agricultural 
capabilities and prospects of that part of the 
world. 

Permit me to say, en passant, that the light 



234 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



and salubrious air, the grandeur and sublimity 
of the mountain scenery, the gaiety of the se- 
veral watering places render these mountains 
the most delightful summer retreat that it has 
ever been my good fortune to encounter. The 
refreshing coolness of the mornings and even- 
ings, or the healthful influence of the mineral 
waters, or perhaps both combined produce a 
lightness and buoyancy of spirit, that impart 
the highest pleasure to mere animal existence. 
Indeed, it is this universal cheerfulness and gaiety 
of spirit that distinguishes the company at these 
springs from the frequenters of any other fash- 
ionable resort I have ever seen, and it is this 
genial flow of life's current, that imparts to these 
mountains their greatest charm. 

It is true that the extraordinary fascinations 
of the watering places rendered my excursion 
less of an agricultural one than I had intended, 
but I did not fail to penetrate the mountain re- 
cesses of Alleghany, Greenbrier, and Monroe. 
I quitted the high roads and followed the moun- 
tain paths into the very heart of the settlements, 
and I visited the estates of some of the most 
distinguished farmers and graziers in the three 
counties. 

No where can finer grass lands be found than 
in Greenbrier and Monroe, and no where that I 
have seen does a more indifferent system of cul- 
tivation prevail. It is provoking to see so fine 
a country so sadly abused, and the gifts of Pro- 
vidence so wantonly thrown away. There are 
of course several honorable exceptions, but the 
general system (if the loosest and most irregular 
mode of cultivation be entitled to the name) 
struck me as the very worst I ever saw. When 
we see poor exhausted lands indifferently tilled, 
we pity the owner, but when we behold the 
most fertile meadows overrun with weeds and 
bushes, we are provoked at the folly of the 
proprietor. 

As to farming proper, with a rotation of crops 
and all that sort of thing, it is neither to be 
looked for nor desired. Stock raising must ever 
form the chief business of this region, and even 
if you were to penetrate the country with rail- 
roads and canals (which can only be done at 
the greatest expense) the people would still find 
it to their interest to send their products to mar- 
ket in the shape of cattle, horses, mules and 
other slock. I think they are well satisfied of 
this themselves, and all they ask for is a few 
more McAdamised turnpikes, which, with my 
old fashioned notions, I believe to be better and 
more suitable to the present state of the coun- 
try than either railroads or canals. 

The climate here is, I think, very similar to 
that of Connecticut or the western part of New 
York. The winters, from what I hear, are long 
and pretty severe, and their summer bursts forth 
at once without waiting for the mediating in- 
fluence of spring. Vegetation is rapid and lux- 



uriant in the extreme. One-half of the country 
is composed of precipitous mountains, and it is 
chiefly the valleys- and gorges that are culti- 
vated. Many of these mountains are wonder- 
fully fertile, as is evidenced by the maple, poplar 
and walnut, with which they are covered, and 
where they are not too precipitous to be brought 
into cultivation, they afford the richest and finest 
pasture that can be imagined. 

The clouds are always gathering about these 
mountain tops, and such a thing as a drought 
is almost unknown to these fertile valleys. — 
Hence the corn is planted very thick, and where 
ever the land is tolerably cultivated, the product 
is very great ; but in several places I have seen 
the weeds taller than the corn, and in some they 
had almost extirpated it entirely. I am aware 
that in such a soil and with such a climate, it 
is almost impossible to suppress the luxuriancy 
of vegetation, and that it is much easier to keep 
your corn clean on fond where nothing will 
grow, but still, even here, the weeds needn't run 
away with the crop. From fifty to seventy-five 
bushels of corn with good cultivation can be 
easily made to the acre, whilst I presume thirty 
or forty is nearer the average. They have not 
yet begun to know the value of manure ; the 
soil is generally a light friable reddish or choco- 
late loam on a stiff clay, foundation, and well 
managed would be inexhaustible. 

I have never seen a country so admirably 
adapted to sheep. Every mountain ought to 
be filled with them and every mountain stream 
ought to turn a thousand spindles. If a man 
were to ask another to chew his food for him, it 
would not be more ridiculous than for these peo- 
ple to get others to make their woollen cloths. 
The day must come when this will be the great 
manufacturing district of America. With the 
most boundless capabilities of growing the raw 
materia], with the most unlimited number of 
never-failing waterfalls, with every facility for 
cheap living, they need only a dense population, 
which they are fast acquiring, to enable them 
to clothe the world. 

At present, with all their advantages their 
lands are held too high. I was really astonished 
to find these valley slips estimated, and selling 
too, for from thirty to a hundred dollars an acre. 
For fanning purposes they are too far from mar- 
ket to be worth the half of it, and for grazing, 
for which they are better adapted, the present 
price of beef does not justify it at all. I can 
only account for this inordinate estimate from 
the fact, lhat when beef brought five and six 
cents a pound, a good deal of superfluous wealth 
was accumulated, and landed propertj' is the 
only investment afforded by the circumstances 
of the country. I am told, however, that in 
Fayette and Nicholas, which are more sparsely 
settled, lands of equal fertility may be bought 
for two or three dollars an acre. If this be so, 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



235 



these counties must offer inducements to the 
growers of sheep, that can be found no where 
else in the Union. 

] have seen men here who have grown rich 
by raising slock on estates where not more than 
twenty acres had ever been put in cultivation ; 
the product of the garden being intended for the 
domestic consumption of the human family — 
the stock were never fed on grain at all ; the 
trees were belted ; the undergrowth cut out, and 
in summer, as now, the fat cattle were lolling 
and feeding upon the thickest and richest carpet 
of greensward and white clover that it is possi- 
ble to imagine. In winter, I am told the horses 
and sheep break the snow to get at the same 
rich herbage, and without cover or protection, 
save that which the mountain sides afford, and 
without food, save the pasturage thus obtained, 
they come out in the spring just as fat and just 
as jolly as they are now. 

1 have said that stock raising has been and 
ever must be the chief business of this region. 
It is impossible that any country in the world 
could be better adapted to this purpose : but this 
business like every other here is conducted with 
little system or intelligence. Generally speak- 
ing, no regard is paid to the family or pedigree, 
and all the rules of breeding are set at defiance. 
Horses, you know,' constitute the great staple of 
Greenbrier. It is said that nobody has ever 
seen a man in Greenbrier that did not have a 
horse for sale and my own experience does not 
falsify the statement. But it is astonishing to 
witness the carelessness and folly that are exhi- 
bited in rearing stock. The average cost of 
raising a colt to the age of three years is about 
thirty-five dollars, and the average price which 
the farmer gets for him, is about sixty, leav- 
ing a clear gain of twenty-five dollars. If, 
instead of the large mass of loose flesh and 
coarse bone which the grazier sends to market, 
he would patronise a well bred road horse, who 
could stand at ten dollars (instead of two, the 
usual price,) he would have a colt at an expense 
of eight dollars more, that would bring him a 
hundred dollars instead of sixty. Against tho- 
rough breds they have strong prejudices, because 
they have been imposed on by the leggy, slab- 
sided, cast offs, from the Eastern studs, that be- 
came quite fashionable amongst them several 
years ago. From these specimens they have been 
lead to consider the blooded horse as too light 
and too weak for general purposes; but there is 
a race of horses in the State of New York, de- 
scended from the old Messenger stock, (of which 
Abdallah is one,) that possess sufficient bone 
and muscle for any purpose in the world ; af- 
fording the quickest and most powerful road 
hor.se I ever saw. With the noble presence, 
powerful limbs, and splendid action that is cha- 
racteristic of this stock, there is not one of their 
three year old colts that would not bring a hun- 



dred dollars, any where. It is exactly the horse 
to be taken into this grazing region, and forced 
down the throats of the farmers in spite of their 
prejudices, by his superior merits. Then indeed 
might Eastern Virginia look to the West for a 
stock of saddle and harness horses. 

With respect to cattle, too, it is singular to 
contrast the beautiful herds of Durhams and 
Herefords that adorn the two acre fields of the 
Northern States, with the misshapen things that 
traverse these illimitable wilds. Where nature 
has afforded the most bounteous provision for 
their keep, a people who must perforce be gra- 
ziers, whose whole pecuniary interest is vested 
in stock, and who ought to be the greatest 
breeders in the world, pay no sort of attention 
to the shape or form of their cattle. 

What a figure Mr. Sotham's herd of Here- 
fords or Mr. Vail's stock of Durhams would cut 
in these rich mountain gorges, with clover and 
greensward up to their bellies ! This seems to 
be the natural element of such creatures, and 
we cannot but indulge the hope that they will 
some day revel in it. 

It's all very well for a gentleman in the. East 
to pay a high price for a fine Durham to adorn 
his lawn and fill his milk pail, but it is here, 
where it is not to be found at all, that improved 
stock, even at the highest price, would prove a 
source of real and substantial profit. 

I may have something to say of the agricul- 
ture of Albemarle, of which I made some notes 
as I was passing through, but I must defer it 
until I have more time and you have more room. 
Yours, A Traveller. 



GOOD EFFECTS OF DRAINING. 

At the late annual meeting of the Liverpool 
Agricultural Society, the President, Lord Stan- 
ley, said that he would state one instance of the 
practical returns which might be expected from 
thorough scientific draining. 

In 1841, his father was about to enclose in 
the park of Knowsly, a tract of about eighty 
acres. Of this about twenty acres were strong 
clay land, with a very retentive subsoil, and the 
remaining sixty he remembered from his boy- 
hood, as the favored haunt of snipes and wild 
ducks, and never saw there any thing else. In 
the course of the first year, the sixty acres main- 
tained — but very poorly — during the summer, 
six horses; and on the twenty acres there was 
a very small crop of very poor hay. It was 
impossible for land to be in a poorer condition ; 
and in breaking it up they had some two or 
three times to dig the plough horses out of the 
bog. 

In 1842, the whole of this land was tho- 
roughly subsoiled and drained, and in 1842, 
what was not worth ten shillings an acre per 
\ annum, the year before, was in turnips, and on 



236 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



that land they fed off, in five months, and fat- 
tened for the butcher, eighty beasts and three 
hundred sheep, and afterwards carted into the 
farm-yard three hundred and fifty tons of turnips. 
In the present year they had a very fair crop of 
barley and oats, which his friend, Mr. Henry, 
would be very glad to show to any gentleman 
who felt any curiosity on the subject. Now he 
did not hesitate to say that that land was, at 
that moment, worth thirty shillings an acre. — 
The outlay upon it for pulling up old fences, 
thoroughly draining, tilling, and breaking it up, 
amounted just to seven pounds ten shillings per 
acre, giving just twenty shillings for every one 
hundred and fifty shillings of outlay, and giving 



to the landlord a permanent interest of fourteen 
per cent, on the money laid out on that unpro- 
mising ground. It happened that in the same 
year they took into their own hands land which 
had been abandoned by the tenant as perfectly 
worthless. It was a large field of twenty-two 
acres' of very poor sandy soil. It was drained 
at an expense of two pounds per statute acre, 
and in the first year they fed off on that land 
one hundred and twenty sheep, the remaining 
part of the turnips being carted to the farm-yard ; 
and he ventured to say, that at the expense of 
two pounds per acre, the land was increased in 
value ten shillings per acre to the landlord, and 
as much to the tenant. — New England Farmer. 



THE C H ESTER COUNTY HOG 




"tlBRuil-.Ck 



"We notice that the Editor of the "Prairie 
Farmer" makes himself quite merry with some 
opinions expressed by one of our correspondents, 
who expresses a preference for the common 
breed of the country, what might be called the 
cold bred hog, over the thorough bred Berkshire. 
We can inform the Editor that this opinion is 
not so peculiar nor so absurd as he might ima- 
gine. A very large majority of farmers in this 
State, at least, complain bitterly of the injury 
done their original stock by the cross of the 
Berkshire, which they were induced to adopt 
by the high flown panegyrics bestowed upon 
them by writers for agricultural papers. For 
our own part, we believe there are some good 
things in the Berkshires, although they have 
certainly been greatly overrated. Many of those 



who complain of them never saw a good Berk- 
shire; detestable frauds were practised in some 
instances, and great errors committed in others ; 
a great error it certainly was to introduce into 
the breeding stud any hog merely because he 
was of Berkshire parentage, without regard to 
his particular form. We have, however, seen 
some few cases of decided improvement by a 
judicious cross with a well selected Berkshire; 
but a great objection to the best of this stock 
is, we think the lightness of weight and the 
accumulation of flesh on the ham and shoulder, 
at the expense of the middling. In a conversa- 
tion we lately held with the Rev. Jesse Turner, 
who had certainly the purest and finest stock of 
Berkshires in .this region, of which he was at 
one lime completely enamored, he admitted to 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



237 



us that when he came to turn them into bacon, 
it was a very different business from selling the 
pigs at ten dollars a piece. In short, he did not 
think them as profitable or desirable as the best 
of- the common stock of the country. So it is, 
if a man wants a good looking " old field pig" 
about here, he must give a Berkshire and boot, 
to get. him. 

It will be remembered that a very interesting 
contest was at one time waged in our columns 
between two gentlemen of this vicinity upon 
the subject of the relative merits of black and 
white hogs. One of them preferred a white 
hog belonging to Mr. Thomas Dicken lo the, 
at that time, popular Berkshire stock ; and al- 
though we then thought he was wrong, we are 
now satisfied that he was right, and that for the 
southern mode of management this stock of Mr. 
Dicken is one of the most valuable in the coun- 
try. We have every reason, from description 
and tradition, to believe this hog to be identical 
with the " Chester and Delaware County Hog," 
a portrait of which adorns this article. We 
find accompanying this portrait the following 
description in the " Farmers' Cabinet" : 

' : The above cut is the portrait of a sow of 
this distinguished and highly valued breed, drawn 
from life, and engraved by those excellent artists, 
Mumford & Brother, expressly for our work. — 
The measurement of this fine animal was six 
feet nine inches long, from the tip of the nose to 
the root of the tail, and six feet in circumference 
immediately behind the fore legs. Her color 
was perfect white, with a softness and silkiness 
of hair scarcely ever before witnessed, while her 
great length and depth of carcass, together with 
a breadth across the back and loins enormous, 
were such as to satisfy the most craving appetite 
for monstrous hogs. A sketch was first taken 
when she was heavy in pig with her fouith lit- 
ter ; in an adjoining pen on the right, was a 
daughter, second only in size to herself, with a 
litter of ten pigs, and in that on the left, were 
her spring litter of pigs, fifteen in number, she 
having brought up seventeen, two having been 
sent to New Orleans as specimens of the Ches- 
ter county white hog, of which so much has 
been said. But before the sketch could be fully 
completed, she had farrowed sixteen pigs, and 
ber death followed within ihe space of three or 
four days of that event. Her very peculiar cha- 
racter and fine points, however, have been traced 
by the hand of our draftsman with the most 
perfect exactness, and exhibit a specimen of 'a 
Chester and Delaware county hog,' such as the 
advocates for that breed might well be proud of. 
I', will readily be perceived that this fine animal 



was not allied to the no bone heed, nay, that she 
' had a head of her own,' as honest John Law- 
rence says, and that she was able to carry it 
too; nor was her gigantic carcass supported 
upon four 'spermaceti candles!' her symmetry 
of form and proportions were perfectly in keeping, 
and it was a fact that when she lay down, she 
was able to rise without assistance — which could 
not have been the case with nineteen-twentieths 
of those we see portrayed, with the assurance 
that the likeness is perfect. Many of these fine 
deep-sided, long-bodied white hogs may be met 
with in the adjoining counties of Pennsylvania, 
as also in New Jersey ; but to those who have 
been acquainted with the best of that breed, 
their peculiarities arc as marked as the old Eng- 
lish breeds — the Berkshire, the Hampshire, the 
Lancashire, or the Ryswick, none of which, 
however, ever exhibited a more perfect specimen 
of what such a hog ought to be, than the indi- 
vidual portrayed above. She was owned by a 
person named Montgomery, who refused seventy 
dollars for her and her seventeen pigs the last 
year, but her progeny was not worth}' of her, 
the sire of the brood having nothing to recom- 
mend him but his length of carcass and white 
color, and his ability to subsist on almost no- 
thing — a grazier indeed, coarse and heavy in 
the offal, although boasting of the cognomen 
' The Great Western !' The character of the 
old Berkshire and the present Hampshire (see 
pp. 89, 121 of the Cab. vol. 5, for portraits,) is, 
that the meat when cut up exhibits the same 
thickness, or very nearly so, on the sides and 
belly as on the back ; producing what is called 
streaky bacon in extraordinary proportion, with 
the rind by no means thin, but gelatinous, and 
the whole carcass cellular, and remarkably deli- 
cate in texture." 



REAPING MACHINES. 
In our last number we expressed a preference 
for M'Cormick's machine over Hussey's : this 
lead to an application on the part of Mr. Hus- 
sey to be heard in behalf of his implement. It 
is a matter of great interest to the agricultural 
public to be informed of the comparative merits 
of the different articles presented to their consi- 
deration, especially of one so costly and so im- 
portant as a reaping machine. For this reason 
we have willingly admitted Mr. Hussey to our 
columns; and for this reason we shall be pleased 
to encourage the dispute until all the facts in- 
teresting to the public have been elicited ; but 
we shall be very careful to prevent this, as such 
things are too apt to do, from degenerating into 
a personal controversy. These gentlemen must 
also remember that our space is very limited, 



238 



TE1E SOUTHERN PLANTER 



and that interesting as the subject may be, we 
can only devote a small portion of our columns 
to it. 

Mr. Bolts, — A great deal has already been 
said on the subject of Reaping Machines, and I 
should not presume to trouble your readers with 
this, were it not yet an important question with 
them, which is the best reaping machine now 
offered to the public. It will, of course, be un- 
derstood that I wish to make it appear that mine 
is the best of the two, and I think it will be no 
hard matter to do so. Both Mr. M'Cormick 
and myself can obtain more certificates than 
any editor is willing to publish Cutting wheat 
by machinery is so great an achievement, that 
any machine which can do it tolerably well can 
forthwith obtain certificates. Mr. M'Cormick 
has published many such, while I have been 
often censured for neglecting my own interest 
in being so far behind him in that respect ; I 
have trusted to my machine to manifest its own 
superiority. It has always manifested it over 
M'Cormick's, when both have had a fair trial 
near together. It is true, that in one instance, 

. . . I 

at a trial near Richmond in 1843, a small, infe- j 
rior machine of mine (the only one of the kind 
ever made,) did not sustain the character of my 
reaper in the opinion of a committee; that was 
not a fair trial, because my proper reaper was 
not on the ground to speak for itself, and was 
made to suffer for the faults of a mere experi- 
mental machine. I came to Richmond in 1843 
to compare my machines with Mr. M'Cormick's. 
I had two of different prices, one far superior to 
the other. I was desirous of exhibiting both, 
and testing their merits fairly. When my 
best machine was exhibited in comparison with 
M'Cormick's, I had the satisfaction to think that 
it was preferred, but of this trial no report was 
made. The next time I met M'Cormick's ma- 
chine it was extremely inconvenient to procure 
my best machine, and I carried out the smaller 
one ; which I would not have done if I had 
known this was to be the great trial between 
the machines ; but it was not until I had arrived 
on the ground that it was proposed to appoint a 
committee with the usual formalities to decide 
between the two machines, and then I would 
not back out although laboring under such a 
disadvantage. The report was favorable to both, 
but a final preference was given to M'Cormick's, 
partly on account of one quality in mine which 
was then esteemed a fault, but is now by all 
farmers experienced with it considered an ad- 
vantage. 1 allude to the fact of its leaving the 
wheat lying straight in the wake of the ma- 
chine and rendering it necessary to bind as fast 
as it is cut. Something has been said unfavora- 
ble to a few of my machines built previous to 
1842. They were defective, but those defects, 
I trust, are now remedied. Before experience. 



had taught me how strong to make them, they 
would occasionally break, but are mine the only 
machines that break ? I saw last year one of 
M'Cormick's machines which was purchased 
about 1S40 lying a heap of ruins in the field of 
Richard Sampson, Esq. in Goochland county, 
Virginia, but no machine is proof against break- 
ing. Mr. John Watkins witnessed the opera- 
tion of M'Cormick's reaper through the harvest 
of 1843, on a farm adjoining his own, and was 
fully acquainted with all its merits before he 
purchased a machine of me. Several gentle- 
men who visited his field and saw his machine 
operate in 1844, (while M'Cormick's was at the 
same time cutting in the next field,) have within 
a few days ordered machines of me for next 
year, and I fully believe that not an individual 
who has seen both machines work sufficiently 
to form an opinion, will purchase M'Cormick's 
machine. I would not speak in this manner but 
in self-defence. 

My reapers have been in use several years in 
Jefferson county, Virginia. M'Cormick's reaper 
was introduced there in the last harvest. In a 
letter from a gentleman of that neighborhood 
addressed to me, is this language : "We have 
had a fair trial of M'Cormick's reaping machine 

in this neighborhood this harvest. Col. 

used one in the same field with one of yours 
and found that •yours would make two rounds 
while the other made one From all ac- 
counts I hear the farmers say it is of no account. 
I know several farmers that will have yours next 
season ; they were holding back to see M'Cor- 
mick's work, and are satisfied. Thinking that 
you would be pleased to hear of the success of 
your machine over the other I have accordingly 
written." 

Mr. Lewis W. Washington, of Jefferson coun- 
ty, has cut three harvests with one of my reap- 
ers ; the following letter will show what his opi- 
nion is, and how his machine compares with 
M'Cormick's : 

Beall Air, July 6, 1844. 
Obed Hussey: 

Dear Sir, — Our harvest is over, and has af- 
forded another opportunity of testing the reapers 
of your construction. Unlike most patent farm- 
ing implements, they manifest their utility more 
evidently with each successive trial. Owing to 
the rust, the straw this year was spongy and 
difficult to cut with any tool; it was also much 
fallen. Those farmers who witnessed the opera- 
tion of my machine, admitted that cradles could 
not have done the work so effectually. 

Several of M'Cormick's machines were sent 
in this neighborhood, for trial, two within a mile 
of me and the others some two and a half miles 
off; being engaged in cutting myself, I did not 
see them operate; I made particular inquiry of 
four acquaintances who tried them, and in no 
single instance did they think them comparable 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



239 



with those of your make. I am informed they 
do not cut clean when the grain is thin, and the 
inability of the raker to lay the grain straight 
renders them very objectionable. 
Respectfully, yours, 

L. W. Washington. 
Jefferson County, Va. 

The Hon. William H. Roane was one of the 
committee, before mentioned, when the final pre- 
ference was given to JVl'Cormick's reaper ; he 
not being satisfied, procured another trial on his 
own estate, when my best machine was put in 
competition with M'Cormick's. Note the result. 
Mr. Roane promptly decided in favor of my ma- 
chine, and manifested his preference by ordering 
one of me, to cut the harvest of 1S44. Several 
gentlemen visited his field during the harvest, 
who, he informs rne, intend to procure my ma- 
chines next year. Mr. Roane's preference for 
my reaper over M'Cormick's, has already ap- 
peared over his own signature in the public 
prints, and he now authorizes me to say that 
the cutting of his wheat and oats in the harvest 
just past has confirmed his opinions heretofore 
expressed. 

The following is the letter alluded to from 
Mr. John Watkins, of Chesterfield : 

Chesterfield County, July, 1844. 
Obed Hussey, Esq.. 

Dear Sir, — Having never seen you since re- 
ceiving the wheat reaping machine, I with the 
greatest pleasure make known to you the result 
of its performance in cutting my wheat. It 
surpassed my expectation. In cutting wheat 
or oats no reaper can surpass it as to quantity, 
neatness in cutting, and laying the grain to the 
greatest nicety, and to advantage for the binders. 
The having to pick it up as fast as it is cut is, 
in my opinion, one great recommendation, be- 
cause every operation is immediately under the 
manager's eye, consequently much more work 
will be done ; and at night when the cutting is 
done, the picking is, of course. Numbers have 
been to see its performance, and all left with de- 
light. One old gentleman, a James river farmer, 
remarked, had he such a farm as mine he would 
not be without your reaper for five hundred dol- 
lars. The people desire to see you in this quar- 
ter, and I have no hesitation in saying a trip to 
Richmond and its neighborhood as soon as con- 
venient will be to your advantage. 

John Watkins, 

Of Amplhill. 

Some doubts have been expressed of the abi- 
lity of my machine to cut damp wheat. On 
this point I offer the following testimonial : 

Ampthill, Sept. 23, 1844. 
Mr. Obed Hussey: 

Dear Sir, — I found little or no difficulty in 



cutting damp wheat or oats with my father's 
reaping machine. 

Yours, respectfully, 

H. Carrington Watkins. 

By inserting this article in the Planter you 
will be doing an act of justice to the public, and 
much oblige 

Your obedient servant, 

Obed Hussey. 



TURNING IN WEEDS OR OTHER GREEN 
CROPS WITH THE PLOUGH. 

In ploughing stubble grounds, the weeds fre- 
quently choke the plough, and it is found diffi- 
cult to bury them entirely. The same difficulty 
attends the ploughing in of clover, or buckwheat, 
&c. Various contrivances have been adopted 
to obviate this trouble. Some fasten one end of 
a chain to the plough-beam, and the other end 
of the off-end of the " double-tree," as it is called ; 
which being thus dragged along before the 
plough, bends down and draws forward the 
weeds in such a manner that the plough turns 
them fairly under. Ploughs have also been 
made very "high in the beam" to obviate the 
difficulty of choking. They are called " Crane 
ploughs," and are much used in Western Virgi- 
nia and Southern Ohio. 

Mr. Sidney Weller, of Halifax, North Caro- 
lina, informs us that he uses a very simple in- 
strument for the purpose above named, and 
which answers better than any other plan he 
has seen. He says, " It is merely a sufficiently 
heavy piece of wood, like a common rake-head, 
with a few short teeth therein, and short han- 
dles at each end ; to the end of which handles, 
ropes or small chains, put through holes, fasten 
the instrument to the end of the whiffle-tree, if 
a single-horse plough, or to some part of the 
two-horse-tree, if a two-horse plough. This in- 
strument straightens and levels down the weeds, 
&c, immediately under the plough-beam, and 
before the furrow-slice. It answers with us 
every desired purpose." — Cultivator. 



For the Southern Planter. 

EFFECTUAL PREVENTIVE OF SMUT IN 
WHEAT. 

Mr. Editor, — On board of a steamboat, in con- 
versation on the subject of agriculture, I was 
told by Mr. Dechert, of Tennessee, who allowed 
me to use his name, that in hundreds of in- 
stances he had known smut in wheat to be pre- 
vented by the following sleep — in fact, he be- 
lieved it to be infallible, and deeming all such 
things worthy of being preserved and generally 
known, especially when avouched by responsi- 
ble names, I committed it to paper, on the spot. 
Dissolve a pound of bluestone in as much water as 



240 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



will cover five bushels of wheat, and steep the 
wheat in that solution, say about eighteen hours 
before sowing it. 

At the recent Poughkeepsie Fair and Cattle 
Show, among other curious and interesting ob- 
jects was a frame on which were spread out in 
divisions, each one covered with glass, thirty-five 
varieties of wheat, grown by Gen. P. Harmon, 
Jr. of Wheatland, Monroe county, New York. 
There were, of each variety, three heads with 
a small portion of grain and the name of the 
wheat, a list of which I will endeavor to get 
and send you. J. S. S. 



USEFUL RECIPE. 

I send you below, Messrs. Editors, a recipe 
for making a composition which will render 
wood entirely incombustible. It is very simply 
prepared, and quite easy of application, being 
used the same as paint with an ordinary brush. 
A good coat of it applied to the floor under the 
stoves would be an excellent precaution. 

Take a quantity of water, proportioned to the 
surface of wood you may wish to cover, and 
add to it as much potash as can be dissolved 
therein. When the water will dissolve no more 
potash, stir into the solution, first a quantity of 
flour paste of the consistency of common painter's 
size ; second, a sufficiency of pure clay to render 
it of the consistency of cream. 

When the clay is well mixed, apply the pre- 
paration as before directed to the wood ; it will 
secure it from the action of both fire and rain. 
In a most violent fire, wood thus saturated may 
be carbonated but will never blaze. 

If desirable, a most agreeable color can be given 
to the preparation by adding a small quantity of 
red or yellow ochre. — Buffalo Com. Advertiser. 



horses by long traces to the plough ; fasten ihe 
other horse before it, and let them go tandem. A 
careful boy or man rides the forward horse, and 
ano'.her holds the plough. After the interme- 
diate space between the rows has been ploughed 
in the usual manner by horses abreast, as near 
to the trees as convenience and care will admit, 
finish l he rest with the tandem team, rigged as 
just stated. The long traces will allow the 
plough to run as near the trees as is needed, 
and the short whipple-tree can scarcely be made 
to touch a tree. Well tested by experience. 

J. J. T. 



CURE FOR FOUNDER. 

The seeds of sunflower are the best remedy 
known for the cure of founder in horses. Im- 
mediately on discovering that your horse is foun- 
dered, mix about a pint of the whole seed in his 
feed, and it will give a perfect cure. — Cultivator. 



COWS. 



Cows should have warm water for a few days 
after calving, otherwise they are very liable to 
colds, inflammation of the udder, &c. It is a 
good method as practised by many, to prepare 
the first drink by putting a shovelful of hot coals 
into a pailful of cold water, and after a few mi- 
nutes take off the swimming coals, and then 
give the water to the cow, which must have be- 
come sufficiently warmed, and it will have ac- 
quired an alkaline quality, which is considered 
beneficial. — Boston Cultivator. 



From the Albany Cultivator. 

PLOUGHING ORCHARDS. 

If well done, and the trees not run over nor 
lacerated, is found to be a difficult work. To 
make it easy, get a short one-horse whipple-tree 
about fifteen inches long, and attach one of the 



CONTENTS OF NO. X. 

Fly and Bug — To prevent their ravages on vines and 
tobacco, p. 217. 

Anonymous Writers — Our estimate of them, p. 218. 

Turkeys — Directions for raising, p. 218. 

Electricity — Applied to agriculture, p. 218. 

Saltpetre and Plaster — Experiments with, p. 219. 

Cherry Bounce — Directions for making, p. 220. 

Weeds — Effectual means of destroying, p. 220. 

Improvement — Of poor land, p. 220. 

Marl — Drawing and description of a plant indicative 
of marl, p. 221. 

Hoarseness — To relieve, p. 223. 

Green Oats — -Not injurious to colts, p. 223. 

Hens — To protect them from vermin, p. 223. 

Sheep — May be killed by brine, p. 223. 

Hemp — Used to keep lice from cabbage, p. 223. 

Milk — To relieve from onions, &c. p. 223. 

Rheumatism — To cure, p. 223. 

Colic, Felon and Burns— To cure, p. 224. 

Flowers — Preserved by salt, p. 224. 

Grafts and Cuttings — To preserve until they can be 
used, p. 224. 

Potatoes — An experiment, p. 224. 

Drought, tf-c— p. 225. 

Worn Out Land — Wonderful improvement in, p. 228. 

Missouri — A negro's opinion of, p. 228. 

Tobacco— The Bolton Hoister, p. 229. 

The Peach — To preserve from the worm, p. 230. 

BuclcwJwat — Recommended to improve poor land, p. 
230. 

Indian Corn — The level mode of cultivation ap- 
proved, p. 230. 

Barberry — Innocuous, p. 232. 

Manure — Directions for its accumulation and preser- 
vation, p. 233. 

Hoven — Cure for, p. 233. 

Western Virginia — Some account of, from "A Tra- 
veller," p. 233. 

Draining — Good effects of, p. 235. 

Hogs — The Chester County, recommended, p. 236. 

Reaping Machines — Hussey's and M'Cormick's, which 
is bestl p. 237. 

Ploughing — Contrivance for turning in weeds, p. 239. 

Smut — A steep to prevent, p. 239. 

Wood — To render it incombustible, p. 240. 

Cows — How to treat after calving, p. 240. 

Orchards — Directions for ploughing without injury to 
trees, p. 240. 

Founder — To cure, p. 240.