Raj*, Bk, 
I 
v. 43 



THE 



Southern P 



OUTHERN TLANTER 



AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, LIVE STOCK AND THE HOUSEHOLD. 

• - - - Propriei 

KNIGHT; - - Editor. 

. fLAUY, ... . - Advkki 

43d Year. JULY, 1882. No 12, 



OOITTE1TTS: 

I By .1 y H. J over 1 

Agric ! < invention— A New Plow Attachment 

1 Di !' 1 ,... 6 

Dr. J. L. M Carry's Lecture before the Connecticut State Tea. ssociation at 

Hartford. er 28th, 1881 10 

EIoi es Shod ai I CTnshod — Both Sides of the w. 10 

without Earth e 20 

Woys— Who they are and what they are 

Weeds in Agriculture 30 

An Improved Harrow 

Inquirie* about Grasses 

Virginia State Agricultural Society 

Improving Wheats by Selection . -..." 

Trees and Their Uses— The Elm 38 

L ; ve Stock Notes 40 

Utilizing Carcasses * 

Food Value of Straw ...... 

The Razor- Back Hog [4 

Editorial Notes 

List "of Patents 

The King of the Plow ! I 

A Good Chicken Story I 

Household Hints ... 51 

Plant Food in an Acre of Clover 

Jottings 53 

Stir the Soil 54 

Cheese as Food 55 



Richmond : J. W. Fergrusson & Son, Printers. 






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of the old styles. Pricks but does not lacerate. Call and examine any of the above 
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Special Notice. 

Besides stock in my general advertise- 
ment in the Planter, to which I call atten- 
tion, I have some pure Shorthorn Heifers 
and their calves of both sexes for sale. 
Thus a good start may be made at small 
cost for such select property. Also, seve- 
ral pair of geldings and a pair of mares 
and odd animals, and all of my own breed- 
ing ; indeed, all kinds of stock suited to the 
improvement going on among our people, 
and my terms will be made to suit a live 
and industrious people. S. W FICKLIN, 
near Charlottesville, Va. jy — It 





— THE- 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 

DEVOTED TO 

Agriculture, Horticulture, Live Stock and the Household. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. — Xenophon. 
Tillage and pasturage are the two breasts of the State. — Sully. 


T. W. ORMOND, 

W. C. KNIGHT, 


Proprietor. 
Editor. 


43rd Year. RICHMOND, JULY, 1882. 


No. 12. 



PRIZE ESSAY. 



ON MIXED FARMING, INCLUDING THE KEEPING OF LIVE-STOCK, POULTRY 

AND THE DAIRY, AND THE PRODUCING OF FRUIT FOR THE MARKET, 

WITH RECOMMENDATIONS AS TO THE BEST ROTATION OF CROPS 

FOR THE SOUTHERN ATLANTIC STATES FKOM 

MARYLAND TO SOUTH CAROLINA. 



By AUBREY H. JONES, of Essex County, Va. 
[One of three Essays awarded equal prizes by the American Farmer.] 



In response to the very liberal offer of the proprietors of the Ameri- 
can Farmer of prizes for a series of essays upon the various systems indi- 
cated in its December number, I have decided to write an article upon 
number one, as delineated above; but before entering upon the subject ia 
hand, I must be allowed to say that no system can be recommended to 
apply to either of the States above named in their entirety, but must 
be restricted to soils of similar formation and character. No system 
adapted to the Tidal Section would be exactly suited to the Middle 
Division, far less the Piedmont Section of these States. I shall there- 
fore confine my treatise to the first named — the Tidewater Section of 
this country. 

In recommending a system for this section, it must be remembered 
that these lands, with few exceptions, though originally fertile, have 
been worn down by excessive tillage ; and it should be the aim of every 
proprietor to so manage his farm as to keep up a steady improvement 



U622? 



2 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [July 

consistent with reasonable returns. To this end, the farm should be 
so divided as to admit of frequent recurrence of green fallows as the 
most feasible mode of supplying vegetable matter. Take for example 
a farm of three hundred acres, forty acres of which should be in timber 
for fuel and building purposes, two acres for a vegetable garden. 
This may be set out at convenient distances in small fruits for familv 
use without interfering with its proper cultivation, such as strawberries, 
raspberries, currants, gooseberries, dwarf pears, quinces, plums, and 
damsons. Six acres should be appropriated to a lawn. This should 
be well set in mixed grasses and a variety of shade trees tastefully 
arranged should be planted throughout its full extent. Nothing con- 
tributes more to the beauty and health of a homestead than such a 
lawn, while it may be made more profitable than a like number of acres 
in cultivation as a range for the poultry, and at times affording fine 
grazing for horses, calves and a few mutton. Two acres more should 
be appropriated to stock lots around the barn and truck patches, for 
farm use. Ten acres should be taken for an orchard of apples and 
peaches, and such varieties should be selected ripening in succession as 
best suited, for market. This leaves two hundred and forty acres of 
tend, for cultivation, provided a standing pasture of fine grazing marsh 
is found on the tract, which is the case with most farms. On the 
water courses, where this is not the case, forty acres with a stream run- 
ning through it, if to be had, should be set apart as a perma- 
nent pasture. The remainder should be divided into five fields as 
nearly as possible of equal size — say of forty or forty-eight acres each. 
The fields should all connect, if practicable, with the barn. This Gan 
easily be done if the buildings are in the centre of the farm, otherwise 
they should be divided as to be accessible as possible. The fields 
having been laid off should be fenced with a substantial enclosure, with 
gates at convenient points. To describe the system and mode of cul- 
ture, I would number the fields 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. 

Field Eo. 1 comes in corn. I would recommend thorough plowing, 
but the soil should not be broken more than one-half inch deeper than 
the usual shallow plowing ordinarily pursued. While deep plow- 
ing is advantageous in most soils, it should always be very grad- 
ual. After the field is broken up it should have several thorough 
harrowings and be gotten in as fine tilth as possible, for it is 
far better that half the work of the corn crop should be done before it 
is planted. I would recommend after the first harrowing the applica- 
tion to the land, broadcast (if in good heart) fifty bushels of lime; if 
poor, twenty-five or thirty ; the additional harrowing will incorporate 



1882T] SOUTHERN PLANTER 8 



it with the soil. Oyster shells are to be had in Baltimore or Norfolk 
merely for the expense of removing them, and will be freighted along 
the bay or up the rivers contiguous as back loads by vessels for two 
cents per bushel. Nearly all the farmers in this Tidewater section have 
a surplus of wood ; where this is the case I would recommend the pur- 
chase of these shells and burning them on the farm, which can be done 
in winter by the farm hands. A bushel of shells will yield, if prop- 
erly burnt, one and one-fourth bushels of lime, so that the absolute cost 
would not exceed four cents per bushel for the lime slaked and ready 
for use. This, of course, would be recommended for farmers only on or 
near water courses. Where several miles distant, marl would probably 
be cheaper and answer as well. Marl abounds in almost every neigh- 
borhood throughout the Tidewater section of these States. 

Lime is the basis of all permanent improvement for this region, and 
should be used regularly in the rotation. Field No. 1 should remain in 
corn stubble until the following spring, say May, then lightly flushed with 
the plow, and seeded the last of May or first of June (oxen may be used 
to facilitate the work, if desired) in peas, (black or shinney), broadcast, 
from one to one and one fourth bushels per acre. In the fall, when 
ripe, enough should be picked for the next crop, and the hogs intended for 
pork should be allowed to follow the pickers a few hours each day 
with a boy to watch and keep them together ; they are very fond of 
peas, and in a few weeks will be nearly fit for pork, requiring very little 
corn to harden the flesh and fit them for the butcher. The field should 
then be fallowed and seeded in wheat, with mineral phosphate (non- 
ammoniated), as the peas will furnish sufficient ammonia for the crop 
of wheat. The following winter or spring clover should be seeded and 
allowed to stand until the next spring, which brings us to the fourth 
year, when I would advise the sowing of a bushel of plaster to the acre, 
say in February or March, and when the clover has made its full 
growth, which will be indicated by one third of the heads turning 
brown, I would cut enough for hay for farm purposes and graze the 
balance with beef cattle to fit them for the June market. This field 
should be fallowed for wheat in the fall ; the next year, after the wheat 
is taken off, this field should be grazed closely by all the stock on the 
farm, and in July and August all the manure and coarse litter should 
be spread on the thinner portions of this field preparatory to its coming 
in corn the next year, which is the sixth year. 

This completes the rotation for this field ; the same rotation is to 
apply to each of the others. It will be seen that we have one field in 
corn, two fields in wheat, one which is on pea fallow, the other on 



4 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

clover ; one field on pea fallow and one on clover, a sufficiency of the 
latter to be harvested for hay, the balance pastured. It will be observed 
that this system gives us two green fallows in iive years. Tile pea fal- 
low is a very cleansing one, and fits the soil admirably for clover, which 
follows; this, together with the manure on the farm, will rapidly im- 
prove its condition. The corn fodder should be secured in good order 
and time, both blades and tops, for the stock on the farm, but when 
sufficient clover can be harvested, the pulling of fodder may be dis- 
pensed with and the corn cut up in the fall with the fodder on it. An 
oat crop should be raised every year as a change of feed for work teams. 
Eight or ten acres of the corn stubble may be seeded, and when har- 
vested, this may be seeded in peas. By this system strictly carried out 
and by accumulating all the manure which can be raised, the farm will 
rapidly improve and the product increased from and at the beginning 
of the second rotation at least 25 to 50 per cent, and in some cases 100 
per cent. When the farm has sufficiently improved to justify it, that 
is, the soil abounds in vegetable matter, the pea fallow may be aban- 
doned and the corn stubble put in wheat, to be seeded the following 
spring in grass. This would give a two years' crop of grass, which 
would justify the mixing of the grasses, sowing orchard or timothy 
with the clover, which would greatly improve the hay as well as the 
pasture. It should be borne in mind that the most successful farming 
will always tend to the increase of the grass crop. It is an axiom which 
will not be denied, that where most grass abounds there most pros- 
perity will be found, and vice versa. This being so, it should be the 
settled purpose of every farmer to bring his land up to that state where 
most of the land may be left in sod and but little cultivated. All the 
stock should be kept on the farm that can be properly cared for. Sheep 
are very profitable when well sheltered and fed in winter, while their 
flesh affords a delicate and healthy dish. When penned at night and 
the pens well littered, they will accumulate a large amount of valuable 
manure and are not so apt to be depredated on by dogs. Ten or 
twenty beeves should be fattened every winter and topped off in May 
on the clover field with corn, so as to fit them for the June market, as 
this is the best time to market them in this section, avoiding the flies 
and mosquitoes, which greatly annoy them later. 

A large surplus of pork should be raised ; the marshes afford them 
fine pasturage in winter and spring, and when the wheat crop is re- 
moved from the field they should have their noses ringed and turned 
in to glean the fields and allowed to remain until the pea fallow is 
ready for them, when they should go on this until the field is seeded 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 5 

in wheat, when they should be penned and fed corn a few weeks. By 
this means one barrel of corn would suffice to make one hundred 
pounds of pork. It should be the object of the proprietor to consume 
all the corn raised, which, if judiciously done, will pay him handsomely, 
say twice as much as if marketed. Poultry should be raised to the full 
extent of the proprietor's ability to keep them and well cared for, as 
nothing pays better. The dairy should have the same attention, as the 
surplus from these sources help materially to swell the farmer's reve- 
nue. The fruit trees, especially when young, should have close atten- 
tion, be pruned regularly, cultivated and examined frequently for in- 
sects, which should be effectually destroyed. It would be well when 
the orchard is young to sow it every spring in peas, to be turned in in 
the fall ; this would serve as a mulch and rapidly improve the soil. 
In conclusion, will say, I have been enabled only to touch upon many 
subjects which should have been more fully treated, but for want of 
space. The thoughtful farmer, however, will be enabled to pursue 
them to their legitimate results. 



Agricultural Invention. — A New Plow Attachment. — Mr. Thos. 
P. Wise, of Gravel Hill, Buckingham county, Va., has patented a new 
and improved attachment to be secured to the land side of a plow, which 
will cut away a slice of surface of the soil, between the plow and the 
plants to be cultivated, removing the grass and weeds and carrying 
them iuto the furrow in- the rear of the plow. The standard of the 
plow is of ordinary construction, and is provided with a series of recesses 
and holes, to which an inclined horizontal cutting blade provided with 
a shoulder on its inner end and a threaded screw may be attached by a 
corresponding nut, and may be adjusted up or down, as desired. The 
blade may be cast so as to be slightly elevated at its outer end when 
attached to the standard. The cutting edge of the blade projects out 
forward beyond the upper edge of the mould board and in line there- 
with. A wing is firmly secured to the outer end of the blade at right 
angles to it and parallel to the land side of the plow, and at its rear end 
is bent inwardly. The front end of the wing is provided with a down- 
wardly projecting hook, adapted to run under vines and cause them to 
ride over the upper edge of the wing, the rear bent end carrying them 
into the furrow. — Sci. Amer. 



A wise man who does not assist with his counsels, a rich man witli 
his charity, and a poor man with his labor, are perfect nuisauces in a 
commonwealth. — Swift. 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



LETTER FROM DR. POLLARD. 



Editor Southern Planter: 

You request an occasional contribution from my pen. I would be 
glad to comply if my health and time permitted, particularly if I could 
subserve the interest of the farmers by so doing, and advance the inter- 
est of your useful journal.* There is one subject that presses itself on 
my attention, or perhaps several, connected more or less with one 
another. Whether the farmers on the south-side of the State should 
extend the cultivation of cotton ; whether they should not abandon or 
diminish their tobacco crops; whether they should not attempt to sub- 
stitute some more profitable crops, and whether they should not raise 
more stock and grass, are the points to which I have reference. 
Where cotton and tobacco are raised the lands do not improve. It is 
true, if the cotton seed were returned to the land there would be no 
depreciation of the soil, but they are so valuable a feed, and bear such 
a good price, that the temptation to sell is often too strong to resist, 
and as their value becomes more generally known, the demand and the 
price will probably increase. Now, after oil is abstracted, they sell in 
Richmond (in the powdered state) at $32 to $33 per ton. Cotton re- 
quires clean land, and the planter looks on grass as his enemy. Fre- 
quently one crop of cotton follows another, and is never followed, as 
far as we know, by clover or the grasses. In a trip from Richmond to 
Atlanta last fall (November), we saw no grass except a little plot occa- 
sionally near some homestead. Even the rich valley of the Roanoke, 
where the railroad crosses, nothing greeted the eye but naked land, 
where wheat, we suppose, had been cut. If this land was sodded with 
good grass, it would support large herds of fat cattle, such as we see 
continually grazing on the meadow lands of Holland. The consequence 
of this want of grass is, that you see through all the country mentioned 
but little stock, and that of a scrubby character. Where tobacco is the 
main crop, every other crop must give way to its needs and require- 

* Though an associate editor of the American Farmer, of Baltimore, I see no cause of 
rivalry between the two journals. 1 wish every farmer in Virginia and the United States 
could be induced *o take them both. They are the old pioneer journals of this country. 
The American Farmer was founded in 1819, and the Southern Planter in 1840 by Chas. 
T. Botts. brother of J. Minor Botts. Every farmer who expects to prosecute his busi- 
ness successfully, should take several agricultural journals as a means of becoming 
acquainted with his calling. A successful farmer and stock-breeder, Mr. A. P. Rowe 
(near Fredericksburg) wrote me some time since that he took twelve agricultural journals, 
and that he believed each number of each journal paid for the year's subscription. A 
very intelligent gentleman of Richmond, who conducts successfully a farm in the vicinity, 
and who is a subscriber to the American Farmer, said to me recently that he never read 
a single number of a good agricultural journal that he did not think he was paid for the 
year's subscription. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 7 

merits. It must get all the manure raised on the land; it must be 
worked and worked, and Buckered and topped and housed, regardless 
of the attention and labor other erops require. Like " time and tide, 
it waits for no man." Then, no other erop keeps the farmer so long 
out of his money — for twelve months from the time his labor com- 
menced on it. It is true, that wheat generally succeeds well after 
tobacco, and that clover may generally be successfully seeded on the 
wheat, but very few farmers do this in the tobacco region, the land fre- 
quently going back to tobacco after wheat. Then wheat is not a profi- 
table crop on the highlands of Middle Virginia. We think the returns 
by Census of 1880 show the average of the wheat crop for Virginia to 
be between eight and nine bushels per acre. Deducting cost of seed, 
putting in wheat, preparing and sending to market, which will be at 
least $5, leaving out interest on land, cost of any fertilizers to be u&ed, 
and where is the profit? This we shall use as an argument for attempt- 
ing more profitable crops than those at present raised. Of late years 
tobacco has certainly not been a profitable crop, except to those who 
have the proper soil for ''bright" tobacco, and have learned the art of 
making and curing it, which few have. If tobacco culture is to be con- 
tinued, planters should turn their attention more to " bright." 

The history of nations has been the history of soil exhaustion, and 
the only remedy for this is the raising of grasses and stock, liming as a 
means of raising clover and grass, green fallows, proper rotations and 
proper cultivation of lands. No part of the country, we are afraid, is 
repeating this history of soil exhaustion more emphatically than the 
tobacco and cotton regions. Many a farm in the old Cotton States has 
been exhausted, abandoned, and the fresher and more productive lands 
of Arkansas and Texas settled on, to be in turn exhausted. We should 
take warning from the history of the Eastern nation. We behold 
Egypt, once the " granary of the world," with its teeming population, 
in most of its territory, now almost a desert. So of all North Africa to 
Morocco. So of the peninsula of the Mediterranean, which once con- 
tained the power that ruled the world ; that power departed with the 
fertility of tbe soil, and it now contains one-half the population it once 
fed. So of Spain, which the Moors found a paradise of fertility, but 
the exhausting process soon dispelled their Elysium, and their once 
productive fields teeming with food, now poorly repay the hard labor 
expended on them. Palestine, that once "flowed with milk and honey," 
has seen its glory depart, and its fertility exchanged for barrenness. 
The Anglo-Saxons of Western Europe, and the Chinese and Japanese 
^forced by dire necessity to support a teeming population) have been 



8 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

wise enough to arrest in a measure this process of exhaustion, but still 
the fact stands out, as we have stated, that the history of nations, as a 
general rule, has been the record of the impoverishment of soils. We 
heard an intelligent farmer raised on lower James river, now living on 
upper James river, state a few days since, that formerly fifteen bushels 
of wheat was considered an average yield per acre of tolerable good 
wheat lands, but that now it is considered an extra yield. He attributed 
this to too thin seeding of wheat, of which he had at one time been an 
advocate, but now was convinced he was wrong. This may have been 
partly the cause. (We are an advocate of thicker seeding than that 
generally pursued, and believe the practice of farmers will change in 
this respect. The present admirable wheat crop is an argument in 
favor of thick seeding — almost every grain came up, and none has been 
killed.) But we think the main cause has been the exhaustion of soils, 
and particularly the loss of phosphoric acid by constant cropping, and 
of the want of nitrogen, which clover and grass fallows would furnish. 
The prosperity of a country may always be measured by the quantity 
of stock raised. Look at the Valley and Piedmont Virginia; at Eng- 
land, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Holland, with their fertile fields 
and teeming stock. The English farmers declare they could not keep 
up the fertility of their lands without sheep. (See Report to House of 
Lords of a commission instructed to inquire into the state of the wool 
trade, etc., in Great Britain in 1826.) But to return to the cotton, as 
a crop for Southside Virginia. The amount of nitrogen (ammonia) 
taken off in this crop is greater, perhaps, than in any other, and unless 
the seed are restored to the land the exhaustion must be very decided, 
and, as we have said, the temptation now is very great to sell the seed. 
A writer in a late number of the Central Presbyterian, who seems to be 
familiar with cotton culture, thus expresses himself (commenting on an 
article I wrote on this subject for the Dispatch) : 

" The want of adaptation of the climate is a very important conside- 
ration, unless there is some great advantage offered by better facilities 
for market or something of a kindred nature. I do not believe that 
any region, by nature less favorable, can compete successfully with 
another in the growth of a crop perfectly adapted to its climate. But 
even this is not the most important objection to cotton growing in the 
Southside. The absolute lack of proper implements for its cultivation, 
as well as manipulation, and the want of familiarity with, and skill in, 
all the operations connected with cotton on the part of labor in Vir- 
ginia would, of themselves, for a long time, inevitably make it an 
unprofitable crop, if nothing else did. Those not familiar with the 
management of the crop will hardly appreciate this till they make an 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 9 

experiment, but a long residence by the writer in the cotton country 
taught him that it took two or three seasons at least for Virginia negroes 
to become nearly so expert as those trained from youth. Then, too, in 
the matter of ginning and baling, there are absolutely no provision in 
this part of the country. The seed cotton would have to be shipped 
probably hundreds of miles to reach the nearest gin, and since there 
are two pounds of seed to one of lint, and freight would be charged at 
local rates, that of itself would consume a fair margin of profit. On 
the whole, as much as I am in favor of progress and opposed to 
unthinking conservatism, I think with Dr. Pollard, that the cotton idea 
is a railroad scheme, and would be found to be progressive in the 
wrong direction if undertaken in Virginia." 

In a future article we propose to speak of some new industries which 
should be encouraged in Virginia — notably, sorghum for syrup, and 
grapes and winter apples for Piedmont, the Mountain and the Valley 
regions; with probably early and fall apples, particularly the old-fash- 
ioned Virginia cheese (the most valuable ever raised), for Middle and 
Tidewater. In these sections winter apples will not do, they mature 
too soon. 

Henrico. Th. Pollard. 

We commend the article of our valued correspondent to the careful attention of the 
readers of the Planter. Concurring in the sentiments expressed in their general sub- 
stance, we wish only to add a plea in behalf of wheat. We are not willing to have it laid 
aside, as, under proper management, it is as sure of good results as any crop we can raise. 
It cannot be dispensed with under any .system of good rotation. Clover precedes and 
follows it with better effect than any other cereal crop, and the results are the best in 
the improvement of the land and for increased yield of grain. Dr. Pollard accurately 
states the average yield of wheat in Virginia, according to the Census report of 1880, as 
between eight and nine bushels per acre. On this he bases his calculation that there is 
no profit in the crop, and we readily admit that with such a yield there is not only no 
profit, but really a loss. The general average is not the proper basis on which to found 
a calculation of the capacity and profit of this or any other crop. This would be notably 
unjust to those farmers who cultivate on sound and just principles. To illustrate : A is 
a farmer who puts no land in wheat which has not fertility enough to produce a good crop 
— this fertility arising from a previous rotation and fertilization, or some direct applica- 
tion of a proper manure. The land is thoroughly prepared, and the seed, in proper 
quantity and well selected, is sowed in good time, and his field is protected from the 
trespasses of stock. He has four or five neighbors who are regardless of the conditions 
he observes and enforces, and they sow, when sowing time comes, on poor and illy pre- 
pared land, and blindly think they have done their duty. A reaps twenty-Jive bushels to the 
acre, which pays him well, but his five neighbors have possibly Jive bushels to the acre, 
by which no profit is made. How, then, is the general average? A, one acre, twenty- 
five bushels, and the five neighbors five busheU each, or a total of fifty bushels, with an 
average^f the whole of eight and one-third bushels. It is unjust, therefore, to measure 
A's profits by the united yield of his own and his neighbor's crops. This illustration 
will apply to a whole State, or States, and justly so, for every observer will see the large 
acreage in Virginia which properly fits the case of the Jive ueighbors of our exemplary 
farmer A. 

Our correspondent has said something about thick and thin sowing of wheat. We have 



10 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

our theory, as well as practice, on this question also, and it does not accord with his 
views. Hereafter we may have something to say on this branch of the subject. — Ed. 
Sou. Planter. 



DR. J. L. M. CURRY'S LECTURE 

BEFORE THE CONNECTICUT STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION AT HARTFORD, 

OCTOBER 28 r IH, 1881. 



In May we received from the Secretary of this Association a copy of his report, enti- 
tled, Prevention of Illiteracy a National Obligation, and as courtesy demanded, gave it a 
brief notice in our issue of June 1. In this notice we made special mention of Dr. 
Curry's lecture, and rather dissented from the single expression, "that the South rejoices 
that the negroes are free." In its connection we regarded this expression as too broad and 
unqualified, and our dissent only amounted to this : That the South accepted the freedom 
of the negro and' would protect bim in the full enjoyment of it, and is in accord with al' 
proper educational schemes for his benefit, but we do not think the South could rejoice 
in the manner of his freedom, or that, without education, he should have been at once 
thrust upon his section as a voter for partizan and political purposes. We think that all 
who read Dr. Curry's lecture can reconcile our criticism and see that there is no differ- 
ence between us, and that our brief comment did the Doctor no injustice. Some of our 
readers who have seen our comment, may not have seen the full text of the lecture, and 
therefore we give it now, with the full belief that our readers will be interested and 
instructed by it, and that its classical and forcible style and substantial arguments will 
add to the reputation of the Doctor as an earnest thinker, and an advocate of all that 
will contribute to the welfare of his own section and of the whole country. 

I esteem it a privilege to address an assemblage of Connecticut 
educators. Those who have achieved such distinguished success in 
their own State, are most likely to regard with kindliness and patience 
the efforts of the friends of education in other States to place their school 
systems on an equally permanent and satisfactory footing. There is 
much false reasoning about education, as about other things, from igno- 
rance of the facts. Prior to the war, the South was not a Botany Bay, 
nor a heathen land, nor wholly destitute of Academies, Colleges and 
Universities. By the census of 1860, the white population of the North 
was about 19,000,000, and of the South about 8,000,000. The North, 
at that time, had 205 Colleges, 1,407 professors, and 29,044 students, 
while the South had 262 Colleges, 1,488 professors, and 27,055 students. 
For these institutions, the North expended $1,514,688, and on academic 
institutions, $4,663,749. For similar institutions, the South expended 
respectively $1,662,419 and $4,328,127. 

In war, diplomacy, jurisprudence and politics, the South had some 
share. Washington, Jackson, Scott and Taylor; Marshall, Taney, 
Legare and Rives ; Calhoun, Madison, Clay and Polk ; Henry, Forsyth 



1882. SOUTHERN PLANTER. 11 

and Jefferson were respectable men and not the outgrowth of barbarism 
or of an inferior civilization. Some of our cities and towns, Charleston 
and Mobile for instance, had well-sustained and efficient public schools, 
but the admission is frankly made that in free public schools the South 
was deficient and very far behind the North. 

It may aid in a proper understanding of the subject to inquire briefly 
why universal free education languished at the South before the war, 
and I have no hesitation in saying that African slavery was the chief 
reason. Slavery was not the offspring of yesterday. It was the slow 
and gradual growth of hundreds of years. The slave-trade was coeval 
with the settlement of the Colonies and was encouraged by statutes and 
by royal proclamations through the reigns of Elizabeth, the Stuarts and 
William III. Lord Somers declared the trade to be highly beneficial 
to England. In 1760, South Carolina passed an act prohibiting the 
importation of slaves, which Great Britain rejected with indignation. 
Massachusetts, at an earlier day, had fitted out a vessel, put aboard the 
Africans landed on her soil, and sent them back to their native land, 
and her early anti-slavery acts were frustrated by the Mother-country. 
As one of the justifications for independence, Jefferson introduced into 
the original Declaration of Independence, the refusal of Great Britain 
to heed the remonstrances of the colonists in opposition to the intro- 
duction of slaves. Several States of the Union continued the slave- 
trade until our government prohibited it. Few persons have any con- 
ception of the persistency and strength by which slavery was fastened 
and riveted upon the Southern States. While English courts, with a 
great flourish of trumpets, were declaring Somerset free, Great Britain 
was forcing slavery on the colonies of the New World. Old England 
and New England and the South are responsible for slavery, and dia- 
tribes and recriminations and legislation, unfortunately, cannot eradi- 
cate the mischiefs and misery of its introduction. A Greek historian 
advised his countrymen when they *cast their mutual failings in one 
another's teeth, to go home, each with the burden of his own misdoings. 
The Dutch vessel which, in August, 1620, six months before the 
Mayflower landed its noble cargo on Plymouth rock, entered James 
river with twenty negroes for sale, was a Pandora's box, full of dire 
calamities for the South and America. It is said that the same ship 
which brought the Pilgrim Fathers afterwards brought slaves to this 
country. However that may be, from small beginnings slavery grew, 
and from various causes slave labor was profitable in the South. Slavery 
sparsified our population, created a kind of aristocracy, among whom, 
as Burke said, '- freedom was to them not only an enjoyment but a 



12 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

kind of rank and privilege." Slave-owners held baronial estates, were 
surrounded by a host of menial dependents, lived luxuriously, dispensed 
a cordial and magnificent hospitality, " combined with the spirit of free- 
dom the haughtiness of domination," and free public schools became 
unnecessary or impossible. Slavery retarded increase of population 
and diffusion of wealth. Norfolk was once larger than New York and 
had more exports. Free labor, governmental discriminations and gen- 
eral education reversed this condition. Slave-labor is more costly than 
free labor, concentrates labor and capital on a few products, discourages 
manufacturing and higher mechanical pursuits, and thus prevents dis- 
semination of wealth and the development and growth of varied in- 
dustries, 

The sudden abolition of slavery was the most wonderful social and 
politico-economical revolution that ever occurred, and stands out on 
the historic page in startling isolation. The South rejoices that the 
negroes are free. The war decimated our white male population, par- 
alyzed industries, closed schools and colleges. It was followed by a 
new and untried labor system, by the depreciation and ruin of securi- 
ties, by bankruptcy of corporations, by harsh and irritating social and 
political frictions, and by some peculations and robberies that put to 
blush the " Prsetors, Prefects and Quaestors, the host of plunderers'' 
that came " at the heels of Lucius Mursena, the Proconsul,''' — and these 
various causes brought universal depression and impoverishment* 
Take a few illustrations. The taxable property of Georgia in 1860 was 
about $750,000,000 ; in 1880, $238,000,000. In 1860 the wealth of the 
State, exclusive of the value of slaves, was over $500 per capita. In 
1880 the wealth per capita is about $150. The taxable property of 
Virginia in 1860 was $585,099,382.77 ; in 1880, $324,955,980. Dexter 
A. Hawkins, Esq., says: "The assessed valuation for taxation of prop- 
erty, real and personal, in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida 
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in 1860, was 
$3,244,239,406; in 1870, $1,830,863,180— a shrinkage in ten years of 
43J per cent." We may epitomize the status of the South as ruin of 
landed interests, destruction of incomes, encumbered, estates, heavy 
burdens, collision of races, mortification of defeat, disorganization of 
society, upheaval of everything regarded as fixed and stable, small 
immigration of permanent citizens, flocking of vultures, hopelessness 
and despair. This is descriptive of the intelligent and subjugated race. 
Add the negroes, suddenly emancipated, intoxicated by freedom natu- 
rally misunderstood and misapplied, deluded by false and wicked prom- 
ises, inflamed into a suspicion and distrust of their former masters, and 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 13 

in a state of abject poverty with nothing but physical health and 
freedom. 

Macaulay, in graphically describing the inquiry by Parliament into 
the affairs of India while under the control of Lord Clivc, represents 
the indignant officer, after stating the position in which his victories 
had placed him — princes dependent on his pleasure — opulent cities 
afraid of being given up to plunder — wealthy bankers bidding against 
each other for his smiles — vaults.piled with gold and jewels and thrown 
open to him alone — as exclaiming, with an oath, "Mr. Chairman, at 
this moment, I stand astonished at my own moderation. " So after 
this recital of stubborn facts, the American patriot must contemplate, 
with devout astonishment and gratitude, the increasing harmony of 
the reunited States, the fellowship of feeling elicited by the patient 
fortitude and untimely death of the murdered President, the rapid 
recovery of lost wealth, and the marvellous transformation in habits, 
thoughts, educational systems and civil institutions of the lately bellig- 
erent and impoverished States of the South. 

Notwithstanding the drawbacks and obstacles, the South has made 
cheering progress in the work of universal education. In the lapse o. 
a few years every Southern State has incorporated into organic law and 
put upon the statute-book a system of free, public instruction. Every 
State has a Superintendent of Schools. Communities are supplement- 
ing by local taxation the State revenues. Educational journals are pub- 
lished in seven States, and Normal Schools are rapidly growing into 
favor. While a few u old fogies," too rigidly conservative, honestly 
oppose gratuitous instruction, the general sentiment is healthy, as is 
evinced by the lack of organized opposition, by the generous and intel- 
ligent advocacy of the press, and by the decided expressions of approval 
in party platforms and by candidates for office. 

In some localities there is an unequal distribution of the means of 
education. While there may be occasionally an accumulation beyond 
local wants, generally the educational districts are necessitous. In 1785 
and 1803, Congress in organizing territorial governments reserved the 
16th section of every township for schools in that township. In 1848, 
the reservation was doubled, but no Southern State gets the benefit of 
this princely increase. 

From the school officers of every State comes up an earnest cry for 
more money. Sagacious purposes and patriotic endeavors are ham- 
pered, if not defeated, by deficiency of means. 

The education afforded during a few brief months is insufficient and 
imperfect, far below what is required by the increasing intelligence of 



14 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

the age for success in business, for the right discharge of the duties of 
citizenship and of true manhood and womanhood. 

Much of the power used in schools is wasted from misdirection, from 
not being economically or scientifically applied. Schools need more 
efficient superintendence ; school teachers are not recognized as public 
functionaries, nor adequately rewarded. Teaching is not duly appre- 
ciated as an art, a science. The utmost diligence, the wisest and most 
liberal efforts, need to be put, and kept continuously, in operation for 
training teachers, and fitting them in intelligence, accomplishments, 
tastes, habits, social respectability, and professional skill, for their pecu- 
liar and most important work. In the execution of their sacred trust, 
the Peabody Trustees, in pleasant cooperation with the State systems 
of instruction, are seeking to stimulate and aid the Southern States in 
the better preparation of teachers for public schools. 

Of more importance is the fact that multitudes of our fellow citizens 
are in a state of perilous ignorance, perilous to themselves, perilous to 
us, for whose education there is, and in present circumstances can be, 
no adequate provision. This is a present and positive peril. Year 
after year, an ignorant and needy race, is " spawning in the prolificness 
of wretchedness." Swarms of neglected children are growing up "into 
hordes of ignorant, idle and, too often, depraved and vicious aud god- 
less men and women." We are committing political suicide to hide 
our heads or avert our eyes. Let us with searching gaze look upon the 
present and onward into the future, " with the prescience which requires 
no gift of prophecy " — only the employment of sober reason and en- 
lightened patriotism. 

What is now a present need will become heavier and more impera- 
tive to-morrow. How shall it be met ? 

(1.) Private and ecclesiastical benefactions have been munificent, but 
they are spasmodic, inadequate, not in continuous succession, and are 
liable to misapplication. It is chimerical to suppose that individual 
benefactors or churches can achieve the great and permanent work of 
universal education. 

(2. Grandly as the Southern States have done, it is impossible for them 
to supply sufficient funds for the daily multiplying demands. State 
resources are inadequate to maintain and perfect the machinery now 
in motion, to keep schools in activity for eight or ten months in the 
year, to build and equip houses, and train and pay teachers. The South 
has a school population of about 5,000,000, and pays annually for com- 
mon school education over $7,000,000. To educate universally and 
properly would require an annual tax of $30,000,000 or $40,000,000, 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 15 

and it is absurd to ask or expect the South to raise for free education 
three times as much as Connecticut or New York does. 

(3.) The sum, sufficient to maintain a comprehensive aud permanent 
system of free schools — ever improving and flexible in its adaptation to 
shifting exigencies — must be furnished in large measure by the Federal 
Government. National aid is indispensable. The Government must 
deliberately and courageously determine, as an imperative duty of self- 
preservation, to aid the States in keeping alive and improving their sys- 
tems of public instruction. The cost of the education of the people 
will be more than repaid in better regulated and more thoroughly 
developed industry, in fewer demands of poverty, in social order, in 
checks on improvidence, waste, pauperism and vice. The duty of the 
Federal Government to render prompt and substantial assistance can 
be placed on grounds higher than mere material good. Thi3 is an era 
of centennials. Review of tne past, congratulations on the present, 
casting the horoscope of the future, engage million minds and tongues 
and pens. The growth of our country outstrips imagination. We 
smile complacently as we read Abbe Raynal's prediction, made at the 
beginning of this century, that our population woald never exceed ten 
millions. In area, population, means of transportation, products, our 
growth has been immense. We felicitate ourselves that our experi- 
ment of self-government has been thus far a success, and yet the glory 
achieved only enhances the magnitude of the trust, the weight of the 
responsibility, to transmit unimpaired and fortified the representative 
institutions we have inherited. The basal idea of those institutions is 
the civil equality of man as man, independent of distinctions of race or 
birth or property. Suffrage is not an inalienable right but an accident, 
or, at best, a matter of wise expediency. It is not based on manhood, 
oh mere physical attributes. Behind the ballot should stand intelli- 
gence, integrity, freedom, patriotism. Such writers on the English 
Constitution as Montesquieu aud Blackstone, in writing on suffrage, 
concur that those should be excluded from voting whose situation is 
such that they cannot be presumed to have a will of their own, or, 
what is equivalent, an honest or independent or intelligent will. The 
elective franchise, as conferred by State and Federal Governments, is 
not likely to be withdrawn or restricted. Having been granted, it 
behooves us to see that the boon shall be an instrument of good and 
not of evil. It seems a truism that education and the privilege of vot- 
ing should be coextensive. One invested with this prerogative of free- 
dom, having such potencies, should obviously be able to read the names 
on the paper, which accomplishes noiselessly in America what in other 



16 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

lands requires standing armies or a revolution. Mere suffrage is not 
a safeguard against oppression or dictatorship. It does not necessarily 
ensure peace, prosperity or a virtuous administration. A mass of igno- 
rant voters awakens fearful apprehensions. The adult illiteracy in the 
United States is appalling. The aggregate vote of the United States at 
the presidential election in 1883 was 9,204,428. The vote in the South- 
ern States was 2,763,508. Of the 1,580,000 illiterate voters in the United 
States, the Southern States furnished 317,281 white and 820,022 colored. 
In Connecticut no citizen unable to read his ballot is allowed to vote. 
That is for your protection, but the illiterate voter in Louisiana or 
South Carolina may affect you as seriously as an illiterate voter in 
Hartford. In the last presidential election, a multitude of the voters 
did not know whether their "tickets" contained the names of the elec- 
tors for Garfield or for Hancock. A large portion of such men vote 
as dead machines, are the tools of demagogues, and are quite as likely 
to ostracise Aristides and sustain repudiation as to uphold the virtuous 
and rebuke dishonor. This illiteracy is a standing menace to republi- 
can institutions. It is a temptation to political profligacy and dishonor. 
It is a severe strain of what Heraclitus, according to Sir William Tem- 
ple, called "the only skill or knowledge of any value in politics, the 
secret of governing all by all" It summons every patriot, in every part 
of the Union, to take prompt and efficient steps for its cure or removal. 
This problem of national help, closely allied to Civil Service Reform, 
overshadows all questions of party politics, as "Free Governments must 
stand or fall with Free Schools." O that some broad-minded states- 
man, like your own Hawley, would espouse the cause of the imperiled 
Republic and consecrate unceasingly his noble powers to the cause of 
universal education ! 

Much of this illiteracy at the South is among the negroes. For it 
they surely are not culpable. The Government has made them its 
wards. The North gave them freedom. That is your unshared glory. 
We at the South rejoice as much as you possibly can in the emanci- 
pation of the slaves, but we had no part nor lot in the achievement. 
You had much to do in introducing them into the country. You libe- 
rated them, you made them citizens, you enfranchised them. If the 
Constitution gave power to free and enfranchise, then why "stick in 
the bark " about educating them and fitting them for freedom and cit- 
izenship ? As I heard last w r eek at Yorktown from one than whom 
New England has furnished none nobler and purer (Mr. Wintrop): 
"Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, 
while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 17 

education." During the civil war, gigantic sacrifices and limitless 
expenditures were made to save the Union. There are other enemies 
more insidious and dangerous than organized hosts in battle array led 
by experienced commanders. An influence, noiseless an unseen, poi- 
sons society, corrupts the fountains of justice, sits like a juggling devil 
over the ballot-box, makes elections a farce and a crime, causes dema- 
gogism and fraud to run riot, puts incompetence, conceit and villainy in 
high places and endangers the ark of our free, representative institutions. 
Our last four presidents, looking over the whole country and speak- 
ing with broad patriotism and official weight, have united in urging 
the necessity of governmental aid. Gen. Grant, in his message, an- 
nouncing the ratification of the fifteenth amendment, says: "I would 
call upon Congress to take all measures within their constitutional 
power to promote and encourage popular education throughout the 
country, and I call upon the people everywhere to see to it that all who 
possess and exercise political rights shall have an opportunity to acquire 
knowledge which will make their share in the government a blessing 
and not a curse." 

President Hayes, in 1880, repeats and enforces a former recommen- 
dation. u The means at the command of the local and State authorities 
are, in many cases, wholly inadequate to furnish free instruction to all 
who need it. This is especially true where, before emancipation, the 
education of the people was neglected or prevented, in the interest of 
slavery. Firmly convinced that the subject of popular education de- 
serves the earnest attention of the people of the whole country, with 
a view to wise and comprehensive action by the government of the 
United States, I respectfully recommend that Congress, by suitable 
legislation, and with proper safeguards, supplement the local educa- 
tional funds in the several States where the grave duties and responsi- 
bility of citizenship have been devolved on uneducated people, by 
devoting to the purpose grants of the public lands and, if necessary, by 
appropriations from the treasury of the United States." 

President Garfield, in his inaugural, uses these emphatic words : 
" All the constitutional power of the nation and of the States, and all 
the volunteer forces of the people, should be summoned to meet this 
danger by the saving influence of universal education."* 

* Since this address was made, President Arthur in his message adds his voice to that 
of his predecessors. 

11 There is now a special reason why, by setting apart the proceeds of its sales of public 
lands, or by some other course, the government should aid the work of education. 
Many who now exercise the right of suffrage are unable to read the ballot which they 
cast. Upon many who had just emerged from a condition of slavery, were suddenly 
devolved the responsibilities of citizenship in that portion of the country most impover- 
2 



18 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

The Bureau of Education has through its accomplished head, ably 
and persistenly pressed upon Congress this national duty. The Trus- 
tees of the Peabody Education Fund, through a committee, consisting 
of Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, Chief Justice Waite and Hon. W. M. Evarts, 
have, in a very able paper, memorialized Congress on the vital neces- 
sity of national aid for the education of the colored population of the 
Southern States. 

A foreign traveler, in the early part of this century, predicted the 
universal adoption of the French tongue by civilized nations, thought 
it a not unreasonable requisition that the Americans should adopt the 
French as their vernacular. Our mother-tongue, as the vehicle of 
thought and feeling, as the record of what English-speaking people 
have wrought for literature and science, for popular and religious free- 
dom, can not be readily surrendered, but we can strive to rise to the 
height of the great responsibility, and adopt, as our national motto and 
aim, the inscription upon the gigantic statue to be erected in the harbor 
of New York by some enthusiastic French admirers of our country — 
Liberty enlightening the World. Let it be our high endeavor and 
exalted privilege to give new meaning and lustre to the sacred name of 
Liberty, by separating it from all crude notions of license, of lawless- 
ness, of arbitrary dominion of mere numbers, of passionate and reckless 
individualism, and by identifying it with self-imposed restraints, clear 
recognition of the equal rights of others, Law, Justice, Truth, Honor 
enthroned and regnant, and Order as having the sanction of the Al- 
mighty. Let it be ours, as well to enlighten the world, not by fierce 
propagandism, not by making our conceits the standard for other peo- 
ples, not by Procrustean uniformity, not by unholy crusades, not by 
deeds of violence and blood, but by the mild and persuasive teachings 
of virtuous example, establishing the supremacy of man over mere acci- 
dents and contingencies of birth, race and fortune, the capacity of the 
people for just and honest government and liberal institutions, and 
demonstrating that popular will is legitimate and authoritative only 
when intelligently and freely expressed in accordance with preordained 
forms. Thus we may present to the world a people, moral, upright, 
frugal, industrious, truthful, vindicating the inalienable rights of man 
and walking in the liberty wherewith the Christ has made them free. 

ished by war. I have been pleased to learn from the report of the Commissioner of Ed- 
ucation that there has lately been a commendable increase of interest and effort for 
their instruction ; but all that can be done by local legislation and private generosity 
should be supplemented by such aid as can be constitutionally afforded by the National 
Government. I would suggest that if any fund be dedicated to this purpose it may be 
wisely distributed in the different States according to the ratio of illiteracy, as by this 
means those localities which are most in need of such assistance will reap its special 
benefits." 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 19 



HORSES SHOD AND UNSHOD. 



BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 



As there are always two sides to all questions, I desire to say in 
reply to G. F. N. in regard to horse shoeing, while I favor and practice 
using horses without shoes when practicable, suppose for his " two- 
fold" reason or any other, that shoeing be discontinued say for one 
year, who does not know, that knows anything about the matter, that 
the result would be disastrous in the extreme, and that rather than 
shoeing being a "mistaken kindness/' the discontinuance of it would 
be cruelty intolerable. Who does not know how utterly unfit a bare- 
foot horse is for pulling any load over a frozen and icy road, while in 
deep soft snow the bare feet are all right ? How long would the ma- 
jority of our horses endure driving over any stony, gravelly, or any 
kind of hard roads without shoes ? I venture to say not long, before 
the driver would be subject to arrest for "cruelty to animals." While 
a few of the best feet might stand ordinary driving on ordinary roads 
pretty well, and where they can stand it, it is all right, but where they 
cannot it would be all wrong. While shoeing in many cases may be 
injurious, not shoeing in many more would be more so. In the case of 
Dr. Perkins, he may have done just right and still be no argument in 
favor of discontinuing horse shoeing. His horses may have had excel- 
lent feet, and like many another Doctor's horses, but little driving, or 
even as is very common in Virginia, smooth nice roads. Some may 
say, if the horse needs shoes, nature has been very deficient in his con- 
struction. The same may be true of man, still he thinks he needs 
shoes. Nature evidently has not made the horse with a view to all the 
uses he is put by man with a harness on and a big wagon attached. I 
think if she had she would have put on shoes also. The horse in his 
natural state needs no shoes, nor will he venture on glare ice or very 
slippery places, but when man gets hold of the lines and forces him on 
such places, it stands to reason that short sharp corks is a kindness and 
the discontinuance of them a cruelty. There may have been "bold 
riding fox hunters" who enjoyed the dare-devil feet of galloping over 
ice with a barefoot horse, but if we could have the testimony of the 
horse, from my own experience of riding and driving, I believe he 
would say he did not enjoy it. Let's hear from the other side. — C. C. 
L.. Nicollet Co., Minn., in Farmers' Revieiv. 
What will Dr. Perkins say to " smooth, nice roads in Virginia "?— Ed. S. P. 



20 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



PLANTS WITHOUT EARTH 



SOMETHING ^ISTHETICAL, IF NOT PRACTICAL. 



We have received a copy of the New York Mail and Express, with an article marked 
"with the compliments of L. S." It presents a subject which may be interesting to 
some'of our readers, and we make the following extract. If our Journal shall fall under 
the eye of our unknown friend, L. S., we hope he will be able to inform us on these 
points : first, what kind of moss is used ; second, is the fertilization of it done by an 
artificial process ; third, if so, what is the process, and if this is the inventor's secret, 
where can the fertilized moss be obtained, and at what cost? 

To cultivate plants without earth had long been the dream of chem- 
ists; after years of patient study the gardener of Vascoeuil has discov- 
ered a means of giving continued life and nourishment to plants, with- 
out their being brought in contact with the soil. All he does is to 
wrap their roots up in some moss to which he has imparted this life- 
giving power. This "fertilizing moss" is not only capable of affording 
nourishment to all kinds of vegetable life, but will do so indefinitely. 

Since November, 1880, the date at which his researches proved suc- 
cessful, he has been constantly testing his process, and has never found 
the least interruption in the vegetative functions of the plants subjected 
to its influence ; on the contrary, winter and spring plants have blos- 
somed with a vigor he has never seen in his garden. With the shelter 
of a glass, hellebores taken up at the end of November and the mid- 
dle of December have remained two and a half to three months in blos- 
som. Other plants, primrose, daisies, violets, auriculas, have not only 
been in bloom for three months, but have thrown out new buds. 

At Vascoeuil we saw plants loaded with blossoms which had been in 
the fertilizing moss for weeks. The public in Rouen and Paris have, 
during the past year, had frequent opportunities of beholding again and 
again the process in full operation in the exhibitions of flowers and 
vegetables which M. Dumesnil has given. 

It is manifest that this discovery will indefinitely increase the facili- 
ties for the floral decorations of interiors. There is scarcely any kind 
of vessel in which the plants cannot be arranged.- Since M. Dumesnil 
perfected his discovery, he has had all kinds of ordinary flowers bloom- 
ing in baskets containing the fertilizing moss. On the occasion of any 
fete, even Christmas, his tables have been covered with a profusion of 
spring flowers, and he has been able to decorate his rooms with a free- 
dom impossible with plants growing in earth. Thus, while nature out- 
side lay frozen and dead, the interior of his house has been a blooming 
parterre. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 21 

The practice of adorning rooms with plants is so agreeable a one, 
that few persons like to be told that it may prove a source of disease* 
A Russian lady suffering from intermittent fever was attended by Prof. 
Edward von Eichwald, of St. Petersburg. The disease readily gave 
way to quinine, but returned again and again in the most inexplicable 
manner. At last the cause was discovered : when she left her sick 
room convalescent, she went into the salon, a large room filled with 
plants. Prof, von Eichwal ordered the room to be entirely cleared, and 
the fever returned no more. Such malignant effects are impossible 
with the fertilizing moss, it cannot turn sour like earth and poison the 
plants or contain germs of malaria and poison their owners. 

There appears to be no practical difficulties in carrying out the pro- 
cess. The one all-important point is to preserve the roots of the plant 
from being torn or otherwise multilated, and from being brought into 
close proximity with the fertilizing moss. In taking a plant from 
the earth, M. Dumesnil removes the mould about the roots by placing 
it in slightly tepid water. Having prepared, in the basket or vase in- 
tended for the plant, a bed of fertilizing moss, the quantity being reg- 
ulated according to the strength of the plant, he places over it a layer 
of ordinary moss of similar thickness. He then takes the plant and, 
spreading out the roots, fastens in the ordinary moss, covering the 
whole with another layer of the fertilizing moss. A little water is given 
at first and the moss always kept slightly humid. If the change from 
the earth to the moss is made with intelligence, the plant soon exhibits 
all the beauty and freedom of life, its satisfaction in its new conditions 
being shown by the quantity of rootlets it throws out. 

Other gardeners besides M. Dumesnil have tested the process and 
testify to the same results. M. Cabos, director of the public gardens 
at Havre, has, since the 22d of November last, been cultivating in the 
fertilizing moss dracseni, alternantheri, crotons, and cocoanut trees, all 
hot-house plants ; as well as palm trees, chamcerops and the Pteris 
Arguta had developed numerous new roots in the moss. None of these 
plants had lost a single leaf, nor had even faded at the time of their 
transplantation. In a fortnight they had completely taken possession 
of the moss, and had thrown out new leaves. In the chamcerops two 
or three long roots of the thickness of a quill had appeared — one of the 
best indications of the vigor of a young palm tree. The old roots had 
developed a quantity of fine rootlets. The Cocos binoti, and the various 
kinds of dracsena, all very delicate, had also produced new roots, and 
were in perfect health. 

On December 9th he submitted a number of ordinary greenhouse 



22 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

plants to the process with complete success. All the plants preserved 
their vigor, and their health continued as if nothing had happened. 

On the 17th, he placed in the fertilizing moss a Eucalyptus globulus. 
This shrub has the reputation of not bearing transplantation ; however, 
it scarcely faded. Two Cuphea bazli, equally difficult subjects, were 
put into the moss on the same day, and gave no appearance of suffering 
from the change. The culture in moss of the Eucalyptus globulus is 
the more important, as this celebrated shrub has the property of disin- 
fecting the air, and is beginning to be used in sick rooms. 

It will be observed that these perfect results have been obtained by 
practiced horticulturists. Amateurs must not expect that this process 
in any way dispenses with attention to the ordinary laws of vegetable 
life. Happy results will depend as heretofore on the degree to which 
the plants are loved and cared for. 

The object in the cultivation of vegetables being increased, and regu- 
lar productiveness the plan adopted by the gardener of Vascceuil is to 
place their roots, enveloped as above described, in an ordinary bed of 
mould. The results are most satisfactory. We saw at Vascceuil as 
many as thirty-five potatoes, the produce of one mother tuber. Thus 
the poorest land may be made to teem with rich crops, the soil being 
of no importance, the earth merely affording room and shelter for the 
plants. Seedlings and cuttings are raised in the same way. In fact, 
the process seems to have all the characteristics of a great discovery ; 
perfection in principle and indefinite powers of further development. 

The discovery of a nourishment applicable to all forms of vegetable 
life is the primary fact in the Dumesnil culture. The fertilizing moss 
agrees with every kind of plant, those that grow wild, as well as exot- 
ics, herbaceous or ligneous, ornamental, or for food. By its fostering 
power with plants, natives of the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathian 
Mountains, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas, introduced, during recent 
years, into English gardens, will, by this process, flourish under a 
simple glass all the year round. 

M. Dumesnil's innovation rests on an idea justified by physiological 
laws, the extremely abundant development of the rootlets of plants 
when permitted to spread themselves out in a medium less dense and 
as rich as the most fertile earth. All the applications of the discovery 
are derived from this truth, proved by experience. This explains the 
increase in the returns of vegetables grown in the earth and of their 
powers of vital resistance against frost and inclement weather, when 
their roots are covered with a bed of fertilizing moss. 

Thus, as this new discoverer has said in summing up the work of 



1382.] SOUUHERlSr PLANTER. 23 

Palissy: "Not only does science manifest herself to those who seek 
her, but she gives more than the knowledge they seek. Palissy sought 
white enamel; he found a new art, the art of enameling in color. It 
is the confirmation of the maxim — 'Give, and it shall be given unto 

vou.'" 

t> 

COWBOYS. 



Who they are and what they are. 



"Pony Bill" Gives a Graphic Description of the Western Cat- 
tle Business and the Men of "Grit and Leather" 
who Conduct it. 

[Written for the Georgia Telegraph and Messenger. ] 



Very general interest in cowboys and their calling being excited by 
recent events in Arizona, possibly you may find space for some expla- 
nations under the above caption. Having for some years been a cow- 
boy himself, drawn cowboy's pay, and endured the vicissitudes of cow- 
camp life, the writer knows practically whereof he writes. 

On returning to his native South to enjoy for a time what Eastern 
people are pleased to call civilization — thongh you'll find a very high 
type of the latter article in settled regions west of the Mississippi also — 
the cowboy in nearly every paper picked up finds some abusive article 
about cowboys. It reminds one of the time when the people of the 
West were edified daily by the productions of the "Outrage Mills''' 
and their account of" Southern Outrages" on colored voters. 

Only a few weeks since, your owu Telegraph and Messenger in "skin- 
ning" some writer who had been "shooting-up" a little, over the sig- 
nature of "Jayhawker," used the word cowboys as figurative of all that 
was infested and contaminating. Every hum of the telegraph wire 
flashes eastward to the Associated Press some electrical bosh about 
outrages by Arizona cowboys. Even good motherly old President 
Arthur has deemed it necessary to issue a couple of manifestoes con- 
cerning them. 

Not in defence of Arizona cowboys particularly, nor yet of any vio- 
lators of law and order, but for the sake of thousands of respectable 
cowboys earning honest and useful livings in the cattle business, which 
adds millions yearly to our national income, the writer is impelled to 
this screed. 

Who, then, are cowboys ? The name cowboy originated in Texas, 
and is applied to those hired to herd and handle cattle raised wild on 



24 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

the prairies. The life being outdoor and full of hardship and danger, 
requires a healthy, wiry, active man to endure it. Nearly all those 
following it for wages are young men, hence the name cowboys. Cat- 
tle-man and stock man is the more dignified term used in referring to 
cattle owners and live stock raisers. In Old Mexico, California, 
Nevada and Arizona, where Spaniards are largely employed in the 
business, and where Spanish is more or less spoken, the cowboy is 
called a Vaquero, bar kay ra, a cowherd. In Buenos Ayres and the 
vast Pampas of South America, on account of his nomadic life, he is 
called a Guacho, gwah-cho, a motherless, fatherless, homeless one. In 
Australia he is called a stockrider. In Colorado, Wyoming, and nearly 
all the Rocky Mountain grazing region, he goes by the ridiculous 
name of cowpuncher. 

Cowboys working on the range are called rangemen, those hiring to 
drovers to drive herds over the trail to market or some shipping point, 
are called trailmen. The main duties of a rangeman is to break broncos 
(tame wild horses), lasso, trim, brand, mark and herd cattle. 

The principal duty of a trailman is to herd and drive cattle on the 
trail. This in large herds requires experience and judgment, so that 
cattle may reach their destination in good condition. 

A full range outfit consists of a foreman (in California called Padron), 
a cook, day horse-herder, night horse-herder, and from four to eight 
cowboys. This force is sufficient to handle from 3,000 to 8,000 head 
of cattle on the range, according to the smoothness or roughness of the 
country. 

A full trail outfit consists of a foreman, cook, horse-herder, two 
pointers, two flankers, and four drivers. With this force from 1,000 
to 1,500 of Western cattle, and from 2,000 to 3,000 head of Colorado 
natives or Texans can be driven over the trail at an average speed of 
eight to ten miles per day and to a distance of 500 to 1,600 miles. For 
shorter distances a speed of twelve to twenty miles per day is often at- 
tained. Whether on range or trail, the cowboy has sufficient always 
of danger and hardship to endure, but it is on the long "drives" over 
the trail, often lasting over six months, that all the grit and sand in his 
nature are needed to enable him to "stay with it" till the drive is done. 
Between hard riding all day, sleepless hours on guard around the herd 
at night, rain, hail, snow, frost, blistering hot days on the treeless plains, 
blinding, suffocating dust, half-wild bucking ponies, stampedes, the 
possibility of losing his scalp, sometimes short rations, and almost 
daily stagnant and alkaline water, the trail-man needs to be made of 
good leather to last well. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 25 

Whether on range or trail, each cowboy has " spotted " out to him, 
for his own exclusive riding, from three to six ponies. These, like the 
cattle, are raised wild and free on the range till caught to be broken. 
They seldom become entirely gentle, but are always more or less wild 
and intractable. Whenever needed for use they have to be " roped" 
(lassoed), and every mother's son of them will buck whenever it feels 
fresh and lively. This bucking is a vice peculiar to the Western horse. 
The writer has never seen a horse bred east of the Mississippi river 
buck. Bucking consists of bowing up the back, lowering the head, 
and jumping stiff-legged, just as a buck deer does when killing a snake, 
hence the name. If an inexperienced rider is subjected to a severe 
bucking, he is apt to wish he had never been born. The jar is simply 
agony, and riders have sometimes suffered concussion of the brain, 
bleeding of the lungs, and died from bucking. From 50 to 125 head 
of ponies, according to size, are sufficient for one outfit. They are 
small, and it is simply astonishing how the diminutive little grass-fed 
ponies will carry a rider and riding rig — about 200 to 250 pounds — all 
day long in a sweeping lope that covers easily forty to sixty miles. 
There are several breeds of them, prime favorites among which are the 
Mustangs of California and Texas, and the Indian pony of the 
Northwest. 

The method of raising and handling wild cattle may be stated thus : 
In winter the cattle, unherded and uncared for, run loose wherever 
they please. In the spring the various outfits go out on a general 
round-up. Every day all the cattle within a radius of ten miles or more are 
driven together and "rounded-up" at one place. Each outfit "cuts out" and 
herds separately its own brand of cattle. The calves and short yearlings 
are trimmed, branded, and marked. If contracts have been made to 
drovers, the required number are gathered, classed, tallied, and turned 
over to them at the date promised. Day by day the round-ups move 
on, often working over a scope of country 200 miles square (40,000 
square miles), till the inclement weather of fall begins. Then the 
round-up season is done. Wherever the outfit moves, it carries its bed- 
ding, grub and cooking utensils in wagons, where the country is smooth, 
and on pack animals where it is rough. At night the boys sleep, sol- 
dier-fashion, on the earth in their blankets, very seldom possessing the 
luxury of a tent. 

Life on the trail is mainly monotonous drudgery of driving the cattle 
by day and herding them by night. This is varied sometimes by a 
stampede, when the frightened herd rush fractically away with a noise 
like rolling thunder, and a tramp that makes the earth tremble. Stam- 



26 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

pedes are caused by some of the herd becoming frightened and the con- 
tagion spreading throughout the herd, they rise to their feet quick as a 
flash, and rush off in aimless terror, carrying death and destruction to 
every living thing that falls under their hoofs. Sometimes a band of 
wild horses with floating long manes and tails fly by in the distance, 
and their easy graceful movement stirs up the blood of the trailman, 
and causes him to send after them a pistol ball or two and a regular 
Indian yell. Buffalo, bear, elk, antelope, mule- tail deer, sedge-hen and 
prairie chickens also afford him a little sport now and then, and add a 
savory dish to his "grub pile." Most generally, however, he has to 
shoot the despised jackass rabbit, or else " run his rope " over some 
"maverick" for fresh meat. Cowboys are decidedly materialistic. 
They appreciate the material good things of life. But few of them 
have any admiration for the grand and beautiful scenery through which 
the trails often lead. If the average cowboy has any love for the beau- 
tiful at all, it is for his* silver-mounted horse-rig, his gaudy sash and tas- 
sels, and for the buxom prairie girls, of whom he sings songs every 
night on herd around the cattle. Poor Lo ! the Indian, is becoming 
rather suppressed and harmless, but still in the far away regions of the 
"Northwest and Southwest there is sometimes just enough possibility 
of his raising hair, to keep cowboys interested and awake on guard. 
However, he is never sorry when the drive and its terrible hardships 
are over. The ponies are either sold or sent back to the range on 
hoof in care of some of the most trusty boys. The cattle are either 
sold outright or shipped by rail to the great cattle markets of St. Louis, 
Kansas City, and Chicago. Most Texas and Southwestern cattle go to 
the two former, and all "Northwestern and many Texan go to Chicago. 
One cowboy to every five car loads is required to go along with the 
cattle and keep them "punched up" from lying down in the cars and 
being tramped to death by the other cattle. This is how the "cow- 
puncher" obtained his Colorado name. Every twenty hours the cattle 
in transit are unloaded at immense stock yards where they are per- 
mitted to rest, feed and water for four hours. This is done both as a 
humane act and to prevent shrinkage and loss of flesh. Arrived at 
market the cattle are unloaded finally at the stock yards and pass into 
the hands of the stock commission man, who sells them. Some are 
re-shipped to points farther eastward, some go to Europe alive, some 
to packing houses and beef canneries, some to wholesale butchers, some 
to Illinois and Iowa farms to be corn fattened, some to distilleries to be 
slopped, a few are sold for work oxen, and if it be cold weather, many 
are slaughtered and shipped abroad in refrigerators. Some idea of 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 27 

■ • - ~ 

the magnitude of this business may be formed, when it is known that 
in Chicago alone about 1,500,000 cattle are annually sold for cash, net- 
ting their owners, the stockmen of the far West, not less than 
$45,000,000. This is one of the results of cowboy work. 

After "doing the town" for a few days, the cowpuncher, being pro- 
vided with return passes, rolls out for his old range, maybe 2,000 miles 
away. Most of the Southwestern roads run a rough kind of emigrant 
sleeper free, especially for him. 

In a region where competing railroads are largely dependent on their 
live-stock traffic, cowboys and stockmen are carefully fostered by them. 

Arrived back on his old stamping grounds, he seeks some kind of 
work for support during the winter, and generally swears never to 
" punch up " another bovine quadruped while he lives, but in spring 
he is sure to hire out as a cowboy at the very first opportunity, and 
joyously gives himself up to the free, reckless life of the range, or en- 
dures again the hardships and romantic incidents of the trail. 

Having shown who the cowboys are, we will now endeavor to des- 
cribe what they are. Being made up of such mixed material the task 
is difficult. One writer has said they are half angel, with hearts com- 
passionate, and tenderly liberal with comrades in distress; and half 
devil, indifferent to the sufferings of a wounded enemy, cruel in the use 
of girth and spur on their ponies, and totally unmindful of the agoniz- 
ing bawls of cattle enduring the bloody edge of the knife and red hot 
torture of the branding iron. Another writer, mindful of some gallant 
cowboys who have stamped their names indelibly on border history, 
has said that the now unwritten up hero of the coming novelist will be 
a cowboy. Many cowboys, and they are the best, are bred to the busi- 
ness from childhood, but the majority are simply wild young fellows 
from all callings and grades of society, brimfull of romance and ener- 
getic force, and a thirst for adventure on the plains. With present 
facilities for reaching the border by rail, thousands such are pouring 
there daily. Some ten or twelve years ago, the cowboy was an igno- 
rant, brutish lout from Texas, but to-day, the man who tackles the 
average cowboy in conversation will find him quite up to the modern- 
isnes of the age. The cowboys are made up of just such adventurous 
elements as armies are recruited from in time of foreign war. 

Classically educated young men cut loose a little too early from the 
galling restraints of college life, young mechanics, embryo medicos, 
tooth butchers, young railroaders, youths with souls above office work 
and counter-hopping, very many young men from the South who were 
never taught anything to be self-sustaining — all these and many others ar* 



28 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

rive out West find no room for non-producers in that land of rush and 
rustle, and gladly turn to the free and romantic, but terribly hard life 
of a cowboy. 

When round-ups and trail work is over, rangemen and trailsmen 
congregate in the towns of live-stock regions to have, as they express 
it, " a little time of their own." 

It is then that occur those bloody tragedies which, glaringly sub- 
headed, blazon the columns of sensational sheets. The cowboy, as a 
rule, possesses abundance of physical courage. A few days work with 
bronco ponies and wild cattle thin out all those who scare easily. 
When the cowboy fights, he fights desperately, and generally having 
a forty-four calibre pistol at his hip, he uses it too often rather freely 
and effectually on the impulse of the moment. When he shoots he 
shoots to kill ; but seldom shoots at all unless wrongfully dealt w T ith. 
We do not defend him in this, nor in his shameful orgies, nor reckless 
waste of his hard earned money. We simply wish it known that it is 
the few and not the majority who do this. Yery many cowboys ride 
the range all summer and return East and South to spend the winter 
in quiet enjoyment with friends and relatives. Yery many cowboys 
are from the South proper, especially Tennessee, Kentucky and 
Georgia. 

The business of herding and handling cattle is an honest one, and it 
is unfortunate that a lot of cattle thieves infesting Arizona have brought 
the name of cowboy into notorious bad repute. It should not be so, 
as the following clipping from the Drovers' Journal, of Chicago, w T ill 
explain : 

" A correspondent, a resident Arizonian, writes to the Sun as follows: 
' 1 notice in the Washington dispatches that the President, on the ad- 
vice of the Cabinet, has determined to issue a proclamation calling 
upon the cowboys of Arizona to disband, and in the event of their re- 
fusal, to turn loose the army on them. Being myself an Arizonian, and 
knowing the situation, also to whom the epithet cowboy is applied, I 
was much amused at this threatened pronunciamento. The term cow- 
boy is a Texas name applied to men employed on cattle ranches. In 
Arizona every man who wears big spurs, a broad hat and the legs of 
his pantloons stuffed in his boots is called a cowboy, and for the most 
part they are employed on ranches as vaqueros, herding cattle. There 
is no organization among them. Yet the President orders them to 
disband. What does he mean ? Is it that they must put on white 
shirts and engage in other pursuits ? The proclamation will be directed 
against one of the most important industries of the Territory — stock 
raising. If the army is to be used to hunt down criminals, why not 
say so, and not by proclamation, insult and slander hundreds of law- 



-« 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 29 

abiding citizens engaged in cattle raising? In conclusion, permit me 
to say that this whole thii.g is claptrap and buncombe.' " 

In the suppression of Indian outbreaks and swift annihilation of 
border outlaws, the cowboy has proven always a most reliable and 
effective instrument. The Texas Rangers are nearly all cowboys, and 
cowboys of grit and leather at that. The writer has a very dear friend 
a cowboy, who was last heard from as a government scout near the 
White River (Ute) agency in Colorado, pay $150 per month and a royal 
good time during peace. 

As population increases, and the grazing regions are settled up, there 
will come a time when the raising of cattle on government lands, as at 
present, will be impossible. Then the cowboy, like Othello "his occu- 
pation gone," will have to seek his living in some other industry. 
Natural inclination will lead him to outdoor camp life, and as long as 
he can secure such work, he will prefer freighting and packing to the 
drudgery of hiring out as a ranche hand. Stripped of his rig, than 
which there is none more becoming and picturesque in the world, all 
his marked peculiarities of manner and language ground off smooth, 
he will be reduced to the common level of commonplace people. Pos- 
sibly the change may better his happiness and usefulness, for it is a 
truth that mounted men, leading a nomadic life, are bad when bothered 
— witness Arabs, Bashi-bazouks, Tartars, our own horseback Indians, 
and ya-as, our cowboys. Too often the most daring criminals are from 
horseback people. Possibly it were better to unhorse the cowboy, but 
you can never get him to part his hair in the middle, wear plug silk 
hats, and rig himself out in dog-eared collars, bald-faced shirts, and 
other toggery affected by our vast horde of useless city tied non-pro- 
ducers. He is made of other stuff 

Respectfully, Pony Bill. 



Many farmers throw away the old brine in beef and pork barrels 
and fish packages. Sometimes they throw it on a grass patch, or under 
a tree and kill the vegetation. If they desire to kill vegetation with it, 
they should pour it on patches of burdocks or thistles, or around trees 
that are worthless. It is better, however, to use it for manure, in 
which case it should be applied with judgment. It may be applied to 
asparagus beds or quince trees liberally, but to other things sparingly. 
Ordinarily, the best disposition to make of it is to pour it on a manure 
or compost heap, and allow it to be absorbed. — Exchange. 



30 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



WEEDS IN AGRICULTURE. 

The relation of weeds to agriculture is so intimate that farming has 
almost come to be a business of weed killing. It is therefore to the 
point to show how this destruction can best be done, and not spend 
any time on that old and trite growl of showing up a weed in its worst 
light. It can be taken for granted that a weed is a bad plant and one 
that is not desired, and the vital part of the matter is to know how to 
best rid the land of the pests. 

In the first place it should be understood that a weed is not so dif- 
ferent in constitution from a useful plant as to be killed by any agent, 
or in any way that will not also destroy the crop plants. There has 
frequently been a cry for some substance that could be put on the soil 
that would make it clean of weeds. This reminds us of the man that 
we saw not long ago that had a kind of manure to put around the ap- 
ple trees to keep the coddling moth from the apples. There is nothing 
that can be dropped in a hill of corn that will make it weed proof, and 
at the same time permit of a vigorous growth of the corn. No panacea 
can be applied to a field of wheat that will destroy the Quack grass, 
and leave the crop unharmed. When a farmer has to deal with weeds, 
he must adopt methods which if applied to useful plants would lead to 
their destruction. 

Weeds have seeds! This is not a new fact by any means; but it is 
here stated that the following part may be made the more impressive. 
Weeds grow from seeds just as other plants do; they may have other 
methods of propagation, but they go from place to place in the seed 
form more generally than any other way. Many of our seeds came from 
Europe and then crossed the sea as seeds. Many of our weeds are 
spreading Westward, and they do it by being carried in various ways 
in the form of seed. The first measure to be taken against weeds is 
therefore to not sow their seeds. Clover seed has probably been the 
vehicle by means of which scores of kinds of weeds have become wide- 
spread. For example, a farmer in Michigan buys clover seed from 
New York or Massachusetts, and sows his fields with it ; he may at 
the same time introduce into his mellow soil the narrow-leaved plan- 
tain, the ox-eye daisy, or some one or more other obnoxious plants. 

The easiest way to kill weeds is while they are in seeds, provided 
the weed seeds are recognized. Every farmer cannot examine every 
seed he sows; but he can be very guarded in buying seeds, especially 
of those kinds that from their small size may be the means of intro- 
ducing untold trouble into otherwise comparatively clean land. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 31 

Next to the keeping of the weed seeds out of the ground is the killing 
of weeds soon after germination. There are a number of reasons for 
this. First, they can be killed with greater ease while young. Take 
for example, the weeds in a root crop; if they are destroyed as they 
first make their appearance, the work is light to what it is a few weeks 
later. In the second place, the effect on the crop is not so bad. If 
weeds are left to grow until they are of considerable size, they extract 
a great deal of nourishment from the soil that the crop plants need, and 
in not getting it they are enfeebled. Every weed that grows takes the 
food from the soil, and as weeds are better able to survive in a struggle 
with cultivated plants, they will, if left to themselves, come out masters 
of the situation. The ancestors of the weeds have had to steal a living 
so-to-speak, and it has become a second nature for weeds to get into the 
ground as quickly as possible. 

The weeds are very sure to look out for their own kind of kindred 
and will ripen and spread a large field of seeds. Look at the Canada 
thistle, one of the worst of weeds. It not only ripens a host of weeds 
but provides each one with an airy balloon by means of which it is taken 
far away by the wind, thus securing a wide dissemination of the seeds 
of this pest." One farmer may keep his thistles from growing while an 
adjoining neighbor lets his thistles seed down the whole region round 
about. Then there are the tick seeds and " beggar's lice," and "pitch 
forks " — all weeds and bad ones, that leave their seeds provided with 
hooks to catch unto the hair and wool of animals and are in that way 
carried far from the plaut that produced them. v 

If weeds can not be killed in the seed, and it is out of the question 
to kill them when young, the next best thing is to keep them from go- 
ing to seed. This is a difficult thing to do, and whatever may be said 
on weed-killing, it will be a long time before we have no weeds. Does 
it look like extermination when by actual count a single " Passley " 
plant has been known to produce a million seeds ! and that in the 
short space of a few weeks. 

Weeds are thoroughly bad ! In one sense they are and in another 
they are not. Indirectly they improve our agriculture, making it more 
systematic, offering a bounty or premium for labor. Without weeds 
the lazy man would stand more nearly on a par with the worker. 
Without weeds the soil would not be tilled as much as it now is, when 
properly tended; they may be just that sort of a spur to industry that 
it is well for every farmer to feel. This is certainly looking on the 
bright side of the matter; the side that says to the eternally vigilant 
that theirs is the victory. 



32 SOUTHERN PLANTER. July 

Weeds may be like sins, or rather the temptations to sin, which over- 
come the weak but add strength to those that come off conquerors. 
This is a closing argument in favor of being a strong fighter in the bat- 
tle against the weeds. — Southern World. 



AN IMPROVED HARROW. 



An ingeniously constructed harrow, in which all its parts in its 
movements in any direction will conform to the undulations of the 
ground, is patented by Messrs. Henry R. Burger and Joseph B. Simp- 
son, of Fincastle, Botetourt county, Va., and is quite clearly shown in 
the accompanying engraving. 

The outer beams of the harrow to which the teeth are attached, form a 
square harrow. Each beam is formed of angle iron, the flange, of the 
iron projecting upward on the outer edge of the beam, thus making a 
harrow beam stronger and lighter than the ordinary construction. 
The ends of the beams are perforated to receive hooks that project up- 
wardly from opposite corners of a triangular metallic block. This 
block has a central socket extending its entire length, into which is 
inserted an adjustable rod, which passes thence through a hole in a 
flange projecting downward from the metallic plate, (provided with a 
series of adjustable holes), into any one of which the threaded inner end 
of the rod, may be inserted and secured by a nut. The inner end of 
these plates are formed into downward projecting hooks, each of which 
engages with the side of a central opening made in a metallic block 
placed at the center of the harrow. Clevises are secured to the outer 
ends of the two rods, lying in line with each other. In the normal 
condition of the harrow the four beams form a square ; but if it is de- 
sired to widen the harrow in one direction it may be readily accom- 
plished by adjusting the inner ends of the rods, along the line in 
which the harrow is to be widened and placing them in holes nearer 
the outer ends of the plates. By this construction it will be seen that 
the outer. harrow beams are pivoted to each other at the ends, and will 
conform to the undulations of the ground. The tooth of this harrow 
is triangular, the triangle being formed of sides of unequal length, and 
is attached to the side of the tooth holder by a bolt and nut passing 
through holes in the tooth that hold it at either of its angles, and the 
tooth holder is bolted to the frame of the harrow. — Scientific American. 



He that is honest from policy is not an honest man. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 33 



INQUIRIES ABOUT GRASSES. 



Editor Southern Planter : 

■ I have this spring sown a field in clover, also one in clover and herds 
grass, or red top. Will you be kind enough to give some advice as 
to the best treatment ot these two kinds of grass, both of which are 
meant for hay, or meadow purposes, and hence my desire is also to 
keep them as such as long as possible. Some farmers say that clover 
should be allowed to ripen its seed the first year, and neither to be 
grazed or mowed ; and that after the first year, the seed should never 
be allowed to ripen, but the grass should always be cut before maturity 
of seed, and in this way clover can be made to be almost a perennial. 
Is this so ? And how, likewise, should the Red Top grass be treated 
in order to have it last as long as possible ? Does cutting of grass 
before maturity of seed make long lived? 

Campbell county, June 9th. Subscriber. 

We give place, with pleasure, to the inquiries of Subscriber, and hope that some of our 
readers, better informed than we are, will respond through the columns of the Planter. 
That which will be most interesting and profitable to the readers of any agricultural 
journal is the exchange of ideas in an informal manner by question and answer. There 
are a great number of agricultural methods which may be improved, and if experiences 
could be easily compared, faults would be developed and the best practices established. 

Relying, then, more on what may hereafter come from better sources, we will briefly 
give our views on the questions propounded by our correspondent. In the first place, 
we will say that he has made a bad combination by sowing together clover and herds 
grass. The last named will only thrive on moist, or even wet soils, whilst clover needs 
a moderately stiff and dry soil. All good wheat land is good clover land, but this cannot 
be said of herds grass. If Subscriber'' s land is sufficiently dry for wheat, then the combina- 
tion should have been clover and orchard grass, or timothy. These grasses grow well 
together, but the clover will, after a season or two, be eaten out by the orchard grass or 
the timothy. The first mowings of the combined grasses make the best of hay. The spring 
sowing of any grass will not make hay the same year, even if the stand should be perfect, 
and it should be left untouched and ungrazed, or but slightly in the fall, until the next 
spring, when, if the land be good, a good crop of hay may be expected. If the mixture 
be clover and orchard grass, it should be cut as soon as the two grasses are well in bloom, 
and the same rule will apply when they are not grown together. No grass will make 
good hay if the mowing is put off until the seeds ripen. The second growth may, and 
ought to, be suffered to go to seed ; and this may do something towards perpetuating the 
stand, or sod, but we doubt it. On this question we refer our correspondent to an article 
in our last number of 15th June. 

When a good stand of grass has been obtained, it should be mowed regularly each 
year, but the permanency of the crop will depend on various conditions, such as the 
gradual occupancy of the land by weeds, broom sedge or other pests. When the hay crop 
begins to fail, the land should be put to fallow, and cleansed by a crop of corn followed 
by wheat, or oats, and again re-seeded to grass. Herds grass can only be grown profit- 
ably, as we have said, on moist land, which is generally too wet for other crops, and if a 

3 



34 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

— •** 

good stand of this grass is gotten on such land, it will hold out for hay many years, but 
weeds, &c, will ultimately demand a new seeding. 

We have so often urged on the attention of the farmers of the Southside the importance 
of the culture of the grasses, that we feel encouraged by the interest manifested by our 
correspondent, and hope to hear of many others who will follow his example. 

To all we would say, do not be discouraged by the failure of one effort, but get all the 
information you can, and persist until you can rejoice in success. — Ed. S. P. 



VIRGINIA STATE AGRICUTURAL SOCIETY. 



A special meeting of the Executive Committee assembled in the 
Rooms of the Society on the 8th of June. There were present : 

Col. R. H. Dulany, of Loudoun, retiring President; Gen. W. C. 
Wickham, of Hanover, President elect; Col. Robt. Beverley, of Fau- 
quier, 1st Vice-President ; Thos. Watkins, Esq., of Halifax, 2d Vice- 
President; Maj. A. H. D re wry, of Charles City; Maj. A. R. Venable, 
of Prince Edward; Jos. Wilmer, Esq., of Culpeper; Maj. Thos. W. 
Doswell, of Hanover; Isaac Davenport, Jr., Esq., of Richmond city; 
Jno. P. Branch, Esq., of Richmond city; Col. C. R. Barksdale,. of 
Richmond city; F. T. Glasgow, Esq., of Richmond city; I. S. Tower, 
Esq., of Richmond city; Col. W. C. Knight, of Richmond city, Ex- 
President and honorary member. 

The following members were necessarily absent, but sent letters of 
regret : 

Maj. Burr P. Noland, 3d Vice-President, of Loudoun; Geo. W. 
Palmer, Esq., Saltville ; Dr. A. K Wellford, Richmond county. 

The meeting was called to order by President Dulany, and after the 
reading of the proceedings of the last meeting, he surrendered the chair 
to Gen. Wickham, who made a very sensible and practical speech, 
which won for him the full confidence of the Committee, if, indeed, such 
confidence was in any way lacking, for his election had been unani- 
mous. After returning thanks for the honor conferred on him, he 
said, in substance, that he had delayed accepting the presidency in 
order that he might clearly understand the financial condition of the 
Society, and ascertain whether certain measures necessary in his 
opinion to success — notably the loan asked from the city and steam 
transportation to the Fair Grounds — could be carried out before com- 
mitting himself to so important a step. 

He was pleased to say that the loan had been tendered by the city, and 
that whilst jio definite arrangement for the desired steam transportation 
had as yet been made, he had good ground to hope from assurances 
from the railroad authorities that their co-operation in this arrange- 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 35 

ment will be perfected in time for the Fair in October. He believed 
that, with this help and the help that he was satisfied the people of the 
State and people outside the State, especially Virginians residing in 
other States, would now lend by becoming life members or annual 
members and otherwise, the Society would be re-established on as firm 
a basis as in ante helium times. In his opinion there were the best rea- 
sons to suppose that all the needed help will be given. It will come 
from farmers, merchants, manufacturers, and from all classes and con- 
ditions of people, as in the olden and brighter days of the Society. 

Col. Knight then offered the following resolutions, which were 
adopted unanimously : 

The Executive Committee of the State Agricultural Society having 
received the Resolution of the Council of the City of Richmond agree- 
ing to loan to the Society the sum of $30,000 on terms specified in the 
resoultion, by which means the Society w 7 ill be enabled to fund its 
debt for ten or more years, therefore 

Resolved by this Committee, representing the Society, That the loan of 
the city is accepted, and that the President is authorized to cause the 
proper papers to be executed and arrange for the payment of all the 
debts of this Society to the present holders thereof. 

Resolved further, That this Committee expresses the confident opinion 
that this aid from the city will restore the Society to a position which 
will enable it to prosecute its beneficial work in the future, and its per- 
manent success will be assured. 

Vice-President Watkins offered a resolution, which was adopted, and 
to the effect, that if arrrangements can be made to secure steam trans- 
portation to the Fair Grounds on the line of Broad street as low as 
Sth street, the President, with the aid of the local committee, shall 
issue a premium list for a Fair to commence on the 25th of October next 
and continue three days, and make all necessary advertisements and 
arrangements therefor. The Committee then adjourned to 10 o'clock 
A. M. the next day. 

The Committee met pursuant to adjournment, and looking hopefully 
to the holding of a Fair in October, were chiefly occupied in revising 
the premium list and in consulting as to the best measures to be 
adopted to make the Fair attractive, should it be determined to hold 
one. As tending to this it was decided that special premiums in silver 
plate be offered for the best drilled military companies of the volunteer 
forces in the State; provided a sufficient sum can be obtained from 
outside contributions, the rules not permitting the offer of a premium 
in the ordinary way for such a purpose ; and also, with the like proviso, 



36 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



as to outside subscription for the best drilled company from any mili- 
tary college or school in the State. 

The President and Local Committee were empowered to adopt, if in 
their judgment advisable, a system of tickets good for three days of 
the Exhibition— the length of time allotted to the Fair of 1882 should 
one be held. This sytem contemplates the issuance of admittance 
tickets to the grounds at 50 cents each, or of coupon tickets good for 
the three days, at $1, and for an arrangement by which railroads will 
issue such coupon tickets in conjunction with their own tickets to the 
Fair ; and also of reduced prices of admission to the grand stand ; that 
is to say that while 50 cents will be the price for single tickets — as was 
the case last fall — coupon tickets to the stand, good for the Fair, will 
be sold for $1, or three tickets, good for the day only, at the like sum. 

After other routine business the Committee adjourned to meet at the 
Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, Tuesday, August 15. 

We place before our readers, as promised in our last issue, the proceedings of the Ex- 
ecutive Committee of the State Agricultural Society. Having been a member of the 
Society from its organization, and also an officer for nearly the same length of time, we 
may be permitted to express an earnest interest in its affairs. We love and cherish it 
for all that it has done in the past for the promotion of the agriculture of the State, and 
for what it is still capable of doing. 

Much of its quiet work and influences may, possibly, be unseen and unrecognized, but 
its Fairs bring tangible evidence to the popular mind of what is being accomplished in 
all the fields of production — agricultural, horticultural, mechanics, mining, manufactures, 
stock-breeding, and the domestic household. By a Fair all these elements are put in 
motion. It stimulates a laudable ambition in localities and the whole State, and has the 
effect to organize the working powers of every community. It is an advertisement for 
every person who participates. If the general display is good it gives reputation to the 
State, and in detail every exhibitor has the opportunity for showing his skill in the pro- 
duction of the article or commodity he represents. Each exhibitor meets hundreds of 
others, and all learn of each other and profit by the results of honorable competition. 
And then, the visiting farmers are brought together, and all are afforded the opportunity 
for social intercourse and for acquiring information, which imparts new vigor to their 
minds and confidence in the great pursuit they represent. More than this, Fairs operate 
to make men and women better, larger hearted, more liberal, and give better views of 
life and labor, and help to make farming appear to be what it is, the most independent 
and honorable of all professions. 

We may add that in former years the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railway gave 
cheap and rapid transportation to visitors to and from the State Society's Fair Grounds 
from the heart of the city, but two years ago this railroad was prevented, by an injunc- 
tion of the court, from running trains propelled by steam beyond a fixed point at the 
western end of Broad street, and thus the usual method of conveying the great mass of 
visitors to the Grounds was suspended. 

It is now the purpose of President Wickham to make every possible effort to get this 
injunction so modified as to permit the cars to run as before during three days of the 
Fair. On his success depends the question of holding a Fair in October, or any on the 
same grounds in the future, and we trust he will be supported by the voice and influence 
of all the citizens of Richmond and of the State.— Ed. S. P. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 37 



IMPROVING WHEATS BY SELECTION. 

I am certainly greatly indebted to you for the very flattering edi- 
torial made upon an extract of my essay M Cross-breeding and Hybrid- 
ization of wheats," in the last issue of the Rural Press of May 6th. If 
I may be allowed, I will add a word suggested by a remark you make 
in closing your editorial, viz : "While our richer grain growers are 
importing new varieties from all parts of the world/' etc. 

It is the prevailing opinion among farmers that " imported " wheats 
will do better than any of their native or acclimated standards, which 
opinion is true in most cases, when the imported are compared with 
their own. But when the farmer selects his seed wheat with as much 
care as he does his seed corn and gives it any reasonable amount of at- 
tention, he will find all importations far in the back-ground. In three 
years ninety-nine hundredths of the farmers will permit their seed wheat 
to retrograde at least an eighth and even a fourth, whereas, if half as 
much care as neglect should be bestowed upon its improvement by se- 
lection alone, not one would ever import to procure better seed. 

Importations should never be made except for two purposes — for ex- 
perimental work and a supply where no seed is to be had in the coun- 
try. It takes two years to make a wheat No.l and pure by selection, 
and 3 to 10 to made a successful hybrid. The mere operation of cross- 
ing one wheat upon another to produce a new variety can be learned 
in a very short time; but the knowledge required to select varieties 
with proper elements, that they, when combined, may produce an off- 
spring better than either parent, both for the field and the mill, is some 
thing very few attain. It is not necessary for the farmer to obtain this 
knowledge ; he can and should, however, understand the rules and laws 
of improvement by selection. 

For 10 years, and more, I have found wheats made upon the soil 
where they are to be raised far better in every respect than any others, 
native or imported. I am now improving all your California varieties, 
and find, after two years, they improve so materially that your own far- 
mers cannot recognize them in sheaf or shelled. I take the liberty of 
sending you a few samples — numbered — for your farmers to " guess 
on." They are sent you just as they came into my room from the 
thresher; they have not been recleaned nor graded in the least — only 
improved by selection for two years. 

I have sown — and they are growing nicely now — this spring 181 dif- 
ferent varieties, the seed of which I obtained from every country in th& 
world and from many islands. Many I receive are winter wheats, which 



38 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

I have converted into spring wheats. Of all the samples received, not 
one was as good, or begun to be as good, in any respect as the very 
poorest I now have. The wheats that are nearest those I have improved 
came from Oregon. 

I took with me 33 varieties to Washington last January. They were 
analyzed by the chemist and found to be " the best he had ever received 
or tested." I would very much like to have your Prof. Hilgard see the 
analyses and my wheat, too. 

I have not written this letter for publication. You may, however, 
when an opportunity presents itself, extract some portions of it We 
have just had three inches of rainfall — an unprecedented occurrence. 

A. E. Blount, Stafe Agricultural College, Fort Collins, Col. 
Pacific Rural Press, San Francisco. 



TREES AND THEIR USES-THE ELM. 



The Elm, or-TJlm, as they call it abroad, is a fine tree, and w T ell- 
known to us all. It lives a long time, but its timber is most useful 
when it is cut down at about the age of seventy years. It has hard 
wood, but not so durable as oak or fir. The trunk is straight and 
strong. One tree in Switzerland is said to have been seventeen feet in 
diameter. The leaves differ very much in different sorts of elms. 
Some trees have very small and numerous leaves; the leaves of others 
are large and long. The smaller the leaf the longer it remains on the 
tree in autumn. 

The elm is one of the most useful of all trees. It grows quickly, and 
is content with almost any soil, except a very wet one. It likes best a 
stiff, strong land. 

A French king, Henry IV, made elm-planting very common in his 
country. His great minister, Sully, caused these trees to be planted in 
church-yards and hedgerows, and many old trees used to be called 
Henri Quatre, or Sully. No tree forms so beautiful an avenue as an 
elm. There are some fine elm avenues at Cambridge and Oxford. 
Some say the elm was not grown in England until some of the crusaders 
brought it here from abroad. Nor did the English elm find its way 
into Scotland until the two kingdoms were united. The magnificent 
elms at Madrid are said to have been transplanted from English soil 
by Philip II, the consort of Queen Mary. 

Elm wood is used in ship-building, especially for the keel of the 
vessel. The naves of wheels are also formed of it. It is man's last 
home, very frequently, being much employed by the undertaker in 



1882. SOUTHERN PLANTER. 39 

-» — . 

coffin-making. The cabinet maker is very fond of those great knobs 
or warts which grow on ancient elms. When polished they look very 
handsome. Elm timber may be made like mahogany, when boiled and 
stained with a red dye. One valuable quality of the elm is its resistance 
to the rotting action of water. Pipes for conducting water from one 
place to another are almost always made of this wood. The tree is 
useful, too, in other ways. The leaves will feed cattle, and, when 
boiled, are good for swine. The Russians make tea of one sort of elm, 
and the Norseman dries the inner bark and grinds it up with his corn. 
In wine-producing couutries, young elms are generally chosen as 
props to the vine. The poet alludes to this when telling us how Adam 
and Eve employed themselves in Paradise : — 

u They led the vine 
To wed her elm .... and to adorn 
His barren brauches." 

Many insects spoil the timber of the elm, especially" the goat moth, 
and another little creature about half an inch long. This latter pest 
bores holes through the bark and lays her eggs. When the beetle 
comes out of the egg it does immense harm to* the tree. As many as 
80,000 have been found in one elm. 

The tree is also subject to a disease somewhat like cancer, and this 
often happens when it grows in a soil that does not suit it. 

The Crawley elm, between London and Brighton, is hollow. It 
forms a room, floored w r ith bricks ; it has a door with lock and key. 
In the hollow elm of Hampstead there was a staircase leading to a tur- 
ret on the top, where six people could sit. There were sixteen clefts in 
the trunk which gave light to the staircase. Perhaps the finest elm 
ever known was one which grew in Ireland, county Kildare. Its two 
principal boughs fell suddenly one calm night, and they fetched five 
guineas in the market. The gigantic tree was uprooted by a violent 
hurricane, and when the sawyers got to work, it was found to be quite 
hollow and of small value as compared with its two great branches. 

The wych-elm is the Scotch, or mountain elm. Its trunk soon di- 
vides into long and somewhat drooping branches. When long bows 
were in use, many were made of the wood of this tree. Very good 
ropes can be formed from strips of its bark. It is also highly valued 
by the carriage-maker. Its wood is nearly as good for shafts as that of 
the ash. The milkmaid, too, in the midland counties, likes a bit of 
wych-elm wood in her churn. She says it helps the butter to come 
quickly. 

The wych-elm is considered more picturesque than its English sister, 



40 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



but this is a matter of taste, which each of our young readers may like 
to decide for himself. — Chatterbox. 

The beauties of the elm are not so noticeable in the forest as in open fields, parks* 
yards, avenues, and the streets of towns and villages. It should be planted and pro- 
tected in all these positions. For the purposes of shade and beauty it excels all of our 
native trees. There are several varieties, but what is known as the red elm, such as seen 
in our State Capitol square, is the kind which should be transplahted into pleasure- 
grounds and around the farmer's dwelling. — Ed. S. P. * 



Live-Stock Notes, 



Horses. — Of course the number of animals used by the farmer must 
depend upon the size of his farm. I shall simply give here what I deem 
the most practical and cheapest way for the farmer to breed the most 
profitable farm horse. Where a man is able to keep a driving team, 
especially for use on the road, he can very profitably breed and train 
roadsters. In this case, he should procure two well-bred mares of good 
style, which in their prime were known to be ^ood travelers. I have 
known such mares to have been in some way disqualified for road use, 
and to be sold at low prices. These mares should be bred to the best 
roadster, or trotting stallion, in the vicinity, and turned out to pasture, 
where they are of no trouble to their tfwner, and the cost of their keep, 
including a fair quantity of grain, ^vith their hay during winter, will 
be less than twelve dollars per year. Each year you will receive two 
fine colts, and, if no unusual reverses are met with, when these colts 
get to be iive years old, after having driven them one year, in which 
undoubtedly they have paid the cost of raising, from $250 to $500 is 
obtained from city men who desire a kind yet fast-driving team. If 
the mares be nearly matched, and both be served by the same stallion, 
the colts must necessarily be pretty nearly alike. The cost of raising 
these colts until they are three years old, is trifling, and the care be- 
stowed on them up to that time is of little value. But throwing aside 
the matter of profit, every one likes a good traveler; though here let 
me advise the man who contemplates raising one or more road horses 
each year, to let the race-track severely alone, for it is but one in a 
thousand of these trotting-bred horses that ever makes a trotter of 
value, and many men have staked and lost their all to produce a trotter. 
If you breed this class of horses, stick to the road horse, and you will 
come out on the top of the heap. While it is only the farmer with 
some means that can afford to raise the above kind of a horse, the draft 
horse is within the reach of every farmer. Obtain as many mares as 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 41 

your feed and pastures will allow you to keep, selecting as most valua- 
ble those that are large and strongly built. My plan would be to let 
them remain idle, except in the very busy season ; but, of course,, with 
the smaller farmers this would not be practicable. Breed these mares 
to the very best draft stallion that can be found in your neighborhood, 
even if it cost an additional five or ten dollars. I should prefer that 
the mares be bred to a Clydesdale stallion, that breed, in my opinion, 
making the most marked improvement of any. I know French horse- 
breeders who admit that the body of the Clydesdale far exceeds in 
beauty the French draft horses. * And I regard their limbs, style and 
action as unapproached in beauty, soundness, hardness and endurance, 
by any rival breed. Although sailing under a different name, the Eng- 
lish draft horses are virtually the same as the Clydesdales. 

It is an incontrovertible fact that the legs which a Clyde stallion will 
beget on its first cross with the common mares, are so much superior 
to the other breeds that the half-blood Clydesdale horses fetch the same 
prices as the three ft^prths or seven- eighths Norman or Percheron. 
But, giving due consideration to the opinions of others, I pass on. 

To raise a draft colt is little more trouble than to raise a steer. On 
western soil, the cost of raising a draft horse until he is four years old, 
is about $30, say with servicelee and keep of mare from time of coup- 
ling until she drops her next cblt, $70 to $80. During the last two 
years the colt has, by working at "all sorts of farm labor, earned his 
feed ; and, averaging his two years' work at a value of 25 cents per 
day, he has earned over $150. This will amply repay the cost of rais- 
ing. A pair of colts like this, at four years old, are worth, at very 
lowest estimate, $350 ; and I want to know what there is on the farm 
that is more profitable than this. 

But the farmer who follows this course will find it difficult to retain 
his teams until they are four years old, for by the time they are two 
years old, buyers are continually after them; but, when once fairly 
settled, stick to them for four years ; get cost of raising and a little 
more, out of their labor, and then sell and realize a handsome profit. 
It requires no experienced salesman to dispose of these horses, as buyers 
will be incessantly boring you to sell. It is not so with the roadster, 
although there is a good profit in raising them. Yet it costs more to 
break the latter, and in the end he brings the least price. 

The following are my reasons for calling the Clydesdale the farmer's 
horse: He is more easily reared. He matures a year earlier. He is 
docile and breaks easier, and sells easier at a larger price than any other 
horse the farmer can produce. 



42 SOUTHERN PLANTER, [July 

But the farmer who follows the course of horse-breeding laid down 
above, must not make this branch of farm stock his sole business. It 
is a system of mixed husbandry that makes a large profit in farm in- 
dustry. — Exchange. 



Bloat. — A Pajaro man, in Santa Cruz county, went home the other 
day and found his cow puffed up like an angry hoptoad. Several rem- 
edies had been tried on the cow before the arrival of the owner, but to 
no good purpose. Her speedy death was prophesied, and would no 
doubt have taken place had not her owner cast his eye upon a piece of 
three-fourth inch rubber hose. He grasped that hose, smoothed and 
greased the end of it, pushed it down the cow's throat as far as her 
first stomach, and that bloated cow immediately collapsed to her nat- 
ural size. The bloat gas escaped through the hose, and the cow escaped 
death. The man's name is Easterday. Let him be remembered as a 
bovine benefactor. — San Francisco Pacific Rural. 



Utilizing Carcasses. — A cheap lot of manure may be made of an 
old carcass of a horse or cow, etc., which ^are often drawn away to the 
woods, to pollute the atmosphere. Do riot do this, but put down four 
or five loads of muck or sod, roll the carcass over it, and sprinkle it 
over with quick-lime, covering over immediately with sod or mold suf- 
ficient to make, with that already beneath, twenty good-sized wagon 
loads, and you will have $25 worth of the best of fertilizers in less than 
a year, and no fears need be felt in applying to any crop. One beauty 
of this plan is, the animals need not be moved far away, there being 
not the least stench. All animals which you are unfortunate enough 
to lose, can be utilized in this way, and be made to go a great way 
towards replacing them. Smaller animals, such as sheep, calves, dogs 
and cats, can be treated in the same manner, with about the average 
amount of sod or muck proportionate to their size. When possible, 
place three or four in one pile, as the labor of covering would be pro- 
portionately less ; but it is not much work to make a heap of any ani- 
mal, however large or small. — Turf, Field and Farm. 

Laugh at scientific or book farming just as much as you please, yet 
the man who takes advantage of air, soil and fertilizers, studies how to 
manufacture grain and roots, meat and fruits, out of these raw mate- 
rials, is the one to succeed. 

We moderns must empty ourselves of a vast deal of conceit. We 
have been going on at a wonderful rate, without always knowing upon 
what wheels we are rolling, and with no infrequent temptation, in the 
most garrulous and fidgety of the riders, to think that their prattle and 
that their legs keep the train in motion. — Rev. Samuel Osgood. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 43 

FOOD VALUE OF STRAW. 



Mr. J. W. Sanborn, Superintendent of the New Hampshire College 
Farm, has been experimenting on the feeding value of oat straw as 
compared with timothy hay and the results are quite important, showing 
as they do that straw as a food for cattle has generally been underrated. 

In discussing this subject, Pro. J. W. Sanborn says that the value of 
oat straw has not been unduly lauded, as the following trial, one of 
several each year for five years, will show : Lot 1 ate of timothy for 
40 days per day 43.6 pounds, and gained 1.42 pounds per day. Lot 7 
ate 6 pounds cotton-seed meal and 19.8 pounds oat straw per day, and 
gained 2.75 pounds per day. Both lots were of two steers each, of like 
ages and weights. This particular trial shows better than the average 
result of straw and meal against good timothy hay, yet I have univer- 
sally found for all periods (and some were of 98 days) and in all trials, 
that straw and meal, especially where the right meal has been used, are 
much more economical than hay. No skillful feeder can afford to waste 
oat straw, and I am of opinion that it is far too valuable to use for bed- 
ding. Some of the straw will be left, and this may be cut and used; 
when cut it will last as bedding longer than the whole straw. I regard 
oat straw, when rightly fed, as worth over three-fourths as much as 
good hay. > 

If I take fish meal, the most costly food I have fed ($50 per ton), the 
account will stand as follows^in a period of 49 days: Lot 1 4 pounds 
fish and 1 of corn meal, 11 J cents, and 33 pounds straw at $7.50 per 
ton, 12.37 cents per day; total cost, $23.62 cents. Lot 2 ate 50 pounds 
hay at $15 per ton, 37.5 cents per day. There was b\it two pounds 
difference in the gain, 90 pounds and 92 pounds respectively. Now 
readers who believe in mathematics for the farmer of exact facts, may 
figure something like this : the cost of the meal for lot 1 subtracted 
from the cost of hay for lot 2 will leave 25.25 cents for 33 pounds of 
straw, or $15.30 per ton, or 30 cents more per ton than the hay is 
valued at. An important phase of the ration is the purchase of a 
manure food at $50 per ton, and the sale of it to farm stock at cost. 
As it is usually assumed that at least 80 per cent, of nitrogen fed is left 
in manure, we then have $40 of manure value left. I have not at- 
tempted in this manure question to make accurate figures from previous 
data, but simply to state them by the common practice as approxima- 
tions and worthy of consideration. Nor do I mean to endorse the pur- 
chase of nitrogenous foods for plant nutrition in heavy amounts unless 
one is engaged in a skillful rotation, involving the use of mineral fer- 
tilizers. 

The reasons why oat straw and swale hay have been so meanly rated 
by farmers are clear to me, as shown by the result of much weighing. 
I only wish now to reinforce the growing good feeling toward this 
much abused food. Analyses of the foods fed have been made and 
tabulated, and they show, as you have already quoted me, that the 
combinations'are not only of organic matter. In other words, as stated 
with partial correctness by your reporter of the Massachusetts meeting, 



44 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 

65 pounds of organic matter in oat straw and cottonseed meal have 
often been as successful as 100 pounds in hay. I think I was reported 
as saying : " Sixty-five pounds of straw and cotton-seed meal were equal 
to 100 of hay." Of course there is a difference between pounds of hay 
and pounds of organic matter of hay, and same of straw, yet in this 
case the difference is not material. The variations that I get under 
careful trials by analyses of foods for me by Professor Collier show so 
wide and important variations from the conclusions drawn by German ex- 
perimenters, so much relied upon in America, as to warrant me in 
questioning their absolute reliability for our conditions. — Ex. 



THE RAZOR-BACK HOG. 



To the traveler through Texas one of the strangest and most peculiar 
features of landscape is the razor-back hog. He is of Swiss cottage 
style of architecture. His physical outline is angular to a degree un- 
known outside of a text-book on the science of geometry. His ears, 
or the few rags and tatters of them that the dogs have left, are curled 
back with a knowing, vagabondish air. His tail has no curl in it— but 
it hangs aft, limp as a wet dish-rag hung out of a back window to dry. 
The highest peak of his corrugated back uflix inches above the level 
with the root of his tail. He does not walk with the slow and stately 
step of the patrician Berkshire, but usually goes in a lively trot. He 
leaves the impression that he was late starting in the morning and is 
making up for lost time, or that he is in no doubt about the payment 
of that check, and is hurrying to get it cashed before the bank closes. 

The country razor-back prowls around in the woods and lives on 
acorns, pecan nuts and roots; when he can spare time he climbs under 
his owner's fence and assists in harvesting the corn crop. In this re- 
spect he is neighborly to a fault, and, when his duty to his owner's 
crop will allow, he will readily turn in and assist the neighbors, even 
working at night rather than see his crop spoil for want of attention. 

He does not know the luxury of a sty. He never gets fat, and from 
the day of his birth, sometimes two years roll into eternity before he is 
big enough to kill. 

Crossing the razor-back with the blue-blooded stock makes^but little 
improvement. The only effective way to improve him is to cross him 
with a railroad train. He then becomes an imported Berkshire, or 
Poland-China hog, and if he does not knock the train off the track, 
the railway company pays for him at the rate of one dollar a pound, for 
which they are allowed the mournful privilege of shoveling the remains 
off the track. The ham of the country razor-back is more juicy than 
the hind leg of an iron fire-dog, but not quite so fat as a pine knot. 
Western Plowman. 



1882.] 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



45 



The Southern Planter. 



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name of the German species. The first 
has a smooth, or cat-tail head, and the 
latter is inclined to double heading. Egyp- 
tian millet, we think, though of the same 
generic species, is what is generally known 
as sorghum, or Egyptian com — Sorghum 
vulgare. It is not, therefore, a hay-gruss, 
as are the Pearl and German varieties. 
We would, however, suggest that some in- 
vestigating farmer sow thickly sorghum 
seed, as we do what we know as millet, 
and note results. 



EOITORIAL NOTES. 

Farmers and Farming in the Olden 
Time. — We propose in the next number of 
the Planter to commence a series of short 
articles under the above heading. Having 
in our possession a number of letters and 
other manuscripts in the handwriting of 
the authors, bearing upon the agricultural 
resources aud practices of Virginia from 
early colonial times, and extending into 
the present century, we shall cull there- 
from all that we hope will prove interesting 
to our readers. This work may be con- 
tinued for many months, but we shall not 
tire in it as long as it may be appreciated 
by the readers of the Planter. 



Millet. — We are asked whether the 
Pearl and Egyptian millet are the same 
grasses? 

The millets best known in Virginia are 
the Pearl and German. They are of the 
same genera, but different in variety. The 
Pearl, or commonly called American, is 
designated in botany as Penicillaria spi- 
cata, but we fail to find the exact botanical 



Commissioner Loring's Circular. — We 
have received from the Hon. George B. 
Loring, Commissioner of Agriculture for 
the United States, his circular offering pre- 
miums for the best process of making su- 
gar from sorghum cane. We append his 
propositions, and iuvite the attention of 
all persons interested in this source of su- 
gar production to it. 

"Each manufacturer is requested to 
submit an account of his work to this De- 
partment, covering the following points, 
viz '. 

1. An accurate account of the number of 
acres of sorghum brought to his mill; the 
number of tons of cane manufactured ; the 
yield of sorghum per acre ; the mode of 
fertilizing; the time of planting ; the time 
required for maturing the plant ; and the 
value of the crop as food for cattle after 
the juice has been expressed. 

2. The amount of sugar manufactured ; 
the amount yielded per ton of cane ; the 
quality of the sugar ; the amount of syrup 
manufactured ; the process of manufactu- 
ring ; the machinery used ; the success of 
the evaporator, the vacuum- pan and the 
centrifugal in the work of manufacturing. 

3. The number of hands employed in the 
mill; the cost of fuel; the cost of ma- 
chinery ; the wages paid for labor ; and 
the price of sorghum at the mill if not 
raised by the manufacturer. 

The returns when received will be sub- 
mitted to a competent committee for ex- 
amination, and in order to compensate the 
manufacturers for the work of making 
these returns, I propose to pay for the ten 
best returns the sum of $1200 each— the 
decision to be made by the aforesaid com- 
mittee. Each return must be sworn to 
before a competent officer. 

sugar beets. 
I have distributed to ninety persons a 
supply of the best sugar beet seed which I 



46 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[July 



could obtain ; and I would request each 
person having received this seed to send to 
this Department a statement of the amount 
of land planted by him ; the yield per acre ; 
the fertilizers used; the value of the crop 
in the market. I also request each person 
making this experiment to forward to this 
Department a sample of the crop for anal- 
ysis. The directions for this will be issued 
hereafter. An accurate statement of tbe 
process of manufacturing beet sugar in this 
country is of great importance, and I pro- 
pose to compensate the manufacturers for 
preparing such statement by the payment 
of the sum of §1200 for each of the two 
best returns submitted to a committee as in 
the case of sorghum. 

"How do you manage," said a lady to 
her friend, " to appear so happy all the 
time?" "I always have Parker's Ginger 
Tonic handy," was the reply, "and thus 
keep myself and family in good health. 
When I am well I always feel good na- 
tured." See another column. 



We call attention to the " special 
notice' 1 of our old friend Ficklin of the 
general advertisement of his improved 
stock. His Percheron-Norman horses are 
the best in the country, and should be bred 
from by all who need horses for heavy 
draft. His cattle and hogs are also of the 
best breeds. 



Clover Hay. — A "subscriber" from 
Charlottesville asks an explanation of the 
last paragraph of our article on curing 
clover hay in our issue of June 15. It 
seems to our mind easily understood, but 
we infer that the impression is created that 
the cock when completed is flat on top. 
Probably ou: language was loose enough to 
convey this idea, but really the cock has a 
cone shape at the top, the point of the cone 
corresponding with the upper end of the 
stake. In general outline the cock should 
resemble a lady's thimble. 



Revelation suggests the idea that from 
Woman comes the power to "bruise the 
serpent's head.'' The words take a new 
meaning to-day since this is precisely what 
Mrs. Lydia E. Pinkham's Remedies do for 
the physically diseased patient. Her Veg- 
etable Compound reaches the ultimate 
sources of the evil. Its action is gentle 
and noiseless, but it is more powerful than 
the club of Hercules. — Bazar. 



Catalogue of the University of Vir- 
ginia for 1882, being the fifty-eighth 
session. 

We have examined this Catalogue with 
much interest, and have endeavored to 
compare the present course of instruction 
in the University with that which prevailed 
forty-four years ago, when we left it. 
We notice the following additions : 

1. Applied Chemistry and Pharmacy. 

2. Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry 

3. Agriculture, Zoology, and Agricultu- 
ral Botany. 

4. Mathematics Applied to Engineering. 

5. Practical Astronomy, with the aid of 
the McCormick telescope and observatory. 

These are important additions to the 
course, and cover much of the field of 
technical knowledge, which fits the student 
for the practical employments of life, to be 
selected according to the bent of his mind. 

The liberal and thorough course of the 
institution places it in the front rank, if not 
at the head, of all the universities of the 
world. 

Looking at it, however, from our stand- 
point, we have one complaint to make — 
not of the institution — but of the parents 
who send their sons there, and, it may be, 
of the sons themselves. We see that the 
students of law and medicine embrace 
nearly one-half of all the matriculates, and 
if divinity were in the course, probably 
two-thirds would be pursuing what are 
commonly, but erroneously, in an exclu- 
sive sense, termed the learned professions. 
Where do agriculture and zoology stand? 
The summary shows the sixty-fifth part. 
How about the other technical branches? 
The reply is, one-tenth. Now, we do not 
want to raise a hurrah about this thing, 
but we earnestly call the attention of pa 
rents to the fact that it is their duty to en- 
courage the mental developments of their 
children, and if these should point to agri- 
culture, mechanics, mining, engineering, 
or any other similar special pursuit, en- 
courage it, and give them all the educa- 
tional facilities attainable for its prosecu- 
tion. And we beg, further, that they will 
abandon the idea that law, politics, medi- 
cine, and even preaching the gospel of 



1882.] 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



47 



Christ — the highest of all callings when 
the mind and heart are in it — are the only 
professions which may be termed learned, 
and that there are other wide fields of 
knowledge from which come professions 
equally learned, honorable, useful, and 
respectable. 

We can call to mind men, now too old 
to correct the errors of early education, 
who have failed in the business of their 
lives chiefly from the fatal error of their 
parents in forcing them into one or the 
other of the so-called learned professions. 
The country is now filled with briefless law 
yers and doctors without patients, and yet 
this University Catalogue discloses the 
startling fact, already mentioned, that about 
one-half of all the students are preparing 
for these professions. This Cinnot be be- 
cause the instruction at the University is 
peculiarly adapted to law and med- 
icine, for its reputation is world-wide" 
for the thoroughness of its teachings in 
mathematics, general science, ancient and 
modern languages, polite literature, as 
well as the technical branches we have 
already mentioned. 

Our hope for the future of the country is 
based on the belief that the time is not far 
distant when agriculture and mechanics 
will be recognized among the learned pro- 
fessions, and that young men will not be 
ashamed to direct the operations of a farm 
or a machine shop, whereby the growth of 
the number of briefless lawyers and impe- 
cunious doctors will be checked. 



Harper's Monthly, Harper's Weekly, 
and Harper's Young People, all pub- 
lished by the Harper Bro.'s, New York. 

We have the Monthly and Young People 
so regularly each month, and the Weekly 
with each week, that we regard them as 
fixed friends, and have been negligent in 
noticing their visits. No words of ours can 
add to their reputatiou with those who 
knoio and read the best journals of the 
country. 

We would be glad to send an occasional 
subscriber— yea, many, if by our influence 
we can procure them— and will club on 
liberal terms to accomplish it. 



Bees and Honey; or the Management of 
an Apiary for Profit and Pleasure. By 
Tho. G. Newman, Editor of the Ameri- 
can Bee Journal, Chicago, 111. 

This new publication, or rather the third 
edition of it, has been sent to us. The 
author says it has been carefully re-written 
for the information of many who are be- 
coming interested in the pursuit of bee- 
keeping. It contains 160 pages, is beauti- 
fully illustrated, and is well up with the 
times in respect to improved management, 
construction of hives, &c. Among its new 
chapters are, "Bee Pasturage a Necessity," 
"Management of Bees and Honey at Fairs" 
and "Marketing Honey." 

Price, bound in cloth, 75 cents; in paper 
covers, 50 cents, postpaid. 

The North American Review. 

The old and valued journal, now in its 
sixty-eighth year, is out for July. Its con- 
tents may be specified: "Emmerson as a 
Poet;" "The Business of Office-seeking;" 
"Hydraulic Pressure in Wall Street;" 
"The Ruins of Central America, Part xi ;" 
"The Things which Remain;" and "False 
Taste in Art." These articles are written 
in a scholarly style, and cannot fail to in- 
terest men of cultivated tastes. 

Publication office : No. 30 Lafayette 
Place, N. Y. city. 



The Original Chatterbox. 

We are in receipt of the May and June 
numbers of this publication, which is so 
fascinating and instructive to young peo- 
ple, and we may say, old people, as well. 
It is published by Estes and Lauriat, Bos- 
ton, and issued to subscribers at $1.00 per 
annum. It is beautifully illustrated. 



The Century Illustrated Monthly Mag- 
azine for July, 1882. 

As we go to press we get this ever wel- 
come visitor. Its contents and illustra- 
tions are varied and interesting. We have 
marked several extracts for future use. 

Published by " Century Company, " 
Union Square, New York. $4 per annum 
— 168 pages. We suppose we can com- 
bine the Planter with it to a new subscriber 
at $4.25. 



48 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[July 



The Popular Science Monthly. A. Ap 
pleton & Co., New York city. Pp. 144. 
$5 per year. 

This leading and most popular journal 
comes, as usual, in advance of time, and 
we have had opportunity to glance at the 
number for July. It is filled with many 
striking articles, of which none can be 
more interesting to an educated farmer 
than that on "Plant-Cells and their Con- 
tents," by Prof. McBride. "Porcelain and 
the Art of its Production" y "Problems of 
Property" ; " Borax in America " ; " Dr. 
Gunther on the Study of Fishes," are a few 
of the subjects treated, and will afford an 
idea of its adaptation to all cultivated tastes. 
We should be glad for the publishers to in- 
form us on what terms we can send them 
new subscribers in connection with the 
Planter. 

The Law Journal for June is on our ta- 
ble. Geo. L. Christian and Jas. M. Mat- 
thews, Editors. J. W. Randolph & Eng- 
lish, publishers, Richmond. 



Both Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable 
Compound and Blood Purifier are pre- 
pared at 233 and 235 Western Avenue, 
Lynn, Mass. Price of either, $1. Six 
bottles for $5. Sent by mail in the form 
of pills, or of lozengers, on receipt of price, 
$1 per box for either. Mrs. Pinkham 
freely answers all letters of inquiry. En- 
close 3c stamp. Send for " Guide to 
Health." 

LIST OF PATENTS 
Relating to Agricultural Implements and 
Machines, issued from the U. S. Patent 
Office, on Tuesday, May 30th, 1882, and 
prepared expressly for the Planter, by 
Messrs C. B. Steele & Co., Counsellors at 
Law, and Attorneys for inventors, Wash- 
ington D. C. 
Planter— Samuel W. Byers and Henry W. 

Knight, Nashua, Iowa. 
Mowing Machine— Charles W. Cheney, 

Athol, Mass., assignor of part to C. W. 

Knowlton and Wm. C. Bowers, both of 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Lifting Jack— J as. Church, St. Louis, Mo. 
Hub Fastener — Norman Clark, Sterling, 

Illinois. 
Ditching Machine— Francis Pidgeon, Sau- 



gerties, N. Y., assignor to M. E. Pidgeon, 
same place. 

Watering Animals— Isaac Welty, Olney, 
Illinois. 

Farm Gate— George J. Blynn, Memphis, 
Mich. 

Wind Engine — Ephraim Howland,Pontiac, 
Mich. 

Hand Cotton Gatherer — Benj. F. Lamb, 
Belvidere, N. C. 

Churn— Wm. D. Leavitt, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
assignor one-half to G. B. Moore, same 
place. 

Horse Collar Fastening — Alfred B. Robin- 
son, Lebanon, Mo. 

Grain Binder — Calvin Young, Auburn, 
N. Y. 

Neck Yoke Adjuster — John A. Barnes, 
Laclede, Mo. 

Convertible Crib — John W. Barton, Empo- 
ria, Kansas. 

Barbed Fence — Jacok and Warren M. 
Brinkerhoff, Auburn, N. Y. 

Colander and Fruit Press Combined — Lo- 
retta Brownlow, East Paw Paw, 111. 

Creaming Caw— Edwin B. Clement, Bar- 
net, Vt. 

Chicken Coop — David E. Davis, Mariou, 
Virginia. 

Cultivator — Thos. C. Do ds worth, Ottawa, 
Kansas. 

Apparatus for Separating Skins from the 
Pulp of Potatoes— G. E. Edwards, Chi- 
cago, 111. 

Self Opening Gate — Wm. R. Hambleton, 
Winchester, 111. 

Harrow — Edward P. Lynch, Davenport, 
Iowa. 

Dumping Wagon — James Mills, Wilming- 
ton, Del. 

Carriage Brake — W. R. Mortimer, Rogate 
Lodge, Rogate, Sussex Co., England. 

Plow Mould Board — John Quin, Wakeman, 
Ohio. 

Egg Tester— Thomas H. B. Sanders, St. 
Louis, Mo. 

Seeding Machine and Cultivator — J. W. 
Thomas and A. R. Ludlow, Springfield, 
Ohio. 

Windmill — Walter N. Trumble, Green- 
wood, Nebraska. 

Portable Fence — Daniel B. Wagner, Mt. 
Blanchard, Ohio, assignor of one-half to 
Daniel M. Driesbach, same place. 

Manger— Charles H. Willson, Mount Ver- 
non, N. Y. 

Gate Latch — Philip J. Winn, Fork Union, 
Virginia. 

To promote a vigorous growth of the 
hair, use Parker's Hair Balsam. It re- 
stores the youthful color to gray hair, re- 
moves dandruff, and cures itching of the 
scalp. 



1882.] 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



49 



THE KING OF THE PLOW. 

The sword is resheathed in its scabbard, 

The rifle hangs safe on the wall ; 
No longer we quail at the hungry, 

Hot rush of the ravenous ball — 
The war cloud has hurled its last lightning, 

Its last awful thunders are still, 
While the Demon of Conflict in Hades 

Lies fettered in force as in will, 
Above the broad fields that he ravaged, 

What monarch rules blissfully now? 
Oh, crown him with bays that are blood- 
less — 

The King, the brave King of the Plow ! 

A king ! ay ! what ruler more potent 

Has ever swayed earth by his nod ? 
A monarch ! ay, more than a monarch — 

A homely, but bountiful god I 
He stands where in earth's sure protection 

The seed grains are scattered and sown, 
To uprise in serene resurrection 

When Spring her soft trumpet hath 
blown ! 
A monarch ! yea, more than a monarch, 

Though toil drops are thick on his brow, 
Oh, crown him with corn-leaf and wheat- 
leaf— 

The King, the strong King of the Plow 1 

Through the shadow and shine of past ages 

(While tyrants were blinded with blood) 
He reared the pure ensign of Ceres 

By meadow and mountain and flood ; 
And the long, leafy gold of his harvests 

The earth sprites and air sprites had 
spun, 
Grew rythmic when swept by the breezes, 

Grew royal when kissed by the sun ; 
Before the stern charm of his patience 

What rock-rooted forces must bow ! 
Come ! crown him with corn-leaf and wheat- 
leaf— 

The King, the bold King of the Plow ! 

Through valleys of balm-drooping myrtles. 

By banks of Arcadian streams. 
Where the wind songs are set to the mystic, 

Mild murmur of passionless dreams. 
In the storm-haunted uplands of Thule, 

By ice-girded fiords and floes, 
Alike speeds the rpell of his godhood, 

The bloom of his heritage glows. 
A monarch 1 yea, more than a monarch, 

All climes to his prowess must bow; 
Cornel crown him with bays that are stain- 
less — 

The King, the brave King of the Plow ? 

Far, far in earth's uttermost future, 
As boundless of splendor as scope, 

I see the fair angel, Fruition, 

Outspeed his high heralds of hope : 
4 



The roses of joy rain around him, 

The lilies of sweetness and calm, 
For the sword has been changed to the 
plowshare, 

The lion lies down with the lamb ! 
O Angel majestic 1 We know thee, 

Though raised and transfigured art thou — 
This lord of life's grand consummation 

Was once the swart King of the Plow. 
— Paul H. Hayne in Home and Farm. 



Editor Southern Planter : 

Dear Sir, — We read your communication 
in the last issue of the Planter with min- 
gled feelings of pleasure and regret. With 
pleasure at the assurance that on the 1st of 
July the Planter would assume its old form, 
but with regnet that you think it necessary 
to take a step backward instead of two for- 
ward. 

This is a progressive age, Mr. Editor ; 
one in which we are required to keep 
abreast with the times ; or be left behind in 
the race for popular favor. 

This Mr. Saunders (a gentleman I never 
saw or knew except through the columns 
of the Planter) saw and appreciated, hence 
his effort to make it a weekly instead of a 
slow-going monthly paper. Can't you, 
Mr. Editor, add a tithe to your tariff of 
rates, and call on us weekly? I feel sure 
that there is no appreciative reader of your 
paper but who would willingly contribute 
to secure so important a change. What 
say you to the suggestions of 

Eyrie. 

As we go to press with the last form of 
.our monthly issue for July, we receive the 
above communication. First, thanking our 
correspondent for the interest manifested 
in the Planter, we will briefly state the rea- 
sons which induced us to restore it to its 
original monthly form. 

Col. Saunders, a former proprietor, in 
the December of the last year, announced 
his purpose to change on the 1st of Jan- 
uary, 1882, from a monthly to a weekly. 
Before the end of the month in which this 
announcement was made he found thatsuch 
a change would not be satisfactory to his 
subscribers : and for this, and perhaps 
other reasons, he abandoned the idea of a 
weekly and adopted the semi-monthly issue, 
with a radical change in the shape of the 
paper and a large reduction of contents. 
This proved equally unsatisfactory to the 
patrons of the paper, and the present pro- 
prietor was met at the threshold of his en- 



50 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



July 



trance upon duty by complaints from every 
quarter. It was our earnest wish to meet 
these complaints in a satisfactory manner, 
and our first conclusion was to increase the 
matter contained in the paper when it came 
to our hands by the addition of four pages, 
and continue the new form until the 1st of 
January, 1883, so that one complete vol- 
ume might be made ; but the pressure on 
us still continued, and so we decided to 
change back on July 1. We doubt whether 
this is a "step backwards," or that a weekly 
form would be "two forward," as our cor- 
respondent suggests. No other friend of 
the Planter has approved of the plan of a 
weekly, and besides, most of the agricultu- 
ral journals with which we exchange are 
monthlies. All the weeklies, except the 
Cultivator and Country Gentleman, have the 
shape of a newspaper, and a large majority 
of our readers prefer the compact octavo 
form, which is easy to be read and conve- 
nient for preservation by binding. We 
suppose, moreover, that many of the sub- 
scribers to the Planter have their bound files 
for the past forty-two years of its existence, 
and for this reason they are opposed to any 
change which will break the uniformity of 
the file. We notice again that the weekly 
agricultuial papers devote much of their 
space to the current news which falls with- 
in the province of an ordinary newspaper; 
and it seems to us that a purely agricultural 
journal will reach its readers sufficiently 
often if issued monthly. 

If we had space we could mention a large 
number of subscribers who have sent us 
expressions of approval of the monthly 
form, and we take this to be the almost 
unanimous sentiment. 

Scalloped potatoes make a nice dish for 
breakfast. Prepare in this proportion ; 
Two cups of mashed potatoes, two table- 
spoonsful of cream or milk, and one of 
melted butter ; salt and pepper to taste. 
Stir the potatoes, butter and cream to- 
gether, adding one jaw egg. If the pota- 
toes seem too moist, beat in a few fine 
bread crumbs. Bake in a hot oven for ten 
minutes, taking care to have the top a rich 
brown. 

We own to a fondness for Irish potatoes. 
The above recipe makes our mouth water. 



Shall hope to see it some day, on the table 
of some lady-reader of the Planter when 
we visit her. 



A Good Chicken Story. 
An irascible sea captain settled down to 
Portland life by the side of a well-tempered 
man, and the two got along very well until 
the hen question came up. Said the cap- 
tain : 

"I like you as a neighbor, but I don't, 
like your hens, and if they trouble me any 
more I'll shoot them." 

The mild-mannered neighbor studied 
over the matter some, but knowing the 
captain's reputation well by report, he re- 
plied : 

11 Well, if we can't get along any other 
way, shoot the hens, but I'll take it as a 
favor if you will throw them when dead 
over into our yard and yell to my wife." 
"All right," said the captain." 
The next day the captain's gun was 
heard, and a dead hen fell in the quiet 
man's yard. The next day another hen 
was thrown over, the next two, and the 
day after three. 

"Say," said the quiet man, "couldn't you 
scatter them along a little ? We really can't 
dispose of the number you are killing." 

"Give 'em to your poor relations," re- 
plied the captain gruffly. 

And the quiet man did. He kept his 
neighbors well supplied with chickens for 
some weeks. 

One day the captain said to the quiet 
man: 

"I have half a dozen nice hens I'm go- 
ing to give you if you'll keep quiet about 
this affair." 

"How is that" said the quiet man. 
"Are you sorry because you killed my 
hens?" 

"Your hens!" said the captain. "Why, 
sir, those hens belonged to my wife I I 
didn't know she had any until I fed you 
and your neighbors all summer out of her 
flock." 



A good name is rather to be chosen than 
great riches, and loving favor rather than 
silver and gold. 



1882.] 



SOUTHERN PLANTER 



51 



HOUSEHOLD HINTS. 



To Remove Grease Spots. — An excel- 
lent mixture to remove grease spots, from 
boy's and men's clotbing particularly, is 
made of four parts of alcohol to one 
part of ammonia and about half as much 
ether as ammonia. Apply the liquid to the 
grease spot, and then rub diligently with a 
sponge and clear water. The chemistry 
of the operation seems to be that the al- 
cohol and ether dissolve the grease, and 
the ammonia forms a soap with it which is 
washed out with the water. The result is 
much more satisfactory than when some- 
thing^is used which only seems to spread 
the spot and make it fainter, but does not 
actually remove it. If oil is spilt on a car- 
pet and you immediately scatter corn meal 
over it. the oil will be absorbed by it. Oil 
may also be removed from carpets on which 
you do not dare put ether or ammonia by 
laying thick blotting paper over it and pres- 
sing a hot flat-iron on it. Repeat the op 
eration several times, using a clean paper 
each time 

Cleaning Black Silk.— The Parisian 
method of cleaning black silk is very sim- 
ple, and the result infinitely superior to 
that achieved in other manner. The silk 
must be thoroughly brushed and wiped with 
a cloth, then layed flat on a board or table, 
and well sponged with hot coffee thoroughly 
freed from sediment by being strained 
through muslin. The silk is sponged on 
the side intended to show; it is allowed 
to become partially dry, and then ironed 
on the wrong side. The coffee removes 
every particle of grease and restores the 
brilliancy of silk without imparting to it 
either the shiny appearance or crackly and 
papery stiffness obtained by beer, or, in- 
deed, any other liquid. The silk really 
appears thickened by the process, and 
this good effect is permanent. Our readers, 
who will experiment on an apron or cravat, 
will never again try any other method. 

Some Ways of Cooking Eggs. — For an 
omelet, which is a favorite dish with many 
excellent cooks, use this rule : Beat the 
yolks of six eggs and the whites of three 
till they are very light; take one tea cup of 
cream, if you can get it (milk will answer 
if you cannot) ; mix with it very smoothly 
one tablespoonful of flour, add salt find 
pepper as you please : heat your frying-pan 
and melt in it a large spoonful of butter ; 
when hot pour the eggs and cream in and 
set in a quick oven, When it is thick 
enough — which is a matter of taste — pour 
over it the whites of three eggs, which are 
beaten to a stiff froth. Let it brown slightly, 



and then slip it out in a hot dish ; this must 
be done very carefully, so that the whites 
of the eggs will be on the top. This dish 
may be varied by beating the six eggs all 
together and then adding the cream, etc. 
A good rule as to quantily is to use one 
egg for a person. One of the best ways, 
if not the very best, to cook eggs is to pour 
boiling water into a basin, set it on the 
hearth of the stove, or on the tank, and 
put the eggs into it; let them remain in it 
for five minutes ; the egg will be cooked 
enough to be delicious, it will digest easily, 
and in this way the wonderful elements 
which go to make up the egg are best pre- 
served. When done, break and drop on 
slices of buttered toast, or put in egg-cups 
in which you have first put a little lump of 
butter. 

The Queen of Puddings. — One pint of 
bread crumbs (not crumbs of stale bread 
unfit for the table), one quart of sweet 
milk, one cup of sugar, and the well beaten 
yolks of four eggs, the grated rind of one 
lemon, and a piece of butter the size of 
an egg. Bake until done, but not watery. 
Whip the whites of four eggs, and beat in 
one cup of pulverized sugar, in which you 
have put the juice of the lemou. Spread 
over the pudding a layer of jelly or raspber- 
ry jam, or any sweetmeat you prefer ; then 
pour over it the whites of the eggs. Set it 
in the oven to brown slightly. Serve cold 
with cream. This is an excellent dessert 
for an elaborate dinner, as it may be made 
early in the morning and so be out of the 
way. 

Cooking Potatoes. — A tempting way to 
serve potatoes in the Spring is to boil them 
with plenty of salt in the water; then, 
when tender, turn all the water off; let 
the kettle stand on the top of the stove till 
the potatoes dry ; mash them until they 
are free from lumps ; add a little sweet 
milk or cream, butter, pepper, and salt, if 
this is needed ; then put the potato in the 
dish in which it is to be served, and set it 
in the oven to brown over the top. If 
your potatoes are not very sweet this isan 
especially good way to cook them. 

Jelly Rolls. — Jelly rolls are delicious 
from this recipe : Three eggs, half a cup 
of butter, one cup of flour, one and a half 
teaspoonsful of baking powder, two thirds 
of a cap of pulverized sugar, a little salt; 
bake in shallow pans — a drippling-pan well 
buttered is good for this purpose ; put in 
the dough till it is about half an inch thick ; 
take it carefully from the tins when baked, 
and lay on a cloth ; spread jelly evenly over 
it with a knife; roll while hot; if this is 
not done the cake will crumble. 



52 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



PLANT FOOD IN AN ACRE OF CLOVER, 



Let us see what is the actual value of red clover as an accumulator 
of plant food, and compare its treasures with the demands of other 
crops, or more especially with wheat, which has little power of ac- 
cumulating plant food for itself 

An acre of good clover will make 5,000 pounds of hay, containing 
28-2J pounds of mineral matter or ash. In this ash will be 97J pounds 
of potash, 96 pounds of lime, 34J of magnesia and 28 pounds of phos- 
phoric acid. The hay will also contain 108 pounds combined nitrogen. 
These are the stores of available material which an acre of red c4over 
can offer to any succeeding crop when it is ploughed under the,, soil, 
and is also available material which an acre of clover sod is 
capable of furnishing to a succeeding crop when a clover sod is plough- 
ed up, for it is found that the scythe leaves to the field as much ma- 
terial, both organic and inorganic, as it removes in the hay it cuts. 

Let us suppose that for every bushel of wheat we raise we have a 
100 pounds of straw, and on this basis from the average composition 
of wheat and its straw, let us estimate how large a crop of wheat and 
straw we may have furnished in each of the leading manurial elements 
contained in an acre of clover hay or clover sod. 

In two and a half tons of clover hay or in an acre of clover sod of 
corresponding quality there will be, both for grain and straw, enough 
phosphoric acid for a crop of 34 bushels, of combined nitrogen for 71 
bushels, of potash for 102 bushels, of magnesia for 120 bushels, and of 
lime for 270 bushels. In other words, the clover hay or sod contains 
enough phosphoric acid for more than double an average crop, enough 
nitrogen for more than four average crops, and potash for more 
than six average crops of wheat! With such figures before you, do you 
wonder that farmers are surprised at the large crops they can raise on a 
clover sod? You see also why lands in rotation with clover can endure 
the heavy tax of two crops of wheat in succession without complete ex- 
haustion. But when a body of clover is plowed in with sod we reach 
results that round out that figure of Oriental magnificence, " The pas- 
tures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with 
corn ; they 6hout for joy, they also sing." — Pro. W. J. Beal, in Far- 
mers' Friend. 



The wise men of old have sent most of their mortality down the 
stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram. — E. P. Whip- 
ple. 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 53 



JOTTINGS. 



One of the best things a farmer can do to advance himself is to carry 
in the field, or any place, or at any time, a memorandum book and 
pencil. What for? Take note of the small things — things to some 
unnoticed. These small things may finally lead to the large ones, and 
here is where the intelligent farmer will arise, while the careless one 
will fall. All creation is made up of small things. Our great finan- 
ciers made the pennies before they made the dollars, and so on until 
they count their wealth by the thousands. Can not the farmer do this 
in a certain degree? He may not be able to make thousands in one 
year, perhaps not in five, but as surely as the water drop by drop wears 
the solid rock, so the small things help to make greater. 

The farmer may watch the habits of the insects, whether they are 
harmful or beneficial to his crops. The same of the birds — and by this 
observation may know whether it is best to protect or destroy them. 

He may watch and jot the growth and development of plants, 
whether they grow well under certain care and cultivation, whether 
the soil is adapted to the plant, or the plant to the soil, etc. 

He may mark the bad spots of the farm (nearly every farm has its 
bad spots, sloughs, barren places, or some other defects), which he may 
take a memorandum of and correct in due time. There are so many 
corners to watch that it requires a good memory to retain all and look 
after in season. 

The farmer may also lay off* his work in black and white for another 
year, or for years ahead, as it occurs to him. 

Then it's so haudy to have blank paper and pencil to calculate acres 
of ground, bushels of seed, amount per acre of seeds to be sown, etc. 
When a man can take his seeder, a given amount of seed, have his land 
measured off and sow the seeds so as to come within a pint of a given 
amount, he has it down fine, and a man should be just this exact in or- 
der to succeed well. 

The weather can also be noted in his memo., which is uo small mat- 
ter. A strict account of the wet weather will repay any farmer. A 
great deal of this jotting may be done, and probably would be done in 
the field (if Vennor's weather does not interfere too much). 
. This attending to the details and keepiug a bright look-out on paper 
will benefit, and largely, the participant. 



One self-approving hour whole years outweigh. — Pope. 



54 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [July 



STIR THE SOIL. 

Agricultural Editor Cincinnati Commercial: 

I am a young farmer, and would be obliged if you would tell me (1) 
what you think the best and cheapest way of making a good crop of 
corn and potatoes ? I have no manure made and no money to buy fer- 
tilizers with. (2.) What ought the landlord do to help to fertilize the 
crops raised on the shares ? 

Hamilton county. Renter. 

1. This is a difficult question to answer, not knowing the character 
of the soil, or how it has been treated. 'In general, we would say that 
frequent stirring of the soil is the cheapest and best method of raising 
such crops. We will give an example. We once put out a vineyard 
of two acres, on a thin clay hillside, on which corn or tobacco had been 
grown for forty-two years. It was poor as poverty, and we had no 
manure nearer than St. Louis, twelve miles away ; yet we hoped vines 
would do well there, if well cultivated. To insure frequent cultivation 
of the vines, we planted two rows of potatoes between the vine rows. 
On the same day we planted our potatoes, we sent the man and horse 
and what seed was left to the next neighbor's to help him put in his 
potatoes. He had a piece of what he called new ground, separated 
from ours by a small ravine — his land sloping to the north and ours to 
# the south. Our neighbor was a retired physician of more than three 
score and ten, and was a successful horticulturist. 

After potatoes were planted he said: "Well, now, professor, let us 
see who will raise the best crop of potatoes." We at once declined to 
compete, as he had new ground and plenty of money and fertilizers, 
and we were as poor as our worn-out tobacco land. Nevertheless, on 
returning home with our hired man, we told him it would never do to 
let the Doctor beat us much on the potato crop; so our potatoes must 
be cultivated every week until they put out blooms, and that work was 
done and two hoeings extra given by us, one early in the season and 
the other at the close. 

We worked the soil not to kill weeds, for there were none, but to 
make potatoes. 

The Doctor had faith in his new ground, and cultivated but twice. 
Now for the result. His crop was hardly worth digging. Our crop 
was the best crop in the village, and netted up in St. Louis more than 
$100 per acre. ' 

The best crop of corn we ever made was plowed five times after 
planting, before the shoots put out. We broke the land thoroughly, 



1882.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 55 



rolled and harrowed before planting. The average on thirty acres 
without manure was ninety-two bushels. Some old style farmers said 
we injured the crop by cultivating so often. If so, we can't tell what 
the crop might have been if we had stirred the ground lets frequently. 

When the corn crop is planted do not wait for the weeds to start 
before you start cultivation. Remember the good farmer does not cul- 
tivate to kill weeds, but to make a good crop, and in the making of the 
crop the weeds will be destroyed. 

If the tenant is to stay on the farm but one year, he cannot afford to 
do as much toward fertilizing as he could if he were to remain five or 
ten years. We cannot say what per cent, of the fertilizer remains in 
the soil after a crop. So much depends on the kind of crop and kind 
of soil, kind of fertilizer and cultivation. We do not know of any 
established custom in regard to this in this country. We should say 
that if the landlord is to have half the crop, he should furnish half the 
fertilizer used, or in that proportion, and it should be of a kind, too, 
that will cause the promptest growth of the crop, and not that which 
longest benefits the land. L. N. B. 



CHEESE AS FOOD. 



It is often remarked, says the National Live Stock Journal, that the 
value of cheese as food is not fully appreciated, or more of it would be 
used. The consumption of cheese in the United States is pretty small, 
being only about 250,000,000 pounds annually for over fifty millions of 
people, or about five pounds per capita. The an^yses laid down for 
cheese show it to be rich in fats, and much richer in flesh-forming 
matter than even flesh itself, which is largely water. Yet a pound 
of cheese seldom brings more than a pound of meat. The prices of 
cheese and bacon have run nearly parallel for many years, and the 
price of the latter has, to a large extent, controlled that of the former. 
When bacon is lower than cheese, it is taken in preference by laboring 
people. In the United States, where nearly the whole community are 
able to select such food as their appetites prefer, cheese meets with much 
less patronage than meat, when the prices are equal, while chemistry 
would give the preference to cheese nearly two to one. 

To induce a more liberal consumption of this article, there must be 
placed before the public a cheese which shall be so soft and soluble, so 
ripe and rich and inviting, that it will be preferred to meat, both for 
food and as a luxury. It will then need no chemistry or argument to 
extend its use. Pleasing the taste will accomplish more than logic. — 
Maine Farmer. 



WM. L. BRADBURY. WM. GREEN. R. J. FARRER. 



WM. L. BRADBURY & CO., 

3KJ\A.S01Xr, OE.A.2STO-E COUNT'S', VA. 

Importers, Breeders and Sales Agents of 

THOROUGHBRED STOCK. 

We are now offering For Sale some very choice — 

COLTS — Broken and unbroken, 3, 4 and 5 years old, consisting of Racing, Trotting 
and Percheron blood. 

CATTLE — Shorthorns, Devons and Jerseys. 

Special offers of Herd Book Shorthorn Bull Calves. 

One choice Devon Bull, 16 months old. 

In Jerseys we have some very choice young stock bred by J. D. Wing, of New York ; 
also, two non-registered thoroughbred cows of extra good butter qualities. 

SHEEP — Stock Sheep, Ewes in lamb, delivered at any Railroad Station in Virginia 
in car-load lots, 

PIGS — Jersey Reds. The most pofitable pig for farmers in the Southern States. 
Litters in December, February and M^-ch. 

Some choice Boars now for sale, also some fine littero of Berkshires. 

POULTRY— Houdans, Light Brahmas, S. S. Bantams. 

NOTICE TO FARMERS AND HORSEMEN. 

In the Spring of 1882, we will receive mares to be bred to choice Stallions in this 
vicinity. We have here some of the finest Stallions in Virginia of Trotting, Thorough- 
bred and Percheron blood. 

Mares furnished with box stalls, and the best of care given them, but we will not be 
responsible for accidents. 

Write for terms and particulars. 

fc- SEND FOR ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE.^ 

July 1— ly 

INCORPORATED 1833- 



VIRGINIA llltl MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY 

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 

Half a Century in Active and Successful Operation. 

ASSETS, - - $557,000.00. 

Has paid hundreds of thousands for losses in this State, and over three millions 
altogether. All kinds of Farm Property taken at lowest current rates. Insures against 
Fire and Lightning. Agencies throughout the South and West. Home Office ; Rich- 
mond, Va. 

WM. H. MCCARTHY, Sec'y- W. L. COWARDIN t Pres. 

feb 1— ly 

NEW WHITE GRAPE DUCHESS ! 

AisoPRENTISS.POCKLINGTON.LADYWASHINGTON.LADY.YERGENNES, 

JEFFERSON, BRIGHTON, MOORE'S EARLY, DELAWARE, \vORDEN, etc. 

CUTHBERT, GREGG, OHIO, 3£3£S: MftWCSrtatSH&iBi 

and other Pear Trees; CHERRY: PEUM ; PEACH:CHAMPION QUINCE; Iiee'sPrq- 
lific Black, and other CURRANTS, GOOSEBERRIES, and a general assortment of Fruit 
and Ornamental Trees, Shrubs. Climbing Vines, ROSES, Seeds, Bulbs, etc., at lowrate*. 

Descriptive Catalogue and Price-List/ree. Address H. S. ANDERSON, 

Successor to Fablex & Anderson, Cayuga Lake Nurseries, Union Springs, N. Y. 

jan 1 




The Session begins on the FIRST OF OCTOBER, and continues until the Thursday be- 
fore the fourth day of July ensuiug. 

The Institution is organized in separate Schools on the Eclectic System, embracing 
FULL COURSES OF INSTRUCTION IN LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, and in 
the PROFESSIONS OF LAW, MEDICINE, 

ENGINEERINQ AND AGRICULTURE. 

THE EXPENSES of the student (except such as enter the practical laboratories), 
exclusive of the cost of text books, clothing and pocket money, are from $356 to $391, 
according to Schools selected ; or, for those who economize by messing, these expenses 
are from $266 to $300. No charge for tuition candidates for the ministry unable to meet 
the expense. 

Apply for Catalogues to F. W. Page, Secretary, P. 0. University of Virginia, Albe- 
marle county, Va. JAMES F. HARRISON, M. D., Chairman of the Faculty. 

apl 15 -ly 




PREMIUM CHESTER WHITE, 

BERKSHIRE & POLAND-CHINA PIGS 

And PINE SETTER DOGS 

Bred and For Sale by 

ALEXANDER PEOPLES, 

West Chester, Chester Co., Pa. 

Send stamp for circular and price-list, 
jan 1— ly 



HEALTH IS WEALTH. 

Dr. E. C. WEST'S NERVE AND BRAIN TREATMENT; a specific for Hysteria, 
Dizziness, Convulsions, Nervous Headache, Mental Depression, Loss of Memory, Sper- 
matorrhoea, Impotency, Involuntary Emissions, Premature Old Age, caused by over- 
exertion, self abuse or overindulgence, which leads to misery, decay and death. One 
box will cure recent cases. Each box contains one month's treatment. One dollar a 
box, or six boxes for five dollars; sent by mail, prepaid on receipt of price. We guar- 
antee six boxes to cure any case. With each order received by us for six boxes, accom- 
panied with five dollars, we will send purchaser our written guarantee to return the money 
if the treatment does not effect a cure. Guarantees issued by BODEKER BROS., 
Druggists, 1414 Main street, Richmond, Va., Wholesale and Retail Agents. Orders 
by mail will receive prompt attention. jan 1— ly 

THE UNITED STATES MAIL 

brings ccrn CTflBE*™ every 

aCCU 9 a UllE MAN'S DOOR 

It Is manifest that from GOOD SEEDS 
ONLY can Good Vegetables be obtained 
The character of LAIVDRETH'S SEEDS 
has been substantiated beyond all question. 
They are the STANDARD for 'Quality. Over 
^x _^— 1500 acres in Garden Seed Crops under our own 

hounded 17o4. ^^ — cultivation. Ask your Storekeeper for them in original sealed 
package^or drop us a postal card for prices and Catalogue. Address 

DAVID LANDRETH & SONS, 21 and 23S. Sixth Street, Philadelphia. 

my 15— ly 





Orchilla Guano has been used for corn quite extensively in Maryland and Pennsyl- 
vania for several years past with the best results, and also, to a limited extent, in some 
portions of Virginia very successfully, and we offer it feeling fully satisfied that a trial is 
all that is needed to convince the most skeptical that it is not only the cheapest but the 
best fertilizer in the market. A liberal application of the Orchilla (say from 400 to 500 
lbs to the acre) will not only produce a good crop of corn, but will leave the land in ex- 
cellent condition for the wheat crop, which may be very safely sown on the same land 
after the corn is gathered without any additional application of any kind of manure ; 
and where it is desired to follow the wheat with grass, the effect of the former applica- 
tion of Orchilla will be seen in the production of from three to four crops of good 
grass. Thus its effect does not by any means cease with the crop on which it is first 
used, but is of positive and lasting benefit to the soil. 

WOOLDRIDGE, TRAVERS & CO., Importers, 

No. 64 Buchanan's Wharf {Foot of Frederick St.), Baltimore, Md. 
flST'Send for Circular and see what farmers say. jy 1— 2t 



N 



ORFOIiK & WESTERN RAILROAD 



Time Table in effect June 18, 1882. 



WASHINGTON 


TIME. 


Westward Daily. 


No. 1. 


No. 7. 




12.15 p. m 

1.05 " 

3 20 " 

330 " 

538 " 

6.23 " 

8.20 " 

8.50 " 

9.50 " 
1105 " 
12.34 a. m. 

2.88 " 

3.42 " 

4.52 " 

5.25 " 




Suffolk .. 
























Leave Lynchburg 


2.40 p. m. 
3.33 " 




4.39 " 


" Christ iansburg 

Wytheville 


6.00 " 
8.05 " 




9.06 ■ 




10.14 " 


Arrive Bristol 


10 45 " 



CONNECTIONS. 

At PETERSBURG, with R. & P. R. R. for Rich- 
inond and points on C. & 0. Ry., Fredericksburg, 
Washington, Baltimore and the North and East. 
Through Pullman Car from Petersburg to New York. 
Solid trains Petersburg to Washington. 

At BURKEV1LLE, with R. & D. R. R. for South. 

At LYNCHBURG, with Va. Mid. R. R. to and 
from the South and North, and with Richmond & 
Alleghany R. R. for Lexington, Natural Bridge, Bu- 
chanan, Williamson's andC. <fi O. Ry. points. 

At B ISTOL, with East Tenn., Va. & Ga. R. R. for 
Knoxville, Dalton, Chattanooga and all points South, 
West and Southwest. 



WASHINGTON 


TIME. 


Eastward Daily. 




No. 8. 


No. 4. 


Leave Bristol 

Arrive Abingdon 

" Marion 


11.40 p. ra. 
12.14 " 

1.25 a. m. 

2 33 " 

4.29 " 

5.52 " 

7.02 " 

8.00 " 

8.20 " 
10.14 " 
10.57 " 
12.55 p.m. 

1.05 " 

3.18 p. ra. 

4.05 " 


5.00 a. m. 
5.29 ■ 
6.31 " 


" Wytheville...- 


7.31 " 


" Christiansburg 

" Roanoke 


9.28 " 
10.45 u 


" Liberty 


12 15 p. m. 
1.15 " 


44 Lynchburg 


Leave Lvnchburg 




Arrive Farmville 




" Burkeville 








Leave Petersburg 




Arrive Suffolk 




Norfolk 





CONNECTIONS. 

At LYNCHBURG, with Va. Mid. R. R. for Dan- 
ville and North Carolina points, and for Washington 
and Eastern cities. 

At BURKEVILLE, with R. & D. R. R. for Rich- 
mond. 

Thro'igh car from Lynchburg to Richmond. 

At PETERSBURG, with P. R. R. for Weldon, 
Raleigh, Goldsboro, Wilmington and the Southeast. 

At NORFOLK, with Bay Line Steamers daily, ex- 
cept Sunday, for Baltimore — thence rail to Phila- 
delphia and New York ; with Old Dominion Steam- 
ers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for 
New Yoik, and on Tuesdays and Fridays with M. 
& M. T. Co. for Boston and Providence. 

First and second class tickets as low as the lowest 
—150 lbs. of baggage checked free to each while 
ticket, and 75 lbs. to each half ticket. 1,500 mile 
tickets, $37.50; 1,000 mile tickets, $30.00. 

For further information as to tickets, rates, hag- 
gage checks, &c, call on or address L. S. BROWN, 
General Traveling Agent, Lynchburg, Va. 

HENRY FINK, V. P. and General Manager. 

CHAS. P. HATCH, Gen'l Ft. and Pass. Agt. 

W. A. CARPENTER, Ass't G. F. and Pass. Ag't. 
Lynchburg, Va. 



A NOTED BUT UNTITLED WOMAN. 

{From the Boston Globes] 




Messrs. Editors .— 

Tho above is a good likeness of Mrs. Lydia E. Pink, 
ham, of Lynn, Mass., who above all other human beings 
may be truthfully called the ''Dear Friend of Woman," 
as some of her correspondents love to call her. She 
Is aealously devoted to her work, which is the outcome 
of a life-study, and is obliged to keep six lady 
assistants, to help her answer the large correspondence 
which daily pours in upon her, each bearing its special 
burden of suffering, or joy at release from it. Her 
Vegetable Compound is a medicine for good and not 
evil purposes. I have personally investigated it and 
am satisfied of the truth of this. 

On account of its proven merits, it is recommended 
and prescribed by the best physicians in the country. 
One says : " It works like a charm and saves much 
pain. It will cure entirely the worst form of falling 
of the uterus, Leucorrhoea, irregular and painful 
Menstruation, all Ovarian Troubles, Inflammation and 
Ulceration, Floodings, all Displacements and the con- 
sequent spinal weakness, and is especially adapted to 
the Change of Life." 

It permeates every portion of the system, and gives 
new life and vigor. It removes faintness, flatulency, 
destroys all craving for stimulants, and relieves weak- 
ness of the stomach. It cures Bloating, Headaches, 
Nervous Prostration, General Debility, Sleeplessness, 
Depression and Indigestion. That feeling of bearing- 
down, causing pain, weight and backache, is always 
permanently cured by its use. It will at all times, and 
under all circumstances, act in harmony with the law 
that governs the female system. 

It costs only $1. per bottle or six for $5., and is sold by 
druggists. Any advice required as to special cases, and 
tho names of many who have been restored to perfect 
health by the use of the Vegetable Compound, can be 
obtained by addressing Mrs. P., with stamp for reply, 
at her home in Lynn, Mass. 

For Kidney Complaint of either sex this compound is 
unsurpassed as abundant testimonials show. 

"Mrs. Pinkham's Liver Pills," says one writer, "are 
the best in the world for the cure of Constipation, 
Biliousness and Torpidity of the liver. Her Blood 
Purifier works wonders in its special line and bids fair 
to equal the Compound in its popularity. 

All must respect her as an Angel of Mercy whose sole 
ambition is to do good to others. 

Philadelphia. Pa. (?) Mrs. A. M. D* 



G 



IX5W Cold Watches. 

SIMi'DRFKSKS and FANCY GOODS 

Gift with Every Book! 

AlAAA WORTH O f FSEFUE OIFT8 

sblUUU WITH EVERY I.OOO BOOKS. 

Send 3c. Stamp for Catalogue. Agents Wanted. 
PHILADELPHIA PREMIUM BOOK CO., 
252 north Eighth street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
mch 16 -12t 



Beckwith's Anti-Dyspeptic Pills. 

These Pills, once compounded by a phy- 
sician of extensive and long practice and 
of high reputation, are recommended by 
gentlemen of the highest standing both in 
and out of the medical profession. They 
are used by the most cultivated people in 
our country. They contain no mercury, and 
profess to do no more than one medicine 
ought to accomplish. They have stood the 
test of [more than sixty years, and have 
lost no reputation. 

Beckwith's pills will PREVENT AND 
CURE DYSPEPSIA. They are an unri- 
valed DINNER PILL, mild aperient, and 
admirably adapted as a FAMILY MEDI- 
CINE. Prepared solely by E. R. BECK- 
WITH, Petersburg, Va., from the original 
receipt of his grandfather, Dr. John Beck- 
with, and sold by druggists generally. 

For sale in Richmond by 



feb 1— ly 



POLK MILLER & CO. 



PAYNE'S AUTOMATIC FARM ENGINES 




Spark Arrester, lu 

Reliable, durable and economical, will 
furnish a horse-power with one-third less 
fuel and water than any other engine built, 
not fitted with an automatic cut-off. Send 
for Illustrated Catalogue "D 10" for infor- 
mation and prices. 

B. W. PAYNE & SONS, 
Box 1377. Corning, N. Y. 

jan 1— ly , 

POMONA NURSERY. 
Oriental & Hybrid Pears. 

Manchester, Bid well and Mt. 
Vernon Strawberries, Raspber- 

ries, Blackberries, Flowers and 

Fruit Trees. Catalogues free. 

WM. PARRY, Parry P. 0., N. J. 
jan 1— ly 

POLAND-CHINA PIGS. 

A choice lot just farrowed for which I am 
now booking orders. Prices reasonable. 
J. B. GRAY, Fredericksburg, Va. 
mar 1 — ly 




BEH,2SJ:01SrT 

Stock and Stud Farm. 

Any of twelve stallions for sale— one a 
thoroughbred by imported Australian. Two 
are trotting and riding Black Hawk's sons. 
One by an imported Clydesdale, the others 
Percheron-Normans, and their ages from 
three years upward, and their stock of all 
ages. I lately added the finest imported 
stallion and mare of the Percheron-Nor- 
man race known to me — the stallion costing 
$1,775 cash. Neither are for sale, as I in- 
tend to cross them on my Percherons. I 
breed only the pure bred Shorthorn Cattle, 
and have Cows, young Bulls and heifers at 
moderate prices. As compared, such stock 
is better than any pure breds or grades for 
agricultural purposes in this country. 

Berkshire Swine and a few fine young 
Boars and Sows, and White Brahma and 
Plymouth Rock fowls. Of these Perche- 
rons, two I imported from France with two 
mares in 1866, and are of the earliest im- 
portations of this stock into the U.S., and 
since they have been imported into the Uni- 
ted States by hundreds. 

S. W. FICKZ.INT, 

my 15 — 3 m Near Charlottesville, Va. 




t#ta**-« B wv ~ ..AY PRESSES 

are sent anywhere on trial to operate against all 
other Presses, the custom- 
er keeping the one that 
suits best. No one has ever 
dared show up any other 
Press, as Dederick r 8 Press 
is known to be beyond 
competition, and will bale 
with twice the rapidity of 
any other. The only way 
interior machines can be 
sold is to deceive the in- 
experienced by ridiculously 
false statements, and thus 
sell without sight or seeing, 
si nd swindle the purchaser. 
Working any other Press 
alongside of Dedcrick's al- 
ways sells the purchaser a 
Dederick Press, and all 
know it too well to show 

up. Address for circular and location of Western 

and Southern storehouses and Agents. 

F. S. DEDERICK & CO., 

*- — ^ Albany, JV. F. 

fe 15 — lyeod 



(Established 1866.) 



TATS BUILDING MATERIAL 



1' or rsoois, w a u s ana (jemngs in place 01 piaster, oanii 
ules and catalogue mailed free. W. H. P AT,Camden.N. J 




mar 1 — 6t 



EAST TERf]V M VIRGINIA & GEORGIA 

:rai:l,:r.o.a.:c>. 

GREAT SOUTHERN TRUNK LINE 
Between all principal Southern cities. For 
freight and passengers. Shortest, most Di- 
rect and comfortable route lo all Eastern 
and Virginia cities. Only direct route to 
the watering places and resorts of East 
Tennessee and Virginia. The Great Emi 
grant Route to Texas and the Northwest 
via its Memphis and Charleston Division, 
and to all points in Southern and Central 
Texas via Calera or Meridian and New Or- 
leans. 

THROUGH SLEEPING CARS between 
New Orleans and Lynchburg, Memphis 
and Lynchburg, connecting with Through 
Sleepers, Lynchburg to New York, Way 
Cross Line to Florida, via its Macon and 
Brunswick Division. Illustrated Pamphlet 
free on application. 

For Rates or Information, address, 
Jas. R. Ogden,G. F. & P. A., Knoxv'le/Tenn 
Jos. Gothard, A. G. F. & P. A., 4t " 
T. S. Davant, " " " " . Memphis 
Ray Knight, " " " " Selma, Ala. 
J. J. Griffin, " ■• " " Macon, Ga. 
M.M. Welch, Western Agent, Chattanooga 
H. W Lowry, Ticket " Dalton, Ga. 
W. R. Kerr, Passenger " Knoxv'e,Tenn 
H. D. Boyd, Ticket " Chattanooga 

J. Bunting, Jr., " " Bristol, Tenn. 

PEISIOI'S 

are paid every Soldier^disabled in the 
TJ. S. service by Wound, Rup- 
ture, accidental injury or any dis- 
ease however slight. Apply for your 
just dues. Widows, Mothei-s, Fathers, 
Children and Brothers and Sisters are 
paid Pensions. Under new laws IN- 
CREASE of Pensions are due thou- 
sands of Pensioners. Patents secured 
for inventors. BOUNTIES are due 
: thousands Of Soldiers and Heirs and 
do not know it. References furnished. 
Address, (with stamp,)— 

BEJLlLinil MILLER A CO. 
U. S. Claim Attorneys, 

Lock-Box 233. WASHINGTON, D. C 

my 1— 6t 







Addrs 



ap 15- 



BEER ever quafiCL 
Purifies the bloc:". 
CURES Dyspepsia. 
Liver and Kidney dis- 
eases. Sent by Mai! 
on receipt of 25 cts, 
in postage stamps. 
: BEAN & RARE, Wholesale Druggists, 
Nos. 47 & 49 N. 2d St., Philadelphia. 

iy 




SEED! 



True American Purple Top and White 
Flat Dutch, White "and Yellow Ruta 

"^E 1 **^*?^ *" approved varieties, sent by mail. 

postpaid, 66c. By express or freight in lb package 

JHJc. Liberal discount to trade. C. B. ROCiEKN. 

Seedsman, 133 Market St., P^ilkaeiShla! 

jy— It 



Greenfield Cutlery Co. 



Manufacturers of 




Superior Solid Steel 



Silver Plated Pie, Butter, Table, Dessert, 
and Tea Knives, to Match. 

ALFORD, WARD & TAVENPORT, 

85 CHAMBERS ST., NEW YORK. 

In order to introduce our goods to the people, we 
will send by mail, prepaid, 



1 Pie Knife, 
1 Butter " 
6 Tea Knives, 

mch 1 — ly 



$2.00 

50 

3.00 



6 Table Knives, $3.i>u 
6 Dessert " 3.25 

or any portion pro rat* 




QUAULED 



Beech-Loadmg 

SINGLE SHOT GUN 

Side Snap Action, Pistol Grip Stock. Chokr 
Bored. Either Brass or Pater Cartridges can 
be used in it. Bore, 10, 12, 14 and 16. Nickeled 
Mountings. PRICE, $16. Auxiliary Rifle 
Barrel can be used in this gun, thus making 
virtually two guns — a breech loading shot 
Gun and Rifle. 

ALFORD, WARD, DAVENPORT & CO. 

85 CHAMBERS STREET, NEW YORK. 

feb 1— ly 

3MITH, MYERS & SCHNIER, 

Manufacturers of 
ALL SIZES OF 

Circular Saw Mills 

Steam Engines and Bailers 

Shafting, Pulleys, Hangers, Couplings, 
Gearing and General Machinery. 

OUR 

No. I Plantation Saw Mill, 



$2 



• II 



(SEND FOR DESCRIPTIVE CIRCULARS.) 

SMITH, MYERS & SCHNIER, 

323, 325,, 327 & 329 W. Front St., 

CINCINNATI, OHIO- 

je 1— 6t 



THOROUGHBRED 

Shorthorn Cattle. 

MERINO SHEEP and BERKSHIRE 
PIGS. Bred and for sale, at moderate 

P " Ce8 ' by S. S. BRADFORD, 

ja 1 — ly Culpeper, Va. 



EJ. GREGORY & CO 
. (Successors to Bain, Parrack & Gregory,) 

COMMISSION MERCHANTS, 

102 Shockoe Slip, Richmond, Va. 
[E. J. GREGORY, late of Bain, Parrick & Gregory.] 

Prompt personal attention given to the sale of all 
produce consigned to us. Leaf Tobacco, Cotton and 
Grain specialties. 

D. E. Davidson, Book-Keeper. 

W. V. Gregory, Ass't Salesman. fe 1— 12t 



SIOOO REWARD 

foranu machine hulling as much clover seed inlday asthe 

VICTOR 

Double Hullcr Clover, 



It beats all other 

Hullers, having 

hullec 




51- 

Victors 

sold in 1881 and 

the demand could 

not be supplied. •-^ss=^sa^'"- r , .- m . t 

Circular confirming this mailed free. Send for it. 

NEWARK MACHINE COMPANY, Newark, Ohio. 

Ownersof Patents and the only Manufacturer* in the world- 

mh 15 — 6t 



JERSEY RED PIGS 

From largest herd South, which took Five 
Premiums and special mention at Virginia 
State Fair 1 881. This hog is free from dis- 
ease, a natural grazer, prolific and early to 
mature. Catalogue free. • 

T. LOVELOCK, Gordonsville, Va. 
Also, Collie Pups in April from imported 
strains. J an 1_ l f 



SEE OS 

GAPiDEfiERS I it will pav you to send for our 
NURSERYMEN I nfuntotedCatalosn^ 

IMPLEMENTS 



rhiladelphia Lawn Mower, 
Cahoon Broadcast See;l Sower 



| WE ARE THE 
SOLE 

WESTERN 
AGENTS. 



Matthews' Seed Drills, and 

other fir 4-class Roods. 
Eccnjihinff tor the Lawn, Gar- 
den, Greenhouse or Nursery, i 
We WARRANT everything as represented. 

mm SIBLEY & so, 

SEEDS AND IMPLEMENTS, 

Fully illustrated Catalogue Bent free. 
CHICAGO, IfcL. Wholesale and Retail. ROCHESTER, N.T 

jan 15— 12t 





COOLEY CREAMERS 

Greatly Improved 

In daily use in over 
15,000 factories and! 
dairies. For securing 
cleanliness, purity and 
greatest possible 
amount of cream, have 
no equal. _ 

Made in four styles, ten sizes each. Du- 
rable and ornamental. Skim automatically 
with or without lifting the cans. Most pop- 
ular in the cream-gathering plan. Four 
gold medals and six silver medals for supe- 
riority. 

Dayis' Swing (Mrn 

Best and Cheapest. 

No inside fixtures 
— always right side 
up. No danger of 
cover falling out, let- 
ting all of the cream 
on to the floor. Nine sizes made. Three 
sizes Nesbitt Butter Printer. Four Sizes 
Eureka Butter Worker. 

THE IMPROVED 

EVAPORATORS 

Make Better 
SITRUP, 

SUGAR, 

and JELLY, 
with less fuel and labor than any other ap- 
paratus. Will condense Sorghum Juice 
faster than any evaporator in use. The 
best appratus known for making jelly from 
sweet cider. Thousands in use. Send for 
descriptive circulars of Evaporators, Cane 
Mills, &c. Every implement warranted ex- 
actly as represented. 

VT- FARM MACHINE CO., 
Bellows Falls, Vt. 

ASBTON STARKE, ApnUictoondJa. 

mch 1— 12t 





Queen 



t°h f e South 

PORTABLE 

FARM MILLS 

For Stock Feed or Meal for 
Family use. 

10,000 X3ST T7SE. 
Write for Pamphlet. 

Simpson & Ganlt M'fg Co. 

Successors to Stbaub Mill Co. 
CINCINNATI, 0. 



je 15— 6t 



Received Mai 

AMD 

HIGHEST AWARD 




OF MERIT 

AT f 
CENTENNIAL. 

Bend for Catalogue 

SAWMILLS 

A 

specialty. 




STEAM ENGINES, 
LB.fARQUHAB,York,Pa.. 

Cheapest and best for all pur- 
poses— slmplCjr strong, and du- 
rable. Also Horse Pow- 
ers and Qln Qear. 

Saw, Grist and Cobi 
Mills, Gins, Presses 
and Macht-ttehy goner- ! 
ally. Inquiriespromptly 
answered. 

VertioalEngines.with or Without ft g- « 
' wheels, very «;onvcni- /^^ 3 ^-2u 

ent, economical and 
complete in every de- 
tail, best and 
cheapest vert- 
ical in tho 
world. Fig. 

1 is engine 
in use. Fig. 

2 ready for 
road. 

The Farquhar Separator 

(Warranted) 

Penna. 

Agricultural/ 

Works, 

York, Pa. 

Lightest draft, 
raost durable. 





Send lir 
Catalogue. 




. DihiM • 
ITain, c!ea::s it 

tail j for uiir^ot. 

AND 

HI&HJST SSI3E 

AWARBE1 
SEPARATORS. 

Wfcd f'w IUnrtratM Catalogue 

jan 1—1 2t 



8IL7E2 UZBAIi 
at 

Paris Erposittoa. 

Addreae A. B. Farquhar, Yorktt* 



LANE & BODLEY CO. 

AWARDED 

GOLD MEDAL 

BY THE 

ATLANTA COTTON EXPOSITION, 

ON THEIR 

Steam Engine and Saw Mi! 

Exhibited at Atlanta in 1881. 

Manufacturers of Steam Engines, Builers. 
6aw Mills, Gang Edgera. Lath Machines, Hub 
and Spoke Machinery, Shafting, Hangers, Pul- 
leys, Couplings, Gearing, Grist and Flour Mills 

Send for Special Circular of our So. 1 1'. an tat ion 
Saw Mill, which we sell for 




Special attention given to Plantation Ma- 
chinery. Illustrated Circulars Free. 

LANE & BODLEY CO., 

John & Water Sts., Cincinnati, O, 

my 1 — 8t 



STRAWBERRIES ! 

Newest and Best. Varieties. 

Grown in Pots, and ready for shipment after 
July 25th. If planted early, will give a good 
crop next season. New descriptive priced cat- 
alogue containing full cultural directions 
mailed free. 

Address ELLWAKGEKA BARRY. 

jy— 2t Rochester, N. Y. 



H. A. S. HAMILTON, 

Fishersville, Augusta County, Va., 

BREEDER OF PURE 

Southdown Sheep. 

My flock took seven premiums at Virginia 
State Fair in 1881. Am prepared to fur- 
nish buck of any age at reasonable prices. 

my 15— 1U 



f\ p Steel Plate & Pearl Chromo 

/n Cards (half each) name on, 10c. 

L U 14 packs $1. $50 given to the best 

agent. Full particulars with first order. 

National Card Works, 

ap 15 — 4t New Haven, Conn. 

i;llerslie farm. 
THOROUGHBRED HORSES, 

Shortliorn Cattle, Cotswold Sheep, 

AND 

BERKSHIRE PIGS 

Bred and For Sale by 

R. J. HANCOCK, 
Overton, Albemarle Co , Va. 

.P II KBT'lTTa office, 202 

vA JW WJELrX. west 4th St. 

New book on treatment and cure of Cancer. Sent 
free to any address on receipt of stamp. Address, 

Drs. GRATIGNY & NORRIS, Box 598, Cincinnati, a 

je 1— 6m 



' I 




#P3 Sent FREE! 






fe 1— 12t 



TREATISE ON PDIIIT 
EVAPORATING ("KUI I 

Profits and General Statistic*. 

American MP g Co., Waynesboro, Pa 



CHEAPEST BIBLESS'£Z'Ste: 

tra feature*. Both Versions New Testament APPirP'! Ill 41IWT1 
FORSHBB & MCMACKlN.Cincinnati.O. H hhfllli) W AfllLJJ 

my 15 — ly 



success 

force and suction 



UMP 





A FIRE ENGINE 



Patented Kov. 8, 1881. 

This Pump is of great power and simplicity, 
and will draw water from any depth of well. It can 
be_ arranged to force water to House, Harn % and 
Field, and will throw twice the amount of waler 
at each stroke of any other pump. Water can be 
drawn from spring or distant woll into the house. 
With a hose attachment it is a Fire Engine, and is 
the best Well Pump made. Specially recom- 
mended for deep wells. Semi for circulars. 

Manufactured by 

J. W. CARLWSLL k CO., Richmond, Va. 
jan 1—1 2t 



For the North and West. 

Do not fail to see thatyour Ticket 
reads by the 

NASHVILLE, CHATTANOOGA 
and ST. LOUIS RAILWAY. 

For speed, safety and comfort you will 
find this line to be unrivaled. 

Emigrants wishing to go West either to 
locate or as prospectors, will find it to their 
advantage to go by this route. Round trip 
emigrant tickets on sale to Texas points. 
By this line you have no tiresome delays. 
Through coaches are run from Chattanooga 
to Columbus without change. Sleeping 
coaches on all night trains. Good Coaches, 
Good Road and quick time. 

For Maps, Time Tables and all informal 
tion in .regard to this route, call on or ad- 
dress 
A. B. Wrenn, Wm. T. Rogers, 

Traveling Agent, Passenger Agent 

Atlanta, Ga. Chattanooga, Tenn. 

Or W. L. DANLEY, General Passenger 
and Ticket Agent, Nashville, Tenn. 



GH ESAPEAKG AKD OHIO RAILWAY 

Opened through the beautiful BLUE 
GRASS region of Kentucky to Louisville 
and Cincinnati. Connecting at these cities 
with all of the Great Lines of Railways 
diverging for 

Indianapolis, St. Louis, Chicago, 
Kansas City, Nashville, Mem- 
phis, and all principal points 
West, South and Southwest. 

SOLID TRAINS with Pullman Sleeping 
Coaches, run through daily between Wash- 
ington, Richmond, Charlottesville, Waynes- 
boro, Staunton, Clifton Forge and Louis- 
ville and Cincinnati without change. 

SHORTEST & MOST DIRECT ROUTE 

and the only route without transfers 
Avoiding the uncertainty by other routes 
of making connections. 

For rates and full information, call on 
the nearest Chesapeake aud Ohio agent, or 
address 

C. W. Smith, H. W. Fuller, 

Gen'l Manager. Gen'l Pass'r Agent. 

aHBMaaBnaDEBuaaaaBBaaaaBBBaiMiMBaMiaHaaBHi 

SEEDS! 

My Annual Priced Catalogue is now 
ready and mailed free to all applicants. It 
contains all the leading and most popular 
sorts of VEGETABLE, FIELD AND 
FLOWER SEEDS. Besides all the desi- 
rable novelties of last season, and nearly 
everything else in my line of business. 

ALFRED BRIDGEMAN, 
feb 1— 6m 876 Broadway, New York. 



Ask your Jeweler for THE 

LANCASTER 

Lancaster W Jm § U Lancaster, 
Watch Co. FV ft BUI I Penna. 
Sixteen (16) Grades. 
All Quick-Train Railroad Watches. 

mch 1 — 6t 



THE PATENT 

CHANNEL CAN CREAMERY 

Will get all the cream in spring 
water at 65° every time. Send for 
I circular. Agents Wanted. 
W. E. LINCOLN, Warren, Mass. 
ap 15— 6t 




H. M. SMITH & CO., 

OUR RICHMOND THRESHER. 



MANUFACTURERS 

Box 8. RICHMOND, VA. 




It is remarkable for the small amount of power required to run it. The simplest in 
the world. The srongest in the market. Made of first class material. The only 
Thresher and Cleaner which will thresh and clean well 300 bushels per day with four 
ordinary horses. This Thresher works particularly well with our 4-hoise ''Peerless" 
Engine, which, with our to Brown Cotn Gin, our 18 inch Queen of ihe South Corn Mill 
(which makes first-rate meal), and a good Cotton Press, will fit any man up with a light 
outfit; which, if properly handled, ought to make him SI. 000 a year, as much as the 
whole outfit costs him; and that with the engine and thresher properly mounted, with 
which we will give the fullest guarantee. Terms liberal. 

OOP OEISER THRESHER. 




Mounted with on 2 or 4 wheels. This is the machine so well known and &o iimeM 
liked in all the States This is the Thresher which wilT answer all requirements, and do! 
well no matter what the circumstances or conditions— drive slow,* drive fast, feed slow,! 
feed fast — and giveit power, it will do alike good work, ft mav well be said of it,l 
that it will do good work under all circumstances Our lightest Geiser is 5 horse, whichJ 
will thresh, under favorable circumstances, over 30 bushels per hour, and has threshed! 
over 40 per hour. This works well with our 5 horse "Peerless" Engine. We can fur-] 
nish all sizes of this Thresher, to run either with steam or horse-power. 

STEAM ENGINES — Traction, Portable and Stationary. The mos,t improved, safest, J 
most reliable and best in the country. THKESHING MACHINES— Steam and Horse- ] 
Power — all practical sizes. The most simple, most durable, cheapest. 

We try to make Pricss and Terms to SUIT AIjL.