THE 



S 



OUTHERN TLANTER 



P 



DEVOTED TO 



AGRICULTURE, 


HORTICULTURE, LIVE STOCK AND THE HOUSEHOLD. 


T. W. ORMOND, 
W. C. KNIGHT, 
TV. C. JACKSON, 





Proprietor. 
Editor. 
Advertising Agent. 


44th Year. 


OCTOBER, 1883. 


No. 10- 



OOITTEITTS 



Farmers and Farming in Virginia in the Olden Time. 

■Throw not Pearl before Swine ' 

Improvement of Lands in Eastern Virginia 

Frnit Culture — 

Relation of Plants to National Prosperity 

Wheat Culture 

The State Fair 

Peas and Clover 

Best Breed of Hogs for the South 

Wheat and Cheat 

The World's Wheat Crop for 1883 

Knights of Agriculture 

Inquiries. 



Cause of Apple Trees Dying, and Muck — Reply to "Enquiries" in August Number. 

Floats Again, and Dr. Ellzey's Replies 

Experiment with Sheep 

American Cattle in England 

The Farmer's Home - , 

How much Wheat Seed Per Acre ? 

Southern Progress — . 

Winter Flowering Plants — Cinerarias and Calceolarias 

Relation of Farm Labor to Farm Capital 

American Jerseys 

Wheat Culture, &c 

Ground South Carolina Rock as a Fertilizer 

Fertilizing Wheat .• 

Hedges and Ensilage - 

Grass, or Cultivation for Orchards 

Deau Heads at the Fair - 



471 
473 
475 
479 
483 
484 
485 
487 
488 
489 
489 
491 
492 
493 
494 
497 
497 
498 
500 
501 
502 
503 
504 
505 
507 
509 
510 
512 
517 



Editorial : 

Report of the Superintendent of the Government Farms and Agricultural Opera- 
tions in the Madras (India) Presidency 513 

Editorial Notes : 

The State Fair Again ; Hampshire-Down Sheep ; Pears as a Profitable Crop ; The 
Ashley Phosphate Company ; The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company; 
Books and Magazines ; New Advertisements , 520 



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



ORGANIZED 1S3S. 



THE 

Virginia Fire and Marine 

INSURANCE COMPANY, 

OP HTCHiMIOlSnD, VIRGINIA 



ASSETS, - - - $557,000.00. 

Insures against Fire and Lightning. 

HALF A CENTURY IN ACTIVE AND 
SUCCESSFUL OPERATION. 




A HOME IBISTITUTIOKT. 

This old Virginia Institution offers solid security to those desiring Insurance The 
Company has paid Hundreds of Thousands in losses in this State, and "nearly 
Three Millions in all parts of the country. ' 

All Descriptions of Property in Country or Town-private or public-insured 
at fair rates and on accommodating terms. Agencies in every county and city 



DIRECTORS. 

W. L. COWARDIN, President. 

E. 0. Nolting, E. B. Addison, G. W. Allen, 

W. S. Donnan, Thomas Potts, d. 0. Davis.' 

Home Office, IVo. IOIS Main Street, Richmond, Va. 

W. L. COWARPIN, President. 

WM. H. MCCARTHY, Secretary. 

^CORRESPONDENCE SOLICITED.' 



■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, - - - _ - - - - Proprietor. 

W. C. KNIGHT, - - - - - - - Editor. 

44th Year. RICHMOND, OCTOBER, 1883. No. 10. 



FARMERS AND FARMING IN VIRGINIA IN THE OLDEN TIME. 



No. 15. 

[1. Notice of Jethro Tull, found among the papers of Nicholas Cabell, Jr., of Nel- 
son county. Mr. Tull was the inventor of the grain drill, and his work on Husbandry 
was in the early part of this century much read by the educated farmers of Virginia. 

2. Copy of a paper in the handwriting of Mr. Cabell on Rotation. 

3. Letter from W. W. Gilmer) Esq., of Albemarle, to N. F. Cabell, Esq., of Nelson 
county.J 

Notice of Jethro Tull. — Jethro Tull, Esq., was descended from 
an ancient family in Oxfordshire, where he had a liberal educa- 
tion ; and having finished his studies at the University, he ap- 
plied to the study of the law, and was admitted a barrister in 
the Temple. But being of a delicate constitution, and applying 
too closely to his studies, his health was thereby so much im- 
paired that he found himself under the necessity of quitting his 
profession to save his life. 

He had an estate in Oxfordshire, and one of his farms there 
happening to come into his hands about the year 1696, he un- 
dertook the culture of it himself, with a view to the recovery of 
his health and the improvement of the land. 

Turnips were not then cultivated in the fields for feeding cattle, 
and artificial grasses not generally. For this reason hay was 
36 



472 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

commonly at a good price, and in unfavorable seasons rose very 
high. This determined him to lay down most of his farm, which 
was a large one, with sanfoin, for which he found his land very 
proper ; but sanfoin seed being then scarce and dear, and 
much of it not good — the farmers not being well skilled in sav- 
ing it — he found it would be expensive to sow a large farm in 
that, for the quantity commonly sown at that time was seven 
bushels per acre. 

This put him upon trying whether so much seed was neces- 
sary, and by making several experiments with the seed, and 
observations upon the different success of thick and thin sowing 
in the fields, he found that a great deal less would be sufficient 
if the seed was good and sown regularly and at a proper depth. 

Having fully satisfied himself in these particulars, and learned 
to choose good seed, he prepared some land ; and having made 
it fine and clean by good tillage, he employed some labourers 
to make straight channels in it, and to drop the seed by hand 
thin into these channels, and cover it exactly. This succeeded 
to his desire, and was, in time and labour, not above a fourth 
part of the expense of sowing it in the common way, and yet 
the land was better planted. 

But the next year, as soon as he began to plant more land in 
the same manner, he found that the laborers disliked his scheme, 
and had agreed to disappoint him by sowing his seed badly. 
Vexed at this disappointment, he dismissed his labourers, re- 
solving to quit his scheme unless he could contrive a machine to 
sow his seed regularly ; which, being an excellent mechanic, he 
at last accomplished, and named it a Drill. 

We are sorry to find Mr. Hart, the ingenious author of the 
" Essays on Husbandry," attempting to deprive Mr. Tull of the 
honour of inventing the Drill-plough, which he says "had been 
used in several European countries almost half a century before 
he put pen to paper." That an instrument for sowing wheat in 
rows had been thought of, is very true ; but it does not appear 
that any such was ever brought to perfection and used in any 
part of the world before Mr. Tull's. And Mr. Hart seems to 
have been misled in this matter by a report that prevailed in 
Mr. Tull's own time, that he brought the invention from abroad. 
This he takes notice of, and in the year 1735 replied to it as 
follows : — 

" I am surprised to hear that some gentlemen pretend I 
brought this instrument from France or Italy, when it is well 
known it had planted two farms with sanfoin before I travelled, 



1883.] 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



473 



which was not till April, 1711, being above ten years after mak- 
ing and using my drill. The praised commentator on the 
Georgic can testify this, he having 27 years ago seen the fields 
of my best farm planted in rows by it. I gave one to a neighbor, 
who used it in his fields every year, while I was abroad. And 
it would be strange if I should bring it from countries where it 
never was." 



The following is a copy of a paper in the handwriting of. 
Nicholas Cabell, Jr., then residing at Liberty Hall, Nelson Co. : 

A PROPOSED ROTATION OF CROPS FOR FIVE FIELDS. 



First. 


Second. 


Third. 


Fourth. 


Fifth. 


Corn, Potatoes 
and Turnips. 


Wheat, or 
Oats, &c. 


Clover and other 
Grasses. 


Fallow 

Wheat. 


Clover and other 
grass for pasture. 


Wheat, or 
Oats, &c. 


Clover and other 
Grass. 


Fallow 

Wheat. 


Clover and other 
grass for pasture. 


Corn, &c. 


Clover and other 

Grasses. 


Fallow 

Wheat. 


Clover and other 
grass for pasture. 


Corn, &c. 


Wheat and 
Oats, &c. 


Fallow Clover and other 
Wheat, jgrass for pasture. 


Corn, &c. 


Wheat 

and Oats. 


Clover and 
other Grasses. 


Clover and otheri 

Grasses for Corn, &c. 
Pasture. 


Wheat and Oats. 


Clover and 
other grass. 


Fallow Wheat. 



"THROW NOT PEARL BEFORE SWINE." 

Your request shall be cheerfully complied with, though there 
are many who could give a fuller and better account of hog- 
raising than I can. 

The first thing necessary for raising animals of all sorts (ex- 
cept those produced from eggs, in which case an egg will do), 
is to procure a male and female ; these should be sound, well 
formed, free from lice, mange, and all other diseases, which they 
so readily communicate to their young. Sows are injured by 
having pigs before they are 14 months old ; they go 4 months 
with pig. Never suffer them to approach your barn or stable. 
Straw, and especially litter from the stable, will produce mange. 



474 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

Keep them in winter in a large wood lot ; make a good shel- 
ter for 12 or 1 5 ; change the litter once a week, and move the 
shelter once a month. Hogs will have lice, for which use lard- 
freely ; they should be greased 3 or 4 times a year ; occasion- 
ally give a little sulphur in meal ; do so in good weather. 

Give occasionally ears of corn dipped in tar to prevent dis- 
ease. Early in April turn them on a grass lot of green sward 
or blue grass ; the hog is a costive animal and requires grass in 
great quantities. 

Pigs should come from the 1st Feb. to the 1st April; with 
good management at 10 or 11 months old they should weigh 
150 or 200 lbs. I had 15 out of 18 last year weighing 130 lbs„ 
at 6 months. 

Your slops, soap-suds, and everything of the kind should be 
carefully preserved and carried out every day. Make long 
troughs, narrow at bottom to prevent their getting in ; put 
wheat bran, a little meal, &c, with the slops. 

Cut and spay young ; 'tis better to risk a pig than a shoat ; 
have a long plank put through the fence, place two strings 
round the top rail with a noose and let the animal rest on it 
while undergoing the operation, which should be performed as 
expeditiously as possible. 

Turn your stock on clover as soon as it is in full bloom. 
Make a portion of your wheat on lots, get it off as soon as you 
can, and in with the hogs. When the wheat in the fields begins 
to fail, give them corn, stalk and all ; about the 1st of October 
give them corn, and by the middle of the month it should stand 
by them. Continue the slops until 1st of December. 

Charcoal, red pepper and hickory ashes should be given fre- 
quently after you commence corn feeding. 

I shall close with an axiom : Keep a large portion of food for 
your stock of all sorts. They will thrive more rapidly when 
the master sees them fed, and he will soon become fond of it. 
I have 150 to kill this fall, and it is a real pleasure to look at 
them with their tails curled as if they would raise their legs off 
the ground. Come over and see for yourself. 

Yours truly, Wm. W. Gilmer. 

N. F. Cabell, Esq. 



The truly virtuous do not easily credit evil that is told them of their 
neighbors; for if others may do amiss, then may these also speak 
amiss ; mau is frail and prone to evil, and therefore may soon fail in 
words. — Jeremy Taylor. 



1883.] SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 475 



IMPROVEMENT OF LANDS IN EASTERN VIRGINIA. 



[For the Southern Planter.] 

" Line upon line, and precept upon precept," seem necessary to 
•arouse our farmers in Eastern Virginia, particularly in Tidewater, to 
the importance of the improvement and proper cultivation of their 
lands. In a recent trip over the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad from 
Richmond to Old Point, I must say, offend whom it may, that I never 
saw so badly a cultivated country, though I have travelled over many 
of the Northern States, some of the "Western and Southern States, and 
over England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France 
and Switzerland. I am not writing for public notoriety, but to attempt 
to stir up the farmers in the section of the State alluded to, to an ap- 
preciation of their true interests. In the portion of Henrico below 
Richmond through which the Chesapeake and Ohio [Railroad passes, 
the land is very capable of improvement, and is well suited to 'clover 
and the grasses. Most of it now is covered with stunted oak, the trees 
having been cut down during the war, and only a small portion being 
in cultivation. We saw, last year, just at the " Seven^Pines," very 
near the scene of the memorable battle fought there, an excellent field 
of clover, the land being similar to that just referred to. The corn 
along the route of the railroad is almost universally badly cultivated, 
in many places there being almost as much grass as corn. Why is 
this, and why is this land planted in corn if not designed to be culti- 
vated ? It may be said that hands that should work lands are fishing; 
but does not this occur every year, and have not the farmers yet learned 
how much land may be put in corn, with a pretty correct estimate of 
how much they can get cultivated ? An area which may be properly 
cultivated, is worth as much as double the quantity badly cultivated ; 
or, one acre of the former is worth as much as two of the latter. Then, 
through this country, we see few cattle, because there is little grass or 
clover, or corn-fodder — in fact, none of the latter is visible from the 
railroad, and precious little of the former. We .might expect to see 
some difference about the villages, but about Williamsburg it is as bad 
as elsewhere, perhaps worse, and no better on the western side of 
Hampton. On the east of it lie the grounds of the ''Soldiers' Home" 
and of the " Normal School," which present a very different aspect, 
particularly the grounds of the "Normal School;" and the fine con- 
dition in which this land is found, and the great improvement effected 
on it under the direction of General Armstrong, together with the fine 
piece of clover near the Seven Pines above mentioned — with the ex- 



476 SOUTHERN" PLANTER [October 



cellent clover found at "Lester Manor," Mr. John B. Davis' farm, 20 
miles below Richmond, in King William county — show what can be 
done with these lands with proper management. But they have been 
worn and exhausted of their fertilizing elements, without any effort at 
recuperation by their occupants — still they are not " worn out;" and 
if the plan I will presently suggest is followed, even though a small 
quantity be improved annually, ultimately a great revolution may be 
effected in these lands. "When you talk to the farmers of this section 
about raising clover and the grasses, they will say, "Oh, this is not a 
grass country." Well, if they will not attempt grass, let them sow 
corn-fodder, and ensilage it or not as they may hereafter find best. 
We advise ensilage wherever the farmer has the means to construct a 
pit, which, however, is not costly ; and in addition to this, let a per- 
manent pasture be enclosed, and if wire-grass is not already established 
on it, let this be seeded, as they are doing^the Bermuda grass in the 
South. That is, the roots are to be cut up (it does not propagate by 
the seed) in a straw-cutter, and seeded either in drills or lightly plowed 
under, broadcast, and dragged. The Bermuda and wire-grass are the 
same, as I demonstrated some years since by getting some roots of the 
former from Alabama, propagating them in my garden, and sending a 
specimen with one of wire-grass to the Botanist of the United States 
Agricultural Department, who pronounced them the same — viz., cyno- 
don dadylon. In the South, the Bermuda grass is greatly esteemed for 
pasture and for hay, being considered very nutritious and being cut 
for hay twice a year on good land. There it grows much higher than 
here (under the name of wire grass), from the fact that it flourishes 
better in warm climates, being a native, it is said, of the West Indies, 
and imported from there to the Southern States. As an evidence of 
the hardiness of this grass, and its resistance to drought, we cite the 
fact that the ramparts of Fortress Monroe are thickly sodded with it, 
where it gets the whole power of the sun, with nothing to retain mois- 
ture around it. It is not seen in the cooler parts of Virginia, as in 
Piedmont and the Valley. By a permanent pasture of wire-grass, fer- 
tilized some if possible, and by corn-fodder on land somewhat im- 
proved by marling and liming — and of course it would be better to 
use also stable manure or some commercial fertilizer, as fine-ground 
South Carolina phosphate, and kainit, presently to be mentioned — a 
commencement may be made in increasing the quantity of stock 
raised, which will a^ld to the manure pile. But the main plan of im- 
provement I advise is to use fine ground South Carolina phosphate 
and kainit (German potash salts) on peas, which are to be turned under, 



1883.] SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 477 

and. followed by wheat, oats or corn; if the latter, however, the peas 
to be suffered to remain on the surface until the spring. If oats or 
wheat are seeded after peas, then try clover with them ; and if it fails, 
go back to the fertilizer and peas again, with oats or wheat following, 
and clover again. When the land is effectually set in clover, it is on a 
safe and certain road to improvement, if managed with care. I would 
advise winter oats, seeded last of August or first week in September, 
and clover at the same time, with a clod-crusher roller run over them, 
and if the clover fails it can be re-seeded in February or March follow- 
ing ; but with oats, may be seeded on pea fallow as late as 15th October. 

The proportion of South Carolina phosphate and kainit are about 
250 pounds of the former and 150 pounds of the latter to the acre, 
mixed some week or two before using. The price of the first is $18 
per ton, and of the latter about §12 (with 25 per cent, of sulphate pot- 
ash); but the Southern Fertilizing Company, Richmond, Va., keeps 
them already mixed at S18 per ton. Even 500 pounds of the mixture 
would be only $5.50 for an acre; but 400 pounds ($3.60 per acre) 
would generally suffice to procure a good growth of peas, and some 
think 300 pounds will answer. The great advantage of this prepara- 
tion is that it will, on poor land, produce a good growth of peas, and 
then we have all the three constituents we need for plant growth — viz., 
phosphate lime, potash and ammonia, the peas furnishing the latter. 
The late Dr. Ravenel informed the writer that on his farm on the coast 
of South Carolina (light land) he procured by the article named (which 
he called "ash element") such a growth of peas that he had to burn 
them off, as he could not turn them under properly, losing, he said, 
nothing but the ammonia of the vines, retaining that of the roots and 
all the mineral matter. Mr. John Selden,on upper James river, found 
that his wheat has succeeded well, sown right on the peas and rolled 
with an iron roller of clod-crushing fashion. 

If the farmers will use the preparation mentioned, even though they 
may be able to buy only one ton annually, fertilizing four or five acres, 
they will soon much improve their farms. It is possible they might 
have to repeat the fertilizer and peas the second year to procure a 
growth of clover, but this would cost only $7.20 or $9 per acre (as they 
might use 400 or 500 pounds per acre of the fertilizer, and even 300 
pounds might answer). 

Additional evidence of the imperfect cultivation of lands tributary 
to Old Point and Hampton, and want of meat production, is the fact 
that no market is found to supply the Fort, the Normal School, Sol- 
diers' Home (with 1000 inmates), Hampton and the adjoining popula- 



478 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

tion, and the Hygeia Hotel with its large number of guests all the year. 
They all have to send or go to Noi'folk for their supplies. Scarcely 
anything is broyght into the village to sell, save a very few musk- 
melons, no watermelons or fruit, and but a few apples. No newspaper 
venders or bootblacks are seen. In such a place in upper Virginia 
would be found a market with meats, vegetables, fruits, &c, with news- 
paper boys, bootblacks, &c. A friend came into the village recently, 
too late for dinner, on his way to Richmond. He could not find a 
snack in all the place. 

Tidewater Virginia, with its many navigable streams, and with its 
whole eastern line bordering on tbe Chesapeake bay, thus having a 
ready access to all the markets of the world ; with its comparatively 
mild winters, with its easy and cheap cultivation, with its good roads, 
with its abundant fish and oysters and crabs and wild fowls, and its 
healthful climate, if properly cultivated and improved, would be the 
most desirable portion of Virginia. I say healthful climate deliberately, 
though people in upper Virginia and elsewhere think it very sickly, 
and that because ague and bilious fever are prevalent there, forgetting 
that this (the two are the same disease) is the only disease in this region 
incident to the locality or the climate ; while Piedmont and the Valley 
and mountain regions suffer much from inflammatory diseases, caused 
by the cold, damp winters, and pneumonia, pleurisy, rheumatism, and 
from consumption, in a greater degree than Tidewater. Both sections 
have typhoid fever, but the latter less frequently and in a milder de- 
gree. In a practice of ten years from 1841 to 1851, in Tidewater, the 
writer had never seen a case of typhoid fever. And from many cases 
of ague and bilious fever he saw only one death, and that in a consti- 
tution broken down by hard drink. The fact is, that these malarial 
diseases are much overrated in gravity. Quinine is a perfect cure of, 
and antidote to, them — a thing which can be said of scarcely any other 
disease. A person need have but one chill in the season. Stop the 
first chill, and then take three grains of quinine every morning for the 
rest of the season until frost, and even for two or three weeks will 
generally suffice. And the worst case of bilious fever may be broken 
up in two or three, or at most four days, by the free use of quinine. 
Then it must be taken into account that these diseases are frequently 
entirely absent for several years — once for ten years, from 1832 to 1842, 
as I was assured by one of the old practitioners in Tidewater. 

In a recent visit to the Soldiers' Home near Hampton, I obtained a 
Report for 1882 of the National Soldiers' Home. Of this there are 
four branches, under one organization, and one board of managers — 



1883. SOUTHERN PLANTER. 479 

viz., the Central Branch near Dayton, Ohio ; the Northwestern Branch, 
in Milwaukee county, Wisconsin ; Eastern Branch, at Togus, Maine ; 
and the Southern Branch near Hamptom, Va. Th£ percentage of 
deaths in the Central in 1882 was 6.22; in Northwestern, 5.36; in 
Eastern, 3.78 ; and in Southern Branch, 3.80. 

But in the latter the percentage of deaths in 1880 was only 3.46, 
and in 1881 was 3.50, showing the mortality was less than in any of 
the other branches, unless it be in the Eastern, and but little more than 
half of that in the Central. Of 138 cases treated in hospital in the 
Southern Branch, only five cases were of malarial origin (ague and 
bilious fever) ; and of more than 1000 cases treated in quarters, 23 
are set down to " ephemeral" fever (which means fever lasting for a 
day), including fever from cold, indigestion and malaria. Of 110 In- 
dians in the Normal School in 1882 there was only one death, that 
from consumption, the disease developing while the youth was visiting 
Massachusetts. These institutions are located on Hampton creek. 
Mrs. Eaton, living at Old Point for 22 years, told me she considered 
that the healthiest place she had ever lived at. She was raised in 
Boston, and had lived at various places. A lady, raised at Old Point, 
told me she had never had a chill in her life. Dr. Page, the Surgeon 
to the Fort, told me he rarely saw malarial disease in the Fort, or any 
where at the Point, where he practiced. 



FRUIT CULTURE. 

[For the Southern Planter.] 

Col. Wm. Byrd, in his history of the dividing line in 1729 between 
North Carolinia and Virginia, makes this just remark, "It is an ob- 
servation which rarely fails of being true, both in Virginia and the 
Carolinas, that those who take care to plant good orchards are in their 
general character industrious people." This is as true now as it was 
then. It was the mark of a good planter before the war between the 
States, to have large orchards and vineyards. They were not for profit, 
but were for the pleasure and use of the family, and the negroes upon 
the plantation; and were, besides, of sanitary benefit. In a country 
naturally fertile, with an almost perfect climate, well watered and tim- 
bered, accessible to market, every branch of agriculture ought to flour- 
ish; and after a fashion it does flourish — that is to say, with imperfect 
cultivation — with a surplus of untilled lands, from which nothing is 
gathered but taxes, with the minor resources of the farm neglected, the 



480 SOUTHERN PLANTER, [October 

Southern farmer lives, and if he is prudent, makes a little money. 
But this is the rule of agricultural life to which there are many ex- 
ceptions. In every neighborhood, a few farmers are laying up money, 
and this is done by. a patient and intelligent attention to the small pro- 
ducts of the farm. The meadows are mowed and the hay cured and 
stored, the poultry is attended to in a proper manner, the berries, 
grapes and fruits are marketed, the cattle and pigs are kept healthy and 
fat, fences and barnes are put in order, and manures are saved. The 
odds and ends of the farm are saved and sold, and it is this saving that 
makes money. 

It is to one of these subordinate crops that the attention of the 
farmer is invited — it can be shown how, by its growth, husbanding 
and manipulation in inexpensive factories, it can be made a source of 
much profit. 

In a warm climate a free diet of fruits is most conducive to robust 
and regular health, and no one should know this better than the in- 
telligent farmer. After the war, Northern men came South and bought 
property. They were led by the natural botanical law, that fruits could 
be grown to advantage where they grew to the greatest perfection, and were 
not attended with the expense of transplanting, acclimating, etc. They 
found a congenial climate and land of sufficient fertility for their pur- 
poses, and large tracts of country were given to fruit culture. In 
many cases they have been signally successful, but in a majority of 
instances, being disheartened by partial failures, they abandoned their 
undertaking and fell into the ranks of cotton producers. But an im- 
pulse has been given the industry, and it has moved along year by 
year, until in no part of the South is its influence unfelt. There are 
orchards and vineyards tended with skill and made the sole care of the 
owners in almost every community, but the farmers, as a rule, give 
only a passing thought to small things. Trees and vines are purchased 
from a travelling vender, without regard to their adaptation to the soil, 
and are planted with little care. When so planted the farmer considers 
his part of the work done, and leaves the rest to be done by the trees 
themselves. They are not protected from insects, disease, cold or heat 
and yet he is astonished his orchards do not bear fruit. If the fruit is 
matured it is gathered in a rough way, or allowed to fall and rot. 
Those who have made a specialty of growing fruit for market furnish 
about all the market receives. They are as well informed in regard 
to their business, and pursue it with the same activity and shrewdness 
that men pursue any other. But it is the average farmer who has the 



1883.] SOUTHEKN PLANTER. 481 



? acilities for growing fruits, and only fails to do so for the want of the 
lisposition, who is to make the great surplus which, whilst it enriches 
aim, will tend to reduce the price of fruit, and furnish an abundance 
for the multitudes of people who are annually flocking to the shores of 
these United States of North America. Take the earlier fruits, such 
is berries, in these days of fast trains, almost any farmer living along 
the lines of the great railways of the South could cultivate a few acres 
n strawberries and raspberries, at no great expense and considerable 
profit. If the beds are judiciously located, they can be worked and 
the berries gathered and marketed by the women and children on the 
farm. In the sections of country tributary to Norfolk, Newburn, 
Wilmington, Charleston, and Tallahassee, where market gardening has 
Deen followed by success, enormous quantities of berries have been 
raised and shipped for consumption. If these formed a part, though 
a small one, of the yearly crops of every farmer of these sections, they 
would not be so remunerative, perhaps, to the market gardener and 
trucker, but they would be sufliciently so to the farmers, and would 
add greatly to the health and pleasure of the vast number of people 
within the range of whose means they would come by reason of their 
reduced price, and if the supply exceed the demand at any time, the 
surplus could easily be canned. 

In all parts of the South, blackberries grow wild, and when they 
first ripen, find a ready sale in the local markets. Within a few years 
evaporators and fruit-driers have become cheap enough to find their 
way amongst farmers, and are coming into common use. If sufficient 
public spirit could be infused into every community, to have erected 
at some convenient point in its midst, a public establishment, however 
small, provided it was neat and clean, and furnished with inexpensive 
apparatus for drying and curing fruits, the amounts gathered by indi- 
viduals would be increased, the curing improved, and the time usually 
spent in curing saved; being better cured, it would bring better prices, 
and would thus effect a considerable saving to each community. 

Blackberries, as all know, grow wild, but like strawberries, rasp- 
berries, or any other berry, they grow larger and better when carefully 
cultivated, and they can be planted in parts of the farm where'they 
will not become a nuisance by interfering with other crops. Very few 
farmers are aware of the immense trade in dried fruits that awaits de- 
velopment at the hands of enterprising business men. " The quantity 
of dried fruit shipped from this point annually (Hickory, N. C), for 
the past five years, will approximate a half million of pounds. About 
one-half of this amount is in dried blackberries. The present crop 






482 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

was never better, and the market will open at about five cents a 
pound." 

Apricots are brought to rare perfection in France, and are quite dif- 
ferent from the tasteless, acid and watery fruits of the same name in 
this country. They do well on a loam soil, but thrive on any soil that 
is enriched, if the trees are protected and properly trained. In the 
Piedmont country of the South they will have a climate that is very 
like that of France. This fruit will pay as well as any fruit that is 
grown. At the present the apricot is not a common fruit, and has a 
future to make for itself. The cherry is valuable, because it can be 
matured and marketed before the apple blossoms have fallen from the 
trees in New York and New England. The thrifty farmers who will 
engage in nursing a few trees will be paid for their care, not only as a 
table delicacy, but in the fancy prices that this agreeable fruit will net 
them in the large mai'kets. 

Peaches and apples, in their endless varieties in the green state, or 
when dried, are the bulk of the marketable fruits. They are found in 
greater or less perfection in any part of the South, and it is safe to say, 
do well anywhere. But when these trees are left to themselves, in the 
old deserted, blank, barren fields, the fruit deteriorates every year, until 
it becomes small, faulty, and an easy prey to every kind of disease. 
With the same care and attention that similar crops receive in higher 
latitudes, these fruits grow to rare perfection, and if the trees were 
given the care to which their relative commercial value entitles them, 
they would yield on every farm as sure and high profits as any other 
crops under cultivation. The fruits go with the season — if it were 
carefully cut and dried, or what is better, if peelers, corers, and opera- 
tors were used, and the fruit peeled and dried of an even whiteness, 
it could readily be sold at eight cents a pound. A considerable part 
of the fruit crop ought to be canned. The canning establishment 
would make a market, and would develop the painfully latent energy 
of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, as well as stimulate the culti- 
vation of fruits. 

There is an especial reason why a crop that is annual and almost 
self-producing ought to be encouraged in the South. It is a natural 
field for home capital, and a tempting one for Northern enterprise, 
which doubtless it will embrace. 

But, Mr. Editor, the efforts made to infuse new life into our farmers 

is difficult, and in the words of the illustrious Martilini, "is one deni- 

nition srrind." 

M. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 483 



RELATION OF PLANTS TO NATIONAL PROSPERITY. 



[We quote the following from the Gardener's Monthly, which purports to be an abstract 
from a lecture of Professor Rothrock, of Fairmount Park. We call on our friend and 
acquaintance Mr. Brock, Secretary of the Virginia Historical Society, to say how far it 
is true as to Virginia. Our recollection of the early history of the Virginia Colony leads 
us to doubt the statement in respect to getting supplies of corn from "the men of Ply- 
mouth." These were taunted by the saying, that their lands were so poor that they had 
to put three herrings in a hill if they raised corn at all.] 

The lecturer began by a statement of the complications which arose 
in Virginia over the proportion of land to be devoted to corn and to- 
bacco. This commenced before there was a Pilgrim on Massachusetts 
soil. Greed for gain led to making the corn crop subservient to the 
tobacco. The result was a period of scarcity, and when the Virginia 
settlers made a demand upon the Chickahominy Indians for corn, they 
were refused so contemptuously that a fight ensued, in which a number 
of Indians were killed and others captured. The whites gained the 
victory, but awakened Indian hate, which culminated in a bloody re- 
tribution years afterwards. 

On the other hand, within a few years after the landing of the Pil- 
grims, they had corn to spare, and the neighboring tribes "came to de- 
pend upon the men of Plymouth for their supply." Thus the want of 
corn in Virginia was a cause of war, while in Massachusetts the super- 
abundance was a bond of peace. In Virginia it became necessary to 
limit the production of. tobacco by law. In 1623 tobacco was a legal- 
tender in Virginia. When, in 1692, William and Mary College re- 
ceived its royal charter, it was enacted that the College should receive 
one penny a pound on all tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland 
towards its support. When the Church of England was recognized as 
the State denomination in Maryland, a portion of its revenue came from 
the same source. This was in 1698. Corn was cultivated in Peru 
prior even to the Inca rule, and also in Mexico and New Mexico at the 
time of the invasion of Cortez and Coronado. It proved a source of 
revenue to the Aztec throne, and entered into the religion of the 
country, where to insure a good crop human sacrifices were offered. 
The public granaries of the country were drawn upon by Cortez, so 
that the very food of the inhabitants was made to assist in their sub- 
jugation. 

The last census gave the annual yield of corn and rye combined in 
this country at 1,774,783,271 bushels. The data derived from the same 
source led the lecturer to estimate that one of the products of these 
grains — whiskey — gave us about 107,000 insane, criminals and paupers. 
It would be interesting to know how much of those grains was required 
to blight so much manhood, and to determine whether, if used in some 
other way, the same quantity would not have yielded a better return to 
the country. The above estimate only includes those under restraint, 
and not those of the unnumbered host who were still at liberty to beat 
their wives and starve their children. The lecturer thought a tariff on 



484 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 

Canadian lumber a mistake, as, without a proportionate benefit to us, 
it placed a premium on the destruction of our own supply. 

Rice among the cereals flourished in grounds where none of the 
others would grow. Hence it utilized large areas in India, China and 
Japan, and in our own country, which would otherwise have been un- 
productive. Though containing less nitrogen than wheat, it has, never- 
theless, been almost the exclusive food of some of the hardest-worked 
and most enduring races on earth. It was introduced into our country 
in 1694 by a vessel from Madagascar, which put into Charleston in 
distress. One of the most valuable characteristics of this grain is ca- 
pacity for adapting itself to varying conditions of soil and climate. 

Food plants, from their abundance, may lead to national and indi- 
vidual indolence, as in the tropics. In such cases, the stimulus grow- 
ing out of the demands which temperate regions make upon equatorial 
lands for their production is, to the inhabitants of the latter, of inesti- 
mable importance". Accumulation of wealth by individuals, as well 
also as the science of political economy, are characteristic of temperate 
regions, and mainly of the North Temperate. These distinguishing 
features both grow, directly or indirectly, out of the need of preparing 
for times of non-production in times of production. Such an occasion 
can hardly arise under the equator. Hence, while the tropics furnish 
the raw product for their own commerce, the capital, machinery and 
brains, which transport the product, come from the temperate part of 
the globe. — Gardeners Monthly. 



WHEAT CULTURE. 



In the winter of '53 and '54, being offered a high price for my wheat, 
which was a new and promising spring variety, I sold myself so short 
that when I came to sow in the spring, I found that I had left scant five 
pecks per acre for my own use, and I did not know what to do, as here- 
tofore I had followed the practice of the farmers about me, sowing eight 
pecks per acre, and I had the opinion that a much less quantity would 
result in failure. However, after pondering awhile over it, as I did not 
wish to seed any other kind of crop, I concluded to risk it, and in har- 
vest was agreeably surprised to find that I had a yield of 49| bushels 
of thoroughly cleaned grain per acre. I say surprised, for the greatest 
yield I had ever got from eight pecks was thirty-three bushels — not 
over thirty, and sometimes not over twenty-five bushels — which was re- 
garded as a great yield. I was so well satisfied with this accidental 
experiment that I determined to try it again, which I did, with nearly 
as good results, and from that time to this I have not sown over five 
pecks per acre, and sometimes only four, and seldom fall below forty- 
six bushels per acre. This, you will see, is not a "single experiment," 
but one of twenty-nine consecutive years' continuance. — C. E. Hewbs, 
Fort Plain, N. Y., in Louisville, Ky., Farm and Fireside, July 15, 1883. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 485 

THE STATE FAIR. 



The Virginia State Agricultural Society are continually engaged in 
making every preparation to meet the demands of an unusually large 
number of exhibitors and visitors. Additions have been made for live 
stock, and another building provided for miscellaneous articles, so that 
there may be suitable means for a satisfactory display of everything to 
the public. 

Their intention is so to systematize all matters in connection with 
the Fair, that the clearest and fullest information may be imparted in 
every department, that methods and articles of merit in every line of 
industry may be presented and explained in the manner most conducive 
to the benefit of the public and to the interest of the exhibitor. No 
effort will be spared to'make the Fair interesting to all grades of peo- 
ple; and while remembering that^the object of the Society is essen- 
tially for the improvement of that basis of prosperity — Agriculture — 
they propose to regard the advancement of that all-important industry 
in the most progressive light ; to bring before the farmer the latest in- 
ventions and improvements in agricultural machinery for the saving of 
time, labor and expense, and to have experienced and careful judges 
whose decisions on the merits will enable the inexperienced to purchase 
with comparative safety. 

By the premium crop awards, farmers can, through the statements 
accompanying the samples, ascertain what manures, modes and imple- 
ments of cultivation and character of soil, have yielded the best results 
in each variety, and the time, labor and expense attendant. 

There will also be a large exhibit in the aparian line, and persons en- 
gaged in the production of honey will find it pecuniarily to their ad- 
vantage to examine closely the useful and economical contrivances for 
the successful and convenient manipulation of bees and the increase 
and improvement of their products. .The same is also true in regard 
to cheese, butter and hams, the value of all of which is so greatly de- 
pendent on the manner of curing and preserving. Another interesting 
subject will be the public exhibition of improved incubators, by me?ns 
of which chickens will be daily hatched, and the curious and effectual 
uses of the artificial mother in caring for and raising chickens explained. 

Large premiums are offered for the best samples of the different va- 
rieties of tobacco, confined to crops raised by the person in whose name 
the samples are exhibited. There is nothing more easily and with less 
inconvenience placed on exhibition than samples of tobacco, and it is to be 
hoped that this staple will be more largely displayed than heretofore. 

Ample premiums are offered in the horse, cattle, hog, sheep and 



486 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

poultry departments, and for any one who takes an honest pride in the 
ownership of a fine animal, or who as a breeder desires to advertise his 
stock in the best and most practical way, or for the purposes of sale, a 
medium is given by the State Fair that cannot be surpassed. The 
speed trials will be a feature of great interest, and while denounced by 
some merely because not interesting to them, they should remember 
that speed and bottom in the horse add to his salable and intrinsic value 
even more than his power of draft; that the only reliable means of as- 
certaining those qualities are by competitive trials, and that breeding 
from approved stock in those particulars, produces the finest animal for 
every other purpose. 

It is proposed, at the coming State Fair, to present a combination of 
amusements with practical information, that will render it most at- 
tractive. " Much work and little play makes Jack a dull boy," and 
we may rest assured that the addition of pleasure to the obtainment of 
useful knowledge will make the entire exhibition more agreeable to 
every visitor. 

A very important feature of the Fair, if the spirit of the movement 
is carried out according to the intention of the Society, will be the 
nightly farmers' meetings in the Capitol, which will be open to all, 
whether members of the Society or not, for the full and, free discussion 
of all subjects in connection with agriculture and the farm, and for the 
reading of papers on those matters, and it is sincerely hoped that every 
farmer who can will write out his experience and views on any topic 
in which he wishes to give or receive information and present it at 
those meetings. The cultivation and diffusing of knowledge in this 
matter will of itself greatly foster the habits of observation and add to 
the economy, thrift and value of farming operations, and expand the 
views and general intelligence of every person who attends. 

The Virginia State Agricultural Society are doing all in their power 
to elevate the standard of farming intelligence, and to diffuse useful, 
practical and profitable general information, and they are earnest in 
their invitation to and hope that our farmers will associate themselves 
with them, and strengthen and encourage them in that noble and im- 
portant work. They ask one and all to become members of the So- 
ciety, to have a voice in its proceedings and management; if they can- 
not do that, to attend the State Fair and show their appreciation of the 
efforts made for the promotion of that industry on which they them- 
selves depend ; to add to the means if not the numbers of the Society,. 
in the successful prosecution of their beneficial labors. 

Geo. W. Mayo, Secretary. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 487 



PEAS AND CLOVER. 



Editor Southern Planter : 

Col. Randolph Harrison, in an interesting article in the Southern 
Planter, propounds the following important question, " Why is it that 
clover seldom disappoints us of this section as a fallow for wheat, 
while peas invariably do ; and why, in Tidewater, peas give better 
results ?" 

To the first clause of the question, I would say that any land rich 
enough to bring a crop of clover is, with that crop plowed in, suffi- 
ciently fertile to produce a crop of wheat; and that, in this section, be- 
fore it will bring a crop of clover it has to be fertilized, while what is 
called a crop of peas will grow on our land without being fertilized, 
and this latter crop, when plowed in, is so small as not to afford suffi- 
cient fertilizing elements to make a crop of wheat ; for neither clover 
nor peas can increase the mineral elements in the soil, but may, by their 
tap roots, bring them within reach of the rootlets of the wheat plants. 
Both largely add to the carbonaceous elements by taking carbonic acid 
from the air; and to the nitrogenous by fixing ammonia in the soil, by 
continuous growth and the formation of nitric acid from the nitrogen 
of the atmosphere through the agency of heat and a full supply of 
humu3 (carbonaceous matter) in the soil. 

The reason Orchilla guano acts so well with a pea fallow is that it is 
very rich in phosphorus and other mineral elements, which is, I believe, 
very much lacking in the soil of this section ; and the pea fallow fur- 
nishes enough ammonia for the growth and humus to make the phos- 
phate more available. 

In the Tidewater section I believe the land is^naturally rich in phos 
phate, but is lacking in ammonia and humus, and the condition of the 
soil i3 bad; but the pea being a hardy plant grows notwithstanding, 
and when plowed in furnishes the needed amount of ammonia and 
humus, which renders the phosphate more available and improves the 
condition of the soil. Clover would no doubt do as well when the 
season and condition of the soil would admit ; but the clover seed be- 
ing very small, the young plant is also small, and would perish in its 
first growth under conditions when the pea would flourish. 

D. B. Harris. 

Goochland Co., Va., August, 1883. 



Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and]the holiday of fools. 
37 



488 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 



BEST BREED OF HOGS FOR THE SOUTH. 



Mr. Richard Peters, of Georgia, in response to inquiries as to the 
best breed of hogs for the South, says that the Berkshire, as improved, 
appears to be well adapted the wants of the Southern people. The 
haras of these hogs are beyond doubt superior to those of any other ■ 
breed, and the animals fatten readily at any age. They are, however,, 
inclined to become wild if allowed to run in the swamps and are not 
called up and feci regularly. At eighteen to twenty months old they 
will yield, with fair treatment, from 250 to 300 pounds of net pork. 
The sows are good breeders and good nurses. 

Of the Jersey Reds — a larger breed than the Berkshires — Mr. Peters* 
experience is that they require to be kept on high feed and to be per- 
mitted to run until two or two and a half years old before slaughter- 
ing. They will then weigh from 400 to 500 pounds. They are a lop- 
eared breed, and do not vary in color except in the shades of red. 
Young pigs have small black spots on the skin, which do not show as 
they grow older. They are prolific breeders, old sows bringing from 
ten to fifteen pigs at a litter, and when well fed they yield more milk 
than sows of any other breed ; the cross between them and the Berk- 
shire, using the Berkshire boar, makes, in Mr. Peters' opinion, a most 
valuable hog for all practical purposes. 

"The Essex, beyond all question," says Mr. Peters, " can be kept at 
less cost than any other breed. They originated in England by a cross 
between the Neapolitan and the Chinese, and to them the Berkshires 
owe their great improvement, the blood of the Essex having been freely 
used by English breeders of Berkshires. They require some skill in 
their management, for when highly fed the sows become too fat to 
breed, though if allowed to run on grass they bring average litters and 
make good nurses." 

Mr. Peters, who had tried all the breeds enumerated and many 
others, keeps now only the Essex and a few of the Jersey Reds. He 
allows the sows to breed but once a year, di'opping their pigs in April. 
The sows run on grass and clover, and are fed about two ears of corn 
a day, or slops made at the house with shorts. This provides for them 
until the grain fields are open, and they all run together then on these 
fields until the fall. Such as are designed for store pigs are separated 
and given a run in the woods on the free mast. They are fed about 
one ear of corn each in two days during the winter. The following 
year they again have the run of the grain fields and then of the pea 
fields, and after having fed on corn for two weeks make nice meat for 
family use at very little outlay. All of the sows except those intended 
for breeders are spayed; the others are allowed to run with young 
boars and breed early. The first litter of young sows are invariably 
killed as soon as dropped. They bring their second litters from a se- 
lected stock of boars when they are thirteen or fourteen months old. 
The brood-sows are fattened and killed after bringing their third or 
fourth litters. — Midland Farmer. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 489 



WHEAT AND CHEAT. 



Will wheat turn to cheat ? That is the question which disputants 
on both sides have been chasing through the columns of the Republican 
for two weeks past, without bringing it any nearer to a settlement, 
apparently, than it was at the beginning. And no wonder. It is not 
a new question. It is a good deal older than the oldest of the dispu- 
tants. It has been debated for a hundred years, and is as knotty as 
ever. The botanists are all on one side, and the farmers generally on 
the other. The former plant themselves firmly on the principle that 
species cannot change ; that every seed-bearing herb begets its kind 
and does not and cannot produce anything else. In the very nature 
of things, they say, wheat cannot turn to cheat. The farmers on the 
other hand assert that wheat does turn to cheat — and they furnish ex- 
amples which are hard to explain on any other hypothesis. The bota- 
nists' explanation of cheat (or chess) plants in a wheat field is that they 
come from cheat grains mixed in the wheat and sowed with it. 
This looks fair enough, but takese cases : A Missouri wheat-raiser 
of fifteen years' experience sowed two fields with wheat from 
the same grain. One turned out " so nearly all cheat that it was 
not worth cuttiug," while the other brought a fine crop of wheat 
with scarcely a head of cheat in it. Or this : The same farmer, 
while sowing his grain last fall, spilled a lot of wheat on the ground ; 
when it came up and matured, it was all cheat — not a single head of 
wheat in it ; but the field sowed with grain from the same sack was 
almost entirely free from cheat. Another case : A Lafayette county 
farmer sowed ten acres of good wheat broadcast. There was a sag in 
the field, of aboat one quarter of an acre. When the grain was headed 
out there was a heavy crop of cheat in the low place with not one head 
of wheat in it, while on the rest of the field there was a fine crop of 
wheat, with not a head of cheat in it. One more example : In 1874, 
a Lewis county farmer actually plucked a head of grain the lower half 
of which was all wheat and the upper half all cheat — a pretty clear 
case of being caught in the very act. 

The botanists' theory fails to account for these apparently well authen- 
ticated cases. The farmers explain them by presuming that when the 
wheat plant is injured by freezing, or drought or wet weather, or 
choking by thick planting, it fails to mature and degenerates into the 
noxious similitude of wheat called cheat — and we must say, the weight 
of argument appears to be on their side. — St. Louis Republican. 



THE WORLD'S WHEAT CROP FOR 1883. 



As we are approaching the end of the wheat harvest, or at least 
have gone safely through that of the winter crop and begun on the 
spring, thus having secured three-quarters of our total crop, it is safe 
to make an estimate of the world's supply for 1883, and from it draw 
conclusions as to the probable value and course of prices for 1883-84. 



490 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

Beginning with the United States, we take the Government estimate 
for June as our basis, as the conditions for July have not been such as 
to materially change the general result, although there has been a great 
deal of talk for speculative effect about damage by drought to the 
spring wheat, and disappointing yield of winter. These estimates, 
from the manner in which they are made, being based upon the reports 
of those living in the agricultural sections, where interests are bound 
up indirectly if not directly with those of the farmers, and hence in 
their favor, are always under-estimates rather than over, as is shown 
by comparison of every preliminary estimate made since the Bureau 
was established, with its final returns. This under-estimate averages 
10 to 12 per cent, too low, and hence when we take the Government 
figures of 75,000,000 bushels less than last year's abnormal crop, we 
are on a safe basis. This would give us a crop of 425,000,000 bushels, 
or 30,000,000 bushels less than the average the past five years. Last 
year, on August 1st, statistical authorities estimated the balance of old 
crop wheat and flour carried into the new at 30,000,000 bushels; this 
year they estimate it at 100,000,000 bushels, or 70,000,000 more than 
a year ago, which offsets within 5,000,000 bushels the deficit of this 
crop compared with the big crop of 1882, and gives us 40,000,000 
bushels more than an average crop to supply our wants for 1883-84. 
In other wheat-producing countries there is an admitted full average 
crop, and more than last year, outside of Great Britain and France ; 
while Spain and Portugal, which were badly short last year, have full 
average crops this year. The deficit in Great Britain is about 20,000,000 
bushels less than an average crop, and in France 50,000,000 bushels. 
Each had not over 10,000,000 bushels reserves last year on entering 
new crop. This year Great Britain has a reserve of wheat and flour 
estimated by statisticians at 34,000,000 .bushels, and France about 
17,000,000 bushels; or, for both countries a reserve in excess of last 
year of 31,000,000 bushels to offset a deficit, compared with an average 
crop, of 70,000,000 bushels in both countries. 

The crop of France last year was more than the average, and hence 
the deficit compared with a year ago is still less than the above figures. 
Hence the deficit, compared with last year, to be supplied this year, is 
less than the difference between the above figures 70,000,000 and 
31,000,000 bushels— or 39,000,000 bushels. Probably 25,000,000 bush- 
els will cover the excess to be imported by these two countries this 
year over last. They are the only importing countries that have any 
deficit whatever. The United States is the only exporting country 
that has a deficit in crop, and as we have shown, even she has no deficit 
in surplus for export. On the other hand, all other countries have, as 
a whole, larger crops than a year ago, besides carrying over larger re- 
serves- than in pass years, for the same reasons the United States, Great 
Britain and France do. Hence, other exporting countries will have a 
larger surplus for export than a year ago, and the United States as 
much, with only 25,000,000 bushels deficit anywhere to supply. Thus 
we have practically the same world's supply of wheat as in 1882. 



1883.] N SOUTHERN PLANTER. 491 

As to prices, there has been a widespread belief tbat wheat would 
rule higher the coming than the past year. It is a well known fact, 
however, that the first large crop after a short one does not restore 
normal prices. Hence, last year's prices were^ above a normal basis of 
average crops. It takes the second good crop to bring prices to the 
average level. Hence, we should look for the world's average price 
in times of universal peace and average praduction or acreage under 
cultivation. There does not, therefore, appear to be any prospect of 
higher prices than last year for wheat, unless some accident should 
happen to the balance of the world's harvest not secured or some por- 
tion thereof, and not much then, for the number of bushels is now 
made, and it is only the quality that can be affected hereafter, while it 
is well known that any larger amount of damaged wheat drags down 
the prices of the good until the poor is used up. We cannot see what 
the farmer has to gain, therefore, by holding back his wheat for higher 
prices. — The Dairy. 



KNIGHTS OF AGRICULTURE. 



France has shown her appreciation of the importance of high class 
agriculture, by the establishment of a new order of knighthood known 
as the Ordre du Merite Agricole. It is designed to encourage and pro- 
mote fresh exertions among farmers, and stimulate their efforts to ex- 
cellence in their calling. The badge which is conferred on the knights 
of the soil consists of a five-pointed star of green enamel, surmounted 
by a wreath of olive leaves, and suspended by a green ribbon with a 
pink edge. If such incentives have the effect of stimulating greater 
endeavors toward the attainment of a higher order of farming, they are 
worthy of commendation. Tilling the soil was man's first pursuit, and 
it has always remained the leading and imperative occupation. Among 
some of the ancients agriculture was studied and pursued as an art, but 
it has in general become a lost art to succeeding generations. In most 
of the old countries of Europe, where land is now scarce, farmers are 
obliged to make the most of what they have, and this circumstance has 
taught them to concentrate their skill and energy, and has developed 
ideas and methods which agriculturists in this country might well 
with profit adopt and improve upon. We have made great advance- 
ment in many things pertaining to the farm during the past few years, 
especially in the invention and improvement of implements and ma- 
chinery. Still, when we take into consideration the immense possibil- 
ities of agriculture, and look at man's progress in this his first business, 
from a comparative standpoint, the view is not flattering to his enter- 
prise. However, he may find some satisfaction in the excuse that sci- 
entific farming — which is the only true method — could not be practised 
without a knowledge of various sciences, which, in the early condition 
of things, it was impossible for farmers in general to acquire. 

The climate of the United States admits of the production of almost 



492 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

every thing used or consumed by man, and there is room enough and 
variety enough to enable every intelligent cultivator to realize a rea- 
sonable profit on his industry. It may be possible some day to have 
agriculture so systematized, distributed and diversified, as to avoid 
over-production in any special branch. It is very natural for people to 
rush into a business which has proved a success to others, but there is 
need of great caution in raising perishable farm products, as for in- 
stance melons, and such things that are a dead loss if not disposed of 
at once. Every farmer, by keeping himself well posted as to what 
others are raising, can avoid disaster and consequent discouragement, 
by producing only what there is a reasonable prospect of his being able 
to dispose of with profit. 

[We clip, with approval of its sentiments, the foregoing article from The South, and 
take the occasion to acknowledge the reception of a long article in manuscript from a 
distinguished agriculturist of France, which is not altogether adapted to our columns, 
but we quote its concluding paragraphs, which contain facts of interest to farmers in 
the United States : 

" The outlook for farmers is not promising — save for potatoes. The harvest, in course 
of completion, will be less than last year by a fifth to a third ; beets are running into 
leaf; the vine will be more abundant than in 1882, though the oidium has appeared 
in Burgundy. As for the phylloxera, nothing stops its march ; the planting of American 
vine stocks i3 rapidly extending. 

M. Pihta, and his school, claim to augment the yield of their wheat 50 per cent, by 
sowing it wide apart, and scything off the tops of the stems in spring, that which compels 
the plant to stool ; he displays tufts of wheat having from thirty-five to forty stems." — 
Ed. S. P.] 

INQUIRIES. 



Editor Southern Planter: 

Will you be so kind as to inform me the proportions in which kainit 
and South Carolina rock should be used on sandy loam or clay soils, 
respectively, both for wheat and corn ? I am a young farmer, and 
nearly everything is new to me. I am only familiar with farming in 
theory, from books and chemistry. 

I notice in your August number you call attention to another new 
Ohio enterprise ; a new brick factory at Newark, Ohio, which is also 
manufacturing agricultural implements, etc. Why is it we cannot 
have such enterprises here in Virginia, where there are so many pur- 
chasers of these very articles ? Many dams, with vast water power, 
are just running to waste along the line of the Richmond and Alle- 
ghany Railroad, and yet we send every day North and West for almost 
ever}' agricultural implement we use ; for pins, needles, paper, shoes, 
cloth, clothes, and thread; and indeed everything great and small that 
we use. When a Northern or Western man gets $50,000 he feels that 
he is just in a position to work to advantage, and immediately goes to 
work. A Virginian, similarly situated, wauts to invest his in bonds, 



' 



1883.] SOUTHEKN PLANTER. 493 

or at most, in some mercantile or commercial enterprise, and take his 
ease living upon the interest of his money. The truth is, Mr. Editor, 
our citizens with capital will not manufacture, and those without capi- 
tal cannot, though truly the harvest is plenteous, etc. 

"Will you please be so kind as to inform me where I can get the most 
recent, reliable, useful, and practical books on farming, manures, etc., 
stock, etc., suited to the wants of a young farmer? 

Above I have written very hastily my views on what I consider a 
very important subject to our entire State, and would be glad if you 
would urge it upon your readers. Hoping you will be so kind as to 
answer my inquiries, I am, very respectfully, W. 

P. S. — Please also advocate a universal, as well as local, dog tax. 
We have raised curs free of tax long enough, and it is time sheep 
should go free of tax from man as well as curs. 

Buchanan, Va., Aug. 28, 1883. 

\Reply. — We would advise our correspondent to use the Charleston floats and kainit 
in the proportion of two of the former to one of the latter. The quantity per acre must 
be determined by the character of the land on which the compound is used. Land in 
ordinary fertility will require 600 pounds for the corn to which it is first applied, and for 
the wheat and clover to follow. On this question we will refer to the practical communi. 
cation of Mr. Stacy in our last issue, and to another in our present, and also to the article 
of Dr. Ellzey in this issue. These render it unnecessary that we should say more on 
this point. 

We concur in the views presented as to the importance and profits of manufacturing in 
Virginia ; and also as to the importance of a dog-law, which we have frequently men- 
tioned in our columns. As to this, and a good system of county roads, we can only look 
for relief when the people will send to the State Legislature intelligent farmers who do 
not seek the place for the sake of office and party purposes, but will accept it for the ben- 
efits which they hope to aid in conferring on the agriculture and other important interests 
of the Commonwealth. 

The American Agriculturist, published in New York, keeps on sale a well selected 
assortment of books of the kind indicated, and will furnish a list, with prices, on appli- 
cation.— Ed. S. P.] 

CAUSE OF APPLE TREES DYING, AND MUCK— REPLY TO 
"ENQUIRIES'' IN AUGUST NUMBER. 



[For the Southern Planter.] 

Mr. E. L. Taylor, of Gloucester, wishes to know the cause of his 
apple trees dying. We think it is "Aphis," or plant louse, one species 
of the "Phylloxera" that is destroying so many vines in France, a 
remedy for which, the French Government, several years since, offered 
so large a premium (we forget whether it was 100,000 or 500,000 francs). 
I lose several apple trees every year, dying for the most part in the 
way Mr. Taylor describes. We think the bark splits after the tree 



494 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

begins to decline, the first evidence of which, in my trees, is the leaves 
turning yellow. This commences one summer, aud the death occurs 
sometimes the next summer, but generally the second year, some of 
the branches first dying. I examined the roots by removing the dirt 
from around them, and found all the fibrous roots infected with these 
rninute insects, which are generally surrounded by a white, powdery 
substance, which causes them to be sometimes called Wooly Aphis, or 
Mealy bug. Let Mr. Taylor examine the roots of his trees. A rem- 
edy proposed is boiling hot water, or hot lye, the roots being first ex- 
posed as much as practicable by removing the 'dirt. I tried the hot lye 
one year on a tree, but it was too far gone for the remedy to have a 
fair trial. In France they have found inundating the roots of the vine 
with water, where practicable, the best remedy for phylloxera, but no 
premium has yet been awarded by the government for an effectual,, 
certain remedy. It is very probable that lime around the roots might 
do good in the case of our apple trees referred to. 

As to hauling out mud or muck from swamps, I have no idea it will 
pay. The thing has "been pretty much exploded in New England, 
where it was started twenty years ago by Mr. Dana (in his " Muck 
Manual"). Dr. Nichols, of the Boston Journal of Chemistry, (the name 
recently changed), and a successful farmer in Massachusetts, has ana- 
lyzed various specimens of muck, and found them of scarcely any ferti- 
lizing value, containing only a small percentage of ammonia, and that 
not in an available condition. He says it is only valuable as an absorbent. 
Better then use straw or rich dirt from the fence- corners, than to 
attempt to haul out this heavy, wet, expensive material by wheelbar- 
rows and carts. We say let muck alone. Besides the objections men- 
tioned, it is said to be generally acid, and to require lime to correct 
this. Th. Pollard, M. D. 



FLOATS AGAIN, AND DR. ELLZEY'S REPLIES. 



M. G. Ellzey, M. B. : 

Dear Sir, — I became a subscriber recently of the Southern Planter^ 
but going back to January, 1882, in order to get the views of its lead- 
ing contributors. Among these appears your name, and your articles 
are deeply interesting to me. Your last upon "Floats" is particularly 
so, because upon a subject on which I am endeavoring to obtain spe- 
cific as well as general information, and I take the liberty of asking 
you for another chapter in the premises. 

Within the last year or two I have been turning my attention to 
farming on a diminutive scale, but find myself met at the outstart with 



1883.] SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 495 



& 



the question of commercial fertilizers ; a matter that did not confront 
me in my ante helium farming in Ohio. Now, however, in Virginia it 
is the paramount consideration, and through it I was led to take a jour- 
nal — the Southern Planter — containing the opinions of Southern rather 
than Northern farmers. 

I was stationed for four years after the war at Lynchburg, Va., as an 
army officer, and was in constant association with Northern immi- 
grants, on whom I always endeavored to impress the necessity of farm- 
ing as their neighbors did. Save experimentally, aud with an obser- 
vation extending from here to New Orleans, my judgment is that nine- 
tenths of the farming failures among this class is due to adherence to 
Northern ideas. With such views you will appreciate why I desire to 
ascertain how you and other practical Virginians apply floats, etc. I, 
therefore, trust you will favor us with desired article in the Southern 
Planter. Very truly yours, R. S. Lacey. ' 

Washington, 1st Aug., 1883. 

I offer the above letter, which was not written for publication, but 
which contains so much that is sensible, as my reason for again occu- 
pying your space. I have received a very large number of similar let- 
ters, and I beg their authors to consider what follows as a general com- 
pliance with their wishes. 

The best mode of applying "floats" (or phosphate flour) or other 
fertilizer of almost any sort, is that which secures the most even and 
thorough distribution of the material in that portion of the soil where 
the crop which it is intended primarily to benefit mainly distributes its 
roots. On laud containing much organic matter, or where a fallow 
crop has just been plowed under, it may be, and generally will be, use- 
less to apply nitrogen. On such land, 300 to 500 pounds of floats, ap- 
plied broadcast on the rough-plowed land and harrowed in, will be 
best. It is necessary to invent a broadcast sower, especially for the 
application of floats ; it cannot be applied as it ought to be by hand. 
On land containing little organic matter, nitrogen will have to be 
applied along with the floats, or the floats may be applied to peas or 
buckwheat, or clover in the spring, and these turned under as a fallow. 
The land may be harrowed and the wheat drilled in without further 
application of fertilizer. Applied for the benefit of corn, floats should 
be put on broadcast and harrowed in ; never put it in hills, for it cau 
only distribute slowly and imperfectly; the corn roots will soon grow 
out of its way and the small grain or grass which follows will grow in 
tufts. If the land is deficient in potash, I showed in my former article 
that one-third kainit mixed with floats renders the phosphate more 
soluble, and the whole mixture probably distributes through the soil 
somewhat more freely than floats alone; but in no case, in my judg- 



496 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

ment, ought fertilizers to be put in hills or even drilled in, if it can be 
avoided. If I intended to fallow a clover field for wheat, I would ap- 
ply 400 pounds per acre of floats or of floats aud kainit in April as a 
top-dressing for the clover. I would plow the land, harrow it well, and 
drill in the seed- wheat without farther preparation. If I intended to 
seed corn land in wheat, I would apply 300 pounds of floats broadcast 
and drill in 200 pounds of some highly ammoniated phosphate with 
the seed-wheat. I might then further apply 100 pounds of nitrate of 
soda as a top-dressing to the wheat in the middle of April. The British 
farmers do not manure their wheat in the fall, but they top-dress it with 
nitrate of soda in the spring. It is of no use to expect to make a full 
crop of grain on land destitute of organic manure by means of heavy 
applications of floats or of superphosphates. The farmer who tries to 
do that must not say phosphates do no good on his lands. If he will 
sow 400 pounds or 500 pounds of floats per acre on the rough and har- 
row it in, and then drill in the grain, and if the next April he will top- 
dress one-half of the field with 100 to 200 pounds of nitrate of soda, it 
is possible that the increased growth on the top-dressed portion of the 
field will be four times as great as on the other portion. The nitrogen 
applied in the nitrate of soda enables the wheat to obtain and assimilate 
a largely increased amount of the floats applied the preceding autumn. 
Fertilization is as much a science as the practice of medicine or civil 
engineering. A lack of knowledge of that science (by farmers has led 
to much wasteful and unskillful practice by them, and to many male- 
dictions poured out upon the manufacturers of fertilizers. When a 
farmer has through his own unskillfulness made a bad crop, he begins 
to curse the fertilizer people; then he curses the railroads; then he 
curses the politicians; lastly, he goes to the polls and there deposits 
his ballot for the most shallow, vulgar and corrupt demagogue to be 
found. Afterwards he goes to church and prays for his daily bread, 
unconscious all the while that he has made an exhibit of himself. "I 
do begin to perceive," said Falstaff, " that I am made an ass." There 
are many signs that at last the typical farmer does begin to perceive 
that he has very long been made an ass. 

In conclusion, I would say that what a manure consists of is a chem- 
ical question, whereas how to use a manure, is a question of agricultural 
experience and skill. The whole science of fertilization is yet in its 
infancy, and the practice of it is yet but a very rude art. 

M. G. Ellzby, M. D. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 497 

EXPERIMENT WITH SHEEP. 



JZditor Southern Planter : 

October 28, 1882,1 purchased 21 sheep, costing at my farm... $69 25 
February 13, 1883, 10 sheep with 7 young lambs, cost 48 50 

$117 75 
All purchased at Richmond stock-yards. 

SALES. 

February 27, 1883, 6 lambs $ 30 00 

April to July, 1883, 20 lambs 100 00 

May " wool 25 11 



$155 11 
Leaving me 25 sheep and five lambs, for which I have been offered 
$125. Normand Smith. 

Henrico eounty, Va., Aug., 1883. 



AMERICAN CATTLE IN ENGLAND. 



A cablegram from London, dated August 17th, states that a heated 
discussion took place in the House of Commons on the evening of that 
day over an attempt to shut out the importation of American cattle. 
As previously mentioned in the Prairie Farmer, the landlords' party, 
under the leadership of Mr. Henry Chaplin, succeeded in passing a 
motion through the House on July 10th, to the effect that the importa- 
tion of live stock should be prohibited from all those countries whose 
sanitary regulations did not afford guarantees against the existence of 
foot-and-mouth disease in cattle. The debate upon the subject was 
long and bitter, and the government strongly opposed the measure as 
one tending to raise the price of beef in England, over one-sixth of 
the total amount consumed in the country being imported. It was 
finally decided by the government party that no legislation on the sub- 
ject would be enacted until reliable information could be obtained from 
accredited British representatives in the United States. 

At the opening of the session on the evening of the 17th, Mr. Chaplin 
again interrogated the government on the subject. 

In reply Mr. Dodson created considerable astonishment in saying 
that so far as the government's inquiries had gone, they showed that 
there was absolutely no ground for any legislation that would prohibit 
the importation of American live cattle; that very little foot-and-mouth 
disease existed in the United States, and that in regard to this sanitary 
regulations were being properly enforced. Mr. Chaplin, with some 
show of temper, asked for statistics. Mr. Dodson stated that the pro- 
portion of cattle affected in the United States was smaller than it was 
in any other place where the disease existed, and that American ex- 



498 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

porters never risked sending to foreign markets either inferior or af- 
fected live cattle. Mr. Chaplin demanded to know if the government 
investigations did not show that foot-and-mouth disease was a peculiar 
American cattle malady ; Mr. Dodson stated that on the contrary the 
inquiries made proved but too plainly that what foot-and-mouth disease 
at present prevailed among American cattle, had gone there in cattle 
obtained from Europe, and that the general scope of the information 
in hand aided to show that by far the greater part of the disease was 
entirely attributed to American importation of cattle from England. 
This last statement was reluctantly made and produced a sensation. 
Mr. Chaplin then dropped the subject. — Prairie Farmer. 



THE FARMER'S HOME. 



The farmer's home is not a paradise; whoever attempts to portray it 
as such, or to conjecture it can be made such, is deluded. 

I would not so attempt to picture it, for such a picture would be 
false. The farmer's home is just what he makes it. A home without 
labor ; a home of aimless ease it can never be, and never ought to be. 

Too many young men and women in the farm-house look away to 
social life in a great city, and fancy that there could be real happiness; 
that, with all the facilities for social enjoyment, their contact with 
superior intellects, social intercourse with educated and refined men 
and women ; opportunities to listen to sermons of great divines, ad- 
dresses of great statesmen, lectures of men of science and letters, access 
to scientific and classical societies, mingling with literary and musical 
clubs — all the advantages of public lectures, concerts, drama, opera, 
pulpit and forum — present all there is of human happiness, but very 
much of all this is delusion. 

It cannot be denied that iutercourse with men and women of supe- 
rior intelligence and education and experience to our own, is good for 
us, but other considerations are worthy of attention. The clergyman 
who accepts the charge of a fashionable church in a great city, accepts 
the contact with artificial society life, and while he may fancy his field 
of labor is broader and more comprehensive, he finds that the results 
of his labor are far less satisfactory and far less successful in winning 
souls from lives of vice and sin to lives of purity and honesty, than it 
would be in the country. While the lawyer or the doctor, who seeks 
notoriety and reputation, has more varied opportunities to advance his 
ambition in the city than in the country, yet the country doctor or the 
country lawyer who makes his profession a life-time of study and hon- 
est research, finds himself sooner or later standing upon a plane oi 
professional honor equal to that of his city colleague. 

So the life of the farmer, though not so rich in adventure, not so full 
of artificial accomplishments, is fuller in that which goes to make up a 
pure and noble life. He can get nearer to God and his works. Higher 
is the scale of mental and moral culture, nearer to manly perfections. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 499 



because his life is simpler, more refined, less tainted with those things 
which corrupt and demoralize. I am neither a believer in total de- 
pravity nor in human perfection. Our lives are a compromise between 
both ; we find in all humanity, in all walks in life, in all conditions, the 
good and the bad. It is for us to so use the good and the bad, as to 
render our lives more or less useful, wherever our lot may be cast. 
My own observation and experience convinces me that the truest hap- 
piness, the nearest to a perfect home-life, can be had on the farm. 

Life in a great city may be elegant, brilliant, tascinating, but it is 
artificial ; life on the farm may be humble, simple, common-place — it 
i3 natural. It has been wisely said, " the sum of human happiness is 
made up of little things." Eminently does this proverb apply to the 
life of the farmer. 

"When one travels through our agricultural country and passes farm 
after farm, where the house is a box, devoid of art or beauty, or even 
the simplest attempt at comeliness ; where the barn is but a tumble- 
down hovel ; where fences are thrown together as barricades against 
invading animals only ; where no trees, or shrubs, or plants break the 
monotony of the home surroundings; where the labor of farming is 
drudgery and daily toil only, no wonder that the children when grown 
to advanced youth, come to despise them, and look forward to the time 
when they can forever turn their backs upon them. 

I would say to every farmer, for humanity's sake, for the sake of 
your own happiness, for the sake of the happiness and regard of your 
children and those around you, make your home pleasant, attractive, 
home-like ! Don't say you have not the time, nor the means ; you 
have both. When you are returning from your backwoods in spring 
or autumn, how much time will it take for you to pull up a pretty sap- 
pling, such as you will pass hundreds of, carry it in your hand to your 
house ; and how many minutes, while the good wife is preparing your 
dinner or your supper, will it take you to plant it where its growth 
will beautify your home? 

Your forests and fields abound in flowering plants and shrubs, which 
every-year you cut down when you cultivate the ground. It is no 
more expensive for you to carry one in your hand when you go home 
than to carry it to the pile you intend to burn. 

It costs but the thrust of a spade to make a hole to receive it ; it 
costs nothing to make it grow ; it is only transplanted, and grows as 
well in the home yard as in the back lot; it will become a thing of 
beauty. Try it, and my word for it, you will not stop at the first trial. 

When you are cutting timber to fence about your garden plat or 
about your house and barn, it will cost you no more time to select a 
few pieces, separate them from the others, for some rustic beauty or 
oddity, if you please, and construct them into a rustic arbor about your 
house, which, when constructed, will present something of picturesque 
beauty, than to throw them all together in the clumsy manner in which 
too many farm fences are built. When you build your house, your 
barn, your hen-house or pig-pen, it will cost no more material, very 
little more labor, only a little artistic taste, to build a pretty rustic cot- 



500 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 



tage structure, instead of the square, uncouth, box-like affair too com- 
monly seen as country homes. 

A willow riding stick has many a time been stuck in the ground 
when the rider dismounted from his horse, taken root, and grown to a 
magnificent tree. A hedge-row of blackberry or raspberry bushes will 
as effectually " stop the cattle " as an unsightly hedge of dead tree- 
branches. 

The American forests are full of wild vines, which, if transplanted,. 
will overrun gate-posts, rough fences, out-buildings ; the transplanting 
may cost ten minutes of easy labor. In the cities thousands of dollars 
are expended in accomplishing the growth of vines, which would cost 
the farmer a few hours labor only each year. 

Five years ago the writer planted with his own hands in the city of 
Washington four trees — two maples, two elms. They cost perhaps two 
dollars. They are now the pride of his home and the delight of his 
friends. Any farmer could do the same without cost, but with the 
same results. 

Plant trees, plants, vines; plant shrubs and flowers. Your mother 
or wife or sister will cultivate them. All women love flowers. Your 
friends and neighbors will admire them; your children and your neigh- 
bor's children will grow up under and around them, will love them as 
a part of the home, will love you because you planted them, will love 
each other because love begets love. Every beautiful thing about your 
home will create a beautiful thought and purify the soul of one of 
God's beautiful creatures. — II. N. Howard, in Lancaster Farmer. 



HOW MUCH WHEAT SEED PER ACRE? 



Where wheat is not at all crowded, in a rich mellow soil, and the til- 
ling is not impeded, the average number of stems for each plant is 
about sixteen. Each one produces a head or ear, containing on an av- 
erage, under reasonably favorable conditions, fifty grains. Thus one 
grain yields eight hundred grains. At this rate, the man who sows»two 
bushels to the acre, would harvest sixteen hundred bushels per acre, or else 
much of the seed is lost. The average yield of the country, however, 
is less than fifteen bushels per acre. A bushel of wheat contains or- 
dinarily, seven hundred and fifty thousand grains ; two bushels one mil- 
lion, five hundred thousand grains. An acre of land contains slightly 
above six million square inches. So that each plant has four square 
inches from which to derive sustenance. Measure that on the ground 
and see how small it is. Can you expect a plant to make a vigorous 
growth on four square inches? Can you expect it to tiller and produce 
sixteen stems ? Can you expect it to mature sixteen full heads ? The 
result of this crowding is plain. The plants cannot gain nutriment 
when growing so densely. Some must die that others may live. The 
strong triumph and the week succumb. This struggle for life begins 
as soon as the plants appear above ground. As the plants grow larger 
they require more room, and others must give way, and very few, if 






1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 501 



any, attain a full growth. All are cramped and starved. Tillering is 
impeded; many plants do not tiller at all, and those that do, tiller im- 
perfectly. The same is true of earing. Full ears can not be expected. 
An acre of wheat contains about eight hundred thousand heads. It 
is safe to say that on account of tillering these are produced by three 
hundred thousand plants. Consequently only one-fifth of the grain sown 
produce mature plants; these plants produce less than one-fifth of 
the proper number of stems by tillering, and these produce imperfect 
heads. This is almost entirely caused by crowding. 

Two quarts of seed sown on an acre have produced fifty bushels of 
wheat. Where all the conditions are favorable, the American farmer 
should not sow more than half a bushel per acre. But agricultural re- 
forms are never sweeping; therefore let the wheat grower try one 
bushel per acre. — Am. Agriculturist 



SOUTHERN PROGRESS. 



In looking at the splendid exhibit of the natural products of the 
South at Louisville, it seems almost incredible that resources so vast, 
and so generously distributed, should have remained undeveloped save 
to a limited extent, for so long a time. The explanation is easily dis- 
covered. Under the old regime there was little or no incentive to 
utilize the latent wealth of that section in minerals, woods, etc. Cot- 
ton was indeed king, overshadowing and controlling the capital and 
labor of the country. Manufacturing enterprises were rare. Cotton 
mills and iron furnaces were started here and there, but they were like 
angels' visits, few and far between, and maintained a precarious exis- 
tence. The greater facilities and experience of Northern and English 
manufacturers were drawbacks difficult to overcome - Gradually this 
state of things is changing, and when we take into account the terrible 
waste and desolation caused by civil strife, and the violent agitation 
which necessarily followed a complete and radical change in the system 
of labor at the South, the progress made is wonderful. It is unreason- 
ing folly to say that new ideas, new methods, new opinions, affecting 
the social fabric of anv country can be put into practice in a day, or a 
year, or a decade. Habits long established, and prejudices inherited 
from ancestors cannot be changed or eradicated in one generation, possi- 
bly not in two or more. But the transition is already marked, and is 
greater than could reasonably be expected. The number of cotton 
mills in the South is large and constantly increasing. The spirit of 
enterprise is abroad. Iron furnaces light up numerous "hills and hol- 
lows" in Tennessee, Alabama, and other States, and various manufact- 
uring enterprises are multiplying. In the words of the Economist, "the 
improved system of agriculture that is finding place in the South is of 
immense value to that section. Her manufacturing growth and the de- 
velopment of other sources of prosperity point unmistakably to the 
final satisfactory solution of our great national problem, in showing 
that the band of economic interest are making the United States a na- 
tion whose integrity is impregnable." — Prairie Farmer. 



502 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 



WINTER FLOWERING PLANTS. 



Cinerarias and Calceolarias. 

To have flowers corning into blossom in their order involves the 
preparation for same some months before — looking to that end in view. 
With kinds of a perennial character, this may consist in keeping them 
in a free growing condition ; pruning where necessary ; repotting such 
as may require it and other minutia which the different habits of th 
plants require ; in fact, constituting that knowledge acquired only by 
years of observation and study that goes to make up the qualifications 
of a gardener or good plant-grower. With the plants now under con- 
sideration, however, the Cineraria, Calceolaria, and we might add, the 
Chinese Primula, we have, every year, a new crop of plants entirely, 
and, as any of them may be kept over, it is far better to sow the seeds 
annually — as the plants so raised are much more vigorous, and, as a 
rule, give greater satisfaction in the long run. 

It is usual to sow the seed during the summer, some care being necessa- 
ry in the early stages of the young plants, to ward against damping off, 
as it is called, before the plants get into the rough leaf. The best way 
is to sow the seed in shallow pans, the soil to be kept uniformly moist 
and somewhat shaded ; the former is easily done by a light covering of 
spongy moss until the seeds begin to germinate, when, of course, this 
must be gradually removed. Some lay a pane of glass over the pan, 
and, if there is a propagating, or other house facing the north, one has 
the best place for his work. If, however, you do not find it the best 
take the coolest partof the house, or a shaded hot-bed, for thepurpose. As 
as soon as the plants are up enough to be handled, lift them carefully 
from the soil, leaving those too weak for a time longer, and "prick" 
them out in other pans, care being taken to plant them down to the 
base of the seed leaves ; as soon as they are so treated they are past 
their greatest danger, and only neglect of a very grave character will 
kill them after this. 

Up to this time the soil should have been very fine — well rotted leaves, 
mold and sand, about equal parts, are as good as anything for this pur- 
pose. If the young plants are placed about an inch apart in the pans, it 
will answer until the foliage meets, when each plant may be potted 
into two inch pots, plunged in any suitable material, placed in a cold 
frame, and kept within a foot of the glass, which, except on the north 
side of a building where the sun does not reach during the middle of 
the day, or a north exposure propagating house, must be carefully shaded. 
The after- cultivation will consist in repotting into larger pots as the 
roots fill those they are in, always giving the foliage plenty of room to 
grow — as upon this much depends — and a complete exemption from 
green fly, red spider, and other pests which, if allowed to get under head- 
way with any of these plants, will surely prevent them from becoming 
well-grown specimens of their respective kinds. A fibrous loam, leaf 
mold, and sharp sand will grow any of these plants to perfection. At 
the proper time, when they take their place in the green-house, they 



1883. SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 503 



must be kept near the glass ; hence it is one more often sees these plants 
doing better in the low pitched houses of the professional florist than if 
grown in the usually higher pitched roof of the amateur's conservatory, 
where there is no choice but the latter; then something may be done 
by placing a shelf up near the glass while the plants are young. As 
they approach the flowering period, when their beauty is required for 
effect on the shelves, they will be fairly well grown, even if some dis- 
tance from the glass. The Chinese Primrose may, after the plants 
have become established, be grown as a window plant, but Calceolaria 
or the Cineraria will not generally do very well grown all the winter 
in the window. Either of them can always be obtained from the florists, 
grown ready to flower, and, as such, make excellent window plants, 
giving by their profusion of flower a cheerful effect grouped among 
the other miscellaneous plants of the window. — Edgar Sanders in 
Prairie Farmer. 



RELATION OF FARM LABOR TO FARM CAPITAL. 



This relation of farm labor to farm capital has a real, tangible inter- 
est to almost every farmer. A certain amount of labor must be done 
at a certain expense, in order that the profits may accrue, yet, at the 
price of day labor, or at the monthly wages, it. seems impossible to 
carry forward the desired work. Now is the time to consider whether 
economy does not dictate the conversion of the man's labor into labor 
which shall in part be capitalized. "We refer to the buying of ma- 
chinery. If a machine represents the labor of five men, and the cost 
is 8100, it is for us to consider whether the investing of the farm cap- 
ital in this machine shall not furnish us with the labor at lower and 
more convenient rates than if paid directly or indirectly to men. Can 
the ox or the draft-horse replace the more expensive man ? And can 
we profitably increase the number on the farm ? If these considera- 
tions do not solve the difficulty, and it is found impossible for the pro- 
ducts of the farm to pay for the labor which we consider essential, then 
there i3 rJut one of two courses to pursue, either to change the system 
of farming, or else to abandon the farm. 

"Without labor, the farm, is unproductive, and lapses into the wilder- 
ness; with labor, the farm is at the foundation of civilization, and the 
continuance of the nation's prosperity depends on the farmer. The 
prosperity of the farmer, and the management of his labor, are insepa- 
rable, for without the one the other cannot exist. We may therefore 
say that the greater the wise expenditure for labor, the greater the 
prosperity ; and the greater the prosperity, the more wisely has labor 
been used. It is a question of serious moment just how to use labor, 
and how much labor to use ; and it is a question which the writing 
agriculturist can well refer to, through the giving of facts and princi- 
ples, but each farmer must solve for himself. — Live-Stock Journal. 
38 



504 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 



AMERICAN JERSEYS. 



We have already taken occasion to remark-that our American bred 
Jerseys surpass in style and excellence any of the imported stock, and 
that it will be but a very short time before American Jerseys will be 
exported in considerable numbers and at such prices as will bring back 
much of the money spent by Americans in "the little island," a true 
" gem of the ocean." All that is wanted to reach this consummation 
is that such a boom as has been prevailing here should be started and 
well managed in Eugland. There is little probability that we shall 
ever do much in selling stock back to the Jersey men. They are sel- 
lers and will never be buyers, unless for the English market, for when 
the American demand has been satisfied, their craft will have been de- 
stroyed. For their own purposes they have a surplus, and if Ameri- 
cans would find a way to get their money back again, it must be from 
English purchasers, just as was done with the Shorthorns. But while 
Jerseys are not yet booming in England, they are looking up, and 
English fanciers are casting their eyes over here with a view to secure 
new blood. The following remarks of the Agricultural Gazette point 
this way : 

" As present returns go, the breeders of fashionable Jerseys are (both 
in the limited States and Great Britain) taking the lead from other 
breeds. It is not necessary to reprint the extraordinary rates made in 
America for special animals. So long as an American ' boom ' is on, 
nothing can rival the object of it. But recent rates in England are not 
controlled by American buyers, who, for most varieties, have plenty 
on sale at home. Yet Lord Braybrooke's Jerseys average more than 
Mr. Tracy's Shorthorns ; and it is pretty certain that it cost more to 
bring the latter into the ring than it did the former. The real infer- 
ence seems to us to be that any class has rallied from the depression 
quicker than the farmers have, i. e., that dwellers in villas (who are 
Jersey buyers) are in better condition to pay for their fancies than are 
farmers, who would be the proper competitors for middle class Short- 
horns. It really seems, however, as if English breeders who wish to 
obtain 'improved Jerseys," i. e., those which give increased quantities 
of butter, not those which conform more closely to an arbitrary stand- 
ard of color, will have to go, not to the island, but to America, for new 
blood. By common consent, the island is well nigh stripped of fine 
specimens. ' New Jersey ' seems to have more of the Channel Island 
cattle than the Jersey which may in distinction be called 'old.'" 

Fortunately, our breeders have abandoned the foolishness of color 
markings, style, and all that kind of absurdity, and are looking solely 
to product as the chief point of merit of cows, and prepotency of trans- 
mission as the great claim to value in bulls. This is the right course, 
and will soon tell in the demand from abroad. — The Dairy. 



Discretion is more necessary to women than eloquence, because they 
have less trouble to speak well than to speak little. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 505 



WHEAT CULTURE, &c. 



Editor of the Planter : 

Tour editorial in the July No. of the Planter upon the subject of 
; Wheat" sounds very well, but you should remember your remarks 
are based upon the successful crops made in the last two seasons, and 
you lose sight of the many failures for years in the past. As an old 
farmer, you will pardon me for stating what I think about growing 
wheat. In the first place, there is nothing so uncertain as the wheat 
crop in Virginia. Liable, as it is, to so many disasters and injuries, 
an experience of thirty years is, that not more than once in ten years 
does it wholly escape one or more of these disasters, which lessens 
more or less the yield, and the result is a failure. I am satisfied that 
the effort to make wheat has done more to impoverish our farmers than 
any other thing — in fact, it has been the chief cause of their ruin. 
"We have only to look at the vast amount of money expended in fertil- 
izers and costly machinery, such as drills, reapers, threshers, &c. Mil- 
lions of dollars have thus been spent in the last thirty years in these 
articles. (They were first introduced and used about that far back.) 
"What has been the actual report of the average yield per acre ? I 
think it is about eight bushels. 

I think what I have stated is true ; and if so, the farmer had better 
be asleep than spend his time sowing wheat in "Virginia. What busi- 
ness man in this city would deal in an article that experience for years 
teaches him he loses money by, or that the profit is not commensurate 
with the risk and trouble. It is true, there are individual instances of 
better success ; but if the same talent and energy be used in another 
direction, where less risk and expenditure exists, a much better result 
would follow. 

Our farmers should abandon the wheat crop entirely, and depend 
upon their supply from the Great West, where they make easily from 
twenty-five to fifty bushels an acre, and under the present system or 
policy can ship to our market for less money than it cost the producer 
within a stone's throw of Richmond. 

There are other resources that can be made to pay, and I think it 
will not take long to convince any one that will invest one-half the 
amount in other enterprises heretofore used buying fertilizers 'and 
costly machinery, to make wheat. I need only to refer your readers 
to what you saw at Westover, which was given them in your last No. 
of the Planter. You show them the yield of Major Drewry's fine 
crops of wheat and hay, although this year was a wheat boom. Figures 



506 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 

show that the hay would make double the money to the acre. The 
wine-sap apple always sells for a dollar a bushel ; it never fails to bring 
that price. It is particularly adapted to our State; rarely ever fails to 
make a crop. It is unlike the wheat crop. There is no rust in the 
wine-sap apple, nor is it eaten up by the fly ; has no costly machinery 
to make or gather the crop. 

The early Southdown spring lamb or mutton "takes the cake" in 
the market everywhere. The mutton lovers of "Washington, Balti- 
more, and even Philadelphia, don't regard the price. They will have 
none other if it can be had, and the butchers in these cities will tell 
you their best Southdown mutton comes from Virginia. Let every 
Virginia farmer devote time and attention to his garden, raising all 
the garden or small fruits. It furnishes more than half his living ; 
taking the precaution to guard against a drought, to have a truck- 
patch on branches and low-grounds; also to plant the summer vege- 
tables and vines that are destroyed in gardens, usually on the high 
elevations chosen for the dwelling. 

All these things may serve to divert the mind from that old failure — 
the wheat crop — and may in the end give an insight to ivhat they can 
make that will pay better. 

"Experience is the best teacher;" and with a plenty of it, your 
humble servant would, for the future, take the orchard grass, South- 
down sheep, and the wine-sap apple to raise for profit. W. 

[This communication comes rather late for the discussion of the value of the wheat 
crop, as the preparation for it ia now in progress. We admit it, however, mainly for 
the reason that the writer differs frqm our views, as well as a long experience in the cul- 
tivation of this crop. What we have said on the subject our readers may remember, 
and we see no reason to change, or even modify, our opinion by anything our correspon- 
dent has said. 

As to the wine-sap apple, we endorse them as thoroughly as any apple which can be 
raised in Middle Virginia; but they are as uncertain in yield, under the circumstances 
which attend them, and even more so, than that of wheat under proper conditions of 
culture. 

The Southdown sheep, as a breed, cannot be too highly commended ; but we do not 
see how wheat — and the grasses, which should follow it — can interfere with the rearing 
of this or any other breed of sheep. — Ed. S. P.] 



The offensive smell of the manure heap does not necessarily imply 
loss of valuable fertilizing matter. "Where ammonia is perceptible to 
to the smell, then look out for some absorbent to catch it. The sul- 
phuretted hydrogen, which gives the very offensive odor to rotten eggs r 
is of very inappreciable valu.e as manure. A farmer could not afford 
to carry such a load far to apply on his land. 



* 1883.] SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 507 



GROUND SOUTH CAROLINA ROCK AS A FERTILIZER. 



[From Leesburg (Ya.) Washingtonian.] 

The following letter from Mr. G. B. Stacy, an extensive and intelli- 
ent farmer of Amelia county, will be read with interest by our farm- 
ers who are discussing the merits of the Ground South Carolina Bone 
as a fertilizer. He gives the results of a practical test of its merits : 

Amelia C. H., Va., August 14, 1883. 
W. B. Lynch, Esq., Leesburg, Loudoun county, Va.: 

Dear Sir, — I gladly give you all the information we have accumu- 
lated in relation to the use of Charleston Rock when reduced to flour. 
I esteem it the greatest boon the farmers of our section have had since 
the war. 

Dr. Elzey is entitled to the credit of first publishing the fact, that 
all that is gained by the use of acid on the fine ground rock is & greater 
minuteness of mechanical division. That the acid itself is not only 
positively useless in the soil as plant food, but is absolutely injurious. 
This statement commends itself at once to the judgment of every ob- 
servant person who has witnessed the process of compounding sul- 
phuric acid with water. Just so soon as the two come in contact, the 
acid converts the water into steam or vapor. This is the constant and 
invariable action of the acid on water, and it no doubt continues till 
the last drop of water is thus converted into vapor. 

The perpetual demand of growing plants is water enough in the 
soil, as water, not vapor, to be the all-sufficient vehicle to convey the 
plant food to the small vesicles or mouths of the rootlets of the grow- 
ing plant. Hence the provision of our Father's wisdom, that the par- 
ticles of soil lying beneath the surface should be cool enough to con- 
dense the vapors of the atmosphere as it permeates the soil and convert 
them into water, that as water it may perform its legitimate functions 
of preparing and conveying the plant food to the rootlets. Wow we 
have seen that the sulphuric acid of commerce, or that produced in 
the laboratory of the chemist, has the precisely opposite effect. It is 
not, however, certain that naturally produced acid has the same effect; 
as, for instance, the lime in the soil of limestone regions seem to have 
a much more favorable effect on vegetation than burned lime, when 
applied as a fertilizer. Evidently, Jehovah's laboratory is far more 
perfect than any we poor mortals have been able to elaborate at 
present. 

The drought, you say, that is at present prevailing in your county, 
will answer the question positively, whether you could promote vege- 
tation under these conditions by the use of a fertilizer possessing a 
large proportion of sulphuric acid ; whether the expulsion of water as 
vapor from the soil would help the growth of plants during droughts. 

Voeckler, Laws, and all the great chemists of Europe, have conce- 
ded the truth of Elzey's position. I believe there is not a prominent 



508 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 

chemist of recognized authority that calls it in question. And the 
mechanical minuteness of the present division, it is admitted, meet* 
all the requirements of plant rootlets — that is, theoretically. 

But experience confirms the theory. On corn it has produced a de- 
cided effect, even when applied at the time of laying by. When ap- 
plied at planting, it has produced for us the largest yield we have ever 
made. But its greatest value on the corn crop, is the fact that if the 
corn be worked well, and the land left in a fine pulverent condition at 
laying-by time, you may at that time sow clover in your corn-field 
with certaiuty of getting a stand and a growth the next spring, equal 
to any that was sown in the spring, either on winter wheat, oats or 
barley. In our country, where our lands have been run down by over 
cropping, this is the -weightiest consideration in its favor. If it gave us 
no increase in the corn crop, the clover that follows would be the all- 
sufficient consideration for the cost. 

If we can cover our wornout surfaces by the thorough cultivation of 
the corn crop, the application of 500 pounds of the flour of South 
Carolina Rock, and potash mixture at a cost of $4.50, with a strong 
and vigorous growth of clover, we have saved our country from star- 
vation and depopulation. For either all the literature of clover is 
false, or a fine growth of clover guarantees any cereal crop we may 
desire to grow. 

I know not the condition of your limestone lands as to vegetable 
matter in the soil. If they are, as I suppose, full of vegetable matter, 
then it is certain that the South Carolina Rock mixture will give you 
most satisfactory returns on any cereal crop. You will perceive that 
we have been trying to produce the vegetable matter which I suppose 
you possess. Last fall was the only experiment we made on wheat of 
any extent. Our crop was seriously injured by the Hessian fly. We 
found as many as thirty grubs in a single stool, and we found five in 
one stem. Of course it would be unfair to take this crop as an ex- 
ample. "We sowed forty-six bushels. We paid the thresher for six 
hundred bushels; have forty bushels we fanned out of tailings we did 
not return through the thresher. We have the gleanings unthreshed r 
and our wheat will over-weigh the thresher's measure twenty bushels. 
Altogether, it would be fair to say our yield is at least seven hundred 
bushels, or say fifteen for one sowed. We threshed two acres sepa- 
rately ; one measured (less gleaning) twenty-two bushels. Again I 
say this crop is not, and cannot be, considered a fair representation of 
what the rock mixture will do. 

Our application on turnips has been more than satisfactory. On 
clover it has beat bone and every other preparation we have ever used. 
On our wheat last year it equaled Steam's Wheat Fertilizer, and all 
that was applied on the tobacco lot for that crop. In other words, we 
had as good wheat on fallow land where we applied 300 pounds per 
acre of South Carolina Bone, as on the tobacco lot, or where we applied 
300 pounds of Steam's Wheat Fertilizer. When we applied it on oats 
it told elegantly. We have never applied it on our hay meadows, but 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 509 



Colonel Patton tried it this spring on seeding down a lawn, with most 
wonderful results. 

But I have already made this too long. However, if these facts are 
of service to your neighbors, I shall be repaid for penning them. 

Very respectfully yours, G. B. Stacy. 



FERTILIZING WHEAT. 



[By P. H. Jacobs, Hamnionton, N. J., in Farm, Field and Fireside.] 

As the time approaches for putting in wheat, farmers will naturally 
seek the surest and best fertilizer that is procurable, but, unfortunately, 
they depend almost wholly upon superphosphates. Superphosphate 
answers well on land that has been previously in sod, or which has 
been well manured for a previous crop, but it is not a complete fertili- 
zer for wheat. The mo3t essential requisite is a deep, clean, well pul- 
verized soil. Although the seeds of wheat are sown or drilled so as 
to remain near the surface, the plant, during growth, sends out its roots 
in every direction in search of food, not forgetting the water-pipe or 
tap root. The seed alone contains nutriment for sustaining the plant 
for a short time ; but when that stage has passed, the growth is regu- 
lated by the solubility of those substances in the soil that are necessary 
for its continued progress. Barnyard manure is the' most complete of 
all fertilizers, as a rule, is claimed by many ; but barnyard manure 
varies in composition, not only in regard to the food from which it is 
produced, but also upon the age of the animal. The manure from 
very young animals will contain less phosphoric acid and nitrogen than 
that from those more matured ; but it may be classed as a certainty 
that all soils that have been liberally manured will abound in potash. 
In fact, potash is always more abundant than nitrogen and phosphoric 
acid combined. 

One mistake in fertilizing is in the application of superphosphate 
when drilling the seed in. More beneficial results may be obtained by 
using one-half finely ground bone and one-half superphosphate (reduced 
bone). Half of this mixture should be applied with the seed, but by 
applying the remaining quantity in connection with 100 pounds of 
nitrate of soda (saltpetre) in the spring, after the ground is somewhat 
dry, and going over the field with a smoothing harrow, much better 
growth and yield may be secured. Unless on soils underlaid with 
heavy clay, the soluble fertilizers are partly washed down into the soil; 
not that they are entirely lost, for the plants invariably send out roots 
to search for food, but it will not be within the immediate reach of the 
plants when they are just beginning to push forward. On sandy soils 
three" applications should be made, so managed as to apply one third at 
time of seeding, one-third early in the spring, and one-third a little 
later, especially just previous to a rain, which will carry it to the roots. 
Every season a loss occurs from lack of judgment in applying fertilizers, 
and it would be well if farmers experimented with small areas occa- 
sionally for the purpose of making comparison. 



510 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 



HEDGES AND ENSILAGE. 



Four vexed questions, and contributions towards their solution promised when needed — 
New honors for the field perhaps, waiting on a more faithful use of the"j,Concord- 
ance — The early equipment of many of our homes with that of Dr. Young — The 
first step in the more enlightened policy of the agriculturist. 



Editor Southern Planter : 

Is it true that new honors await the fields where the homes are care- 
ful to honor the Lord's Day and the Lord's "Word ? Just now, while 
the movement is upon us of organizing into county unions, interde- 
nominational, the Sunday Schools of the State, county by county, the 
agriculturists, as such, may not at once recognize their interest in the 
movement. Your correspondent, however, regards the Sunday School 
as the home — essentially at work and in repose — at work on the Lord's 
Day and in repose on His Word, hearing and asking questions. He 
claims that the equipment of these homes with the Concordance — the 
one weapon most effective for the purpose of searching the Scrip- 
tures — is just now an immediate duty confronting most of us. The 
need of a more enlightened policy in rural affairs, is to be read not 
only on the face of the landscape here in Virginia, but is gravely fore- 
shadowed in Habakkuh, ii : 13 ; and the higher plane for successful 
tillage is beautifully outlined in Prov. iii : 9. And the question recurs, 
"What may not the agriculturists of the counties do with advantage to 
their fields as well as their homes, by aiding this particular movement 
under the auspices of the Virginia State Sunday School Union, with 
Judge E. H. Fitzhugh, of you.r city, at its head as President ? 

Without waiting for General Wickham's committee of three, and 
at the risk of provoking a broadside from Dr. Pollard in response to 
this question, your correspondent proposes once more to put in a plea 
for the Osage Orange hedge and retrenchment in fence expenditure. 
In advance of Col. McCue's article, in the July number of the Planter, 
calling attention to your correspondent's experiments with ensilage and 
the osage orange in terms so very complimentary, in the Central Presbyte- 
rian of your city, in Oct., 1881, your correspondent, from a sheer sense 
of duty, had published such a plea. How could he refrain, when, from 
his own experience with this plant and the testimony of others, he saw 
that every mile of board fence he could build involved an unnecessary 
expenditure of some two hundred dollars ? Now it is not every agri- 
culturist that is disposed to draw upon a stock of patience in lieu of 
drawing upon his purse. Most of us, however, will be interested to 



♦ 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 511 






learn that by this substitute of the hedge, at an expenditure of about 
one hundred dollars per mile, and patient attention from year to year, 
hundreds may be saved for improvements of a nobler order. 

Thus far had your correspondent written, when intelligence was 
brought him of the destruction by fire, that very morning, of the 
costliest barn in this, the vicinity of Winchester, with a large store of 
hay. One month ago, an animal lying at night on the track of our 
Valley Railroad, managed to wreck a train with the loss of life on the 
part of three out of four persons aboard. Casualties like these, plead 
to my mind most eloquently for ensilage and its general use. Substi- 
tute succulent summer feed for the scant herbage of August, and the 
compressed contents of the silo for the combustible contents of the hay 
mow, and the risk of loss by fire to your building in the one case, and 
of train and life in the other, is at once reduced. These are specimens 
of advantages indirect and remote. Our experience here at the Curve 
has been fruitful of advantages direct, varying with the seasons. Tbe 
first was in feeding under shelter in the winter of 1880, when the snow 
lay for six weeks to the depth of twenty inches, and many were quar- 
rying their fodder out of ice. The last was this summer, when one 
week was found to suffice for putting away in the silo forty tons of clo- 
ver, while two weeks failed, because of incessant rain, to put away half 
as much hay. 

This transition from hedge to ensilage may be regarded as a transi- 
tion from the one vexed question of expensive fencing to the other of 
insufficient forage. "We cannot be sure that either of these is pressing 
for solution just now. When they do, and President Wickham sees 
fit to appoint hi3 committees of inquiry, he will find any contributions 
towards the solution of these problems furnished from this quarter will 
be shedding light a3 well upon the solution of two others of the 
problems that have perplexed our people. The protection of the flock 
is one, and the conservation of the son's interest in agricultural opera- 
tions the other. Fields of correct proportions, enclosed with walls of 
solid verdure, possess much of the attractiveness of University grounds. 
Then let your gates be guarded, and your stock may be said to be re" 
posing in a dog-proof enclosure. 

If these things are so, how comes it we have slept so long on our oars, 
perplexed with such vexed questions, when remedies were within easy 
reach ? 

" It is not in man that walketh, to direct his footsteps." " Is it not 
of the Lord of Hosts, that the people shall weary themselves for very 
vanity ?" For the solution of our problems, as well as the honor of our 



512 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 



fields, we will do well to unite with our fellow-citizens in the effort to 
secure not only a better observance of the Lord's Day, but a better ac- 
quaintance on the part of both fathers and sons with Him and His re- 
vealed truths. 

Of the many ways of doing this, that which presses just now upon 
us as a first step in the line of the more enlightened policy indicated 
above, is to lose no time in equipping our homes with copies of Dr. 
Young's great Concordance. The use of any Concordance augurs well 
for any family. This of Dr. Young's, by its appearance in our day, 
may be said to augment vastly our power in the investigation of Scrip- 
ture truth. Five thousand dollars invested a month ago would have 
secured for us two thousand copies. The supply at this rate is said to 
be limited, and our chief fear as we write is, that the price will be ad- 
vanced before the readers of the Planter will act. Richmond can 
doubtless furnish the work, and in pressing it thus upon the attention 
of the readers of the Planter, I am, as you see, only acquitting myself 
of a duty I owe them. 

W. A. Crawford. 

At the Curve, Sept. 7, 1883. 



GRASS, OR CULTIVATION FOR ORCHARDS. 



If fruit trees after they have attained a size sufficiently large for. 
bearing fruit can be made to do as well in grass as when cultivated, it 
is obvious that it will be much less expense to seed to grass and save 
the cost of cultivation. But that would not be all the advantage ob- 
tained. R is well knwn that cultivation is likely to injure many of the 
large roots of the trees. This is the greatest objection to cultivating 
among large trees. It is desirable that the roots should penetrate the 
soil near the surface in all directions, since the surface soil is the richest; 
but if cultivation is practised the roots which approach the surface are 
continually torn and injured and kept from approaching the surface. 
If the soil is cultivated among large trees, the cultivation should be 
very shallow, so as to injure the roots as little as possible. By frequent 
top-dressing with fertilizers it is believed that the trees will do equally 
as well in grass as when cultivated. Pasturing sheep or pigs in the 
orchard is a good method of disposing of what grass grows, and' en- 
riching the soil. The pigs and sheep will also eat that fruit which falls 
prematurely, and they destroy the larvae of the coddling moth contained 
in it. If, however, the grass is allowed to grow, it is best to cut it two 
or three times during the summer and let it remain on the ground to 
mulch and enrich the 3oil. In regard to whether to cultivate an orchard 
or not, it may be said that if the trees are young they should be culti- 
vated to promote their growth, but if the trees are large they need not 
be cultivated, but may be seeded to grass and top-dressed. — Correspond- 
ence Practical Farmer. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 513 



Editorial. 



Report of the Superintendent of the Government Farms and Agricultural Operations 
in the Madras (India) Presidency for the years 1881 and 1882, and also the Report 
on the Saidapet Experimental Farm. 

We have received these Reports and find them very interesting. 
The Planter is sent regularly, on subscription, to the Superintendent 
of Farms, and to the Saidtipet Experimental Station, and we accept as 
a courtesy the Reports sent us. 

WHEAT. 

"We note some facts which may be of interest to the farmers in the 
States. 

"Neither smut or ergot were observed on the crops. This, prob- 
ably, was due to the fact that the seeds were, in almost every in- 
stance, dressed with sulphate of copper (bluestone) before being sown. 
The process followed is, for fifty pounds of seed, take three pounds of 
sulphate of copper, which dissolve in one quart of hot water ; when 
the solution is cold pour it over the seed, and mix thoroughly; when 
dry the seed is fit for sowing." " The object in dressing the seed in 
this way, is to kill the fungoid spores that may be mingled with the 
seed. This dressing, however, does not appear to have any marked 
effect in preventing attacks of rust. Of course, if straw is used in 
bedding the cattle which has been attacked by fungoid disease, and the 
manure of which this bedding forms a part is applied to land, the 
probability is that the spores of the fungus will be conveyed to the soil 
at the same time, and in this way may get into the plants, even though 
the seed from which they were raised was chemically prepared." 

SORGHUM. 

2. After speaking of several kinds, the Superintendent, in detailing 
experiments at Saidapet, speaks of the Minnesota Early-Amber Sugar- 
Cane as the best for syrup and sugar. He acknowledges his indebted- 
ness to Messrs. Allen & Co., of New York, for the seed with which 
the experiments were made. He says : " It . is evident from these ex- 
periments, that it is in every way better to crush only the best canes, 
and to use those that are less ripe, and the leaves, for feeding stock. 
By selecting the seed, and by good tillage and good treatment, it will, 
I think, be possible to secure much greater uniformity in the ripening 
of the canes. This is a point to which attention is specially required, 
for it is both troublesome and expensive to divide the crop into matured 
and unripe canes ; and but little advantage would be gained by har- 



514 SOUTHERN PLANTER. [October 



vesting, first, the matured canes, and afterwards the others as they 
ripened." 

" The syrup of the amber sugar-cane crystallizes far more rapidly, 
and to a much more considerable extent than other sorghums. The 
refuse canes, after crushing, are more palatable to stock than the refuse 
of sugar cane; and, judging from its appearance and general charac- 
ter, must be far more digestible." 

"Cream of lime was mixed with the juice before it was boiled until 
an alkaline reaction was observed. Crystallization began, usually, 
within twenty-four hours after the syrup cooled ; in some cases much 
earlier. Experiments were made to ascertain the proper time when 
the syrup should be removed from the fire, and under what conditions 
the best colored jaggery* could be obtained. It was noticed that the 
syrup was lighter in color when removed from the fire early, but crys- 
tallization was slower." 

PLOWS. 

3. We do not know that we can do a better thing 1 for the manufac- 
turers of plows and other cultivating tools, and seeding and reaping 
machines, in the United States, than to invite their attention to other 
extracts from the Reports under consideration, which will show the 
great need of improved agricultural implements and machines in British 
India. We do not think that the fact can be questioned, that the agri- 
cultural implements and machines of the United States are superior, 
in every [desirable quality, to those made elsewhere on the globe. 
Why, then, cannot our manufacturers open a trafic with these eastern 
British possessions and other contiguous countries where the rudest 
tools for culture are used? Steamship transportation is already pro- 
vided, and, doubtless, consignments can be made to responsible parties 
who will account for sales at stated periods, and settle therefor by 
drafts on London, which will be worth a premium in the United States ; 
or, if not this, return cargoes can be taken in coffee, tea and spices, 
which will open a profitable commerce. 

We notice that the native plows, and some importations from 
Sweden, and the American combined plow, are only mentioned. If 
the transportation from Sweden is by the sea, as it probably is, that 
from the United States cannot be put to any special .disadvantage. 

*Webster defines this word thus: "A species of coarse, dark-colored sugar obtained 
from the sap of the cocoanut palm." The word is now, doubtless, applied in the East 
to the first crystallization of sugar from the juice of any plant. — Ed. S. P. 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 515 

"124. The ploughs in greatest request, for use as patterns, were the 
single-stilted Swedish plough and the American combined plough. 
The first mentioned were supplied at Rs. 20,* and the latter at Rs. 13 
and 9 each, according to size. Under an arrangement made with an 
extensive manufacturer in Sweden, the Department will be able to sup- 
ply single-stilted Swedish ploughs, made entirely of steel, at Rs. 16 
each. Steel possesses many advantages over both cast-iron and wrought- 
iron, as a material for making ploughs, chiefly in its greater strength 
and lightness, while steel can be welded with almost as great ease as 
wrought-iron. 

* i 125. These Swedish steel ploughs are, it is believed, the best ploughs 
for the requirements of Indian agriculture, that have yet been intro- 
duced. 

126. A number of improved country ploughs were made up at the 
request of a land-owner resident in Tanjore, who for the past three or 
four years has had a graduate of the School of Agriculture as bis man- 
ager. He forwarded a pattern plough which he called the " Nawab " 
that he said he had obtained from Cawnpore, and of which he had been 
making up copies in Tanjore ; but, finding the expense too great, he 
•had given up further efforts in that direction. On receipt of the pat- 
tean at Saidapet, it was examined and tried, and was found defective 
in several respects. Another improved form of a country plough was, 
therefore, made up and sent to the land-owner, for experimental trial, 
along with his pattern plough. He wrote : ' I have received the ploughs 
sent to me by Air. Schiffmayer, and experimented with them in the 
wet lands, and find that the cattle here works with your light improved 
pattern with greater amount of ease and facility than the"Nawab" 
plough, and at the same time, this improved pattern inverts the fur- 
row sods at the proper degree or position, whereas the other plough 
fails to do so. * * * * I therefore request that you would be 
pleased to order for the construction of 80 ploughs of your improved 
pattern, in the Farm Workshops.' In explanation of a Madras land- 
owner sending all the way to Cawnpore for ploughs, it should be stated 
that he first applied to the farm for ploughs, but that the workshops 
then being closed, through some misapprehension on the part of Gov- 
ernment, no ploughs could be supplied from the farm, and he had, 
therefore, no choice but to send to Cawnpore. This improved country 
plough weighs but 30 lbs.; though a low-priced plough, it is not one 
that can be recommended for general use; it cannot, in full work, last 
longer than a ploughing season, without repair, and it is always liable 
to break, when the work it is required to do is at all rough in char- 
acter. It is adapted only for use on wet land, or very light dry land, 
but i'i not suited for deep ploughing. Another improved country 
plough, made entirely of iron, except the pole, has proved fairly suc- 
cessful for irrigated land, and for working between the rows of cotton 
and similar work. The stilt of this plough is fitted with a cross bar, to 
admit of both of the ploughman's hands being used. These ploughs 

* Rupee — contraction Rs. — is a coin and money of account in British India. Its value 
in U. S. currency is about $7.— Ed. S. P. 



516 SOUTHERN" PLANTER. [October 

cost from Rs. 6 to 7, each. They are much stronger, and, therefore, 
more useful, than those with wooden stilts. 

127. Great difficulty has been met, in experimenting on the farm 
with single-handle ploughs, made like the country plough. The farm 
ploughmen have for years used only the double-handle ploughs of the 
European pattern, which require far less exertion on the part of the 
ploughman than country ploughs. The men most decidedly prefer the 
double handle ploughs. A great deal of nonsense has been written 
regarding the supposed advantage of a single-handle plough, in its ad- 
mitting, when at work, of the ploughman using one of his hands in 
twisting the tails of his cattle. The farm ploughmen plough a much 
larger area of land in a day than is usually ploughed elsewhere, yet, as 
has already been noticed, they work only double-handle ploughs, and 
never touch the tails of their cattle ; indeed, any such reprehensible 
performance in tail-twisting, though apparently, in some quarters, 
deemed inseparable from ploughing with cattle, would lead to the im- 
mediate dismissal of the ploughman. Each ploughman uses a pair of 
reins, and carries on his plough a light whip, which he occasionally 
uses. Each man manages entirely his own plough and cattle ; some of 
the men can make as straight a furrow as is made in other countries." 

THE MADRAS ANNUAL PLOUGHING MATCHES. 

19. The Annual Ploughing Matches were held on the Saidapet Ex- 
perimental Farm on the morning of Saturday, the 28th January. The 
land on which the competitions were held, was of two descriptions — 
" irrigated " and " unirrigated." The latter was a sandy loam, free and 
easy to work ; the irrigated land contained more clay, and it was, 
therefore, stiffer and more difficult to work. The dry land had been 
under ragi ; and all the land at the time was in stubble. The compe- 
titions were distributed so that the public might see the working of 
both improved and country ploughs, in land differing in character and 
condition. There were fifty competitors ; of these, eight were farm 
employe's. The majority of the competitors used the common country 
plough ; a few worked improved ploughs, which they had purchased 
from the farm and elsewhere. The average depth at which the coun- 
try ploughs worked was not more than 3J inches ; while, as is usually 
the case when these ploughs are employed, more than half of the land 
was left unmoved, in ribs, and the grassy surface was unturned, being 
simply loosened after the manner of a cultivator. The improved 
ploughs worked the land, on the average, 6 inches deep, the whole soil 
was moved, and the grassy surface was well turned over. As regards 
speed in performing the work, the improved ploughs were equally su- 
perior ; on the average they completed each plot in 45 minutes, which 
is equal to an acre ploughed in 7J hours. The unimproved ploughs 
averaged 60 minutes for each plot, thus getting over an acre in 10 
hours. The results of the matches were conclusive in showing the 
great superiority of the improved ploughs over the ordinary plough, as 
regards efficiency of work, cost of performing the work, and speed in 
doing the work. The cattle that were employed to draw the improved 



1883.] SOUTHERN PLANTER. 517 

ploughs were certainly superior to those used in drawing the country 
ploughs, but they were not superior to the cattle generally used in 
Cuddapah, Salem, Nellore, and in some other districts. In several dis- 
tricts the plough cattle are not fitted to draw the larger improved 
ploughs, but for these localities a smaller plough of the kind can be 
provided. A students' ploughing match was held to determine the 
best ploughmen in the senior class; it was an interesting match, from 
the fact that the selected competitors belonged to localities so widely 
apart — one to Bengal; one to Bombay; and two to this Presidency. 
The Bengal student carried off the first prize. The work done was 
very good indeed. 

We see from these extracts that the improved plows of the United 
States are a great need in the British possessions of India; and the 
question arises, cannot this want be supplied at a profit to our manu- 
facturers, and with benefit to agriculture in the East? 



DEAD HEADS AT THE FAIR. 



Some good shot fires the following through the columns of the 
Prairie Farmer : 

I don't believe in having a fair ground filled up with undeserving 
"dead heads," and the man with money in his pockets, and a desire to 
see in his brain, who will not walk up and buy a ticket like a gentleman 
instead of pestering fair officers for a pass is meaner and lower than the 
poor tramp who scales the fence when the policeman's back is turned, 
or the gamin who glues his eye to a knot-hole. I know that most 
farmers are all right on this subject, but I have seen them — well-to-do 
men, too, — who didn't have a "chick or child/ at home, who, when 
they got to the fair ground, were possessed of children enough for an 
able bodied Mormon prophet, and with more sisters-in-law than an or- 
dinary man with thre.e wives under the sod. Then I have seen big, 
strapping young men pass their tickets through a crack in the fence to 
comrades on the outside, thinking they had accomplished a wonderful- 
ly smart thing. Did you ever compare the estimates of good judges 
as to the number of people on a fair ground, and then observe how it 
tallied with the treasurer's report of the gate receipts? I tell you "dead 
heads" sow the -seeds of death in a society. There is no permanent 
success in the fair business with out money to run it. I would be lib- 
eral toward all who are deserving of liberality, but this indiscriminate 
issuing of complimentary tickets to every political dude who may apply is 
demoralizing. 

I am in favor of low rates of admission to an agricultural fair, and I 
would have one ticket admit to everything on the ground, from an am- 
phitheatre to see a horse race, to a side show to see a fat woman, or a 
ringtailed monkey, but I would exterminate the race of everliving dead 
heads. This making one man pay two prices, that another man, equally 
able to pay, may see the same things for nothing, isn't exactly the thing 
in this country where all men are supposed to be born "free and equal." 
Farmer's Home Journal. 



518 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[October 



The Southern Planter. 



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EDITORIAL NOTES. 



THE STATE FAIR AGAIN. 

In our last issue was a communication 
from President Wickham, and we now call 
attention to one from Secretary Mayo. 
Each of these communications is an inter- 
esting expositor of the objects and attrac- 
tions of the Fairs, and forcibly sets forth 
the interests of the farmers in respect to 
them. Read them carefully, and prepare 
to attend with wives and children. We 
may say to the ladies who have addressed 
us on the subject of artificial incubation, 
that a gentleman is already settled near 
Richmond who proposes to go into the 
business regularly, and will have on the 
grounds during the Fair an incubator in the 
act of hatching chickens, by which the 
whole process may be seen and understood. 
We are informed that the incubator to be 
used is the Campbell pattern, advertised in 
the Planter. The Apiary display, men- 
tioned by Secretary Mayo, will also be an 
unusual one, and attractive to residents of 
the country. 

It is unnecessary to repeat the various 



matters connected with the Fair, which are 
so well enumerated by Secretary Mayo, but 
we will urge upon farmers' attention the 
proposed nightly meetings, in which ques- 
tions pertaining to practical agriculture 
will be informally discussed, and written 
essays read and referred to committees for 
publication. There was no feature of the 
Fair- week, in the early days of the Society, 
in which there was a greater concentration, 
of interest, and the effort to renew it is to 
be commended. 

As this is the last opportunity we shall 
have to speak of the Fair, as our next issue 
will appear only a few days before its open- 
ing, we will expiess the hope that the com- 
munications of the President and Secretary 
will receive the attention they so well de- 
serve. 

The Southern Planter will, as usual, have 
an office on the Fair-grounds during the 
approaching State Fair, and the farmers of 
this and other States are cordially invited 
to visit it. Without any disposition to ap- 
pear selfish, we may say that it will afford 
a good opportunity for new subscribers to 
place their names on our list, and for old 
ones to square up their accounts. Whether 
the one or the other motive prompts, we 
shall be glad to greet all who may call on us. 



Hampshire-Dcwx Sheep. — We have had 
frequent enquiries for the names and ad- 
dress of breeders of these sheep. Can we 
get the information through the columns of 
the Planter ? 

Pears as a Profitable Crop. — We have 
been favored by Dr. B. Dennis with a box 
of beautiful and delicious pears grown by 
the Doctor on his farm near Mattoax, in 
Amelia county. He has, us yet, but few 
trees in bearing, but he shipped to New 
York this Fi-ason n. number of barrels, for 
which he obtained a ntt price of from $7 
to $9. The pear i3 one of the most certain 
in yield of our fruit-bearing trees, and 
when properly handled commands a large 
price. The Doctor is not selfish in the 
matter, and is ready to give to others his 
experience. 



1883.] 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



519 



The Ashlt Phosphate Company. — We 
are requested to state by this company 
that our article in the last issue, copied 
from a Tampa Bay paper, to the effect that 
this company had made a large purchase of 
land for the purpose of utilizing phosphate 
deposits, is wholly erroneous. The letter 
of the company says : 

"The whole story must have originated 
in the brain of the 'Rev.' W. L. Moseley, 
whose statements are not to be credited, as 
you will' see by the accompanying copy of 
the News and Courier, giving some of the 
history of that gentleman. Please correct. 
Yours truly, J. P. DeSaussure, 

for Company.' 1 '' 

We call attention to the following an- 
nouncement of the Chesapeake & Ohio 
Railroad Company: 

"Excursion fares to Louisville, via the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, to attend 
the Great Southern Exposition of Art, In- 
dustry, and Agriculture, continuing till 
November 10th. 

Round-trip tickets, good to return for 
thirty days from date of issue are on sale 
at the principal stations of the Chesapeake 
and Ohio Railway and connections in Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina. 

Stop over will be allowed at the famous 
Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, or other 
resorts of 'be Chesapeake and Ohio Rail- 
way, within the time-limit of the ticket. 

Fast trains, with Pullman sleeping cars, 
through the Virginias to Louisville without 
change. 

For further information of routes, tickets, 
and time cards, apply to nearest ticket 
agent, or to J. C. Dame, Southeastern Pas- 
senger agent, Richmond, Va. 

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

Gen' I Manager. Gen'l Pass'r Ag't. 

Says a prominent horseman, in giving 
his opinion of Vanderbilt's mare, Maud 
S., whose great feat at Chicago put her at 
the head (and dubbed her "Queen of the 
Turf,"), "In my opinion the time is not 
far distant when a two minute gait will be 
recorded." It will certainly be the case if 
horsemen continue to use Kendall's Spavin 
Cure, as it limbers up the joints, removes 
all blemishes, and in fact has made a com- 
plete revolution in the horse business. 



Look out for Frauds! — The genuine 
" Rough on Corns " is made only by E. S. 
Wells (Proprietor of "Rough on Rats"), 
and has laughing face of a man on labels. 
loc. and 2oc. bottles. 

39 



BOOKS AND MAGAZINES. 
The work of Elliotte W. Stewart, entitled 
" Feeding Animals,''' we have read with a 
good deal of interest, and find it a practical 
and instructive work on the care of all farm 
animals. It should be in the hands of all 
good farmers. It gives the best mode of 
planning and building barns for the comfort 
of all farm animals and the economical 
storing of provender for the same ; it also 
gives the proper proportions of sand, ce- 
ment and water for concrete, &c. And 
more thau all, it gives his mode of treating 
all the ills of animals with one article of 
the Materia Medica, namely, water. It is 
interesting and instructive to see how sci- 
entifically he. uses this one element to aid 
the "vis medicatrix naturae," and discards 
all of those violent and, to say the least, 
"doubtful" remedies now in vogue with 
the vetrinary surgeon of the present day. 

A New Novel. — We understand that 
there is now in press a novel by Col. Joseph 
Mayo, of Westmoreland county, this State, 
entitled, " Woodbourne, a novel of the 
Revolutionary times in Virginia and Mary- 
land." It will doubtless prove an inter- 
esting book, for which subscriptions are 
now being taken at $2 per copy. 

A New Publication. — We have before 
us the first number of a new publication 
entitled " Richmond Mercantile and Man- 
ufacturing Journal,'''' which is issued by 
Richard E. Fravser, formerly Superintend- 
ent of Public Printing for the State. This 
journal is especially neat in respect to its 
paper and typography, and commendable 
in what appears to be its ruling feature — 
to advertise and advocate the industrial in- 
terests of our capital city and the State. 
This object is a deserving one, and it and 
other journals working in the same direc- 
tion, should have the support of all citi- 
zens in their respective channels of busi- 
ness, if not in a more comprehensive sense 
of aiding all publications which advocate 
the advancement of all interests which un- 
derlie the religious, social, and material 
prosperity of the country. The enthusiasm 
of our friend Frayser has led him into some 



520 



SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 



[October 



statements which are extravagant, but this 
will all come right as his work progresses. 
We welcome him to the circle of jour- 
nalism. 

Harper's Publications. — The Monthly 
for October, and the Weekly Bazaar and 
Young People to date, are on our table, 
and as interesting and brilliant as ever. 

North American Review for October is 
received. It has many interesting articles : 
Early Man in America, Board of Trade 
Morality, Social Forces in the United 
States, &c, &c. 

The Popular Science Monthly for Oc- 
tober has its usual variety of matter suited 
to the tastes of cultivated people. We 
may note The Liver Fluke of Sheep, "the 
object of which is to summarize the present 
knowledge of liver-fluke, causing the much 
dreaded and fatal rot in sheep." 

Reports. — We have the usual-monthly 
reports from the TJ. S. Agricultural De- 
partment, and others from the States of 
Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas, &c, and also 
the eighth annual report of the Ontario 
Agricultural College and Experimental 
Farm, in the Dominion of Canada. These 
are all interesting and instructive. The 
last reports from the Department of Agri- 
culture embrace : 

1. The grasses of the United States. 

2. The soils and products of Florida. 

3. Condition of crops, American compe- 
tition, and freight rates of transportation 
companies. 

Ellwanoer & Barry, of Rochester, N. 
Y., whose advertisement is seen in the 
Planter, sends us seven distinct catalogues, 
as follows : 1. Of fruits; 2. Of ornamental 
trees, &c. ; 3. Of strawberries, blackber- 
ries, &c. ; 4. Wholesale list of fruits, flow- 
ers, &c. ; 5. Select roses ; 6. Fruit and or- 
namental trees, grape vines, &c. ; and 7. 
New and rare roses. 

Hiram Sibley & Co., Rochester, N. Y., 
and Chicago, III., sends their catalogue of 
Holland Bulbs, and plants for fall planting. 



For man it has no equal ; for beasts it is 
not excelled. What? Kendall's Spavin 
Cure. 



NEW ADVERTISEMENTS. 

The Mutual Assurance Society of Vir- 
ginia is the oldest fire insurance company 
in the South. It was incorporated in 1794, 
and " many of the most eminent men in 
Virginia nurtured it in its infancy and aided 
to bring it to its full maturity and success." 
It is purely mutual, and the interest of its 
profits, after safe investment, are applied 
to the reduction of premiums. There are 
no dividends to stockholders, so that its 
investments constitute a safe reserve to 
meet all contingencies. Its directors are 
unpaid men, who look after its affairs with 
no personal motive except to secure its 
efficiency. This was so in its first organi- 
zation and is so now. Its investments are 
carefully made, and the yearly income 
therefrom is largely in excess of the losses 
which annually occur, aud thus there are 
ample means to meet any loss as its occurs. 
We quote the following from a recent 
"Historical Sketch" of the Society: 

" Whilst this Society, like all other insu- 
rance companies, has encountered many 
difficulties as the result of the late civil 
war, whilst its reserve fund for the protec- 
tion of its members was well nigh swept 
away by that war, and whilst, unlike other 
Southern companies, it was able to pay in 
United States currency, without scaling or 
commutation, all accidental losses occur- 
ring during the war, amounting to at least 
$150,000, — yet, owing to the fact that the 
average losses have not been so great since 
the war as before, owing to better fire 
departments and other causes, it has been 
able to accumulate in first-class securities 
a larger surplus or reserve fund than at any 
period of its long and honorable history. 

The annals of that nation are said to be 
blessed which contain, if any do, no great 
calamities, no fraticidal strifes, no despe- 
rate and exhausting foreign wars. So, by 
analogy, we may congratulate ourselves 
that up to this time our venerable Society 
has never in more than three-fourths of a 
century of experience resisted any claim 
for loss, until the institution of the suits 
growing out of the losses by the fire of 3d 
April, 1865, but has pursued a long, useful, 
peaceful and honorable career, and been a 
great benefactor and protector to the cities 
and towns of old Virginia." 

Randolph & English is the oldest book- 
house and publishing firm in the city. See 
their advertisement. 



1883.] 



SOUTHERN" PLANTER. 



521 



Be CarefulI — The genuine "Rough on 
Corns" is made only by E. S. Wells (Pro- 
prietor of "Rough on Rats"), and has 
laughing face of a man on labels. 15c. and 
25c. bottles. 

C. F. Johnson, bookseller and stationer, 
has lately moved into a new store, and 
presents to people who walk on Main street 
between 9th and 10th, a most attractive 
bargain of periodicals, daily and weekly 
papers, and the newest literature. 

Shoes. — "As easy as an old shoe," is a 
familiar adage. We are reminded of it by 
the fact that we have held on to an old pair 
of shoes several weeks longer than we 
should have done, with a new pair con- 
fronting us all the time. The pain of 
breaking in new shoes we have always 
dreaded, but we were surprised when we 
found the new more comfortable than the 
old. It only remains to say that the accu- 
racy of measure and the pliancy of material 
solved the problem, and that Mr. Drew, 
corner of Eighth and Main streets, con- 
ferred on us the comfort of new shoes. 

The Virginia Agricultural and Me- 
chanical College advertises for sale cat- 
tle, sheep, hogs, and poultry. It seems to 
be one of the features of this valuable in- 
stitution to breed on its farm, for the in- 
struction of its pupils, animals and fowls, 
and its success has been such that for sev- 
eral years its cattle have received the first 
and other premiums at our State Fairs. 
We suppose the stock now advertised is 
the surplus on hand beyond the needs of 
the farm. 

Is your liver out of order? Then is your 
whole system deranged. The blood is im- 
pure, the breath offensive, you have head- 
ache, feel languid, dispirited and nervous. 
To prevent a more serious condition, take 
at once Simmons Liver Regulator. 

G. P. Hawes, noticed in our last issue 
in connection with his losses by a fire, has 
resumed operations. The brief period in- 
tervening shows his energy, and for this 
quality and others all Richmond knows 
Percy Hawes. 

Dr. Casper recommends Kendall's 
Spavin Cure in the highest terms, and 
thousands of eminent physicians do the 
same. See advt. 



Henry T. Miller & Co. have renewed 
their three months' advertisement for twelve 
months. Our readers may remember our 
former notice of this enterprising concern, 
but since then its business has largely in- 
creased, and about thirty-three per cent, 
has been added to their facilities in ma- 
chinery and operatives. There are no bet- 
ter manufacturers in their line than these, 
and we speak what we know, havingknown 
the senior partner from babyhood, and in 
all the vicisitudes of war and peace. 

You who lead sedentary lives will find 
great relief from constipation with which 
you so often suffer by taking Simmons Liver 
Regulator. It is a simple, harmless, vege- 
table compound, sure to relieve you, and 
can do no injury. 

Christian & White. — We are glad to 
have an opportunity to speak of this old 
and reliable firm. Christian, the senior, 
we are disposed to berate because he is a 
bachelor, but has are deeming and lovely 
manner of dandling in a grandfatherly 
way, on his knee, the children who visit his 
store. White, though younger, has his 
family around him, and we feel that we 
have known him even longer than we have 
known his senior, for his parentage is con- 
nected with an old and esteemed grocery 
house in Petersburg with which we, and 
our father before us, had long and satisfac- 
tory dealings. 

A word more for Christian : Away back 
yonder, before we knew much about rail- 
roads, he was selling dry goods, not wet, as 
now, under the firm of Christian & Lathrop, 
and when we came to the city on horseback, 
or in our two-wheeled sulky, with a pocket- 
ful of orders from our country neighbors, 
they went to his hands, and were filled sat- 
isfactorily all around, just as the orders re- 
ceived now by Christian & White. 

I have used Simmons Liver Regulator in 
my extensive practice for the last four 
years, and cannot find its equal for bilious 
colic, dyspepsia, sick or nervous headache 
and constipation. Yours truly, 

Jas. M. Short, M. D., 

Butlerville, Ark. 

Coleman's Plow Harness. — Since our 
first notice of this improved harness the 



522 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[October 



patent right for the State has been trans- 
ferred by Mr. Trible to Messrs. Finney & 
Co., who have renewed the advertisement 
with the proper changes. . We have some- 
thing special to say about this harness, but 
are unable to do so in our present issue, 
but will in our next. Read carefully the 
advertisement. 

Automatic Gate - Latch Company. — 
This advertisement comes to us so late that 
we can only refer to a previous notice in 
Our January number. The most practical 
men speak favorably of this simple and 
automatic latch, which always leaves a 
gate safely locked, no matter how hastily 
opened or closed. 

See advertisement of Mr. Miller, whose 
business it is to repair Sewing Machines of 
all kinds. He is a native of Richmond, 
and has had seventeen years' experience in 
his line. Has no connection with any sew- 
ing machine company, and is reliable and 
trustworthy. Machines from the country 
will be received, repaired and returned. 

J. M. Wertheimer offers a good stock of 
shoes, &c, at 422 Broad street. We have 
good reports of him as a good and reliable 
dealer. 

Dr. G. B. Steele, surgeon dentist, 723 
Main street, is too well known to require a 
notice from us. 

We have the following advertisements 
through the well known house of N. W. 
Ayer & Son, of Philadelphia : W. Parry, 
blackberries ; J. H. Hicks, stock farm ; 
W. A. Noyes, consumption cure. 

BOOKS! = 

The largest assortment of books (new and 
old) in all the Departments of Litera- 
ture (Agricultural Works a specialty) in 
the Southern States is at 1302 and 1304 
Main street, Richmond, Va. 

J. W. RANDOLPH & ENGLISH, 

oct2t 

FARMER'S ZiAND CO., 25 
State Street, New York, sells on com- 
mission Farms and Lands. Correspon- 
dence solicited with all wishing to buy or 
sell. sep It 



DARBY'S 

PROPHYLACTIC FLUID. 

For the prevention and treatment of 

DIPHTHERIA, SCARLET FEVER, 

SMALLPOX, YELLOW FEVER, 

MALARIA, &c. 

The free use of the Fluid will do more to 

arrest and cure these diseases than any 

known preparation. 

Darby's Prophylactic Fluid, a safeguard 
against all Pestilence, Infection, Con- 
tagion and Epidemics. 
Use as a Gargle for the Throat, as a Wash 
for the Person, and as a Disinfectant 
for the House. 

A CERTAIN REMEDY AGAIBJST AUL 
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES. 

Neutralizes at once all noxious odors 
and gases. Destroys the germs of diseases 
and septic (putrescent) floating impercepti- 
ble in the air or such as have effected a 
lodgment in the throat or on the person. 
PERFECTLY HARMLESS USED 
INTERNALLY or EXTERNALLY. 
J. H. ZEILIN & CO., Proprietors^ 
Manufacturing Chemists, Philadelphia. 
I^-Price, 50 cents per bottle. Pint bot- 
tles, $1. nov ly 

Preserve the Natural Teeth. 



Dr. JOSEPH WOODWARD, 

OFFICE : 805 E. Franklin Street, 
RICHMOND, VA. 

MORISONS FILLS 

A remarkable remedy for Stomach, Liver, 
Kidney or Bladder Disorders, Jaundice, 
Chills, Malaria, Sick Headache, Indiges- 
tion and Costiveness. 

Mailed free to any address upon receipt of 
price, $1. W. S. PILCHER, Agent, 
Broad and Pine streets, 
aul2t RICHMOND, VA. 

BEST MARKET PEAR. 

99,999 PKACH TREES AMbest 

vnrielieeoi new and old Strawberries. 

i Currants, Grapes, Raspberries, etc. 

EARLY CLUSTER 

New Blackberry, early, hardy, pood. 

s-m Single Mil yielded 1 3 quartB at one 

m picking. Send for free Catalogue. 

J. ft>. t'&LXJJNS, Mourt'stowa, M. J. 

sep 3t 




"ALL iLAri I INw. ment in the country 
of the best Old and Xeir Fruit and Ornamental 
Trees, Shrubs, itoses, Peonies, Hedge Plants, etc. 
Abridged Catalogue mailed free. 

ELLWANGER & BARRY, 'JLW' 
= " J. T. GATEWOQD, 

DEALER IN 

LIQUORS AND FEED. 

116 E. Broad Street, Richmond, Va. 

Families having a surplus of anything produced 
in the Dairy, Barnyard or Garden, will do Vfell to 
advise with me. Correspondence solicited, auly 



P. A. ScBLETT. 



W. M. Cary. 



SUBLETT & CARY, 

Commission Merchants 

No. 113 South Twelfth Street, 
RICHMOND, VA. 

Specialties: Tobacco, Cotton, Flour, Grain and 
Forage. Grain Sacks furnished to order. 

J. F. Jacob and B. Lorraine, of Richmond, Va., 
and Nat Frazee, of Orange County, Va., respect- 
fully solicit the patronage of their friends. au!2t 

A AA BROAD STREET. ^ *^«°> 

NEW STORE— NEW GOODS! 

J. M. WERTHEIMER 

422 Broad Street, bktween Fol~rth and 
Fifth Streets, 
(opposite Fourqurean, Price, Temple & Co. 
Having withdrawn from the firm of Heller & Co., 
517 Broad street, I inform my friends and the public 
in general that I have established myself at above 
place, where I shall commence with an entire new 
stock of BOOTS, SHOES, TRUNKS, &C , and shall 
only keep such goods as will give entire satisfaction. 
Thanking for the very large patronage of the past, 
I solicit the same for the future at my new stand. 
J. M. WERTHEIMER, 
422 Broad St., bet. Fourth and Fifth, 
oet 3t op. Fourqurean, Price, Temple & Co. 

BERKSHIRE AND JERSEY RED 

Pigs & Hogs 

FOR SAJLE I 

Berkshire Pigs, two months old, $4. 
Berkshire Sows, with pigs by Jersey Boar, 
weighing from 100 to 250 pounds, 10c. per 
pound, nett, delivered on the cars. 

C. R CULLEN. 

au 4t 1305 Main St., Richmond. Va. 

GRAPE VINES 

FOR SALE I 

Two years old and well rooted. Very low. 
Address EMIL F. HENKENIUS, Bum- 
pass, Loni3a Co.. Va. sep 3t 




Of every kind cheaper than ever. Rifles, 
Shot Guns, Revolvers, Ammunition, Fish- 
ing Tackle, Seines, Nets, Knives, Razors. 
Skates, Hammocks, etc. Large Illustrated 
Catalogue Free. Address 

Great Western Gun Works, 

sep 2t PITTSBURGH, PA. 

F. Stearns' No. 1 Fertilizer 

To the Farmers op Virginia : 

Gentlemen, — We continue to manufacture this 
SUPERIOR FERTILIZER, composed of PURE 
BONE MEAL (partially dissolved) combined with 
FISH GUANO, ANIMAL MATTER, and POTASH 
(muriate). 

We grind the bone and fish ourselves, and can 
vouch for its purity. Nothing can be better for 
TOBACCO and ALL SPRING CROPS, as testified to 
by the best fanners in Virginia, who have used it. 
Price, 940 per ton on board cars in Richmond. 

Our PURE BONE MEAL, ground fine, on hand, 
and for sale at the same price. 

Send in your orders at an early day, as our stock 
will be limited, Address 

STEARNS & HALSET, 
No. 15 Fifteenth street, Richmond, Va. 



Franklin Stearns 
J Morton H 



earns, ) 

ALSEY. J 



sep tf 



T^Z.Z.SRSZ.XE FARM. 

THOROUGHBRED HORSES, 

Shorthorn Cattle, Cotswold Sheep. 

ATM TO BERKSHIRE FIGS 
For Sale. Apply to R. J. HANCOCK 

June ly Overton, Albemarle county, Va. 




jgg^S? 1 ^^?-^ 



Address, TAYLOR MFC. CO. 

IPleaee Mention this Paper.) Chambersburg, Pa, 

my— 6t 

CRAPE VINES! 

Jeffersonj Lady Washington, Pocklington, Del- 
aware, Catawba, Concords. Etc. LOWER 
THAN THE LOWEST. Price list free, with lith- 
ograph cuts of Jefferson and Pocklinfrton. ALL 
STOCK WARRANTED TRUE TO NAME. 

EVERETT BROWN & C0. !!I,! "< 9tat * fl - 



.Yates Co., N. Y. 



au 3t 



not, life is sweeping by, go and dare 
before you die, something mighty 
and sublime leave behind to conquer 
time. S66 a week in your own town. 
No risk. Everything new. Capital 
We will furnish you everything. 
Many a>e making fortunes. Ladies make as much 
as men, and boys and girls make great pay. Reader, 
if you want business at which you can make great 
pay all the time, write for particulars to H. Hal- 
lett & Co , Portland, Maine. janly 



$5 outfit free. 
not required. 



R. L. Christian. 



W.L. White- 



CHRISTIAN & WHITE, 



Here you will find the largest and finest assortment of the finest of 

FAMILY GROCERIES, WINES, LIQUORS, CIGARS, &c* 

South of New York. They are Agents of Hotopp's Celebrated Premium Virginia 
CLARETS, Portuer's TIVOLI LAGER. BEER, and Werner's AMERICAN CHAM- 
PAGNE, and keep always in stock a full line of the leading and most popular brands of 
Table Wines and Imported Champagnes. oct 3t 

AN HONEST OFFE& 

If you are eick or ailing, no matter what your complaint, write to 
cs and we will send you ON TRIAL one of our large ELECTRIC 
MEDICATED PADS to suit your case, provided you agree to 
pay for it if it cures you in one month. If it does not cure you it 
costs you nothing to try it. Different pads to cure Dyspepsia, Rheu- 
matism, Liver and Sidney Diseases;, Files, Lung Diseases, Asthma, Ca- 
tarrh, Lame Back, Agne, and many other diseases. Marvelous cures 
being daily made in cases where all other treatments have failed. 
Prices very low. Remember these are not little medalB, but large 
Pads made of Boots and Herbs, combined with Electricity. We do 
not ask you to buy them blindly, but merely to try them at our risk. 
Book, giving prices and full particulars, free. Address at once 

ELECTRIC PAD MANUF'G CO., 660 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y. 

oct It 





EXPL0S1GK. " 




eturn Flue BOILER. 



ENGINE 



For COTTON GINS, RICE THRESHEKS and PLANTATION MILLS 
has no equal. Economy, Safety and Durability combined. Boiler 
of the best plate and highest tensile strength. Engine the latest 
and best design. Special features patented ; every part perfect. 
All modern improvements. Every ENGINE a model. Fully tested ; 
warranted to give satisfaction or money refunded with 6 per cent, 
interest. Sold direct from first hands, saving customers from two 
to four profits. 

6 H.P $600.00 I 12 H.P $750.00 

8H.P 650.00 I4H.P 800.00 

IOH.P 700.00 1 I6H.P 850.00 

Rice Threshers and Plantation Locomotives at corresponding 
prices. Send for Catalogue No. 10 giving full details. 

Huber Manufacturing Co., Marion, Ohio. 



oct It 




ANDRETH 



PEDIGREE 

SEEDS! 



THE U. S. MAIL BRINCS US TO YOUR DOOR! 

The most extensive Seed Growers in America. Founded 1 78*. Drop us a Postal Card 
for our PIUCKD CATALOGUE. Address simply LANDKETH, PHILADELPHIA. 



An English Veterinary Surgeon and Chemist, 
now traveling in this country, says that most 
of the Horse and Cattle Powders sold here 
are worthless trash. He says that Sheridan's 
Condition Powders are absolutely pure and 
Immensely valuable. Nothing on earth will make hens lay like Sheridan's Condition Powders. Dose, 1 teasp'n- 
(Blto 1 pint food. Sold everywhere, or sent by mail for 8 letter-stamps. I. S. Johnson & Co., Boston, Mass. 

delyeot 



MAKE HENS LAY 



L ,.„,,^, 1 . M ^..~~,~.™„x.^..«^t^«.w« 




We continue to 
fc as solicitors for 
patents, caveats, 
trade-marks, copyrights, etc., for 
the United States, and to obtain pat- 
ents in Canada, England, France, 
Germany, and all other countries. 
Thirty-stx years' practice. No 
charge for examination of models or draw- 
ings. Advice by mail free. 

Patents obtained through us are noticed in 
the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, which has 
the largest circulation, and is the most influ- 
ential newspaper of its kind published in the 
world. The advantages of such a notice every 
patentee understands. 

This large and splendidlv illustrated news- 
paper is published WEEKLY at $3.20 a year, 
and is admitted to be the best paper devoted 
to science, mechanics, inventions, engineering 
works, and other departments of industrial 
progress, published in any country. Single 
copies by mail, 10 cents. Sold by'all news- 
dealers. 

Address, Munn & Co., publishers of Scien- 
tific American, 261 Broadway, New York. 
Handbook about patents mailed free. 





D ffKRIUiTS' HA VTt tTOTTuN PRESSES, 

are sent anywhere on. trial to operate 'against all 
other Presses, the custom- 
er keeping the one th^t 
suits best. No onebasever 
dared show tip any other 
Press, as Ledencks Press 
• Is known to be beyond 
.competition, and will bale 
, with twice the rapidity of 
'any other. The only way 
1 Inferior machines can be 
Isold la to deceive the In- 
experienced by ridiculously 
t. lse statements, and thus 
sell without sightor seeing, 
and swindle the purchaser. 
[Working any other Press 
j alongside of Dederick's al- 
iways sells the purchaser a 
jDederick Press, and all 
'know It too well to show 
up. Address for circular and location of Western 
and Southern storehouses and Agents. 

P. X. DEDEBICK & CO., Albany, NT. 



JERSEY RED PIGS 

From largest herd South, which took eight 
premiums and r/reat sweepstakes as finest 
herd in Virginia at State Fairs, 188i-'82. 
This hog is free from disease, a natural 
grazier, prolific and early to mature, and 
in the Western markets brings a higher 
price than anv other breed. 

T. LOVELOCK, 
mb. ly Gordonsville, Va. 



SedgwIckSteel Wire Fence 




Ib the only general purpose Wire Fence in use, being a 
Jtrong Net-Work Without Barbs. It will turn dogs, pigs 
sheep, and poultry, as well as the most vicious stock 



8trong Net-Work Without Barbs. It will turn dogs, pigs, 
sheep, and poultry, as well as the most vicious stock, 
without injury to either fenoe or stock. ltisjustthefence> 



for farms, gardens, stock ranges and railroads, and very 
neat for lawns, parks, school lots and cemeteries. Covered 
with rust-proof paint (or gal van ized) it will laBt a life-time. 
It is Superior to Boards or Barbed Wire in every respect. 
We ask for it a fair trial, knowing it will wear itself 
into favor. The Sedgrwiclf Gatei, made of wrought- 
iron pipe and steel wire, defy all competitionin neatness, 
Itrength and durability. We also make the best, and 
Cheapest All Iron Automatic or Self-Opening Gate, also 
Cheapest and Neatest All Iron Fence. Best Wire 
Stretcher and I*omI Auger. Also manufac- 
ture Russell's excellent Wind Engines for 
pumping water, or geared engines for grinding 
and other light work. For prices and particulars ask 
hardware dealers, or address, mentioning paper, 
SEDGWICK 11KOS. Ml 'is. Bicbmond, lnd 
p ly 

A "JJ fk a week made at home by the industrious. 
^L I I Best fwsiness now before the public. 
.(* I I Capital not needed. \V'<- will staityou. 
W I Mm Hen, women, boys ai d girls wanted 
everywhere to work for iu. Now is t .e time. You 
can work in spare time, or you can give your whole 
time to the business. No other business will pay 
you nearly as well. No one can fail to make enor- 
mous pay, by engaging at once. Costly outfit afrid 
terms tree. Money made fast, easily and honorably. 
Address True & Co . Augusta. Me. janly 




Dana's White Metallic Ear Marking Label, stamped 
to order with name, or name and address and num- 
bers. It is reliable, cheap and convenient. Sells at 
sight and gives perfect satisfaction. Illustrated 
Price-List and samples free. Agents wanted. 

C. H. DANA, West Lebanon, N. H. 
de 

SOUTHERN M'CLI MATED REGIS- 
TERED .1? R>F.YS for sale at fair prices. 
Eight registered Jersey cows, from 4 to 8 vears old, 
bred to choice registered bulls. Also imported bull 
Jersey Express No. 5771 ; solid clor, black points; 
dropped December 20th, 1879: and several registered 
bull calves, from fi to 9 months old, two from im- 
ported sire and dams, and both solid, fancy colors. 
Also. Pi purr,- bred unregistered Jersey heifers, from fi 
to 16 months old. all from good butter stock. Ad- 
dress ROWE'S CO-OPERATIVE STOCK FARM, 
Fredericksburg, Va. jantf 



THIS ^TETW 

EIA.STIC TRUSS 

I Has a Pad differing from -il 1 others, 
V Is cup shape, with Self- Adjusting 
I Bail ia center, adapts! tself to all 
' poeitions of the body, while the 
Ballm thecnppresBes baektha 
Id tODtineeJnairiooporBOD would 
with the Finger* With light 
pressure the Hernia la held securely 
Bayand night, and a radical care certain, itla easy, durable 
Hid cheap. Sent by mail. Circulars free. 

EGGLESTOK TBU6S CO.* CUcaeo. Ill 

fely 





AND 

HIGHEST AWARD 



STEAM' ENGINES, 

A.B.FARQDHABJork.Pa. 
Cheapest and best for all . 
poses — simple^ strong, and 
rable. Also Horse Pow 
ers and Gin Gear. 

Saw, Grist and Cob 
Mills, Gins, Presses 
akdMachhtert gener- 
ally. Inquiriesprornptiy 
answered. 



OF HBRiT 

CENTENNIAL. 

Bend for Catalogue, 

SAWMILLS 




•h M. VerticalEngines.wlth orwithouts. S* n 

H .. 'iff iviwmlti (rami ._>j-iti it.-i»iJ_ _ ^*. "^ ^* © 




wheels, very conveni- 
ent, economical and 
' complete in every de- 
' tail, best and 
cheapest vert- 
ical in the 
world. Pig. 

1 is engine 
in Ti sa. Fig. 

2 ready for 
road. 



The Farquhar Separator 

{Warranted) 





AND 

AWAB2"B 



sep ly 



TMS 

SILVER 1IXSAI. 

AT 

Paris Exposition. 

r atalopue. A ddresa A. 25. Farquhar, York, P* 



26.999 NOW IN USE. 




All persons say their goods are the best. We ask you to exam- 
ine our Improved Keller Positive Force Feed, Grain, 
Seed and Fertilizing Drill and our Hay Kaken. They 
are as good as the best, and can be sold as cheap. All are war- 
ranted? Circulars mailed free. Newark Machine Co-r 
Newark, OhlO. Eastern Branch House, Hngentown, Bid 

"W. N. STAGE, 
General Southern Traveling Agent, 
jy 4t Louisville, Ky. 

J±. T. BTTIFtTVS 

STANDARD 

CARRIAGE REPOSITORY 

1505 Fkanki.iv Stkeet. 

Custom-made work. Buggies, l'hmtous, Carriages 
and Farm Wagons at wholesale faclory prices. All 
work warranted. ap ly 



R UILDING M ANILLA 

)t material resembles tine leather, is used 



WATER 
PROOF . 

This water-proof 

for roofs*, outside walls of buildings 



MANHOOD 





side in place 



of plaster. Catalogue & III M riUOpn Camden, 
eampleafree.(Eatab.l866)W.n.rflI « bill !»•'• 



KNOW THYSELF,, 

A BOOK FOR EVERY MAN. 
YOUNG, MIDDLE-AGED AND OLD. 

The untold miseries that result from in- 
discretion in early life ma r be alleviated 
and cured. Those who doubt this asser- 
tion should purchase ar.d read the new 
medical work published by the Peabody 
Medical Institute, Boston, entitled the 
Science of Life : or, Self Preserva- 
tion. It is not only a complete and per- 
fect treatise on Manhood, Exhausted Vi- 
tality, Nervous and Physical Debility, Pre- 
mature Decline in man, Errors of Youth, 
etc., but it contains one hundred and twen- 
ty-five prescriptions for acute and chronic 
diseases, each one of which is inval- 
uable, so proved by the author, whose ex- 
perience for twenty-one years is such as 
probably never before fell to the lot of any 
physician. It contains 300 pages, bound 
in beautiful embossed covers, full gilt, em- 
bellished with the very finest steel engrav- 
ings, guaranteed to be a fitter work in every 
sense— mechanical, literary or profession- 
al — than any other work retailed in this 
country for $2.50, or the money will be re- 
funded. Price, only $1.25 by mail. Gold 
Medal awarded the author by the National 
Medical Association. Illustrated sample 
sent on receipt of six cents. Send now. 

Address PEABODY MEDICAL IN- 
STITUTE, or Dr. W. H. PARKER, No. 
4 Bulfinch street, Boston, Mass. The au- 
thor may be consulted on all diseases re- 
quiring skill and experience. ja ly 

THOROUGHBRED 

SHORTHORN CATTLE. 

MERINO SHEEP and BERKSHIRE 
PIGS. Bred and for sale, at moderate 
prices, by S. S. BRADFORD, 

ja 1 — ly Culpeper,Va. 

II 1 1 1% f ' " '"l 1 ' 1 ' ;l " ' always on the lookout for 
■Mf I V* L chances to increase their earnings, 
HH I «\ r and in time become wealthy; those 
WW IvLi who do not improve their opportu- 
nities remain in poverty. We offer a great chance 
to make money. We want many men, women, boys 
and girls to work for us right in their own localities. 
Any one can do the work properly from the first 
start. The busin/ss will pay more than ten times 
ordinary wages. Expensive outfit furnished free. 
No one who engages fails t o make money rapidly 
You can devote your whole time to the work, or only 
your spare moments. Full information and all'that 
is needed sent free. Address Stinson & Co., Port- 
land, Maine. janly 



...... .^..nmytfrmi"'"""" 



tmmmaam 



IT CURES Lfr*^^^ l ^fasC , 

SPAT1XS, SPLINTS, CURBS, RIXG-BOSiES 




AND 

All Similar Blemishes, 

And Removes the Bunch Without Blistering. 

For man it is now known to be ONE OF THE BEST, if not THE BEST LINIMENT 
EVER DISCOVERED. 

The most successful remedy ever discovered, as it is certain in its effects, and does not 
blister. Also excellent for human flesh. Read proof below : 

[From the Akron Commercial. Ohio, of November 25th, 1882.] 

Readers of the Commercial cannot well forget that a large space has for years been taken up by Kendall's 
advertisements — especially of a certain Spavin Cure. We have had dealings with Dr. Kendall for many 
years, and we know of some large business houses in cities near by, who have also dealt with him for many 
years, and the truth is fully and faithfully proven, not only that he is a good honest man, and that his cele- 
brated Spavin Cure is not only all that it is recommended to be, but that the English language is not capable 
of recommending it too highly. 

Kendall's Spavin Cure will cure spavins. There are hundreds of cases in which that has been proven to 
our certain knowledge, but, after all, if any person confines the usefulness of this celebrated medicine to 
curing spavins alone, they make a big mistake. It is the best medicine known as an outward application 
for rheumatism in the human family. It is good for pains and aches, swellings and lameness, and is just as 
safely applied to men, women and children as it is to horses. We know that there are other good liniments, 
but we do believe this Spavin Cure to be far better than any ever invented. 

Send address for Illustrated Circular which, we think, gives positive proof of its 
virtues. No remedy has ever met with such unqualified success to our knowledge, for 
beasts as well as man. 

Price, -SI per bottle, or six bottles. All druggists have or can get it for you, or it 
will be sent to any address, on receipt of price, by the proprietors. 

Dr. B. J. KENDALL & CO., Enosburgh Palls, Vermont. 
Franklin Davis. Edward H. Bissell. 

RICHMOND NURSERIES. 
FRANKLIN DAVIS f£ GO. 

400 Acres in Nursery Stock ! 100 in Orctiarfis ! 100 in Small Fruits ! 

We offer to our customers an immense stock 06 APPLES, PEACHES, CHERRIES, 
APRICOTS, GRAPES, &c— all the standard sorts. Also, the new varieties of FRUITS, 
ORNAMENTAL TREES, SHRUBS, ROSES, &c, Wholesale and Retail. To dealers 
we can offer stock on favorable terms, and the best facilities for packing and shipping. 
Catalogues mailed on application. 

FRANKLIN DAVIS & CO., 

sep 6t Office : 1013 Main St., RICHMOND, VA. 

BECKWITH'S ANTI-DYSPEPTIC PILLS 

The best and most reliable Anti- Dyspeptic Medicine ever offered to the Public. 

For more than seventy years this medicine has maintained its high reputation. No 
remedy wa° ever offered to the public sustained by such forcible certificates of wonderful 
remedial properties. Presidents of the United States, Judges of the Supreme Court, 
Governors of States, United States Senators and Physicians of the highest standing are 
among those who attest their value from personal tests. 

E. R. Beckwith, Pharmacist, now manufactures these invaluable pills from the Origi- 
nal Recipe of his grandfather, Dr. John Beckwith. 

40 I»ills in a Box-Price, 25 Cents. 

Sufferers from DISORDERED STOMACH or DERANGED LIVER, with their at- 
tendant complications, will find relief from these pills. Sold by Druggists Generally. 

E. R. BECKWITH, Pharmacist. 

fe tf Cor. Market and Halifax Sts., Petersburg, Va. 



MOSES & CLEMONS, 

MANUFACTURERS AND DEALERS IN 

BONE FERTILIZERS. 



IB IR. JUNTOS. 
Baldwin & Co's American Dissolved Bones— For Tobacco. 
Baldwin & Co's Bone Compound— For Wheat, Corn and Cotton. 
Baldwin & Co's Georgia Grange Dissolved Bone, with Potash. 
Avalon American Dissolved Bones. 
Avalon Dissolved Bones. 
Also, PURE BONE MEAL. 

These goods are of the very highest grade, and are recommended with entire 
confidence to consumers. Circulars will be mailed to parties seeking informa- 



tion, on application. 



P. O. Box 126. 



MOSES & CLEMONS, 

[8ep3t] Shocke Slip, Richmond, Va. 



G. F. HA WES 

(Successor to MILLER & 

SOUTHERN 











CIRCULAR ASD OTHER SAWS, MACHINERY, EDGE TOOLS, 

TOBACCO, STRAW-CUTTER, BOOK-BINDING, PLANER AND 

OTHER KNIVES. 

1426 and 1428 Cary St., Richmond, Va. 



Burnt Saws Repaired. 

eep2t 



Special Attention to Repairs of all Kinds. 



Coleman's Patent Harness. 

(Patented April 2, 1878.) 
JOHN TRIBBLE, 812 east Broad Street, General Sales Agent. 
FINNEY & CO., Manufacturers and Proprietors of the Patent Right for Virginia. 




SAVES HARNESS ! 



SAVES TRACES ! 



SAVES GROUND 



SAVES TIME ! SAVES LABOR ! SAVES MONEY ! 

More work can be done with this Harness than any other, and with greater ease to the team, as it permits 
them to be placed nearer the load, thereby requiring less power to move it. There being no whiffletrees or 
traces to load down the plow-beam, no counter-balancing pressure on the handles is required. This prevents 
friction on the bottom of the plow, and causes it to run much lighter. It touches the team only on the 
shoulders, rendering it impossible to chafe on the sides, legs, &c. Its durability, simplicity, and scientific 
perfection is unequaled. Orchards can be ploughed without bruising the trees. Ploughing among stumps 
becomes easy. For Gins, Threshers, Lead of Wagons, Horse Cars, &c, it can be used to advantage. 



Bted Faem, Va., May 3, 1883. 
This is to certify that we have tried Mr. John 
Trible's fColeman's Patent) Harness, and are well 
pleased with it ; so much so we expect to use it. 
3fo. M. Butleb, W. P. Bowles, W. S. Bowles. 
Elk Island, Va., May 3, 1883. 
This is to certify that we have tried Mr. Trible's 
("Coleman's Patent) Harness, and are very much 
pleaded with it. so that we have ordered a set. Will 
be pleased to exhibit it to anyone interested in it. 
Very respectfully, 

W. L. Waring Son & Co., 
Joseph Hobson, W. W. Hobson. 

Elmiba. If . Y., January 1st, 1881. 
Mr. A. G. Coleman, Charleston, S. C. : 

Dear Sir, — A committee appointed by the Farmer's 
Club of this place report, that having witnessed the 
operation of Coleman's Patent Harness, find it ad- 
mirably adapted for ploughing and all uses where 
whiffletreeo are an incumbrance. 
A. D. Mills, Geo. S. McCann, Ezba Rockwell, 
Geo. E. Haeeis, D. T. Billings, Committee. 
Very respectfully yours, 

W. A. A emstkonq, Secretary. 



Heneico Co. 
Messrs. Finney & Co., 812 E. Broad St. : 

Dear Sirs, — It gives me pleasure to state that the 
Coleman Patent Harness purchased of you has given 
entire satisfaction. I think it all you claim for it. 
Waeing Lewis. 

In endorsing the above I will say that I have used 
the Harness in my orchard, plowing close to the 
trees without rubbiDg them. 

J. J. Hawkes. 

Charleston, S. C, April 18, 1881. 
I have used Coleman's Patent Harness all the win- 
ter on my mules, ginning at my plantation in 
Orangeburg county, and the more I use it the better 
I like it. Two mules with this harness work my 
Gin with as much ease as three did with the ordi- 
nary harness, and with much more comfort, asitdoes 
not rub nor chafe them at all. I have also used it to 
my double plow, and cannot imagine anything equal 
to it. It is certainly the greatest improvement in 
the harness line I have ever seen. 

Paul S. Feldeb, 
Agent of the State Grange of So. Ua. 




Are you DEAF? 

I1PIIH1 

Premium Chester White, 
Berkshire and f oland China 
J^igs, Fine Setter Dogs 
Scotch Shepherds and Fox 
Hounds, bred and for sale 

fe ly 

Angelo Pearl Painting! 

A WONDERFUL 

TRIUMPH OF ART T 

ar? and l nv°[ t ery ° f ? reat im PO»ancetofhe world 01 

An^elo Portrait Co,, 

myly DETROIT, MICH 



$1000 REWARD 

or anj machine huUI M and .l^",,' 7."^ 
« Seed in one 

iVICTOf 



For anj machine hulling and <,!,, 

market as much Clover ji™ "f. "* flt for 




ILLUSTRATED 
Pamphlet mailed FREE. — » 

NEWARK MACHINE CO. 
NEWARK. O. 

W. N. STAGE, 
General Southern Traveling Agent, 
Louisville, Ky 



CHESAPEAKE AM OHIO RAILWAY 

Opened through the beautiful BLUE 
and fW eg T <* K «»t.ncky to Louisville 
with T!' C^nec^g 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- 
viae and Cincinnati without change 

SHORTEST & MOST DIRECT ROUTE 

Avoidant H Dly r ° Ute - without transfers, 
Avoid ng the uncertainty by other routes 
ot making connections. 

For rates and full information, call on 
addrTsr^ CheSa P eake aad °ni° agent, or 

C W. Smith, H . W. Fuller, 

Gen I Manager. Gen ' I Pass'r Agent. 

BEX, 3VE O 1ST 1" 

Stock & Stud Farm. 

TvoTnTl . t0 , b f reed , ^oroughbred, Riding, 
trotting Light and Heavy Draft Horse! 

Ullf T l - QS °! Sh °"horn Cattle and 
Berkshire Swine for sale at prices and 

TlT t0 t n dUCe Sal6S ^^outTock ying 
Those stallions not sold early in the vefr 
may be farmed on sound business terms ; to 
suit clubs, individuals and patrons 

xt S. W. FICKLIN, 
jan N ear Charlottesville, Va. 



Wmwi 



^UViiLOCK Secretary Piedmont Sheen 

DR. HENRY FRIHUNg! 

ANALYTICAL & CONSULTING CHEMIST 

Laboratory: 17 South Twelfth Street, 
RICHMOND, VA. 




r EUREKA.* 

Is the Standard Incubator the world over 
Made by J. L. CAMPBELL, West Eliza- 
beth, Allegheny Co., Penn. j e iy 



$^=»FOR THE WHEAT AND GRASS CROPS- 

A line of Goods full enough to meet every shade of demand. 

The Southern Fertilizing Go. 

R,iGP3:3^03srr> 3 -vj±. 

Offer for the Fall Trade the following Standard Fertilizers: 

"Anchor<4K Brand " 

I COMPLETE ^J^r WHEAT FERTILIZER. 

■ Efltirrco 

Dissolved South Carolina Bone. 

D ^1F> D " Flour South Carolina Bone and Potash Mixture. 

^^ PATENTED. 

FLOUR SOUTH CAROLINA BONE. 

The Company has representatives at all points of importance in the Wheat country, 
who will furnish these goods at bottom figures. au £ 3t 



ESTABLISHED IN 1870. 



STONO-PHOSPHATE COMPANY, 

CHARLESTON, S. O- 



WE OFFER TO THE PLANTERS 





II 





GROUND TO A POWDER AS FINE AS WHEAT FLOUR- 

"PHOSPHATE FLOATS," 

FOR APPLICATION TO 

GRAIN, GRASSES, AND FOR COMPOSTING. 

The Rock is subjected to FREQUENT ANALYSIS by the Company's Chemist, 
and is of the BEST QUALITY. 

For TERMS, etc., address the Company. 

SAMPLE sent by mail upon application. 
del2m 



ASHLEY PHOSPHATE GO. 

"CHARLESTON - , S. O.:: 



SOLUBLE GUANO— Highly Ammoniated. 

DISSOLVED BONE— Very High Grade. 

ACID PHOSPHATE— For Composting. 

ASH ELEMENT— For Cotton, Wheat, Peas, &c. 

FLOATS — Phosphate Rock, reduced to an Impalpable Powder by the Due 
Atomizer, of Highest Grade. SAMPLE sent on application. 

SMALL-GRAIN SPECIFIC— Rich in Ammonia, Phosphoric Acid, 
Potash, Magnesia and Soda. 

GENUINE LEOPOLDSHALL KAINIT. 

The above FERTILIZERS are of very high grade, as shown by the Official Reports 
of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. 

For Terms, Hand-Books, Agricultural Primers, and good Articles on Floats, Peas and 
Ash Element, Kainit, &c, address the 

ASHLEY PHOSPHATE COMPANY, 

N. B. — Special inducements for Cash Orders. [6mjy] 

Established 1865. Standard Guaranteed. 

ALLISON «£ ADDISON, 

MANUFACTURERS X)F 




"STAR BRAND" SPECIAL COMPLETE MANURES 

FOR EACH OF THE FOLLOWING CROPS: 

TOBACCO, WHEAT, COTTON, CORN, OATS, VEGETABLES AND GBASS, 

Pure Flour of Raw Bone, Acid Phosphate, Ground Phosphate Rock, Sulphuric Acid. 

— DEALERS IN — 

German Kainit or Potash, Nitrate of Soda, Plaster, &c. 

OFFICE— J 322 Cary Street. ■> QIAM Bfl f\ MM f% \# A 

FACTORY— Opposite Hocketts, J tviWrl IVI W IH Up W Mb 

• All orders and communications 'promptly attended to. fe tf 



uMtuummim 



mmmiMimgmMimmmmmMMMSIMiMM 



The Session begins on the FIRST OF OCTOBER, and continues until the Thursday 
before the fourth day of July ensuing. 

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, 

ENaiNEEILIN& AND AGRICULTURE. 

THE EXPENSES of the student (except such as enter the practical laboratories) ex- 
clusive of the cost of text-books, clothing and pocket money, a e from $356 to $391, ac- 
cording 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 W. A. Winston, Secretary, P. 0. University of Virginia, Al- 
bemarle county, Va. JAMES F. HARRISON, M. D., Chairman of the Faculty. 

seply 

T.J.WOOLDRIDGE.M.D. 

French Hay, Hanover Co., Va., 

BREEDER OF PURE 

Essex Pigs 

AXD 

CHOICE POULTRY. 

Has for sale a very fine collection of WHITE LEGHORNS and BLACK-BREASTED 
RED GAME CHICKENS and WHITE HOLLAND TURKEYS of last Spring's hatch, 
which will be sold on very reasonable terms if ordered at an early day. au 4t 

H. A. S. HAMILTON, 

Fishersville, Augusta County, Va., 

Breeder and Shipper of pure 

Cotswold & Southdown 

SHEEP. 

Stock of both breeds for sale. 
Write for Description and Prices. 

Til V— fit 





GRAPE 



pocklington,duch- 
ess, lady washing- 
ton, yergenses, 
moore's early, jef- 
ferson, early vic- 
tor, brighton. 



Ala* other Small Fraita.and all older'Tarie- 
ties Grapes, Eztraqaality. Warranted true. 
Cheap by mail. Loir Rate« to Dealers. 

au 9t 



VINES 



«« t AI"ra ^^ LARGEST STOCK In AMERICA. 
[>■»* JPT g,fl| I ^^ jPricearediiced^rUuB.Catalogueyra!. 



' T. 8. HUBBARD, Fredonla, 2*. Y. 




ATLAS mm 



WORKS 

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., U. S. A. 

MANUEACTtTBKBS OF 

STEAM ENGINES 

and BOILERS. 

CARRY ENGINESand BOILERS IN STOCKfor IMMEDIATE DELIVERY 




•ll 



DTTVA.L & JS OilTON'S 

Celebrated Horse Tonic, 

For improving the condition of Horses, Mules, Cattle and Hogs, giving them an appe- 
tite and relieving them of Bots and Worms, Hidebound Surfeit and Distemper, and all 
diseases to which a horse is subject internally. It is a certain cure for Hog Cholera 
given in half teaspoonful doses twice a day well mixed in the feed. From a large num- 
ber of certificates, we select the following : 

Mr. E. P. Reeves: Richmond, Va. 

Dear Sir, — I have be*>n using your Duval & Norton's Horse Tonic for the last eighteen 
months, and find it the best medicine I have ever used for improving the general health 
and appetite of horses in bad condition. Respectfully, 

RO. VAUGHAN, Manager Richmond City Railway Stables. 



HOG CHOLERA. 

The "Horse Tonic" is a certain remedy for the above dangerous disease — the proprie- 
tor will warrant it to cure. Read the following : 
Mb. J. P. Duval : Chesterfield Co. 

Dear Sir, — I take pleasure in saying that I have made a most valuable discovery — it is 
this : that your Horse Tonic will certainly cure the fatal disease called Hog Cholera. 
Last month, finding that I had about a half bottle of your " Horse Tonic" left on hand, 
I thought I would try it ; and I did not lose one of my hogs after I commenced the use 
of it ; but before I began with the tonic, I bad lost eight or ten ; and I think I should 
have lost nearly all of them if I had not used your very valuable remedy. 

Very respectfully, JNO. B. LIPSCOMB. 

The excellence of this medicine is testified to by numerous gentlemen of standing, 
amongst them Prof. Ben. S. Ewell, of Williamsburg, Va. ; Thomas W. Turner, Franklin 
Street Stables, Richmond; Col. Wm. Watts, of Big Lick, Roanoke county, Va. 

Prepared only by E. P. REEVE, 602 E. Marshall Street, Richmond, Va. 

seply 

VIRGINIA AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL 




(iQ3Wk 




THE ELEVENTH SESSION BEGINS SEPT. 6th. 

200 State Students Fay No Tuition. Necessary Expenses for 10 Montis, $132. 

Apply to your County Superintendent of Schools, or address 

T. N. CONRAD, President, 
se P 3t BLACKSBURG, VA. 



S&Wl f S 



HftllSIIl 



f 



•W"-A.si2i:N"C3-To:ixr. id. a. 



The undersigned offera a fine stock of the following: New Pears, New Peaches, New Cherries, New 
Grapes, New Strawberries, &c, Fruit Trees of all kinds. 

An extensive stock, viz. : Plums, Cherries, Apricots, Apples, suitable to the South, &c, Grape Vines, 
Strawberries, Raspberries, &c., new sorts Evergreens, New Ornamental Trees, New Shrubs, &c, Small sizes, 
suitable for Nurserymen, as well as large stock in great variety. 

DUTCH BULBS — Large importations direct from the leading growers in Holland. First quality Bulbs, 
Hyacinths, Lilies, Tulips, &c. New and rare Greenhouse Plants, Winter Blooming Plants. 

NEW ROSES— Bennett's Hybrid Teas, Queen of Bedders, New French and English Roses, &c. 

Jt3~ Everything at low rates. Catalogues mailed to applicants. 



sep 2t 



JOHN SAUL,' Washington, D. C. 



uuMMHmmmmmmmmmmw 



Automatic Gate Latch. 

The watchwords of success and the leading fea- 
tures of this popular latch are — 

1st. SIMPLICITY— because of the absence of 
pxtixets, wires, sPKrNGS, or other attachments lia- 
ble to get out of order. 

2d. DURABILITY— since it is made of mallea- 
ble iron. 

3d. EASE OF MOVEMENT— to fully understand 
which, it is only to be contrasted with the worry 
and annoyance due to an effort to disengage a 
■wooden latch made tight either by the "swelling " 
of the wet timber, or vhe sagging of the gate, or both. 

(A five-year child can always unlock this 

LATCH.) 

4th. UNIVERSAL ADAPTIVENESS to either 
side of any gate, and to the sagging of the gate. 

5th. SECURITY against stock depredation, 
which is absolute and positive when instructions 
are followed. 

6th. CERTAINTY OF LOCKI>G— this is the 
combined result of its automatic action together 
with the absence of friction and the protection 
against the freezing up of the catch-plate. 

7th. CHEAPNESS, which is estimated upon the 
basis of the foregoing claims ; all of which have 
been sustained wherever used. 
l^g^A liberal discount on all sales of four and over. 

Especially remunerative terms to Agents. 
READ THE FOLLOWING : 

Bear Sirs, — Please find check for the five Automatic 
Gate Latches. I have now had some of them in use 
on my farm for three or four weeks, and am very 
much pleased with them. In my opinion they are 
everything you claim for them. I don't think they 
can be improved upon. It seems to me to be a per- 
fect gate latch. (Signed) 

Boydton, Va. June 25, 1883. Geo. B. Finch. 



I have two of your Automatic Gate Latches in use. 
They are doing well. Their cheapness and sim- 
plicity ought to do away with most others in use. 
(Signed), S. W. Ficklin. 

Belmont, Va., Sept. 6th, 1883. 

For Circular and Price-List, address 



AUTOMATIC GATE LATCH COMPANY, 

oct3t 1422 Main St., Richmond, Va. 

0. M. MILLEU, 

408 E. Marshall Street, Richmond, Va. 
All kinds of SEWIJNG MACHINERY 
repaired. Needles and Attachments, &c, 
for sale. oct 3t 

ROBERTS, DURNALL & HICKS, 
STOCK FARMS 

Near WEST CHESTER, Chester Co., Pa. 

Dutch Friesian Cattle 

^NORMANllflDOrO 
PERCHERONnUnotO 

Desire to call the attention of gentlemen and 
dealers to their stock as above, confident that 
they have as fine lots as have been brought to 
this country, all having been selected by a mem- 
ber of our firm in person, who visited the best 
herds in Holland ; and under the guidance of one 
of the most experienced horsemen in France made 
selections from the best horses in Normandy. 
Write for Catalogue . and any information to 
JOHN H. HICKS, Box 684, West Chester, Pa. 

oct3t 



• WILSON JUNIOR PEDIGREE • 

BLACKBERRY 

The largest, best and 

most productive Early 
Blackberry, 3J£ inches 
around, from seed of se- 
lected WIlson'sEarly. 

KIEFFER HYBRID 

PEAR TREES 

800,000 
PEACH TREES 




111 

lid 



Strawberries, 
Raspberries, 

;rapes,&c.,&c. 



I! 



Catalogue with' rnrr 
Colored Plates r II LX 

WM. PARRY, 

PARRY P.O., No J. 








BEAUTIFUL 

Catalogue 
FREE1 

oct It 



^BLLEONS 
OF THEM 

For FLORISTS and 
AMATEURS. 

Dutch Bulbs, Jaran 
Bulbs, French Bulbs, 
American Bulbs. Also 
Plants for Greenhouses 
and Window Gardens, 

HIRAM SIBLEY & CO. 

SEEDSMEN, 

Bochester, N.Y. & Chicago, Hh 



CONSUMPTION CURED. 

An old physician, retired from practice, having 
had placed in his hands by an East India missionary 
the -formula of a simple vegetable remedy for the 
speedy and permanent cure of Consumption, Bron- 
chitis, Catarrh, Asthma, and all Throat and Lung 
Affections, also a positive and radical cure for Ner- 
vous Debility and all Nervous Complaints, after hav- 
ing tested its wonderful curative powers in thousands 
of cases, has felt it his duty to make it known to his 
suffering fellows. Actuated by this motive, and a 
desire to relieve human suffering, I will send free of 
charge, to all who desire it, this recipe, in German, 
French, or English, with full directions for prepar- 
ing and using. Sent by mail by addressing with 
stamp, naming this paper, W. A. Noyes, 149 Power's 
Block, Rochester, N. Y. oct 9t 

Dr GEORGE B. STEEL, 



723 Main Street, Richmond, Va. 
Chas. L. Steel, M. D., D. D. S., Assistant. 
oct It 



G 



& Return to us with Till 

CTS. <Ssyo>i'U get by mail 

A GOLDEN BOX OF GOODS 

Month, 

than anything else In America. Absdlut^ertainty. 

Heed no capital. 1L Young,173Greenwich St N. York. 



ut This Out 



CnaTwflTCring you in MORE MONEY, In One 

than anything else In America. Absoluteijei 



oct6t 



VXHOIIVIA 



Agricultural & Mechanical 
'Colfog© Farm, 

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA. 



Shorthorn Bull Calves For Sale- 
pedigree guaranteed — price, $75.00. 

Southdown Buck Lambs For Sale 
— pure blood — price, $15.00. 

Berkshire and Jersey Red Pigs 

For Sale — pure blood — price, $10 a pair. 

China Geese, - - - $ 5 00 a pair. 



Pekin Ducks, 


- 


3 00 per trio. 


Bronze Turkeys, - 


- 


10 00 " 


Plymouth Rock Chickens, 


3 00 " 


Pure Game Chickens, 


- 


5 00 " 


English Dorking Chick 


ens 


, 3 00 " 


Address, 






THOS. 


N. 


CONRAD. 


oct St 




Blacksburg, Va. 



A LARGE LOT VV 



TO BE SOLD CHEAP FOR CASH TO CLEAN 
OUT A STOCK. 

3 Horse Power' Engine on Upright Boiler, $200.00 

240.00 
" • " 300.00 

" 364.00 

" 406 00 

542.00 
" " 585.00 

6 Horse Power Engine on Locomotive Boiler, 42S.00 
" " 533.00 

" " 668.00 

735.00 
Send for Catalogue. 

THE BIGELOW COMPANY, 
oct It New Haven, Conn. 

i ATENTS obtained " 



F patentability of invention; 
.and cost^ of obtaining- a 



OOOI> and VAUI) Patent, L 

I Send Model or Sketch with full description, advan- 
| tag-ee, etc. Labels and Trade-Marlat registered. 

EJECTED CASES Please address 

W. E. WITHERBEE, 

(Patent Attorney,) Box 334,Wasuin«ton,D.C: 



lep 2t 




vvcwiu send you a watch or a cbam 
BY MAIL OR EXPRESS, CO D., to be 
examined before paying any money 
and If not satisfactory, returned at 
our expense. We manufacture all 
our watches and 6ave you 30 per 
cent. Catalogue of 250 styles free. 
Every Watch Wakkantkd. Address 

STANDARD AMERICAN WATCH CO., 

PITTSbURUII, I'A. 



oct ly 



DIXIE SHIRTS! 

"AOME" DEJLW21M 

FINE DRESS SHIRTS a specialty. 

UNDERWEAR of all kinds ready made 
or to measure at short notice. Write for 
prices and printed blanks for self-measure- 
ment. We employ the most experienced 
cutters and skilled operators. We use the 
most improved steam machinery in our 
factory. 

We guarantee the quality and fit of every 
garment that goes from our factory. Cor- 
respondence solicited. 

H. T. MILLER & CO., 

MANUFACTURERS, 

Cor. Ninth and Main Sts^RicinondJa. 

[oct ly] 



SAMPLE COPIES 



%JC XXLEi 

"SOUTHHWEST" 

The Leading Agricultural Paper of the 

Mississippi Valley. A Journal which 

should be in every family. 

ONLY FIFTY CENTS A YEAR. 

TO CLUB RAISERS. 

Send for our special offer to workers. 
The most liberal and satisfactory offer ever 
made for getting subscribers. 

Address "SOUTH & WEST, 

oct tf St. Louis, Mo. 

O. F. JOHNSTON, 

Music and Music Dealer 

918 Main Street, Richmond, Va. 

Pianos, Organs, and Musical Instruments 
of all kinds. 

Books, Stationery, Sheet Music, &c, &c. 
Subscriptions received to all publications 
at office rates. Send for Catalogue of 5- 
cent Music. oct It 



' ..........»a«..»..~..H«fllW.HtllumiltiM 



*J 



ft£ 



MANUFACTURERS AND DEALERS IN 



AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY AND IMPLEMENTS. 

THRESHING MACHINERY for Horse or Steam Power. 
HAY AND COTTON PRESSES FOR HAND OR POWER. 

The Celebrated P. K. r>eclericli's Patent 

Perpetual^ 

Hay 

P T6SS. 

We also keep in stock and can furnish promptly the INGERSOL CHAIN AND BAB 
PRESSES. ^ _ . . . «. 

GRAIN AND GUANO DRILLS. 

BICKFORD ^ *§t Sows perfectly 

CORN, 

HUFFMAN % ^F'^S^^^^^^^ PBAS ' 

GRAIN ^MJlM 1553 Wx Small Grain, 

AND 

GUANO 
DRILL! 





*' Farmer's Favorite." 



CLOVER, 

and other 

GRASS SEEDS! 



Money and time saved by the use of a good Drill. It wastes no fertilizer, but puts it with the grain. It 
puts the grain regular, and" covers it nicely. Send your order in early and get the best. 

Cane Mills and Evaporators. 




MOST FOZPTTJU-A-iEL. 



This Cane 
Machinery is 
found to be 
the best ; gets 
most molasses 
from a given 
quantity of 
cane and re- 
quire 8 less 
power than 
any other. 



"Victor Mill. Cook Evaporator. 

STEAM ENGINES, SAW MILLS AND GRIST MILLS. 
STUDEBAKER, MITCHELL, FISH, AND OTHER WAGONS. 

Unequalled for strength and light draft. FEED CUTTERS for ensilage or dry forage. OLIVER CHILLED 
PLOWS, PLASTER SOWERS, MANURE SPREADERS, ROLLERS, WELL FIXTURES, CORN SHEL- 
LERS, ic , 4c. We keep on hand a full stock of all styles BARBED FENCE WIRES. 

Send for Illustrated Catalogue. P. 0. Box 8, RICHMOND, VA. 




W. H. Palmer, Pres. B. C. Wherry, Jr., Sec. 0. F. Weisiger, Jr., Ass't Sec. 

FIRE -A.3JIT33 HVE^P^nNTJE. 



VIRGINIA HOME 

EICHMOND. VIRGINIA.. 



Office in Company's Building, No. 1014 Main St. 

DIRECTORS. 

W. B. Isaacs. P. W. Grubbs. John Enders. Edward Cohen. 

Jno. C. Williams. R. E. Blankenship. Geo. K. Crutchfield. T. Wm. Pemberton. 
Jas. T. Gray. Moses Millhiser. • 

seply 



INCORPORATED IIST 1865. 



* * 





cam 



OFFICE— 1006 MAIN STREET, RICHMOND, VA. 
CASH CAPITAL, - #300,000. 

Insures Dwellings, Stores, Merchandize, and other property against loss or damage by fire 

DIRECTORS.— J- L- Bacon, President ; Thos. W. McCance, Vice-President. Wm. H. Haxall, James 
Alfred Jones, A. D. Williams, A. Osterloh. 

Robt. E. Richardson, Sec. Bazil Gordon, Jr., Ass't Sec. Jno, B. Grant, Solicitor. 

fl®-Agents in all the prominent Cities, Towns, and Villages of Virginia seply 



-^e='OF VIRGINIA. ==- 

(INCORPORATED 1794) 

INSURES BY PERPETUAL OR A NIT UAL POLICY. 

Office, Cor, of Tenth and Bank Streets. 

HERBERT A. CLAIBORNE, Principal Agent. 

F. D. STEGER, Secretary. T. BOLLING, Jr., Assistant Secretary. 

JOHN BLAIR, Collector. oct ly 




li 




BEST ^JSTD CHEAPEST! 

We wish' to call your attention to the merits of ORCHILLA GUANO as the most 
onderful grain and grass producer and real improver of the soil ever offered to the 
>rmers of Virginia, which fact i3 not only substantiated by the best chemists in the 
)untry, hut by thousands of the best and most reliable farmers in Maryland, Pennsylva- 

a and Virginia, who have been using it for the last twelve or fifteen years, and who tes- 
fy to the fact that it is not only a powerful crop producer, but its effects are seen for 

it or five years by a single application. 

This guano is found in the Orcbilla Island, in the Carribbean Sea, and comes to us di- 
!Ct by vessels, and all we do to it on arrival is to screen out the lumps and bag it. 
very cargo is analyzed before leaving the Island, and comes guaranteed to us to contain 
om 40 to 50 per cent, of Bone Phosphate of Lime, and other valuable ingredients. 

THE CHEMISTS EIXTDOIRSE IT. 

The Department of Agriculture of the State of Virginia, under the administration of 
r. J. M. Blanton, have recently undertaken the analysis of every brand of Fertilizer, 
)ld in the State. The Report of the work done in that respect, by Prof. W. I. Gas- 
dyke, the well known Chemist of the Department, during the Fall Season of 1882, has 
ist been published. It embraces the analysis of seventy-five different brands of Fertili- 
ers, and certifies to the actual value of their several constituents as developed by the 
aalysis. A reference to this Report exhibits the following remarkable results : 

1. The actual value of most of these Fertilizers falls below the prices asked for them ! 

2. Where the actual value exceeds the price asked, the excess, in very few instances, 
aches 10 per -cent. 

3. In the case of ORCHILLA GUANO, the certificate of the chemist is "Actual 
alue $41. 12," which is more than 50 per cent, over the price asked for it ! 

This official statement is only corroborative of similar results, furnished us privately 
y other chemists of high reputation in Virginia and elsewhere; notably Prof. Mallet, 
>r. Dabney, Prof. Taylor and others. According to Dr. Dabney, the cash value of the 
imple analyzed by him, was $43.97. Prof. Taylor's, by the same calculation, was 
44 32. 

We are permitted to copy a portion of a private letter from Paof. JOES' R. PAGE 
f the University of Virginia, as to practical results : 

University of Virginia, January 23, 1883. 
* I have used Orchilla Guano very successfully on root crops, 
as you might expect from its high percentage of Phosphoric Acid. * * * I 
repeat what I have said repeatedly, that high-priced ammoniated fertilizers can- 
not be used in a large majority of the worn-out lands in Virginia profitably, 
until those lands have been prepared by drainage, thorough tillage — the use of 
lime compounds and vegetable matter ploughed into the soil. Until the land is 
prepared thus, there is nothing to hold the nitric acid and ammonia in the soil, 
and it is carried off by the drainage and atmosphere before the crop can use it, 
which often results in no profit and no permanent improvement to the land. I 
have used the Orchilla Guano this fall on wheat. * * * 

Yours, &c, John R. Page. 



Send for our LITTLE BOOK containing the letters of scores of Virginia farmers, 
>earing testimony to the fact, that the Lime Compound which has done them the 
>est service, is ORCHILLA GUANO, with its 40 to 50 per cent, of Bone Phosphate of 
ime. 



W@@£E)MIB@1^S4¥] 



«» 



-IMPORTBRS- 



64 Buchanan's Wharf, 



BALTIMORE. 



PHAS. G. SNEAD, Importers' Agent, RICHMOND. 7a. 






WIN YOU FLOW 



GET OUT TRIAL THE 

WATTCHILLEI 



THEY ARE SUPERIOR IN EVERY ESSENTIAL OF 

STRENGTH, DURABILITY, ECONOMY, LIGHT DRAUGHT, 

PERFECT BURIAL OF VEGETATION, THOROUGH DISINTEGRATION 
THE SOIL, FREEDOM FROM CHOKING. Warranted to be as represented^ ai 
sold s jject to approval by trial. Return at our expense if not satisfactory. 

"WATT No. D E and No. A B Jr. PLOWS are the favorites in the Cottc 
States. They are the only perfect combined Turning and Cultivating Plows made. "D 
BEST and the CHEAPEST for Corn, Cotton, Tobacco and Vegetables. 

Send for Illustrated Circulars. 




FARM WAGONS 

made of the best material and fi 
ished in the most attractive manne 
We are prepared to furnish at pric 
as low as any first-class Wagon ci 
be 8old. Every Wagon warranti 
for twelve months. All expecting 
purchase Wagons will find it to th< 
interest to examine our stock ai 
prices. 



CORN SHELLFRS 



shell clean. 



for HAND or POWER, separati: 
Corn from Cob, and guaranteed 
FAN ATTACHMENTS for blowing out chaff and dust. ,' 



ROSS GIANT ENSILAGE CUTTER! 

HAVE RECEIVED over 240 MEDALS 

AND HIGH AWARDS OF MERIT. 

Successful at every competing trial at cut- 
ting. Will do more work with less power 
than any other Cutters made. THIS WE 
GUARANTEE, and warrant every one to 
give satisfaction. We furnish these Cutters 
with a capacity of TEN TONS per HOUR 
down to fodder cutters of one-man power. 
We can u jet the varied wants and tastes of 
all, in size, price and make. 




On receipt of six cents in postage, we will mail a HANDSOME BOOK C 
ENSILAGE, of seventy pages, bound in cloth. 

ALL INTEKESTED in the use and sale of IMPROVED IMPLEMEN1 
AND FARMING TOOLS, including Adjustable Iron-Frame Cultivators and Hoi 
Hoes, Walking and Riding Cultivators, Mowers, Reapers and Threshers, Wheel Raki 
Farm Wagons, Grain Drills, Broadcast Seed Sowers, Harrows of various patten 
Plows, Plow Castings, aud plow material of all kinds, are invited to send for Sped 
Circular and Price-List. 

WATT & CALL, - Richmond, Va