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&$nmXtmt, ftwtmtttttM, and t\xt f^foiug, |p«ltaufe and 

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



CEI: B. WILLIAMS, 
WM. L. HILL, 



Editor and Proprietor. 
General Agent. 



New Series. 



RICHMOND, VA,, NOVEMBER, 1868. 



Vol. IL— No. 11. 



CONTENTS : 

Agricultural Department: page 

Goodwyn Agricultural Club. Address of John C. Taylor, Esq., President, con- 
tinued from page 519 615 

Address of Commodore Maury to the Cadets of the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute, on occasion of his installation of Professor of Physics in that Institu- 
tion, September 10th, 1868 652 

The Wheat Crop of the United States. The Increase in the Production of 
Wheat Falling Off. 658 

Premium Essay on the Culture, Curing and Subsequent Management of Bright 
Yellow Tobacco. By Dr. Thomas P. Atkinson 66L 

The Border Agricultural Fair. The Annual Address before the Society, by 
Ex-Governor Z. B. Vance . : 671 

Virginia— Her unselfish devotion, calm dignity, and stern heroism in our late 
struggle 685 





Horticultural Department: 

Horticultural Literature 

The Excessive Evaporation Theory Again 

Tlie Catawba Grape in Virginia 

Gardening in Arkansas. By Rev. T. W. White 

Fall Tree Planting 

Strawben y Beds Planted this Fall should be Mulched. 

Household Department: 

Barn Yard Poultry. By J. W. L 

Sweet Pickle— Cantaloupe. By Mrs. Evans. 



686 



Editorial Department: 
Augusta County Fair and Speech of Commodore M. F. Maury 

Correspondence or the Southern Plaster and Farmer: 

The Policy of the Stay Law Considered, &c 704 

Editorial Notices 793 



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New Series, RICHMOND, 


VA,, NOVEMBER, 1868. 


Vol. II-. 


■No. 


11. 



Goodwyn Agricultural Club. 

Our readers will recollect that in the able address of John C. 
Taylor, Esq., President of this Club, published in our September 
number, the subject of "the supply of humus to our worn soil" 
was reserved for the next meeting, with the promise of then pre- 
senting his views on that topic, which, "of all others," he regarded 
as "of the deepest importance." Right worthily has this promise 
been redeemed, in the article we now have the pleasure of submitting 
to our readers as the sequel and complement of the former address. 

We have let no opportunity pass unimproved of impressing upon 
our readers the great importance of associated action, when the 
ends of successful and progressive development of the industrial and 
material resources of the country are the objects pursued. 

One of the most obvious advantages of these associations is their 
fitness as a medium for collecting and disseminating information in 
respect to the geography,' topography, climate, soil, productions, 
mineral resources, forests, water power, &c, &c, of their respective 
sections. In the present circumstances of the South, as connected 
with the imperative necessity of looking to foreign immigration as 
the means of supplying the demands of the country with a laboring 
population adapted to its altered condition, there is no agency that 
would prove more efficient than these clubs, if actively and intelli- 
gently employed in setting before the enquiring emigrant the inviting 
advantages of their respective counties. 

We expect much from the Goodwyn Club in this department of 
usefulness. Much is also to be expected from the active co-opera- 
vol. n—42 



646 THE SOUTHERN [November 

tion of the other Clubs recently formed in the county of Granville. 
We expect to see this county filled ere long with a thriving 
and prosperous population partly through their instrumentality. 
The superior advantages of this section of country — advantages by 
the way common to the greater part of the States of North Caro- 
lina and Virginia — consist of a temperature not unlike that of Italy 
with her cloudless skies and of a soil adapted to the production — 
in their highest perfection — of every herb, fruit, vegetable and 
cereal which grows this side of the tropics. It is also well suited 
to the cultivation of the grasses, so that stock raising may be pro- 
fitably combined with tillage. Tobacco, too, is an important staple 
in the section under consideration. Cultivated on a moderate scale 
with skilled labor, it is likely to prove more profitable than cotton 
or sugar at the South, while all the advantages cf healthfulness are 
in favor of this section. But we have detained our readers too long 
from the main subject ; we now present them with the following 

ADDRESS 

Of John C. Taylor, Esq., President of the Goodivyn Agricultural 
Club of the county of Granville, North Carolina, continued from 
page 519 : 

Gentlemen, — I will now proceed, by your leave, to submit some 
thoughts on the subject of reclaiming our worn lands by other 
means than putrescent manures. Not with the hope of enlightening 
your minds by advancing anything new, or with which you are not 
already familiar, but of eliciting your opinions, and especially your 
experience, as to the means of most certainly and cheaply, if not 
the most speedily, accomplishing the object. There are but few, if 
any, theories in agriculture, which it is important for us to know, 
that are not easily comprehended, or about which there is a differ- 
ence of opinion. But so many and so various are the conditions 
and incidents attendant on the successful applications of these theo- 
ries, the non-observance of any one of which may result in failure 
and disappointment, as to call for the exercise of the nicest and 
most discriminating judgment. Hence the advantages of our asso- 
ciation in which each member may profit by the information and 
experience of the whole, whereby we may be said to realize, after a 
manner, the advantages of combined over individual effort. 

The improvement of our lands, and all which relates to them, 
assume a deeper and more interesting aspect since the emancipa- 
tion of our slaves. Before that event, we looked upon them for the 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 647 

most part as mere temporary abiding places, until we could settle 
up our affairs and make arrangements to unite in the stream of 
emigration to the cotton fields and sugar plantations of the South, 
which was continually passing from our borders. Now, we regard 
them as permanent homes, to be not only enriched, but beautified 
and adorned, that those homes may be made more pleasant. We 
may now erect substantial steadings, plant orchards, aye, and acorns, 
too, with the hope that our children and our children's children 
may enjoy the shade of their majestic growth. And where, in our 
widely extended territory, is there a region more worthy of im- 
provement ? For health and good water, a soil rich by nature and 
susceptible of unlimited improvement, and under a parallel of lati- 
tude the best adapted to develop all the faculties and all the ener- 
gies of the human mind and body, it is unsurpassed, if equalled, 
by any other. And to these considerations we may justly add 
the inferior, but not less tempting inducement it presents, to a 
money getting spirit. 

From the most thorough conviction, grounded on experience, I 
maintain that the horizontal mode of ploughing is an indispensable 
basis of any system we may adopt of improving our lands. I 
would as soon believe the individual who exceeds his income can 
grow rich, as that our lands, cultivated by any other mode, can be 
preserved in their fertility. In assuming thus boldly this position, 
I have reference to their, for the most part, rolling surface, and 
light, friable texture. I am not unmindful that deep ploughing, 
say with a four-horse plough run to its extremest depth, might par- 
tially prevent the evil. But this would be to convert all but the 
richest into a caput mortuum ; nor are we likely to use such a 
plough. It is not only the better mode to prevent the soil from 
being washed away by rains, but it keeps the vegetable matter which 
may accumulate upon the surface from being carried off, and retains 
it to be converted into a source of fertility. I may add that it re- 
tains the moisture from the rains for a longer period — a considera- 
tion worthy of regard, since upon most of our lands there is usually 
a want of moisture. The observance of the following simple rule,, 
which I found by attention to the details of the process after 
repeated failures, will be attended with invariable success : First 
Mark two rows with the leveling instrument, say fifteen or twentv 
yards apart, and be carefully observant to run an equal number 
of furrows on each row thus marked, until the intervening 
space is filled by the last short row. By observing this rule, we 
may be less exact in the use of the instrument, for it is the relative- 



648 THE SOUTHERN [November 

position of all the rows to each other, and not the exact horizontal 
level of each one, (which exists only with those accurately marked 
by the instrument,) that prevents the rains from accumulating in 
any one part. 

I assume it is an admitted proposition, that land will keep up or 
hold its own when cultivated in corn, followed the ensuing year by 
small grain, and suffered to rest the third year without being grazed 
or run on by stock. The truth of this proposition will be supported 
by every one who has fairly tested it by experience. Indeed, since 
the publication of Taylor's Arator, in which the enclosing system is 
so commended, the subject has been uppermost in the mind of almost 
every farmer in Virginia and North Carolina, and very many have 
pursued the rotation long enough to be convinced that by the pro- 
cess lands are not only preserved from exhaustion, but improved in 
fertility. I give, with entire confidence, my own attestation to 
their improvement — slow, at best it may be, the improvement being 
hastened or retarded according to the vitality in the soil and its 
original fertility. Now, there is scarcely a farm in the county of 
Granville, which does not contain a sufficient quantity of cultivated 
land to make the corn and other grains required for its support 
under this rotation, if due attention is given to apportioning the 
fields with an eye to that object; that is, of assigning for each year 
of rotation a third part of the average productive power of the 
whole, respect being had to fertility and surface. And, as it is pre- 
sumed that no part is to be run on by stock, the crops being 
cultivated in several parts of the farm will be attended with no 
inconvenience. Of course, under such a system, no one would be 
at the expense of cross fences. In the adoption of this rotation, 
we will be much facilitated by the diminished demand for corn, 
having no superfluous slaves to give employment to or to feed ; 
causes which have heretofore prevented the steady and uninter- 
rupted adherence to any rotation. And granting that the lands 
thereby only retain their fertility — though in that case, if in any, 
it may be said that "not to go back is something to advance " — we 
bave much for congratulation and encouragement ; for their condi- 
tion may be likened to the man who never exceeds his income, and 
who ultimately is sure to grow rich. But with an increase of fer- 
tility beyond that which we know is not to be obtained under this 
enclosing system, it is not to be expected that any one will or ought 
to be content ; and as we have a use for our putrescent manures for 
other purposes, the thought naturally presents itself of resorting to 
a means of which all of us have been talking for years, but which 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 649 

few of us have practiced even on the smallest scale, namely, the aid 
of green crops. And here a problem is presented to be solved by 
us only by the lessons of experience. I know myself from repeated 
experiments that the pea sowed on land in good heart, and ploughed 
in before the vines have been blighted by frost, will produce a 
marked and most unmistakable improvement in the soil — an im- 
provement so remunerative of the cost and labor as to present 
inducement to the use of it, for that purpose on such lands, to the 
extent of the limits of the lands, however broad the acres. I can 
show you instances on my own farm in which scepticism itself will 
assent to its most profitable result. The pea which produces the 
most fruit to be turned under with the vines should be selected; but 
it should be turned under before it matures or ripens. But 
from the same teachings of experience I can, with nearly the same 
certainty say, that our poor lands, such as will produce only five or 
ten bushels of corn to the acre, certainly, I think, only five bushels, 
the product of vines will be so scant as, either by leaving the ground 
exposed for a longer period to the sun's rays, or from the poor 
return they make to the soil, to produce no improvement over and 
above what would be made by the weeds and grass which spring by 
nature, if so much. It is a question, therefore, of interesting in- 
quiry to know the lowest degree of fertility of soil which will pro- 
duce a remunerative growth of vines ; and in the case where the 
land is too poor to be improved by the process, to learn the least 
quantity of guano or gypsum which will grow them of sufficient 
luxuriance. If you think I am calling your attention to a matter 
of too small importance to deserve consideration, let us ride over 
our growing crops of corn and note the difference in their growth 
on adjoining acres, or even on the same acre. We will see on por- 
tions not perhaps the average in fertility of 'the whole field, good- 
sized, perfect ears, and near by, on a greater or smaller surface, a 
product next to nothing at all ; and yet we will know by ocular 
proof that there is but little difference in the soil of the two sec- 
tions. That the section producing the good ears had not a particle 
of fertility beyond what was required to perfect them, and that a 
covering of compost or good crop of pea vines would have brought 
up the latter to the fertility of the former, to remain so under judi- 
cious management for all time. The practice of improving land by 
green crops, as also the manufacture and management of manures 
of every description, may be much facilitated by the labor of those 
freedmen to be found in every neighborhood who, refusing to make 
contracts for the year, are ever ready to do a day's or week's work. 



650 THE SOUTHERN [November 

This facility of procuring assistance at the prescribed time when it 
is required, without withdrawing to the loss of the growing crop, 
the hands occupied in making it is a consideration which we can but 
regard as particularly fortunate and encouraging. 

I shall say nothing of red clover, the Samson of green crops, 
because its merit as a manure is presumed to be universally 
known, and because it can be grown only on land in a measure rich, 
while my attention has been directed to, and I may with truth say 
my affections have been enlisted in behalf of, the broad surfaces in 
our every field, whose scanty and fickle vegetation seems to struggle 
to hide, as with a mantle, their naked sterility. I may say, how- 
ever, that we have yet much to learn of the condition of soil 
with respect to fertility, on which clover, with the aid of plaster, 
will grow of sufficient luxuriance to be remunerative as a green 
crop. 

I hope some of us will experiment with Indian corn the next sea- 
son as a green manure. From the luxuriance with which it grows, 
it would probably afford more of the humus so much needed by 
most of our lands than any other vegetable. It has occurred to me 
that it may be profitably used as a preparation for tobacco. We 
know how much that crop is improved in quality and size by the 
presence of vegetable matter. I know from my own experience 
that it grows well after a corn crop. An additional motive to test 
its value as a preparation for tobacco is, that it may hereafter be 
made to supply the deficiency of our farm-yard manure, on account 
of our reduced stock of cattle. Sown broadcast at the rate of three 
or four bushels to the acre, it is recommended to mow them close to 
the ground, when the stalks have attained sufficient height, and in 
ploughing them in, to fill the first furrow opened partially with the 
stalks, scattering over them caustic lime, which quickly decomposes 
them. The furrow thus prepared will be covered by the next slice, 
and so on to the end. 

Amongst the many vegetables used as green crops buckwheat is 
enumerated. It is said to grow most kindly on thin land, and is of 
such quick growth that two crops may be ploughed under in the 
year. I procured a bushel of the seed the last winter, and planted 
three-fourths of them on good land in June for seed, with which to 
experiment the next year. The remainder I sowed the first of 
August between a growth of pea vines on one side, and the uncul- 
tivated land on the other, the whole to be ploughed under at the same 
time as a preparation for corn, that I may judge of the value of 
each by comparison. I am, so far, encouraged by the luxuriance of 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 



its growth. I have been taught the importance of thick sowing* 
even so late as June, to keep down the growth of weeds and grass. 
We have hitherto been successful in attaining the ends to which we 
have aspired. I have travelled from Cape May to the prairies of 
Texas ; have repeatedly spent weeks at a time in the rich section of 
Western Alabama, and with an eye ever attentive to the state of 
agriculture, I can confidently say, that I have never seen a farming 
community which enjoyed more of the comforts, and decencies, and 
elegancies of life, than that of Granville and the counties adjoining. 
We have owed our success to the extent of our tracts of land, and 
to the remains of our forest lands and "those reclaimed by the 
growth of pine. Without enquiry as to how far the reduced limits 
of the last two resources suggest the approaching necessity of a re- 
sort to other agencies, we have a motive to improve our lands which 
should never be lost sight of. Our anomalous political condition, in 
connection with the uncertain results of the emancipation of slavery 
on our system of labor, causes our lands to sell at the present time, 
when they can be sold at all, for merely nominal prices. But we 
already see the golden lining of the pestiferous political clouds 
which have been so long scowling upon us. The increase of our 
native population, no more to be drained by emigration, and the 
certain influx of immigration from abroad, when the superior ad- 
vantages of our section of country shall be better known, will, 
it is believed in no long time, so advance in the prices which they 
will command, as that a prudent economy will prompt to the sale of 
all, with the exception of a comparatively few acres to be retained as 
homesteads. Hence the obvious inducement of setting about ear- 
nestly to improve those to be retained for cultivation ; and hence 
the care and attention we may bestow on those designed for sale, will 
be amply remunerated by the enhanced prices they will thereby 
command. 

There is a consideration, gentlemen, underlying the whole ques- 
tion of an improved agriculture of deeper interest than the uttain- 
ment of the object itself. If, as has been said, " happiness consists 
in hope realized," in what wider or more lovely field is this heaven- 
given treasure to be found, than in the substitution of growing fruit- 
fulness, for barren sterility, — than in the daily contemplation of 
multiplied and multiplying comforts and increasing wealth, in con- 
nection with the idea of home and its indearments ? In such a field 
the virtuous heart is ever cheered by occupation as agreeable, as it 
is profitable, (occupation the more agreeable because in consonance 
with a law of nature written on the heart); while the mind, as 



652 THE SOUTHERN [November 

strengthened and invigorated by an onward progress towards the 
attainment of ends so elevating, bids defiance to moping melancholy, 
vain regrets, self-reproach and the like black train of despondent 
emotions which constitute so large a portion of the sum of human 
wretchedness. In such a field we come to love the external objects 
we pursue ; and when associated with the converse of friends, and 
blessed with those domestic ties around which the fibres of the heart 
entwine, what is there wanting to the fruition of that "Domestic 
happiness," so beautifully apostrophised by the poet, as " the only 
bliss of paradise that has survived the fall!" A mind imbued with 
the spirit of vulgar prosperity may whisper, " put money in your 
purses, if in so doing you exterminate your lands." But this would 
be to pander to the lust of avarice the most debasing of passions. 
And here we are reminded of the reverse of the picture so imper- 
fectly presented above. That there is something demoralizing in a 
slovenly, exterminating course of agriculture, requires no metaphys- 
ical subtlety of disquisition to prove. Our hearts attest it. 
Whether it be the absence of the idea of permanency, the life 
and soul of the endearing associations, themselves so many virtues, 
that we are wont to connect with home, and with country; or of 
the support which virtue finds in the invigorating influences of an 
onward and upward progress ; or whether we ascribe it to the de- 
terioration of the mind and heart by sympathy with the decline and 
depreciation of the external things on which they are engaged, our 
hearts attest that such a course of agriculture is demoralizing. I 
speak it in no vein of levity when I say, that we are worse men 
while sauntering in discontent, or careless unconcern, over a worn 
surface of our farms ; and that in the resolve, and still more in 
the effort to resuscitate that surface, we are better men. 



Address of Commodore Maury 

To the Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, on occasion 

of his installation as professor of Physics in that Institution, 

September 10th, 1868. 

Young Gentlemen, We are here, novices together, with this dif- 
ference only between us: you are here in the flower and bloom of 
youth to be trained and exercised and prepared for the great 
battle of life; I, a raw recruit, already in the sere and yellow leaf 
of age to fight it out, "just so." 

It is never too late for any of us to form good resolutions; but 
this, the beginning of a new scholastic year, is peculiarly the time 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 653 

to form them, and to reinforce them with noble aspirations. 

Select as your model some one who has risen to eminence from 
the condition in life in which it has pleased God to place you ; com- 
pare yourself continually with the wise and good, and with your 
fellows ; not vaingloriously to see how much better you are than 
they, but secretly, with meekness and humility, to see how much 
better they are than you, to discover you/ own faults and correct 
them. 

There is no educational establishment in the land, and consider- 
ing its age, I might truly say, in the wide world, that is richer than 
this with its memories, its traditions and its catalogue of good and 
great men. 

Go to the studio of Mr. Washington, and you will see there in 
preparation the portraits of our gallant dead, who fell in the w r ar, 
and who, as teachers and scholars, once graced these halls with 
their presence. Our superintendent, with affectionate interest and 
a wisdom of purpose that is beyond praise, is causing a picture gal- 
lery to be prepared of these noble spirits, that their memories may 
be embaled in your hearts, and their virtues and their example trea- 
sured up to serve you as guides and models, when the time comes. 

This institute, young as it is, furnished the war with a long list of 
heroes. Good men they were and true, every one of them. When 
their likenesses are hung in their places, go often to see them. Go 
w T ith companions, that you may talk of their gallant deeds and no- 
ble daring, their Christian virtues and manly graces. But when 
you feel that your good resolutions begin to fail, go alone, and lis- 
ten to those eloquent mutes on the canvass, and gather fresh reso- 
lution and determined will, by gazing upon the pictures of Jackson 
and Garland, of Rodes, and Outchfield, and of their fallen comrades. 

Strive in all things and at all times to be right-minded ; and as 
you are conducted along those beautiful walks in the fields of phys- 
ical research, which modern investigation has made so lovely and 
instructive, guard against the seductive arguments of those authors 
who delight to point out what they call contraditions to the Bible. 

My dear young friends, always remember that the author of that 
Book is nature's God — that the revelations of science and the state- 
ments of the Bible are both true, and that truth cannot contradict 
itself. 

Now, when you fancy you discover, as many say they do, dis- 
crepancies between science and the Bible, be not fast, as Colenso 
and others have been, to pronounce the Bible wrong. Keep from 
presumptious sins, and be firm in the belief that the Bible is true — 



651 THE SOUTHERN [November 

that science is true, and that if there be apparent discrepancy be- 
tween these two records it is not the fault of either, but of your- 
self, their interpreter. The records are right, but their interpretation 
has, on many occasions, been wrong. 

Science is progressive, and for its healthful advancement specula- 
tion is often necessary. The boldness of such speculation, uttered 
in the shape of hypotheses, has sometimes startled the world, and 
needlessly disturbed the minds of Christian people. Sometimes the 
reading of the Bible has been wrong, and sometimes 01 the volume 
of nature, but in the end the dark sayings of each have been found 
to throw light upon the other. Gallileo, in advance of his time, 
maintained that the earth turns on its axis; and "Mother Church" 
in those days was offended. She pronounced the doctrine a damna- 
ble heresy, and required him to renounce it. As he signed the 
recantation and turned away, he muttered : " Yea, remember, but 
it turns for all that." So, too, with the Nebulas hypothesis, about 
which you are yet to learn, but which some good men have been 
disposed to regard as a modern heresy, because of its author. 
Recent discovery and scientific investigation are now presenting it 
in a new light, without in the least disturbing any religious belief 
whatever. 

First, hypothesis, then theory, then demonstration — these are the 
steps by which the science of astronomy has reached its present 
advanced state. At first, the hypothesis was that the earth was the 
centre of the universe ; that it stood still, and that the heavens 
rolled round it from East to West. But discovery and research 
soon convinced astronomers that this theory was not consistent with 
the results of observation. Then, the theory was that the heavens 
stood still, and that the earth turned around daily on its axis from 
West to East, and annually, in orbital revolution, round the sun. 
Observation and research furnished data by which the truth of this 
theory, as far as it goes, was demonstrated. Finally, it was dis- 
covered that the sun is moving through space with the velocity of 
cannon balls, carrying in his train the earth and the whole retinue 
of planets, asteroids and satellites, and so hypothesis was brought 
to the dignity of a theory, which reconciles all the known facts of 
the case. 

Though we may not claim that the Nebulas hypothesis has, as 
yet, attained to the dignity of a theory, nevertheless its plausibility 
appears to be such as to bring it within the range of probability, 
and, therefore, it may or may not have truth for its corner-stone. 

The Nebulae hypothesis is the conception of a great French 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 655 

geometer named La Place. This hypothesis is more profound in its 
reach than Newton's laws ; for the Englishman with his beautiful 
theory of gravitation only dealt with the heavenly bodies as he 
found them. The Frenchman, soaring beyond that, attempted to 
deal with them " from the beginning," to comprehend chaos and to 
show how, when the earth was without form and void, the various 
physical processes took place by which the inorganic matter of the 
universe was condensed into suns, aggregated into planets, thrown 
off and converted into satellites, sent wheeling on their orbits about 
the sun, and then turning on their axes. In comparing these two 
philosophers, I speak of their intellects, not of their characters. 

You know how all the planets revolve in the same direction, how 
they go round the sun in a direction opposite to that of the hands of 
a watch, and have their orbits nearly in the plane of the sun's equa- 
tor ; that they also rotate on their axes in the same direction, and 
that with the single exception, perhaps, of the two outside, and 
most distant planets, all their moons do the same. They could not 
move as they do by any chance, for there is no chance in nature, 
neither in the heavens nor in the earth ; moreover, according to the 
doctrine of chances, the odds are millions and millions to one against 
such an arrangement as that which we actually behold among the 
planets as they move in their orbits. 

It is assumed, as our point of departure, that this arrangement 
in the planetary world must be according to design and in obedience 
to law. Upon other assumptions equally plausible, its author 
founded his hypothesis, and then proceeded by analogy and illus- 
tration to develop it, and that with a degree of probability, which, 
if it do not carry conviction to our minds, must at least challenge 
our respect and admiration. It assumes that "in the beginning" 
the earth, sun and moon, with all the planets, were in a gaseous 
state ; that when this was the case the planetary spaces were filled 
by this rare and attenuated matter. 

What are the reasons for these assumptions ? Chemistry tells us 
that all the matter of which this earth consists — the rocks, the 
metals and the mountains — is made from sixty-one or sixty-two sim- 
ple substances ; that the greater part of all the solid matter in the 
world is gaseous ; that one-half of the earth's crust consists of 
oxygen alone, and that all the water in the sea is composed of but 
two gases, and nothing else, and that all the other substances 
known upon the earth may, by heat, be either volatilized or con- 
verted into fumes and vapors, as rare, light and attenuated as the 
gases themselves. With such materials, which the Frenchman 



656 THE SOUTHERN [November 

called nebulous, he, with his theory, filled the planetary spaces. 
That this assumption may receive from you its due weight, it is 
necessary to state that we have recently discovered, and can now 
prove almost that the nebulae are of just such materials as this 
hypothesis calls for. 

As this chaotic mass of matter began — so runs the hypothesis — 
to radiate off its heat, for the assumption is, (and it is supported by 
many analogies,) that the centre of our planet is still in an incan- 
descent state — as, therefore, this chaotic and highly-heated mass 
began to radiate off its heat and to cool, it began to contract, and 
thus motion was generated from that movement, the hypothesis de- 
rives the jprimum mobile or the power which first gave to the planets 
motion in their orbits. 

Such, in brief, are the assumptions of La Place, and, being granted, 
the rest is philosophical deduction^ Newton's laws took no notice 
of the great first cause that sent the planets wheeling round the 
sun in their peculiar orbits, and set them all revolving and rotating 
in the same direction on their axes ; nor did his laws attempt to 
account for the satellites and rings which attend some of the 
planets. 

In going beyond gravity and grappling with first causes and pri- 
mum mobile, the Frenchman stalked forth into dark regions and 
travelled proudly upon grounds which the Englishman, as great and 
as gigantic as was his intellet, had not ventured to essay. To 
explain the nebulae hypothesis upon the basis of these assumptions, 
let us avail ourselves of familiar instances for illustration : You 
have observed, while driving fast along a muddy road, that the car- 
riage wheels throw the mud, not straight off from the carriage to 
the side of the road, but forward and nearly in the plane in which 
the wheels turn. If you will watch the larger pieces of mud closely 
you will discover that they have a rotary motion, like the wheel, 
and in the same direction. Bearing in mind this homely illustra- 
tion, let us return to the original nebulous mass. It is highly heated 
and easier of attraction by being globular in form. Consider it to 
be at rest and the process of cooling to have commenced, and see 
when it takes place. The cooling is from the outside, the condens- 
ing is consequently on the outside — wherefore a movement com- 
mences from the circumference towards the centre, and because it 
is from the circumference towards the centre it is a rotary motion. 

It is such a motion as we see in the whirlwind on land and in the 
whirlpool in the water. This begets a revolving motion either to 
the right or to the left, and in the nebulae of the solar system, it 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 657 



was from the right to the left. Thus the nebulous mass was set in 
motion. 

As it continued to cool and contract, the outer particles continued 
to flow inward, and, as in all revolving bodies, the particles at the 
circumference travel faster than the particles near the centre — these 
in-rushing particles carried their momentum from the circumference 
to the centre, impressed it there, and gradually accelerated the 
revolving motion to such an extent that the centrifugal force at the 
circumference became greater than the centripedal, and so a lump 
or a ring was thrown off, first one and then another; for, as the 
nebulous mass continued to cool and contract, its velocity of rotation 
continued to increase, and so, first the matter for Neptune and his 
satellites ; then for Uranus, then for Saturn and his rings, was 
thrown off all in and near the plane in which the great central 
mass itself was revolving. 

These fragments were not thrown off in the solid state, but as 
liquid or gaseous matter ; for we know that Saturn, Jupiter, Mars 
and the earth are all spheroids, and of such shape as a mass of 
matter only in the fluid condition revolving about its own axis could 
assume, and we know that the interior of the earth is still in a fluid 
state, which is quite consistent with the idea that the whole was 
once fluid. 

Saturn is still in the sky with his rings to attest this mode of 
sloughing off matter; nor is the sun altogether without them. These 
rings — so holds the theory — were afterwards broken up into one or 
more planets with or without moons — with or without rings ; all of 
which continued to move nearly in the same plane, and to rotate on 
their axes ; they revolve, every one with the exception already men- 
tioned, in the same direction around* their primaries. 

The stream of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter now stand 
out under this grand and sublime hypothesis, not as fragments of a 
broken planet, but as pieces of a severed ring. 

The November and August meteors constitute a ring. The Zo- 
diacal light is also a ring, and some of the most remarkable nebulas 
in the sky are rings. Striking analogies are afforded by some of 
them in favor of La Place's hypothesis, as the Nebulae in Canes 
Venatici with its central agglomeration, its rings and planetary 
nebulous mass in the distance. 

Then again, in Leo, Lord Ross' telescope reveals Nebula that 
make still more plausible the great Frenchman's hypothesis. 

In other parts of the sky, and as if to show that nebulae do grow 



658 THE SOUTHERN [November 

into stars and suns, that monster telescope has picked up planetary 
nebulae that are apparently stars in process of formation. 

But Saturn presents the most grand and striking example of all, 
though we find in the heavens nebulae of more fantastic forms and 
curious shapes than Saturn with his rings and moons. 

The close of Commodore Maury's address was followed by gene- 
ral and hearty applause, the cadets giving three cheers, with a real 
will for " Lieutenant ? ' Maury. After the congratulations of the 
Superintendent and members of the Faculty, Commodore Maury 
was introduced to many gentlemen and ladies who had listened with 
close attention to his address. 

The interesting ceremonies closed with a collation given by the 
Superintendent in honor of the occasion. 



The Wheat Crop of the United States. 

The Increase in the Production of Wheat Falling Off — A Good 
Crop no Longer Results in a Large Surplus and Loiv Prices. 

There are many facts and reasons in relation to wheat which 
show that the increase in production is not keeping pace with the 
increase of population and consumption. As many farmers are still 
at a loss to understand why a good crop of wheat no longer furnishes 
a large surplus, or results in low prices, it may be well to consider 
briefly some of the reasons. 

In new and remote sections, with limited facility for reaching 
markets, there are few products that can be grown and sent to mar- 
ket to so good advantage as wheat. When first brought into culti- 
vation the soil is rich, and wheat is more easily grown than at any 
time afterwards. There is also less injury from insects, and the 
grain is of better quality. There is no other product that so fully 
combines the advantages of a good demand, ready market, and ease 
and safety of transportation as wheat. But as the country grows 
older, and the land worn, a variety of crops, including a due pro- 
portion of animal products, is found best for the land, and most 
profitable to the farmer. Then the growth of cities and towns, and 
increasing facilities in good roads, canals and railroads, for reaching 
distant markets, makes an increasing demand for other products. 
This finally results in a large demand for the great variety of pro- 
ducts used in rich communities. 

In heavily timbered countries, before the advent of railroads, this 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 659 

change was slow. But on the vast prairies of the West, where the 
pioneer is soon followed by the iron horse, the changes are rapid. 
For instance — between 1840 and 1850 the increase of the wheat 
crop was only from 84,821,065 to 1C0,485,944 bushels; while in 
1860 it had increased to 173,104,924. This is an increase of not 
quite 18 J- per cent, in the first ten years, while it is 72 per cent, 
during the latter decade. This great difference is mainly due to 
the rapid settling and bringing into cultivation of the prairies. 

This increase was very large for a year or two longer; then there 
was a turn in the scale, and the amount fell off. This continued 
until 1866, when there was but little more, if, indeed, there was as 
much grown, as there was in 1859 ; although the rate of increase 
for ten years previous to the latter date, if realized, would bring 
the crop of 1866 up to about 242,000,000 bushels. During the 
same time the increase in population was over 7,000,000, requiring, 
at five bushels each, and including seed, some 40,000,000 bushels 
more wheat for the current year. So there will be little surprise 
that the exports of wheat, and flour calculated as wheat, at five 
bushels to the barrel, fell off from rising 60,000,000 for the crop of 
1861, to 3,633,388 bushels for the crop grown in 1866. What 
allowance should be mac^e for wheat grown the previous year, in 
each case, there is no way to ascertain ; but it is well known the 
crop of 1866 was very closely used up at the next harvest — in 
1867 — much more so than any previous year, so we may safely con- 
clude the surplus was very small. 

There are many reasons for this falling off in the rate of increase. 
The war, insects of different kinds, and unfavorable reasons, have 
all had some effect ; but peace, a favorable season, and high prices, 
failed to secure a very large increase or heavy surplus for export in 
1867, as was formerly the case. Hence the principal reason for 
this change must be found in the change of farming referred to, 
which has largely taken place in those States at the West where 
there had previously been the greatest increase. 

The attentive reader of the Country Gentleman has seen, in the 
numerous letters from the West, many accounts of and reasons for 
this change. B. F. J. has given full and graphic accounts of the 
change from small to large farms, and the consequent change from 
wheat to corn and stock farming in Central Illinois. Similar 
changes are taking place in other sections of the West. Wheat 
becoming a rather uncertain and expensive crop, farmers there, as 
everywhere else, find it better to grow a variety of crops and ani- 
mal products. The rapid increase of railroads, by affording facili- 

• 



660 THE SOUTHERN [November 



tiesfor moving these products to distant markets, contributes largely 
to this change ; and the unparalleled increase in number and size 
of Western cities and towns, by making local markets for bulky 
crops (like hay, potatoes and vegetables,) as well as dairy products 
and the great variety of large and small fruits now so largely used, 
has also led to a greater variety in farming. 

But perhaps there is nothing that has so much influence on the 
comparative amount of wheat grown, as the fact that there are no 
new States or Territories sufficiently large, fertile and productive, 
to take the place of the great wheat-producing States in the West, 
now changing to general farming. During the past twenty years 
these States have grown an immense amount of wheat ; but the 
main portion of their best lands is under cultivation, and in all but 
the newer sections wheat is gradually giving place to other crops. 
So we cannot expect to keep up the increase heretofore realized, 
without the addition of new States equally productive. Indeed, 
there is much reason to fear we shall fail to keep the increase in 
production up to the ratio of the increase in population, without 
such help. 

It will hardly answer to say we can do it by better farming ; for 
better farming means a rotation of crops, and less wheat than is 
usually grown on new land. It will give a larger yield per acre ; 
but does not admit of sowing so many acres. The example of 
England is very instructive on this point. Up to a comparatively 
recent period, wheat was grown there for export ; and grown, too, 
without the aids and advantages of modern farming. But as popu- 
lation increased, and a larger portion used wheat bread, consump- 
tion gained steadily on production, until with all the help of modern 
scientific farming, by which the yield of wheat per acre has been 
more than doubled, and large sections, before useless, have been 
made to grow wheat, they no longer raise their bread, but have to im- 
port from twenty-five to seventy-five or eighty millions of bushels a 
year. 

Now there is the same tendency here — not that we shall soon 
have to import wheat, but that we can no longer keep up the great 
ratio of increase until recently realized. We may make great im- 
provements in farming ; but a large yield of wheat, to be perma- 
nently and profitably secured requires a suitable rotation of crops 
and high manuring. This confines wheat to a rather small portion 
of the farm each year, and cannot here, any more than in England, 
make the increase in production keep pace with the increase in 
population. 



1888.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 661 

Meantime the improvements in farming, that secure better yields 
of wheat, are very slowly adopted. Much of our best wheat lands 
are still cropped on the exhausting system. Many of the older 
States are falling oif in the amount of wheat grown, although still 
increasing in population. This the new States are no longer able 
to supply, and still keep the average increase up to former years ; 
while the older portions of these States are changing to other crops, 
and less wheat, with no corresponding increase of new land brought 
into cultivation. Not but a great deal of new land is broken up 
every year, but that there is not enough to take the place of older 
lands in wheat-growing, and also to keep up the large rate of in- 
crease heretofore expected. » 

And then the increase in population is a great deal' larger now — 
being from 476,965 a year in 1840, to 1,135,180 a year in 1867. 
This increase requires an addition of five or six million bushels of 
wheat a year, and is constantly growing. Where" can we look for 
the new States that are able to supply these increasing demands, 
and furnish the usual increasing supplies for export besides? Cali- 
fornia, though doing well, cannot do it; the increasing demands of 
a few Eastern States will soon absorb all that State has to spare, 
while the increase in the foreign demand will more than offset any 
increase we can expect on the Pacific Coast. Canada has furnished 
considerable wheat; bnt it is quite likely that, since the end cf 
reciprocity, and the addition of twenty-five cents duty (in gold) per 
bushel, we will get much. less wheat from there. 

But enough at this time. By the foregoing will be seen why we 
no longer grow the large surplus expected when we had a fair crop 
of wheat, and why with such a crop, wheat is all wanted at good 
prices. — F., in Cultivator and Country Gentleman. 



Premium Essay. 

The premium offered by the Central Agricultural Society of 
Granville, Warren and Franklin counties, N. C, for the best essay 
on " The Culture, Curing and Subsequent Management of Bright 
Yellow Tobacco" was awarded to Dr. Thomas P. Atkinson,, of 
Danville, Va., at the late fair of the Society, held at Henderson, 
on the 14th, 15th and 16th of October, 1868. 

We are indebted to the promptness and courtesy of W. W. 
Young, Esq., Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Society, 
for the privilege of presenting his essay so early in the pages of our 
VOL II — 43 



662 THE SOUTHERN [November 

journal. . Granville makes a good start in the race of agricultural 
improvement and progress ; may she press towards the mark and 
run with patience till she wins the prize, and is crowned with peace 
and plenteous prosperity. 

Essay on the Cultivation, Curing and Subsequent Management of 
"Bright Yellow Tobacco." 

Whilst much of what I shall write will be applicable to the treat- 
ment of tobacco in general, I shall treat specially of the proper 
mode of growing, curing and management of the high priced yellow 
wrapping tobacco, which commands, in our principal markets, almost 
fabulous prices, for to this, chiefly, must our planters look to enable 
them to meet expenses and to pay for their clothing and groceries. 

There are but few of them who can afford to make the ordinary 
shipping tobacco, whilst they shall be subject to the present high 
taxes and to all the evils consequent on free labor; hence the 
necessity of turning their attention to producing the only kind 
which will amply remunerate them for the outlay and the labor 
required to make it. 

The first thing to be looked to in growing tobacco is to provide 
plants enough to " pitch the crop " in good time, before the sum- 
mer's sun shall have so completely evaporated the moisture from 
the ground as to require frequent showers to insure "a good stand." 

Inattention to this . all-important requisite often causes a failure 
of the crop, and leads the planter to complain of Providence when, 
in fact, he only is to be blamed. 

I remember to have met, nearly fifty years ago, in the city of 
Petersburg, the celebrated John Randolph, of Roanoke. It was in 
the month of June, and he inquired of me if the planters in my 
neighborhood had finished pitching their crops. On being told that 
there had been no rain since'the plants had become large enough to 
be removed, and that but a small portion of the crop had been 
planted, he exclaimed : "Bad management, sir, bad management! 
I have no sympathy for the planter who fails to make a crop from 
any such cause. I always have my plants grown in time and 
my hills made when the ground is in moist order, and never wait 
for a season" " Any one (he continued) who shall always manage 
thus, may cut off his hills and plant any time before the 20th of 
May, with a fair prospect of having a good stand." 

Mr. Randolph was a practical and a successful planter on a large 
scale, and his suggestions deserve to be well heeded by all tobacco 
growers. 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 663 



But the question arises, " how shall we insure plants in good 
time?" The best plan, in my judgment, is to 

Select your plant ground in April. Look rather to the texture 
than to the fertility of the soil. A spot in the woods, where the 
land is of a soapy appearance, neither too stiff nor too light, but 
with a due admixture of sand and near the base of a declivity, 
looking towards the south or southeast, is to be preferred. 

Make your coiv-pen on the ground thus selected, and keep your 
cattle upon it until it shall be made very rich ; then remove them 
to another place chosen as above, and so on from point to point 
until you shall have manured ground enough to raise plants suffi- 
cient for your own crop, with many left for your less provident 
neighbors. When you remove the cattle from one of these places, 
cut down the bushes and trees from it, cover the ground thickly 
with the brush to protect it from the sun, split the wood and throw 
the limbs on the brush, stack the wood near the place, so as to 
allow it to dry. 

As soon as you shall have finished housing your corn in Novem- 
ber, set fire to the brush and limbs ; and having previously prepared 
wood for burning the ground, perform that operation in the usual 
way. If you will do this when the ground is dry, you will accom- 
plish the work in little more than half the time, and with but little 
more than half the wood required by the ordinary mode of proceed- 
ing in the winter, after the land shall have become saturated with 
water, when a large portion of the wood is consumed in drying the 
land. 

On the plan recommended, all this is saved : for you will find 
that the land will be dry when you start the fire. The saving of 
labor and fuel thus effected is an object of no small consideration. 
As soon as the ground shall have been sufficiently burned, rake 
off the coals and coalter it very deep both ivays with a sharp, nar- 
row coalter ; then rake it carefully, taking care to get out all the 
loose roots ; spread over it a moderate quantity of guano, lay it 
off in beds four feet wide, trench the ground properly around the 
patch, so as to prevent the outside water from passing through it, 
and fence it in. 

Having thus prepared it as nicely as if you intended to sow it 
then, leave it until the first snow in December, when you should 
scatter your seed regularly over the white surface, in the propor- 
tion of two table-spoonfuls to one hundred square yards. 

As soon as the land shall be dry enough, after the melting of the 
snow, tread it firmly, and cover it thickly with the fine dust from 



664 THE SOUTHERN [November 

a coal kiln, over which a thick coat of fine straight brush should be 
thrown. 

The coal dust being black is an absorbent of heat, and thus keeps 
the ground warmer than it would otherwise be, and so pushes the 
plants forward. The warmth thus produced by the black surface 
may be demonstrated to the satisfaction of any one who will place 
strips of cloth of black and other colors on the snow. It will be 
found that the snow under the black strips will be melted before that 
under either of the others. 

I have advised that the plant land shall be selected about the 
first of April. If the cattle be put upon it before, whilst they are 
fed on wheat or oat-straw, or hay of any kind, the seeds from these 
articles will be deposited on the ground in the manure, and spring- 
ing up amongst the plants will prove very troublesome. By begin- 
ning to manure thus early, the process may be completed before the 
seeds of the grass shall be matured, and thus another trouble will 
be avoided. 

If there be no snow in December, the seed should be sown about 
the first of January, and the ground well trodden when dry and 
otherwise treated as above recommended. 

He who will try the coaltering process will be astonished at the 
great number of roots which will be extracted, and which, if left in 
the ground, serve only to keep it open, and thus to expose the deli- 
cate plants to be destroyed by the frost. He will also be gratified 
to find that the deep and close breaking of the land will keep the 
ground moist in dry weather, which will destroy the plant in beds 
treated in the usual way and scratched with a grubbing hoe or 
mattock. 

About the first of March the beds should be resown with about 
half the quantity of seed used in the first sowing — "the broad leaf 
Oronoko " is preferred by most of our good planters in this neigh- 
borhood, which is famed for producing the finest tobacco in the 
world, and in which I am satisfied that more money has been made 
to the hand, for the last ten or fifteen years, since the present mode 
of curing has been introduced, than on the sugar or cotton planta- 
tions of the Gulf States. 

The freezing process through which the land must necessarily 
pass in winter, and by which the plants are often thrown on or near 
the surface and destroyed, will be much less injurious under the 
management here recommended than any other. 

Whenever the ground is thus affected by the freezing, the beds 
should be uncovered and kept down by passing over them, as often as 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. M5 

may be required, a heavy roller made of gum or other heavy wood. 
After each rolling, they should be again covered with coal dust before 
the brush is returned to them. Plant beds treated in this way may 
be safely relied on to furnish a full supply of good plants in time to 
pitch the crop by the 15th of May, at which time the provident 
planter will have his ground ready to receive them. 

Old land, intended for tobacco, should be ploughed deep and close, 
early in September, before the vegetation on it shall have been 
killed by frost, taking care to cover all such matter well. I prefer 
to throw it into high beds, three feet four inches apart, so as to 
allow the winter's water to pass off freely and the frost to permeate 
fully. 

About the 10th of April the beds should be ploughed down, and 
as soon thereafter as it shall become sufficiently moist, from 200 to 
250 pounds of the best Peruvian Guano should be sown evenly over 
it, and new beds thrown up the same distance apart as before. Be- 
fore putting on the guano, the ground should be well harrowed with 
an iron tooth harrow. 

As soon as the plants shall have attained to the proper size for 
setting out, these ridges should be cut off much lower than is usual 
amongst planters, and firmly beaten down with the back of the hoe. 
The proper distance between the plants is three feet, and to insure 
uniformity in this, each of the hands should have it marked on his 
hoe-helve. A gray, soft soil is greatly to be preferred, as it is 
difficult to make the tobacco ripen yellow on a stiff soil. 

Land which has been long " turned out" and allowed to grow T up 
with " old-field pines" is best. 

I have recommended that the plants shall be set into the ground 
lower than is usual. An experience of sixteen years in the culti- 
vation of tobacco on a pretty extensive scale, and a much longer 
observation of the operations of other planters, h^s convinced me 
that they are always planted too high on upland. I know that in 
their advanced stage, when the suckers make their appearance, the 
great object of the planter should be to protect them from too much 
moisture ; but whilst young, they require more, rain than corn does 
in like condition. This last named plant, although it demands much 
moisture whilst earing, can do with but little when very small. 

It is just the reverse with tobacco, which requires frequent 
showers to start it to grow, but cannot stand much wet whilst it is 
maturing. Every planter knows that in the usual way of planting, 
the tobacco will remain stationary for weeks, (if it does not die,) 
unless the rain shall come soon after it is put into the hill. 



666 THE SOUTHERN [November 

Hence the propriety of setting it lower in the ground than is 
usual, and making the hill in the progress of cultivation, so that by 
the time it shall receive the last working, there shall no loose dirt 
be left between the hills by which the free passage of the water 
may be obstructed. 

I would allow no one to hill my old upland, intended for tobacco, 
although it might be offered to be done without compensation. The 
advantage of beds over hills is found in the fact that, from the beds, 
the evaporation is from only two sides, whilst from the bills it is 
from the entire circumference. Hence we find that unless there be 
frequent showers shortly after planting, the tender and, in this stage 
of its being, the thirsty plant is often not larger at the end of two 
or three weeks than it was at the time it was set out. The crop is 
thus kept back much to its injury and often to its entire destruction 
by frost. 

He who shall try the plan of planting in beds and setting the 
plants lower in the ground than he has been accustomed to do, 
taking care to convert the beds into hills as he shall cultivate, will 
never revert to his old and ruinous custom of depriving his young 
plants of moisture at a time when they most need it. 

Let me repeat what I have already said, that whilst corn requires 
but little moisture while it is very young and demands a great deal 
when maturing, tobacco needs it most whilst young, and is greatly 
injured by too much after it shall have passed the topping stage. 
Hence, the object of the planter should be to adapt his system of 
culture to the wants of each, protecting the tobacco from the effects 
of too much wet in its advanced stage, and soliciting- for the corn 
the greatest amount of moisture that the earth, deeply and closely 
ploughed, can be induced to yield. 

It can scarcely be necessary for me to say that new ground, or 
very fresh land, is best adapted to the growth of yellow tobacco, 
which always commands the highest price in every market. Indeed, 
none other can be safely relied on for this purpose. 

In clearing the land, it is important that it shall be ivell grubbed, 
and after having been thoroughly coaltered both ways, it should be 
well ploughed with a bull-tongue or narrow shovel plough, and 
as many roots as possible removed. 

The coal for curing should be prepared in the new ground, in 
sufficient quantity, to allow from seventy-five to one hundred bushels 
to each curing of a barn of twenty feet square. This should be 
securely placed away in a house prepared for the purpose near each 
barn, so as to keep it perfectly dry. 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 667 



I should have mentioned above that, ;n planting, great care 
should be taken in pressing the dirt closely around the roots, unless 
the ground be quite wet, in which case the pressure should be light. 

About the first of May the planter should begin to plant and 
keep his hands at it, during every evening, until the crop shall be 
pitched. Let the new ground hills be cut off low, for the same 
reason already assigned in the case of old upland, which last should 
be first planted. , 

The cultivation of new and old land should be different. The 
first should be scraped down with a sharp hoe, as soon as the plants 
have started to grow, when great care should be taken not to loosen 
the dirt around their roots, whilst all weeds which may have sprung 
up should be destroyed. A second working is all that will be re- 
quired. This should be efiected by about three furrows made with a 
shovel plough, and the dirt thus loosened should be made into large 
round hills about the plants. 

The first working of " old upland " should he by running the bar 
of a single Dagon plough next to the plant, throwing the dirt into 
the middle of the row, and thus covering what grass may be there. 
Only a slight hoeing will be required at this time. At the second 
working the land should be well ploughed with a sharp shovel 
plough, and all the loose dirt should be carefully piled around the 
plants, so as to leave none in the rows to odstruct the free passage 
of the water, as at this stage much wet will prove very injurious to 
the crop. 

Up to this point the directions have been definite and precise. 
Those which will follow must necessarily be contingent and general, 
as the same treatment will no more suit every case than it will in 
treating the diseases of the human system. Much must, therefore, 
be left to the discretion of him who shall manage each case ; and it 
may be well to say at once, that the inexperienced planter will as 
often be at a loss how to proceed as will be the conscientious be- 
ginner in the practice of medicine. Both should avail themselves 
of the counsel of their more experienced brethren, whenever it can 
be obtained. 

I would advise him who proposes to enter on the raising and 
curing of yellow tobacco, to watch closely the management of his 
most successful neighbors, before engaging in so hazardous an en- 
terprise ; nor should he be content with this; but he should employ 
some person skilled in the business to cure his first crop. In this 
way he may, by close personal attention and observation, learn for 
himself, and thus become an expert at the business. 



C68 THE SOUTHERN [November 

This is as important /to the curer of yellow tobacco as instruction 
is at the bedside of the sick is to a practitioner of medicine. 

Without the one the planter will spoil many of his first cured 
bams of tobacco, and without the other the physician will lose 
many of his first patients. 

All that can be done by the instructor in either business, is to 
give general directions, leaving it to the pupil to adapt the treat- 
ment to circumstances of each particular case that shall come under 
his treatment; for, in both, it is practice only ivhich can insure 
success. 

With this understanding, I submit the following 

General Directions 
for the curing and subsequent management of bright yelloiv tobacco : 

As soon as the plant begins to button it should be carefully topped 
to ten or twelve leaves, according to the fertility of the soil upon 
which it is grown. To insure a rich leaf, it is better to top too low 
than too high. 

It is at this point that the responsibility of the practitioner above 
alluded to commences, for here no little judgment is required. The 
crop should be carefully ivormed and suckered, at least once in each 
week, and as much oftener as other pressing engagements shall 
allow. 

There is as much difference between ripe and green tobacco as 
between ripe and green fruit. The cutting should not be com- 
menced, therefore, until the plant shall be fully matured; and 
here again the judgment must govern the action. Tobacco should 
never be cut whilst it is wet with dew or rain, if we desire it to 
cure readily and well. 

Before giving directions for curing, I should not omit to say that 
it is very important that the barns shall be tight, and well protected 
from the wet which springs out of the ground, by careful trenching 
and embankment around the outside of the building, and by having 
the floors to incline slightly to the centre from each direction. 

Before hauling the tobacco from the field, it should be properly 
sorted, taking care to place together only those plants of like size 
and appearance to go to the same barn. This uniformity is of 
great importance to make it appear well in market; for it has no 
little influence in determining the price which it will bring when 
offered for sale. 

Another, matter of importance to be attended to is to have a 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 669 

suitable room for packing the tobacco, after stripping. For this 
purpose, I would have a room twelve feet wide, to be proportioned 
in length and height to the quantity of the article raised, located 
convenient to, but not connected with the barn, so as to involve a 
risk of having it burned in case of the destruction of the latter by 
fire. 

This room should be ceiled and floored with well seasoned plank. 
A row of studs should be extended from the floor to the ceiling, 
three feet from each side of the room, which shall have a window 
with bars opposite to the door. 

In packing down the tobacco, place a dry plank on the inside of 
these studs, with one edge on the floor ; against this plank and ceil- 
ing, butt the heads of the bundles previously straightened, by 
having them passed through the hands, lapping the tails in the mid- 
dle ; raise the plank as the process of packing may require, until 
that side of the passage shall be filled, when the other side may be 
treated in the same way ; nail strips on the outer side of these 
studs, against which tobacco sticks should be placed setting one end 
on the floor, and between the stick and the tobacco insert dry straw 
or hay (the latter is to be preferred), so as to protect the heads of 
the bundles from mould. Cover the bulk with dry plank and 
weight it heavily, and the tobacco, if in good order when packed 
down, will preserve its order as well as if packed in a hogshead, and 
when taken out to be prized, will be straight and neat in ap- 
pearance. 

The floor of this room should be far enough from the ground to 
allow a free circulation of air underneath it, so as to protect the 
tobacco from moisture. 

With this preparation of barns, packing house and coal, you 
may proceed to 

Housing the Crop, 

From seven to eight plants (according to size) should be put at 
equal distance upon a stick, and placed on the tiers about six or 
eight inches apart. 

Having filled the barn, string the leaves which may have been 
broken from the stalks, and have the floor properly swept. 

In about twenty-four hours the 

Firing 

may be commenced. At this stage of the business, the utmost vigi- 
lance and caution and the exercise of the best judgment are 



670 THE SOUTHERN [November 

required. As before remarked, the operator should not be tied 
down by any rigid rule to be observed in every specific case. If he 
be without the skill which will enable him to adapt the treatment 
in regulating the degree of heat as the process of curing shall ad- 
vance, he will miss the mark, and his effort will be more or less a 
failure, the injury of which can be avoided only in his future 
experiments. 

With a good thermometer suspended on the lowest tier, about the 
middle of the barn, he may commence his charcoal fires in rows 
four feet apart, and four fires in a row. 

With a heat ranging from eighty-five to ninety-five degrees, the 
stem will be withered ordinarily in from twelve to twenty-four 
hours. 

At this stage commence the steaming process, by raising the 
mercury a degree every quarter -of an hour, until it shall rise to 
about 105. 

Watch closely, and if the tobacco remain dry and begins to curl 
at the ends, increase the heat to 110°. It will not be sufficient that 
the tobacco on the bottom tiers shall be dry. It should be so 
throughout the barn. The condition of that on the upper tiers 
may be ascertained by feeling it with a stick kept for that purpose. 

It may be as well to state here, that more time will be required 
to carry the tobacco through the several processes recommended in 
wet weather, w 7 hen the stem and stalk are supplied with an unusual 
quantity of sap. The exact time of raising the heat, as well as the 
degree to which it shall be carried, must be controlled by the judg- 
ment of the curer. If, in the course of five hours, the tobacco 
continue dry, raise the heat ten degrees higher. If, however, there 
be much sweat, the fires should be pulled down and the door opened 
for a time, until the sweat shall disappear. 

As in the diseases to which our physical frames are subject, there 
are critical periods, so in the curing of tobacco ; and one of these 
occurs just at this point, for the fairest prospect for a house of 
bright yellow tobacco may be blasted by a mistake of a few degrees 
of heat. Having dried the tobacco, the heat should be raised to 
120 degrees, which will soon cure the leaf; when this shall have 
been effected, increase the heat to about 160°, and keep it at that 
point until the stem and stalk be thoroughly cured. 

If any sap be left in the stalk, it will run back into the leaf and 
turn it red. Hence the importance of seeing that the stalk as well 
as the stem be thoroughly cured before stopping the fires. 

When the tobacco shall be cooled and become in order to be ban- 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 671 

died, it should be removed to a dry barn and stored away nicely 
and closely to protect it from the effects of damp and windy 
weather. 

Should a long rainy spell occur, raise a small coal fire under it, 
so as to dry it completely. A neglect of this will greatly endanger 
its color, and the planter will find that what he placed in the barn 
as an article of bright yellow color, will be taken out looking as 
red as a piece of well-tanned red sole leather. 

When it comes in order for stripping, it should be taken down 
and placed in bulk. 

In stripping, the operator should be very careful to put leaves of 
like color and length in the same bundle. These should be small, 
bung on drawn sticks, and returned to the tiers. About twenty-five 
bundles should be placed on a stick and the sticks hung close and 
never allowed to become high in order. Too much care cannot be 
observed in sorting as to size and color, or in keeping the tobacco in 
dry order, during the winter and spring, until it shall be struck 
down for prizing. This should be done during the prevalence of a" 
southern ivind, and when the stem will break on a slight bending — 
while the leaf shall be pliable and soft. Packed down in this con- 
dition, and in the manner above recommended, the planter need 
fe#r no change of color in the;irticle. 

In prizing, either in hogsheads or tierces, it should not be sub- 
jected to a very heavy weight, as, if it be made to stick together too 
closely, the sale will be greatly injured. 

I have given these general directions in as few words as possible. 
I would not close this essay without again cautioning the inexpe- 
rienced curer of the high priced yellow tobacco against the delusion 
of supposing that he can succeed in his first efforts without some 
expert to instruct him in the process of curing. He may save the 
cost of procuring such a guide in the increased price which he may 
obtain in the sale of one bam of tobacco. 

"Walter Raleigh." 



The Border Agricultural Fair. 

We are indebted to the extraordinary enterprise of the Richmond 
Dispatch for the reception of a copy of Ex-Governor Z. B. Vance's 
address, the morning after its delivery in Danville on the 20th of 
October, 1868. 

The attendance at the Fair was estimated at over five thousand 
persons, who were entertained with an eloquent introductory address 



672 THE SOUTHERN [November 

by President Sutherlin. At the conclusion of the President's 
speech, the orator of the day was introduced, by him, to the multi- 
tude present, when he proceeded to deliver the annual address be- 
fore the Society, as follows : 

One of the prettiest stories of the ancients is that of Faith and 
Confidence displayed by the Romans in selling the ground on which 
Hannibal was encamping his victorious battalions, jubilant with the 
slaughter of the consul and his mighty army! Another is told of 
a brave and self-possessed naval officer the deck-sides of whose ship 
had been newly painted. During a storm a great wave struck the 
vessel, threw her on her beam's end, and amid the wild and ner- 
vous confusion of the crew, who thought she was going down, he 
sprang on deck and shouted louder than the roar of the tempest, 
"Take care, don't touch the paint!" Your great assemblage here 
to-day reminds me of them. Amid the indescribable desolation of 
our country, in spite of the financial ruin which has impoverished 
us, notwithstanding the public calamity and the private sorrow; 
even amid the fierce throes of this mighty conflict, which in a few short 
days will perhaps determine the existence or non-existence of con- 
stitutional government in America — the noblest labor of the world's 
noblest men — you have the courage to hold this great meeting of 
four days to promote the most blessed and peaceful avocations, of 
man ! Such is your sublime faith in the future ; such your confi- 
dence in the heads and hearts of the American people ! It is 
cheering to the last degree. I hail it with ominous gladness. It 
seems, indeed, as a foretaste of that peace and rest which I trust 
God has in store for this weary and sorrowing land, and that He is 
about to make us glad according to the days wherein He has 
afflicted us. 

What can I say to-day to add interest to the occasion or pro- 
mote the great objects of your Society? Instruction in the practi- 
cal operations of the field, the forest, or the mine, you doubtless 
scarcely expect. My life having been devoted to other pursuits, 
my observations of these matters have been made from a standpoint 
outside of the fence ; and I believe in all time a shade farmer has 
been held in small esteem by his fellows ! Eschewing, then, any 
attempt to discuss things of which I necessarily know little, the 
reflections which I have thrown together for the occasion will be 
altogether of a general and philosophical character. 

The first thing that strikes me as worthy of your grave conside- 
ration is the great change, in many respects, which the abolition of 
slavery has brought to Southern farms and farmers. First, it strikes 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 673 



a deadly blow at the system of great farms which prevailed amongst 
us. The tendency, already visible, will be to break up the vast 
domains of the Southern planter into small farms, which, with 
increasing population and agricultural knowledge, will divide and 
sub-divide into still smaller ones. As this- will be caused by the 
freeing of the negro, it will certainly re-act upon him ; for as he 
breaks up the large farms, the small farms will break hina up and 
drive him from the country by the inevitable substitution of free 
labor. I take it that these two results will logically follow each 
other. I do not know that free black labor is employed anywhere 
in the world where it is possible to obtain the white. The first con- 
sequence of the small farm system will certainly be a large increase 
in the production, in the value of real estate, a rapid improvement 
in the methods of culture, and increase in the profits of agriculture 
generally. This, I presume, no well informed man will venture to 
doubt. So long ago as the days of Cato the Senator, and the poet 
Virgil, the principle was recognized, as we find both concurring in 
the maxim, "that it was a grand point in husbandry not to have 
too much land in one farm, for they considered that more profit 
came by holding little and tilling it well." 

Whilst this beneficent result is thus sure to attend the introduc- 
tion of the small-farm system, I trust I may be pardoned for 
remarking that it will nevertheless scarcely be an unmixed good. 
Man is the creature of his surroundings, and the abolition of the 
great farms will work a change in him — gradually but surely. That 
princely hospitality, that domestic refinement, that high social 
cultivation, that political acumen — the result of wealth and unin- 
terrupted leisure — the nursing mother of a wise and glorious 
statesmanship: that pure conservatism which was the sheet- 
anchor of republican liberty ; that large-hearted generosity, that 
honest pride of family and country, which is the basis of a nation's 
glory ; that female excellence, the most charming that ever graced 
the homes or blessed the hearts of men ; for all of which Virginia 
and the Carolinas were famous the world over. All these will 
change and measureably disappear. No man can contemplate it 
without sorrow, if it is done in the doubtful name of progress. 
And when this intelligent class of large land-holders — this sturdy 
dynasty of democratic kings — is overthrown, history will be com- 
pelled to note that the strongest pillar of American civilization, the 
staunchest supports of American liberty, perished. There is dan- 
ger, too, of a moral contraction and narrowing of our Southern 
character, and that our people, in their changed condition, will 



674 THE SOUTHERN [November 

embrace the idea so universally worshipped in progressive commu- 
nities — that money is the god of this life, and the accumulation of 
it the chief end of man ! God forbid that these people should ever 
be bound to the chariot wheels of Ben Franklin, and learn to esteem 
his picayune maxims above the apothegms of Bacon ! May they 
never, never establish a mecca of Cape Cod, or cause the odor of 
Weathersfield onions to ascend from their altars of sacrifice ! Let 
us hope, and so teach our children, that we may not pass from one 
extreme of unthrifty extravagance to the other of penurious mean- 
ness. I regard this as a real danger, for our people to guard 
against. It can be avoided, and it should be avoided. In our zeal 
to progress, to improve our farms and grow rich, let us be careful 
to remember the true objects of life, and the wise lessons of our 
fathers in regard to them, the culture of high spirit and nobility of 
soul in our people ! 

The change of labor is equally pregnant with important re- 
sults to our people. The small farmers in our midst never used 
much negro labor when they could control it as slave. They will 
utterly repudiate it whenever they can command a better. A de- 
mand for white labor is the beginning of immigration, and the 
beginning of immigration is the beginning of the end of the negro, 
though that end is not yet. Competition will not spur him into 
energetic action. It has never yet done so, and never will. He 
never, under any circumstances, labored with sufficient energy to 
produce anything beyond the merest subsistence except as a slave. 
Little did his liberators know, and less care, that in freeing him they 
removed the only barrier that protected him from the inflowing tide 
of white civilization, beneath whose waves he must perish ; that his 
liberty was his doom. The political privileges accorded him will 
only hasten his ruin by increasing his idleness and filling him with 
dissatisfaction toward the humble paths of labor for which he is 
fitted. He is told that he should not only control the destinies of a 
great nation at the ballot-box, but that he is eminently qualified — 
without knowing the alphabet f/om a steam engine — to frame the 
organic laws of a people whose statesmanship is enriched with the 
experience of 4,000 years ! Of course, he cannot be expected to 
have more sense or honesty than those who tell him these things, 
and he believes them, and so is spoiled as a laborer. Notwithstand- 
ing, too, the vain attempts to overcome it by legal — or rather ille- 
gal — enactments, the social repugnance to the black man will 
increase, and the disposition to employ him will be less than ever. 
This will be the natural result of the development of his vices and 



18C8. PLANTER AND FARMER. 675 



half-suppressed barbarism — the restraining hand of his master being 
removed — greatly increased, as the feeling will be, by the exposed 
position of antagonism to the whites into which he has been forced, 
and for which he is really not to blame. We have no hatred to the 
blacks — quite the contrary is the real feeling of all who once owned 
them as slaves. We, therefore, have no desire to supplant them as 
laborers if their labor could be rendered as profitable as ony other. 
But so far it has proved a decided failure, at least in the main de- 
partments of industry. It is our interest to try that of the white 
man. If the negro will spur up and compete successfully with the 
race, then he will be retained ; otherwise, he will go down before 
it — that is all. It is a simple proposition, and will be decided by 
the law of supply and demand, like all other matters of human in- 
dustry. 

So much for black labor. Having determined that it is best for 
us to try white, the question arises, Where, when, and in what 
quantities shall we introduce it, and how shall we get it ? Evidently 
there is a fitness of things which should never be lost sight of. 
First, What kind of a climate and soil have we, and what do we 
desire to produce as most profitable ? When we understand this we 
will have an idea where to go for immigration, leaving the other 
questions, Haw to get it started to us, and how to introduce it ? — 
the greatest ones of all yet to bo answered. 

Perhaps no land in the world is more favored in regard to climate 
than is the territory composed within the borders of these two as 
States. In the very centre of the temperate zone, they as 
nearly avoid the extremes of heat and cold as it is possible to con- 
ceive ; and with a surface gentty inclining from the white sands of 
the Atlantic until it imperceptibly swells, on these western borders, 
into six-thousand-feet elevation, even that equible temperature can 
be changed or modified at the pleasure of their citizens. Starting 
from among the ricefields and palmetto forests at the mouth of the 
Cape Fear, and going directly west, the traveller will pass, before 
he reaches the tops of the mountains, through climates exactly sim- 
ilar to those of North Carolia proper, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New 
York and Canada — five hundred feet of elevation being considered 
equal to a degree of latitude. So varied is the climate of North 
Carolina — and that of Virginia is scarcely less so — that I believe 
her productions filled every column for enumeration of American 
industry in the forms of the census taken in 1860, with the single 
exception of the West India sugar-cane. The soil of these two 
great States is equally various. The rich alluvial land of the coast; 



676 THE SOUTHERN; [November 

the vast swamps, with their interminable forests of cypress ; the 
light, sandy belt of the stately long-leaved pine, marking the ancient 
shores of a pre-Adamite ocean ; then comes the clay and gravel of 
the undulating mid-lands ; then succeeds the granite soils of the 
Piedmont and mountain country intermingling with carboniferous 
formations toward the west of the trans-montane section. Of course 
such a varying soil in such a varying climate will yield almost any 
class of productions. The husbandman has only to choose what he 
will grow. 

Of the soil of these States I conceive the following general re- 
marks may be made : 1st, That in their virgin state they are at 
least equal in fertility to the soils of Europe, which feed seven times 
our population to the square mi]e. Secondly, That relatively the 
soils of this country are still in their virgin state — those of Europe 
having been in cultivation over a thousand years, ours not over one 
hundred, whilst much the larger portion, say three-fourths, is alto- 
gether untouched. Thirdly, That our cultivation being, properly 
speaking, no cultivation at all, but a mere skimming of the surface 
without deep ploughing or drainage, the true riches of our soils are 
unimpaired, or nearly so. Fourthly, Therefore, our "old fields," 
as our abandoned and supposed to be worn-out lands are termed, 
having been tilled only to the depth of a few inches, and only dam- 
aged by the consumption of the humus, which a judicious applica- 
tion of one or two leguminous or green crops will restore, are 
generally as valuable as forest soils, when the labor of clearing 
and bringing the latter into cultivation are considered ; the only 
lands which are permanently injured being those which have 
been denuded by washing rains, &c, — a very small per cent, 
indeed. 

Thus highly favored both in soil and climate, what shall we pro- 
duce mainly ? With sincere diffidence I shall offer a few sugges- 
tions in this regard : 

In a country so sparsely settled as ours, and where lands are 
held in such large bodies, the theory of a division of labor is not 
sound economy in farming operations. Every farm should be as 
nearly independent and self-supporting in all respects as it can pos- 
sibly be made. In mercantile parlance, a farmer should, if possible, 
be a general dealer to at least the extent of his own consumption. 
Planting, therefore, as contradistinguished from farming — by which 
we understand a special devotion to cotton, rice, tobacco, or any ' 
great staple — is liable to this objection, it is not self-sustaining. An 
imperfect and unwise arrangement, that is, by which so many of our 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 677 

planters expend the proceeds of their staple crops for provisions 
and stock, thus paying double profits and commissions, as well as 
shipping away the fatness of their soils every year and placing 
nothing back in lieu of it. Every man who tills the soil as a means 
of living should surely first provide himself with everything which 
his farm will grow before he plants a single seed for sale. Another 
great objection to planting, or special farming, is that it is ruinously 
destructive to fertility and an enemy to the improvement of lands. 
It is, I believe, an accepted truth that there are no means of per- 
manent improvement in our soils equal to the cultivation of some of 
the grasses and the rearing of flocks, which both retain and return 
fertility of the earth. We are here directly on the dividing line 
between the planting and the grazing regions of the United 
States, and by a judicious and scientific intermingling of both, I 
give it as my unhesitating opinion that we stand in a better position 
to secure wealth by agricultural means than any other people on 
the continent. 

To successfully develop the agricultural wealth of our country, I 
deem it not only necessary to reform our planting system, but to 
open out new paths and to diversify to the utmost extent our 'pro- 
ductions. This will secure immunity, to a great extent, against the 
accidents of the seasons, enlarge our markets, and bring into profit- 
able employment much labor — as of women and children — now so 
little used. And here permit me to remark that I regret to see that 
your committee, in making up their very large list of premiums, 
have failed to offer any inducements for essays or other information 
in regard to many — to us new — departments of industry. A change 
in this respect is imperatively demanded by our altered circum- 
stances. In reflecting upon the many new fields of agricultural 
enterprise upon which our people might enter, I am forcibly im- 
pressed with the opinion that the two most promising of sure results, 
and best adapted to our scarcity of capital and labor, are the culti- 
vation of the vine in the lowlands and the orchards and dairies of 
the highlands in these two States. No surer road to fortune, it 
seems to me, can be found than lies here for intelligent industry. 

The Suuppernong grape alone, with its various crossings, is a 
source of immense profit. It is extremely hardy, its culture is sim- 
ple, and since the clusters of Eschol, it is, perhaps, the most won- 
derfully prolific grape in the world. Its home, too, is in that sandy 
belt covered by the long-leaf pine, heretofore erroneously considered 
almost valueless. 

Here, without trenching at all upon valuable grain soils, enough 
VOL. II — 44 



678 THE SOUTHERN [November 

wine could be made from it to supply the markets of the world, and 
place even in the cabins of the poor a purer and healthier drink 
than is now seen in the salons of the rich and great. 

A statement of the yield and the sales of wine by a few gentle- 
men who have recently engaged in this business in North Carolina, 
would make many a man stare who continues to gather ten bushels 
of corn, or five of wheat, per acre, from his worn-out fields, after 
the manner of his fathers. 

The capacity of this grape is indeed almost marvellous. I have 
derived some information in regard to the subject from a practical 
and experienced grower of it in Duplin county, North Carolina, 
which I give as follows : An acre will bear twenty-one vines forty 
feet apart. At three years old each vine yields one peck of grapes ; 
at five, two bushels ; at ten, twenty-five bushels ; at fifteen, forty-five 
bushels ; many vines actually bearing fifty bushels. A bushel of 
best grapes, weighing sixty pounds, will make four gallons- of juice, 
which will yield about three and a half gallons of wine, readily 
commanding in market $2.50 per gallon. The pomice will make 
five gallons of vinegar, worth fifty cents per gallon. We have thus 
$ 11.25 as the proceeds of one bushel ; $450 as the proceeds of one 
full-grown vine, $ 9,45Q as the possible proceeds of one acre. A result 
that almost exceeds belief, and I state it with diffidence on what 
appears to me reliable authority. Even reducing every item by 
nine-tenths, it would still leave this grape the most prolific and most 
profitable one in the world ; which 1 verily believe it to be. And I 
am assured by the best authority in the State that $ 1,000 per acre 
is a very moderate calculation. The labor and expenditures are 
very trifling, the whole not exceeding about thirty-three cents per 
gallon, including cost of real estate. 

As to the wine itself, when properly made, Professor Charles T. 
Jackson, in the Patent Office Report of 1859, says of it : " The 
rich flavor of this grape renders it peculiarly valuable, the wine 
having the flavor and bouquet of the celebrated Tokay wine of 
Hungary. This grape, however, cannot be cultivated in the open 
air north of Virginia, and is a native of North Carolina. It is de- 
sirable that extensive vineyards should be established in that State 
expressly for the cultivation of this grape, which will make a wine 
that will be most eagerly sought for as the best of American native 
wines." 

With regard to the difficulty existing in so calm a climate as ours 
of preventing the ascetic fermentation in the manufacture of wine, 
I suppose there need be no further trouble. I believe that is now 



; 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 679 

pretty well established that although our summers are long, and the 
grape ripens while the season is yet too warm to make wine, the 
proper temperature can be obtained by means of vaults and cellars 
to secure the vinous fermentation in any part of the States ; whilst 
in the frostless belts of the highlands the grape has been known to 
hang on to the vine in perfect keeping until December. This is, of 
. course, the > most favorable of all possible conditions for vine cul- 
ture — a climate sufficiently warm to ripen the grape, and sufficiently 
cool at the season of the vintage to secure the vinous fermentation — 
sixty-five degrees being cool enough for that purpose. 

A single fact is sufficient to show the capacity of this country for 
grape culture. The Scuppernong and the far-famed Catawba, the 
two best and most productive varieties on the continent, are natives 
of North Carolina. Strangers have transplanted them to no better 
soil and a far ruder and less congenial clime, and grown rich upon 
their culture, whilst we plough our worn-out corn-fields, hoe our 
soil-destroying tobacco, and talk of the hard times and the scarcity 
of money ! 

The mountains of this country present an appearance rather dif- 
ferent from the general order of nature. The greatest elevations 
in America east of the Rocky Mountains are found in Western 
North Carolina, which Professor Gizot calls the culmination of the 
Appalachian system. 

Unlike most mountainous regions, there is here no barrenness. 
They are clothed with timber to the very topmost ridge, and seven- 
tenths of their surface displays a soil of wonderful fertility, gene- 
rally increasing in richness as you go up. Settlements were of 
course first made in the valleys and on the lower slopes, and the 
high mountain sides were supposed worthless, except for the wild 
pasturage furnished by the pea vine and the indigenous grasses. 
The forest growth of their rich coves and inaccessible ravines, con- 
sisting in part of every variety of oak, walnut, wild cherry, white 
pine, hemlock and mahogany, is perhaps unsurpassed in value and 
magnificence in the United States. Recently, however, a few enter- 
prising citizens there are demonstrating by experiment that these 
fertile mountains are really our richest treasures. They are found 
to be invaluable for the production of grass, whilst corn, oats, rye, 
potatoes, and all other crops requiring coolness and moisture, flourish 
with a most remarkable exemption from either frost or drought. An 
experiment was tried there recently which is eminently worthy of 
mention. A high mountain ridge within six miles of the town of 
Asheville, in Buncombe county, N. C, was purchased for about one 



680 THE SOUTHERN [November 

dollar per acre ; 1,000 acres fenced in ; along the crest of the ridg'e 
the undergrowth was cut down, and the trees deadened, in mid- 
summer, no mattock being used. When perfectly dry, the whole 
was swept by fire, and the grass seed scattered without the plough. 
In riding over it in July, 1867, I found much timothy and orchard 
grass full six feet high. This year a cheese factory has been es- 
tablished upon it with every assurance of success, and besides 
grazing 150 cows, it fattened for the Southern market nearly 300 
head of beef cattle — about 1,200 acres being in grass. This 
pioneer movement will be speedily followed up by many similar 
ones. 

To show our people what profits may be derived from dairy farm- 
ing — to most of whom I apprehend it is new — I will state a few 
facts in regard to this cheese factory as I learned them last summer. 
A gentleman, who is largely interested in the enterprise, sold four 
cows to the company at an average price of $21 each on a credit 
of six months. They proved to be fine milkers, yielding for nearly 
six months of the cheese making season about four gallons each per 
day. Each gallon of milk made one pound of cheese, worth twenty 
cents at the factory. So that before the day of payment each cow 
had paid $146 — at least $100 of which was net — in addition to the 
calf and to the whey fed to the pigs. It is true this was an excep- 
tional case, the great majority of the cows not yielding near so 
much, but it shows what can be done with good cows and good pas- 
turage on land that cost originally one dollar per acre. 

Again, a young farmer living near by, who milked fourteen 
cows — very ordinary, and from a pasture not at all fine — by send- 
ing his milk to the factory and exchanging it, a gallon of milk for 
a pound of cheese, made from that source alone about $750 in the 
season clear money — more than from all his farm besides ! These 
facts are highly suggestive. 

Literally, hundreds of thousands of acres of these rich and fruit- 
ful highlands — pastures of the sky — await the hand of enterprise in 
the bosom of our Southern Alps. 

Of the fruit grown there — especially the apples — I confidently 
affirm there is not their equal in the United States either in quan- 
tity or quality. Eighty bushels are not unfrequently gathered from 
one tree, and in size and flavor I have never met with any in the 
markets of our Northern cities to equal them. This under a very 
poor and unscientific system of cultivation. Says Professor Kerr : 
" There is probably no better region for fruit in the United States. 
Apples grow almost spontaneously, and there are many seedling va- 



i 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 681 



r ieties which have originated here that are equal to the most cele- 
brated exotics. And I have seen apples of good quality growing 
wild on the tops of the mountains, nearly five thousand feet high, 
where the seed had, probably, been accidentally dropped by the 
hunter." 

In the bosoms of these highlands is also observed a phenomenon 
at once curious and suggestive of most important results. Exten- 
sive zones are found in certain localities, and at certain elevations 
almost entirely exempt from frost or dew. These frostless reaches, 
called sometimes, though scarce properly, isothermal belts, are be- 
coming well known and appreciated there. Professor Kerr suggests 
the following theory in regard to this phenomenon, but premises by 
saying he had never yet investigated for himself, and says he does 
not give it with confidence. " This phenomenon of frost, limited to 
a certain horizontal line along the mountain slopes, is of course 
only witnessed in calm weather. In such circumstances the atmos- 
pheres arrange themselves in horizontal layers according to their 
different specific gravities, just as in elastic fluids, water and alco- 
hol, or water and spirits of turpentine. The fact is rendered patent 
to the eye by the horizontal smoke strata which you have seen in a 
calm evening at sunset arranging themselves along the hills, or fog 
strata in Buncombe. Now, each 01 these belts has its own pecu- 
liarities of constitution — specific gravity, humidity and tempera- 
ture — diminishing upwards. The deposition of moisture from any 
of these zones in the form of frost (or dew) will occur as soon as the 
temperature of the soil is reduced by radiation to the dew point, 
which, of course, is always a point of temperature below that of the 
air itself. Supposing the radiation (and rate of reduction of the 
temperature of the soil) to be sensibly equal at different elevations, 
it is plain that the dew point will be reached in these different strata 
of atmosphere successively from below upwards, and for any given 
elevation may not be reached at all during the whole night. Ac- 
cordingly, you may hear of such frostless regions in any of our 
mountain counties, the belt being generally narrow T , varying from 
a few rods to several hundred yards in width, extending often quite 
around the sides of a cove or valley enclosed between mountain 
chains. The elevation of the lower limit of such zones above the 
plains is said to vary very little for any given locality. As far as 
my information goes, it is generally from five or six hundred to a 
thousand feet." 

Here the delicate fruits — as the peach, the grape, and, I imagine, 
the pear — can be grown with absolute certainty. I have stood my- 



682 THE SOUTHERN [November 

self and gazed with wondering admiration over the lovely valley of 
the Swannanoa, the prettiest daughter of Mt. Mitchell, at the effect 
of a hard spring frost upon the half-opened vegetation. Up to a 
certain line in the mountain sides, drawn with the accuracy of the 
spirit-level, the tender leaves were black and frost-charred, whilst 
all above were still green and untouched ! Such are Nature's efforts 
to teach her children her hidden mysteries. It was her voice 
crying out, " Plant here, plant here, and thy fruits shall never 
fail." 

Having premised by referring only to the dairies and orchards of 
the mountains as a new and profitable source of enterprise, I shall 
say nothing of their adaptation to other productions, to manufac- 
tures, of their mineral wealth, the progress of railroads, or of their 
scenery and healthfulness ; and if I have said more in regard to the 
resources of the mountain regions of my own State than of Virginia, 
it is only because I know them better. I doubt not but that the two 
regions are very similar, and that hints in regard to the one may be 
equally applicable to the other. 

In regard to labor, I don't permit myself to doubt but that the 
candid historian will be compelled to say that in the existence of 
Southern slavery the slaves were vastly more benefitted than their 
masters. In a hundred ways it was a drawback upon our material 
prosperity. It drove all the immigration to the North, and that 
tide, of which we should have received a share but for slavery, has 
made the free North rich and great. Fully conscious of this, as 
Southern statesmen have ever been, they resisted abolition, not be- 
cause they doubted the superiority of the free white labor, but 
because they knew the utter worthlessness of free black labor. 
They believe, and truly, that as this population was here it would 
retard our prosperity less in a state of slavery. Here is the true 
cause of our present condition. With slave labor in our midst there 
was little or no room for European immigration, which could not 
compete with it. Now, that the foreign labor can compete with the 
negro, political causes of still greater weight interpose to prevent 
his coming. The negro, for whom there is well-known repugnance 
in all classes of European society, is not only still here, but he is, 
under our present anomalous state of things, the master of the situ- 
ation. It will be next to impossible to get any considerable quantity 
of intelligent immigrants to cast their fortunes in a land cursed with 
the African domination. The first duty of the agriculturist, then, 
is a political one — to remedy this evil and secure a stable govern- 
ment, controlled by intelligence and property. I have confidence 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 683 

that this will soon be done. It is a law of nature that the superior 
shall govern the inferior. Knowledge is power ! and not all the 
acts of Congress supported by all the bayonets within the power of 
insane men to apply can long succeed in reversing the decrees of 
God, and keeping .Congo and Dahomey on top of Virginia and 
North Carolina. When our political relations' are properly ad- 
justed — and not till then — may we expect an influx of white labor. 
Nor even then need we expect it unless we can offer it inducements. 
What can we. offer it now f What have we to pay? In what de- 
partment of agriculture do we hold out promises of profitable 
labor ? — enough so to direct immigrants from the rioh, cheap lands 
of the great West? I am decidedly of the opinion that we shall 
not be wise in either bringing or attempting to bring Europeans 
here to raise cotton or tobacco. I feel well assured such a thing 
would fail. The true character of the labor we shotrld seek for is 
that which will enable us to diversify our productions and develop 
new sources of wealth — open new fields of enterprise. We need 
herdsmen and cheese. makers from the Alps, shepherds from the 
Scotch highlands, vine-dressers from the Rhine and the Pyrennes, 
hop-growers from Kent and Herfordshire. Will such Come upon an 
experiment merely ? How many vineyards, how many cheese fac- 
tories, sheep walks, and hop farms, have we in operation among us 
to which we can refer them as evidences of our country's capacity? 
We must make these experiments and establish the success of these 
enterprises ourselves, without which we might fail in" making profit- 
able the hired labor we should import, and we shall surely fail in 
getting here that independent labor of the farmer-immigrant, by far 
the most desirable. 

But, with all these conditions accomplished, it remains for us to 
consider the best means for encountering the vast appliances and 
great inducements held out by the people of the Northwest, our 
rivals for this stream of European immigration, which annually 
seeks our shores. Nineteen-twentieths of it, landing at New York, 
never sees the South, and never will. It will travel westward in 
the same parallels of latitude, in obedience to well-known laws, 
aided and encouraged by capital, speculation and organization, de- 
voted to this purpose. Nothing can change this but direct trade 
with Europe from the South, and the establishment of lines of emi- 
grant ships with ports not north of Norfolk at least. Then, with 
your aid societies, land companies, and similar organizations, a be- 
ginning could be made, which is all that will be required. The 
success of the first colony will draw after it as much more as is 



684 THE SOUTHERN [November 

desired. State aid to such an enterprise need not be expected as 
things are now constituted in the South — as the black element and 
black-white element which mingles with it are both deadly hostile 
to. immigration. Nor is such aid essential or desirable. The rail- 
road and municipal corporations of the South, aided by the great 
number of large land-holders, can raise ample means to put this 
great scheme into operation. I hope it will be done. The recent 
Commercial Convention in Norfolk was a move in the right direc- 
tion. Still I would impress one thing: So great a change as this, 
from black to whice labor, must be very gradually and gently ac- 
complished, for various weighty reasons. There are many and great 
advantages in employing native labor, though it be inferior. The 
first instalment of foreigners are generally ugly customers, and 
until they learn us and we learn them we shall reap small profit 
from their superior industry and intelligence. It is plainly our 
duty, then, to make the very most of the native labor which we 
have. In many departments, I doubt not, the negro maybe always 
valuable, and he is certainly our present dependence in our planting 
and staple growing operations. Then, too, political consequences 
must not be overlooked. Were it possible to fill the land with white 
immigrants to-morrow, it would not be desirable to convert the black 
population into paupers, vagabonds and criminals, by refusing to use 
their labor. Whilst I repeat my opinion that free black labor is a 
failure, and will never compete with the white successfully, yet it is 
here, and will be here long, and while here we should use it at its 
worth, subordinated to the other. Sound economy demands this of 
us, the peace and good order of society requires it, and humanity 
seconds the call. 

And now, my countrymen and women, can I say anything more 
to help or encourage you in the promotion of your beneficent ob- 
jects ? Yours is the eldest born and noblest of human pursuits. 
All things in the world depend upon agriculture. The country 
blooms and prospers by it ; civilization is its offspring; the great 
cities of the earth grow only by its help ; the ships of the sea are 
but messengers of its bounty; and the roaring, smoking mechan- 
isms of the world are the only factors of its wealth. The eloquence 
of the orator's tongue, the strength of the soldier's arms, the bright- 
ness of the poet's imagination, and the depth of the statesman's 
brain, the glory of the maiden's smile, the sweet music of lisping 
childhood — all, everything, comes from the worker in the earth ! 
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," is the epitome of 
man's existence. " In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread " — 



1368.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 685 

the primal curse — it has become a blessing. God prosper you in 
your efforts to lift up and ennoble this great work — this guide and 
solace of human toil! I rejoice that its disciples are taking their 
true places among the honored ones of the world. I hope to see the 
day when the dull boy of the family will no longer be reserved for 
the farmer, and the brighter ones for the professions, so-called. The 
first work of man requires the best mind of man. The noblest labor 
should have the noblest talent. Tired of war, disgusted with its 
carnage, worn down with a civil strife worse than war, and sick at 
heart of all the triumphs and defeats of armed violence, when shall 
we learn to exalt the heroes of the victories of Peace ? 



Virginia. — "Virginia," says Judge Sheffey in a recent charge 
to the Grand Jury of the Circuit Court of Rockbridge county, " is 
not without many blessings, although she stands under the shadow 
of a dark cloud of affliction. She is blessed with a population, 
white and colored, peaceable, orderly and submissive to law. She 
is blessed with resources unsurpassed by those of any State in the 
Union ; her agricultural wealth, mineral products, water power, 
manufacturing capacities, climate, scenery and purity of atmosphere 
are unsurpassed. She is blessed with the cordial esteem and pro- 
found respect of civilized mankind ; many of those who were once 
our enemies being foremost in applauding the unselfish devotion, 
calm dignity and stern heroism of her conduct during the recent, 
war, and her patient submission and uncomplaining composure under 
sore trials and temptations since the war ceased, although peace 
came not ; and she is blessed with that exalted self-respect which is 
better than wealth, better than bloated prosperity, better than well- 
fed complacency, and purse-proud self-laudation and boasting, and 
inspired with which her sons, even her colored people, when far from 
her borders, are wont to pronounce her name with proud confidence 
and with the assurance that honor awaits its whenever uttered ; and 
above all, she is blessed in that she is yet standing, like the chief 
of the martyrs, with the sword of destruction suspended over her — 
still stayed and withheld by an invisible power ; and as we gaze with 
fixed eyes and beating hearts at the venerable old State, and of so 
many other States, the framer of the Union and its fearless de- 
fender in years gone by, now bowed down and with her head bend- 
ing forward to receive the blow which shall annihilate her as the old 
Commonwealth of Virginia, and as we see the uplifted arm stretched 
forth to destroy, still held back, may we not hope — at any rate, let 
us all fervently pray — that the 'arm which is not shortened ' may 
yet save her from that doom which would make freemen mourn 
and patriots hang their heads in shame in the future !" — Staunton 
Spectator. 



686 



THE SOUTHERN 



[November 




Jorfiniltaral §ejjariment 



Horticultural Literature. 

With the increasing interest which is being aroused all over the 
State upon the subject of fruit culture, and to some extent a result 
of that interest, we have a mass of what may, for want of a more 
suitable term, be called horticultural literature. The columns of 
our daily, weekly and monthly press, secular and religious, teem 
with essays, communications, instructions, statements of profits, 
&c, until one is almost led to think that our whole people have be- 
come authors. 

Ordinarily, there is little objection to be made to any, who feel 
an inclination and think they have the information to impart, giv- 
ing said information to the public ; for that which is valuable will 
be retained — the rest soon cast aside. But in the present circum- 
stances, when the mass of our people are profoundly ignorant of 
the principles of fruit culture, yet feel the pressing need for em- 
barking in it, as one of the surest and speediest methods of recu- 
perating their wasted resources, it becomes a matter of the utmost 
importance that what they are told shall be reliable and practical. 
They are too poor to learn by the costly lesson of experience, that 
those who have undertaken to instruct know as little as themselves, 
in many instances less, and yet such must be their misfortune, un- 
less something can be done to arrest the tide of exaggerated non- 
sense and, in many cases, wilful misrepresentations which are 
flooding the press of the State from " so-called " horticultural 
writers. We would not speak harshly of any, nor for a moment 
discourage those who honestly tell what they know for the encour- 
agement and profit of others ; on the contrary, we heartily wish 
them success in their noble work. But it is against that class of 
penny-a-liners, whose ignorance is only equalled by their assump- 
tion, that we wish to warn our readers. Day by day we see most 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 687 

marvellous statements of profits, most positive directions for cultiva- 
tion and dictatorial commands as to varieties to be planted, -which 
are extremely amusing, or rather disgusting, to those at all familiar 
with the subject. 

These noxious scribblers may be divided into two general classes. 
Those who, without any personal acquaintance with the subject, 
collect what others have said, and not having capacity to make pro- 
per allowances for season, climate, soil and other circumstances, 
publish what mislead and deceive. Examples of this style are 
easily found. One of these authors reads somewhere that some 
one has made three thousand dollars from one acre in vineyard, and 
that fact (if fact it be) is immediately seized upon as a text from 
which to preach to our people, and they are told they can easily do 
the same. It is charitable to presume it to be through ignorance, 
not design, that the fact is conceded that such profits do not arise 
from the grape crop, but depend upon the sales of young vines pro- 
pagated in the vineyard, and that it is only such vineyardists as are 
at the same time nurserymen that can expect any such truly mar- 
vellous returns. So with all other fruits. We are told that one 
thousand dollars per acre is a moderate income from strawberries, 
when in reality it is an extraordinary return, only to be obtained 
under exceedingly favorable circumstances. 

Again, these writers deceive the public by their estimates and 
statements of capital and outlay required. Not less than five hun- 
dred dollars per acre will be required to prepare, plant and bring a 
vineyard into bearing, and yet we see those "who are too poor to 
own a mule and plough," advised that these are not essential, that 
all required is a pick and shovel in the hands of a man too 
poor to have his ground ploughed. But injurious as all this non- 
sense is, and deserving of censure as the authors of it undoubtedly 
are, still their condemnation is light compared with the withering 
contempt and disgrace which attaches itself to another class of these 
scribblers, viz : those who write with a view to advertising their own 
commodities. To-day, the unsuspecting reader revels in a most 
glowing description of some common-place varieties of grapes or 
strawberries, which, if he credits the half of it, must make him 
wish his whole plantation were covered with these plants, little 
thinking that the article is only meant to prepare the way for a 
long-winded advertisement of said varieties, to appear in the next 
days' issue. The consequence is he invests only to find, by expe- 
rience, that he has wasted his substance for that which profiteth not. 

How to counteract this growing evil is an important question, one, 



688 THE SOUTHERN [November 



however, which the editors of the State can readily solve. Let 
them refuse to publish any communications, unless they know the 
authors to be not only reliable gentlemen, but also practically con- 
versant with the subjects upon which they write. If this rule were 
adopted, we would have vastly less in quantity, and gain greatly in 
quality in the horticultural literature of the day. Our people want 
facts, not theories; they want to know how this and that man have 
succeeded or failed here in Virginia ; what were the circumstances 
attendant upon success or failure. It is of little value to them to 
know what suits Minnesota or Texas, or what some writer thinks is 
required here. They can think for themselves; what they need is 
proper data from which to draw conclusions. 



The Excessive Evaporation Theory Again. 

In an article in the Gardener s Monthly, Mr. Meehan, its editor, 
politely refers to our paper published in the Southern Planter, con- 
troverting his theory that plants are killed during cold weather by 
excessive evaporation. 

He first states that we seem to differ from him in toto ; and next 
comes to the conclusion that we virtually agree with him, and tacitly 
acquiesce in his evaporating theory. We are not willing to be made 
to assume such an absurd position. The editor of the Gardener s 
Monthly ought not to have given mere garbled extracts, which ap- 
pear to fall in with his speculations, but which, if taken in connec- 
tion with what precedes and follows, would show that our conclusions 
are founded upon facts and the laws which govern organized vegeta- 
ble life; and that these phenomena and laws are utterly at variance 
with the theory that evaporation is excessive in winter, and, conse- 
quently, plants die from want of proper nourishment. We reiterate 
what we have already stated, that during winter, especially in the 
Northern States, where the cold is severe, plants take in more moist- 
ure by capillary absorption carried on by means of the roots, in an 
unfrozen medium, perhaps, several feet below ground, than they 
give out by surface evaporation, brought about by the heat of the 
sun and the desiccating process of the winds. 

While the absorption of moisture furnished by snows and rains 
which saturate the soil to a considerable depth is immense ; the ac- 
tual expenditures abstracted from plants is extremely insignificant. 
Evaporation can only become excessive in a hot and dry atmos- 
phere when the vapor, instead of being condensed by cold, expands 



18G8. PLANTER AND FARMER. 689 



and becomes lighter than air to make it ascend. Now, it is well 
known that these conditions do not exist during winter in Northern 
climates ; nor can high winds produce evaporation in a direct way 
during cold weather. They have something of a desiccating effect, 
because they carry off the vapor which is floating in the atmosphere, 
but no one is ignorant of the fact that they do not dry muddy roads, 
and, consequently, do not evaporate the surplus water, but they only 
cause the freezing process to go on more rapidly by suddenly ab- 
stracting the inherent caloric, and as soon as the weather becomes 
milder, the roads become as muddy as ever. 

Another fact, which is no less indisputable, militates much against 
Mr. Meehan's theory of excessive evaporation. Daring the winter 
the organic system of plants, like that of some animals, becomes 
torpid to a great degree. Living organisms must be nourished from 
without, because they are continually growing or enlarging their 
size and perfecting their organization ; they are producing new in- 
dividuals or germs of individuals which requires a constant supply of 
new materials. In cold climates, plants produce nothing during win- 
ter, and, consequently, in this state of comparative inaction, the 
circulation of the organic fluids is extremely slow, just enough to 
keep them alive and to maintain, so to say, their status quo. While 
we do not deny that they evaporate some little moisture during dry, 
cold weather, and therefore lose slightly by waste, we do emphati- 
cally deny that " they give out more than they take in," and, con- 
sequently,' die from inanition, as the doctors call it; and we as 
emphatically assert that instead of starving from want of liquid 
materials to nourish them, they have always a superabundance at 
their command, and might consider themselves, like some inveterate 
topers, as " being drowned in wine and frolic." 

We, therefore, hold fast to our first position, that plants die dur- 
ing excessive cold weather on account of the sudden abstraction of 
their vital heat, which is as necessary to their organic existence as 
it is to the higher animals. If Mr. Meehan will only visit his hot- 
house during winter, he cannot fail to observe that most of his 
exotics flourish only in a warm temperature, which must be artifi- 
cially provided, otherwise his plants would wither and perish ; not 
because their nourishment has been withheld, but because they were 
not supplied with a sufficient quantity of heat. 

Nor is it strictly true, as Mr. Meehan seems to intimate, that "by 
moisture only does heat circulate through a plant, and it is only by 
evaporation a circulation of heat is kept up, with evaporation heat 
escapes." If Mr. Meehan means that plants cannot live without 



690 THE SOUTHERN [November 

sap or circulating fluid, we agree with him. If it is his opinion that 
vital heat is one of the elements of plants indispensable to sustain 
their vitality, and that a circulating fluid is necessary to generate it 
and distribute it, we are in full accord with him. But we cannot 
subscribe to his doctrine — that moisture and heat are inseparable, 
and that the one is the inevitable concomitant of the other. A 
plant may be saturated with moisture, and still it may die by the 
sudden abstraction of heat, without the least evaporation having 
taken place. Blossoms and buds are killed during cold spring 
nights, when no evaporating process goes on. A man who visits 
the regions of the North Pole does not die because his blood freezes 
or evaporates, nor does he die from want of nourishment, but he 
perishes on account of the sudden abstraction of vital heat, which 
benumbs his nerves, causes torpidity and puts a stop to the organic 
machinery. The organism of plants is not as complicated as that 
of animals, but the same principles of vitality are applicable to 
both. Animals cannot live without air and light, neither can plants. 
Animals must supply their waste, and must take in materials that 
foster their growth, so must plants. Animals have an inherent 
vital power to resist, in some measure, external atmospheric influ- 
ences ; and long continued droughts, which dry up almost every- 
thing except vegetation,, show that plants possess this j)ower in a 
great degree. 

Beyond this, plants as well as animals are subject to the ordinary 
laws of caloric, which has a tendency to establish an equilibrium, 
by withdrawing an excessive supply from one body and infusing 
it into another less impregnated with its subtle fluid. 

It would be very unfortunate for mankind if this excessive evap- 
oration theory were true ; for during the summer, when the atmos- 
phere is hot and dry, and the evaporating process is very active, 
while at the same time the supply of rain is often very limited, all 
plants would perish, and the earth would become uninhabitable. 

A. FiSATHERMAN. 



The Catawba Grape in Virginia. 

"Blest is the country," exclaims William Cobbett, "that can 
grow Indian corn ! " " Blest the region," cries the Northern grape 
culturist, " that will ripen the Catawba ! " The host of new grapes 
invented in that enterprising section are but so .many ineffectual 
protests against the forbidding climate that excludes that noble va- 
riety. It forms the standard of excellence for the table and for 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 691 



wine. The Gedar Point Catawbas are the dessert fruit of the mil- 
lion in New York, and Catawba cobblers are the delight of the 
bibulous. Who ever heard of a Hartford Prolific cobbler or an 
Iona cobbler? 

The few famed nooks north of Harrisburg, where this queen of 
American grapes is at home, have profited as the abodes of royalty 
usually do. They are all in the immediate vicinity of large bodies 
of water. Beginning west, we find such spots along the eastern 
shore of Lake Michigan, not more than two or three miles distant. 
Kelley's Island, in Lake Erie near Sandusky, has been famous in 
this respect for ten or fifteen years. The desired conditions re- 
appear on the lake sides of Western New York. In these localities, 
land has risen from fifteen or twenty to eight hundred dollars an 
acre since their capacity for producing the Catawba was discovered. 
The other varieties grow and bear well enough in nearly every part 
of the North not beyond Albany. But only in a few such spots as 
we have named, and others on the promonitories of the Hudson 
below the Highlands, have such results been seen in the enhanced 
value of land. 

Now, in the Piedmont and Valley counties of Virginia, no grape 
thrives better than the Catawba. It is our conviction that it will suc_ 
ceed quite as well in the Falls region, as we may call that along the 
head of Tide-water, if due attention be paid to the choice of situa- 
tions and soils. On flat fields, more or less wet, surrounded by a 
belt of woods and having little or no trace of lime or potash, it can 
not be expected to do well. It needs a free circulation of air and 
a dry and strong soil. It will do where tobacco will. We have 
eaten as fine Catawbas in Charlotte county as we recollect anywhere. 
In precisely such a country it had its origin. 

While the Concord is a fine grape, it has never held its own in 
the market against the Catawba. Those sections, however, where 
the latter has failed after a fair test, cannot do better than grow the 
former for the table and for general market purposes. It ripens 
earlier here than at the North, and seems to be quite as vigorous 
and prolific. 

But Virginia has another string to her bow. The Norton is 
the specialty of those portions of the eastern territory where the 
Catawba fails. Its wine ranks first, and it cannot be depended on 
at the North. These two will always give her vineyards the advan- 
tage. They are both of wild origin, and it is not likely thaj: any of 
the garden seedlings which crowd Northern catalogues, in ever 
lengthening lists, will ever equal them for the table and the cellar. 



692 THE SOUTHERN < [November 

Finer varieties may in time be discovered or originated at the South, 
but they will not enure to the benefit of Northern growers, or inter- 
fere with Virginia's command of the Northern market. The Scup- 
pernong, so admirable for wine, does not seem to make headway as 
a table grape in the Eastern cities, owing in part to its unattractive 
appearance. It, like the Catawba, is a wild grape from the Caro- 
lina woods. The same unexplored wilds may furnish the connect- 
ing link — a pulpless Catawba and a Scuppernong in bunches. Or, 
why may not some Southern experimentist follow the footsteps of 
the Aliens and Rogerses, of Massachusetts, and operating on better 
material than theirs, produce the hybrid the country is waiting for? 
But we are wandering from our original idea, which was to show 
that nine acres out of every ten in Virginia can, and ought to, 
yield a grape which not one acre in fifty thousand at the North can 
grow or will ever grow. • B. 



Gardening in Arkansas. 

Mr. Editor, — Two things are absolutely necessary for a good 
garden — a genial climate and a generous soil — and these essentials 
Arkansas possesses to an extent, perhaps, unequalled by any of our 
Southern States. 

The almost annual overflow of the Mississippi imparts to the soil a 
richness equal to the valley of Nile, and then when you are told that a 
rock is something unheard of in this fertile and well watered land, 
you readily perceive that nature, both positively and negatively, has 
more than done her part, and he who suffers for " the staff of life " 
in this country richly deserves it. 

Believing there is far more dignity and manliness in manual labor 
than in lounging about store-doors, whittling sticks and chewing 
tobacco, immediately on my arrival and settlement there I took hold 
of my garden with " my own hands," in true apostolic manner, and 
you know when I take hold it is rather hard to make me let go. 

Tomatoes, cabbage, beets, onions, salsify, &c, were immediately 
transplanted Jrom other hands, as it was too late to sow the seed; 
from these the yield has been abundant, and that, too, at no cost 
but about an hour's work by myself every morning. 

Cymlings, snaps, water and musk-melons were then planted, and 
just now we have more than we know what to do with. 

The Irish potato, a sort of hobby with me in my old Virginia 
garden, was planted after the same fashion — hills three feet apart, 



1868.] PLANTER A1ND FARMER. 693 



two to three cuts in a hill. I did not get them in, however, till 1st 
of June. They are now yielding finely. . The seed cost $2 (now 
dull at fifty cents) a bushel, brought down the Mississippi by those 
floating curses of this beautiful country — flat-bottom boats from 
Indianna and Illinois — which drain this poor people of every dollar 
they can rake and scrape, and then laugh in their sleeves at their 
stupidity and improvidence. 

Digressing a little, I had a nice pan of egg-bread for breakfast 
this morning, made of Arkansas meal (new), the first I have eaten 
since I came out, which cost me fifty cents a bushel. The same 
meal, kiln-dried in Illinois and as tasteless as saw-dust, held in our 
stores at $1.50. (Do you think it possible for a man to starve in 
this country ?) 

Corn will not bring over $1.50 a barrel here this fall. 

This leads me back to my garden. The first of July I planted a 
large portion of it alternately in corn and peas, and am now feast- 
ing and fattening on them. I wish you would send me by express 
this fall a quart of old-fashioned black-eyed corn-field peas. We 
can't get the genuine out here, and are compelled to plant what is 
called the stock pea, which runs all over the face of the earth. 

The sweet potato grows here to perfection, the alluvial soil mak- 
ing it yield most enormously. I shall have an abundance of them 
in a few weeks. They are dull in our market at $ 1 per bushel. 

They are generally planted in beds, though I greatly prefer the 
hill. They can be raised as readily from a cut from the vine as the 
hot-bed, as the dampness of the climate in the early spring makes 
them grow off very readily. 

Though it looks late to the Virginians, yet I have been sowing 
winter cabbage seed, turnips, and planting snaps to-day (second 
crop). 

We really have no winter to any extent before Christmas, and 
then rains supply the place of snow in our more northern latitudes. 

One word more, and I have done this hurried letter. 

Try and impress upon our people the necessity of saving their 
own garden seed instead of buying them from our Northern gar- 
deners. Hundreds of dollars go North annually from our poor 
stricken people for these simple little things, when a few moments 
attention daily would save this amount which might so much better 
be bestowed upon the education of our dear children ; but "Ephraim 
is joined to idols," and sometimes we are disposed to let him alone. 
Burning the child to the very quick does not seem to make him 
dread the painful element in the least. 
vol. II — 45 



694 THE SOUTHERN [November 

In my next, I shall perhaps have somewhat to say about making 
tobacco in Arkansas. Would our people believe me if I were to 
tell them I have seen it high enough to hide a mule ? 

Yours, &c, 

Thos. Ward White. 
Helena, Arkansas, September 3d, 1868. 

P. S. — I have been tempted these hard times to buy s^me of our 
soil and send it back to Virginia to be substituted in place of the 
thousand and one phosphates and super-phosphates which take all 
the money out of the country and leave nothing behind. 

A little boy asked my wife the other day what sort of a thing 
was manure, and what did they do with it where she came from ? 



Fall Tree Planting. — The earlier in autumn that tree plant- 
ing is performed the better, provided the wood has matured. It is 
not requisite that the leaf has fallen ; but in transplanting, the leaf 
should be removed ere the tree is dug from the ground ; keep the 
roots from drying cold winds or clear hot suns, and when setting 
spread them out regularly, and see that fine earth is next against 
each and every fibre ; for where one root is laid against another 
without soil intervening, it is liable to dry and decay, and often 
destroy the whole tree. Do not pour water in among the roots at 
this time of year, but press and mingle the earth carefully with the 
hand and spreading fingers. Mound up around the tree about eight 
inches high, to assist it in retaining its upright position and also to 
carry oif surplus water, for no matter how carefully the tree be 
planted, if water is permitted to stand around it and soak the roots 
from day to day, it may be expected to die. — Horticulturist. 

With us the wood is now mature, and trees should be planted as 
soon as possible. — Ed. Southern Planter and Farmer. 



Strawberry beds planted this autumn should during this month 
be lightly mulched with coarse straw, cornstalks, or other litter that 
will serve to shield them from sun and prevent the ground from 
freezing and thawing rapidly ; but at the same time the mulch 
should not pack down on the plants to smother them. — Horti- 
culturist. 



Every man, in his prosperity, should make provisions to meet 
irsitv." 



adversity 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 695 



Jaust|}ofo §cpitrf}imtl 



Barn-Yard Poultry. 

Domestic fowte' are as subject to diseases as human beings ; and 
some of their diseases are not unlike those that attend frail human- 
ity "from the cradle to the grave." " Consumption" in man, and 
"Roup" in fowls are not dissimilar, in many respects. Man often 
inherits this disease from his parents. The chicken inherits 
"Roup" from his parents. Both suffer with coughs — with loss of 
appetite — with difficult breathing — with wasted strength — with loss 
of flesh — and if, perchance, skilful treatment and good nursing ap- 
parently restore them, slight exposure to damp night air, excessive 
fatigue, or improper diet, may cause the disease to return in a more 
aggravated form than it originally assumed. " Croup," in children, 
is said to be similar in its nature to " Gapes" in fowls. "Dyspep- 
sia" in man, and "Hard Crop " in chickens, are but disorders of 
the digestive organs. Cholera and Apoplexy are common to man 
and fowls ; and originating in like causes, require similar treatment. 

"roup " 
is the most fatal of all diseases to poultry, and the most difficult to 
master, when once it gets fairly seated in the poultry-yard, that I 
know of, and I doubt if there is any certain cure for it. Time and 
again have I nursed a few " roupy fowls " as if they were children, 
hoping to see them restored to health — and in some instances I have 
had them to rally and seem to be getting well ; but the first cold 
spell brought a return of the disease, and after a few days' suffering, 
death generally relieved them. . 

Many causes have been assigned for " Roup," and many specifics 
published for its cure, but I have yet seen none that I deem relia- 
ble. Feeding liberally on stale bread soaked in ale,, giving iron and 
assafcetida in their drinking water, and keeping the " Roupy fowls " 
in a comfortable room, will often palliate the disease, but its seeds 
remain, to be developed on the first suitable occasion. The safest 
plan is to kill or remove the sick birds as soon as the disease is dis- 
covered, and thus prevent the spread of the contagion. 

" GAPES." 
" Gapes " is a common, and often fatal, disease, sometimes taking 
off entire broods in the course of a few days. I have never seen a 



696 THE SOUTHERN [November 



chicken with " Gapes " that was not full of vermin. My treatment 
is, to anoint the bird well with a composition made of tobacco and 
sassafras root bark, stewed in lard. This readily destroys all in- 
truders. I then give the patient alum water and a drop or two of 
spirits of turpentine, and repeating the dose for a few mornings, 
soon find the little sufferer entirely recovered. An intelligent medi- 
cal friend, who has made a careful diagnosis of " Gapes," pro- 
nounces it similar to croup in children, and recommends the same 
treatment for both. 

"cholera." 

"Cholera" or "diarrhoea, if taken in time, will readily yield to 
chalk and cayenne pepper, mixed in the food of the sufferers. When 
they refuse to eat it, confine them till they are hungry, and then 
feed them moderately on the prepared dough. 

Poultry sometimes die of apoplexy. Within twelve months, I 
have lost two fine hens by that disease. Bleeding might have saved 
them, had they survived long enough for the lancet to be used. 

Weak joints, gout, etc., may be treated as diseases by some. 
Having no use for that class of "birds," I generally dispose of 
them in a more summary way. 

I have hurriedly noticed some of the diseases to which poultry is 
subjected, and have recommended such remedies as I have found 
efficacious. That they will generally give satisfaction to those who 
take proper care of their poultry, I am quite sure ; but to those 
who fail to feed their birds regularly — to give them pure air, fresh 
water and comfortable quarters, and to keep them free of vermin, no 
medicine will save them from pestilential diseases and death. Clean- 
liness is essential to the health of fowls, and he who undertakes to 
rear poultry without it undertakes a hopeless task. 

BREEDS TO RAISE FROM. 

The " White-Faced Black Spanish " is by far the best layer I 
have ever seen — but the young are the most difficult to rear. Not 
only are they subject to "Roup," "Gapes" and other diseases, but 
they breed more vermin, and suffer more from them, than the com- 
mon " Dunghill" or any other "strain" of birds that I know of. 
I am making an effort to cross this breed in the imported Brahma, 
but cannot now say how the cross will succeed. 

The "Brahma " is, perhaps, the best breed for our climate, and 
is said to succeed well at the North. They are good layers, sit 
well, and make good mothers. Their eggs are very large, and the 
young birds are ready to eat at eight or ten weeks old. Where 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 697 

they are free from "Roup" they are industrious and amiable; but 
the difficulty with us is to get them pure and, at the same time, 
healthy. I have now a letter before me, from a reliable gentleman 
in New York, of whom I ordered a few pairs, some weeks since, 
who says he attended the New England Poultry Fair, and could not 
fill my order, because every chicken on exhibition was diseased — 
none of them being worthy a premium. 

CROSSING. 

The Brahma and the Irish Gray (game) fowl will doubtless make 
an admirable cross for the table; and, it may be that the " Creve- 
cour " and "La Fleshe " (French importations) will make fine layers 
for this section ; but until they can be procured of reliable dealers — 
men who have some regard for their reputations, and will not ship 
you diseased fowls — it were better to improve our present stock, by 
judicious crossing and careful breeding. 

In conclusion, let me impress upon your readers the necessity of 
cleanliness, the free use of lime, liberal feeding and fresh water, as 
essential to successful poultry raising. Without these, farmers can- 
not have that abundance of eggs and birds so essential to good 
living in country and town. 

J. W. L. 



"Sweet Pickle Cantaloupe." 

Mr. Editor, — I suppose most of the readers of your excellent 
paper raise " citrons," or, as it is better known, cantaloupes, and I 
will give you an excellent recipe for putting them up for home con- 
sumption in the winter : Take one basket of cantaloupes, pare them 
and take out the seeds, and cut them in about six pieces, or better 
still, cut them through in every indentation ; pack them in a large 
pan as close as possible; cover them with vinegar, and let them 
stand twenty-four hours ; retain three quarts of the liquor, and to 
each quart allow three pounds of good light brown sugar, one ounce 
of cinnamon, and one half-once of cloves. Boil the syrup, at the 
same time skimming it, add the spice, and boil the melon twenty 
minutes; take out the pieces, and pour the syrup over them boiling 
hot ; let stand until next day ; then put the syrup on the fire, and 
when it boils, add the melons and boil the melons half an hour lon- 
ger ; put them in jars, and tie bladders over them. They are bet- 
ter six months or one year old. Mrs. Evans. 

Town Point, Chesapeake City, Cecil county, Md. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER AND FARMER. 



RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER, 18G8. 

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The Augusta County Fair and Speech of Commodore IV!. F. Maury. 

All accounts concur in representing the Augusta County Fair as a complete 
success, reflecting the highest credit on the liberal and enlightened public 
spirit of the people of Augusta, and upon the President and Directo s for the 
wise and judicious arrangements which they had made, under many disadvan- 
tages, for the success of the Fair and for the accommodation of the multitude 
of visitors. 

We hope to give a full account in our next, but must be content, meanwhile, 
with appropriating all of our present available space to the reproduction of the 
admirable address of Commodore M. F. Maury, delivered on the second day of 
the exhibition as follows: 

COMMODORE MAURY'S ADDRESS. 
Fellow-Citizens, — I do not come here to make a speech, but to have a little 
plain talk with the Augusta farmers. We are told that you are wanting in 
energy, and lack enterprise. The spectacle before us does not look like it, es- 
pecially when we consider the money and labor you have expended in the pur- 
chase and preparation of these grounds. That you lack energy is a mistake; 
I don't believe it. JSrror is always mischievous, and I think it best to correct 
the false impression. Apparently the North is more prosperous than the South, 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 699 



because the North is manufacturing and commercial, the South agricultural. 
Iq all manufacturing and commercial communities products are concentrated, 
and there is a show of life and activity which is never seen in agricultural 
communities, because labor is there diffused. Another reason is, that the sta- 
tistics showing the rewards of labor at the North and Sjuth are not quite fairly 
presented. For instance, suppose that one of your neighbors, in giving you an 
account of his earnings during the year, should tell you that he had housed so 
many barrels of corn, which -vas worth five dollars a barrel ; and killed so 
many hundred weight of pork, that was worth eight cents a pound ; had so 
many pounds of bacon, worth twelve cents ; but when you come to catechise 
him a little closer, you find that it had taken all of his corn to fatten his pork, 
and all of his pork to make his bacon. 

Now, this is the way with the hay crop of the North, which they tell you is 
worth as much as the cotton crop of the South. In ths last returns, the hay 
crop of the North is put down at upwards of three hundred millions dollars . 
the value of the live stock at a little more, and the value of the butter and cheese 
at many millions, when the hay went to make it all. There is still another rea- 
son for this apparent greater prosperity of the North, and the apparent show 
of greater energy and enterprise there. According to the census of 1790, the 
population of the United States was very nearly equally divided between the 
North and South ; and according to the returns of the subsequent census, the ratio 
of natural increase was greater at the South than at the North. But, notwith- 
standing this, the population of the North, according to the census of 18G0, 
was, in round numbers, eleven millions greater than at the South. 

Did it ever occur to you, when an emigrant comes into the country, to calcu- 
late how much he adds to the national wealth, not by the money which he 
brings, but by the labor which he is able to perform ? For that labor you pay 
him, at the least, one hundred dollars a year. He, therefore, repre&ents an 
industrial capital of which a hundred dollars a year is the interest, precisely in 
the same way that a steam engine, by the work which it is capable of perform- 
ing, represents an industrial capital. The labor, therefore, of a white man 
represents quite as much industrial capital as the labor of a negro did before 
the war, which for an able-bodied man varied from twelve to fifteen hundred 
dollars. Taking old and young, male and female, let us suppose that 
each emigrant represents an industrial capital of four hundred dollars. 
And then we must take these eleven millions of excess of Northern 
population, as the number of emigrants, and the descendants of emi« 
grants, which have come into the country since 1790 and settled at the 
North rather thau at the South. Multiply that by four hundred and you have 
upwards of four thousand millions of dollars, which the North has acquired, 
not from any superior energy of her people, but merely by the influx of labor- 
ers and foreigners from abroad. Suppose these eleven millions had settled in 
Virginia, what would not have been the wealth of the State? So much for 
what transpired before the war. How is it since? The public prints and some 
public speakers are continually pointing to this and that source of wealth 
among us, and because it has not been more developed, charging us with a lack 
of enterprise. 

I maintain that you — and in apostrophizing you, I mean the people of the 
South — I maintain that you, the farmers of Augusta, thi country gentlemen of 
Virginia, the men of the South, have been and are applying your industrial 



700 



THE SOUTHERN 



[November 



energies wifch a degree of intelligence, skill, vigor and effect that is not excelled 
by any other people in the world. Man for man, your surplus products are 
not surpassed by any other people anywhere. This opinion may surprise some, 
but I maintain it, and to vindicate you I appeal to facts and figures, and to the 
official reports of the Government itself. There has been established at Wash- 
ington a Bureau of Statistics. Mr. Delmar is the chief of that Bureau. He 
makes a report on commerce and navigation for 1867, and sends it to the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury forwards it to Congress 
for the information of the people, and my facts and figures are on this author- 
ity. The figures were obtained under oath, at least those of them which relate 
to the exports of domestic products, from which I am going to quote. These 
figures were obtained under oath from the ships before they were allowed to 
clear ; and the statements thus made were tabulated in the various custom- 
houses, and transmitted to Washington, and it is from them that the statisti- 
cian of the United States Government compiles his table, namely, a state- 
ment of the gross specie value of the exports of domestic products from the 
beginning of the Government to June 30th, 1867: 

BUREAU OF STATISTICS— TABLE 18. 
Statement of the gross specie value of exports of domestic produce from the 
beginning of the Government to June 30th, 1867: 
[Extract in Millions.'] 

1857 . 

1858 . 

1859 , 

1860 . 

1861 . 

1862 . 
* The largest up to that year, 
f War figures estimated. 

% War figures. 

Total exports of Southern products, during the fiscal year ending June 30th, 
1867, currency value, (approximated) $328,400,759. Total exports of* domes- 
tic products from the United States same year, currency value, $471,608,600. 
Proportion of Southern products to all domestic products exported, 69 per 
cent. 

Bushels of Indian corn, production of Southern States : 

1859-'60. 1866-7. 

434,937,863. 320,605,513. 

All the States. 
838,792,740 867,946,295 

Fifty-two per cent, by Southern States ante bellum. 

Thirty seven " " post bellum. 

Population of the Southern States (U. S. census 1860) 10,259,017. Popula- 
tion of all the other States, 21,185,963. 

Average bushels Indian corn in Southern States, 42J ; in all others, 19 — in 
1860— (Estimate Bureau Statistics— Southern States, in 1866, 9,568,709 inhabi- 
tants ; all the others, 24,916,765. Average bushels of corn to each person in 
Southern States, 33$ ; all the others, 22. 

These are from the official documents of the Washington Government, and it 



$338,000,000* 


1863 '. 


. $240,000,000 


293,000 000 


1864 . 


. 241,000,000 


335,000,000 


1865 . 


. 197,000,000J 


373,000,000 


1866 


. 414,000,000 


382,000.000f 


1867 . 


. 394,000,000 


213,000,000 







1868] PLANTER AND FARMER. 701 

is worthy of mark, that in assigning 69 per cent, of all the exports for the year 
ending June, 18G7, to the S mthern State?, the Government statistician gives 
them no credit for breadstuff's, lumber, minerals, and the like, sent over the 
border. He estimates the population of the Southern States at 9,508,709 ; all 
the rest at 24,916,765, and makes the value of the domestic products exported 
by the former, $ 328,406,757 ; by the latter, $ 143,201,243 ; or he makes 28 per 
cent, of the population of the whole country to send abroad 69 per cent, of the 
total value of all its exports. In other words, notwithstanding the devastation 
of the war, the average domestic exports amount in value for each person in 
the Southern States to $34.32 per caput; in all the other States to $5.75. 

He estimates the population of the South for the year ending June 30th, 
1866, at 9,568,709, and of all the States together at 34,505,882. According to 
these tables, the South in 1866 had very nearly the population that the whole 
of the United States contained in 1820. And what were the exports of the 
domestic products of the whole country that year ? Fifty-one million. The 
South in 1866 exported, according to the same authority, 272,000,000, specie 
value, more than five to one. In 1850 the population of the whole United 
States was, in round numbers, 23,000,000, and the domestic exports amounted 
that year to 136,000,000. The South now, with not the half of population of 
23,000,000, exported 272,000,000, being two for one. 

But, notwithstanding these facts, opinions have got abroad most injurious to 
the South, and which it is essential to correct. Mr. Adams, a few days ago, 
in his speech at Charleston, tells us what Massachusetts thinks of the Southern 
people; that the traditional idea of a Southern man there is a dirk in one 
pocket, and pistol in the other; a cigar in one side of his mouth, and a quid of 
tobacco in the other; indolent and domineering and intolerant of any difference 
of opinion. A Northern gentleman who had established himself in South 
Carolina, in discovering what a goodly land it is, and how peacebly disposed 
are the people, writes to his friends thus : 

" I had been led to believe that it was dangerous for a Northern man to 
travel here, and that robberies and outrages were common. It would naturally 
be supposed that the officers of the Freedmen's Bureau were peculiarly obnox- 
ious to Southerners. Yet I find that Major Stone, the assistant commissioner 
of this district, traverses the country not only without a guard, but even a pis- 
tol to defend himself from attack, and Major Walker, the commandant of the 
post, states that in his opinion life and property is as secure here as in any of 
the Northern States. Now the town of Aiken is partly in Edgecombe and 
partly in Barnwell district, than which none were more thoroughly secession. 
This winter and spring hundreds of Ncrthern persons, of all shades and grades 
of public opinion, have visited this town, and I have yet to hear of the first 
one who has been molested or insulted. 

" The physical characteristics of this section are very different frem our pre- 
conceived notions. The phrase ' down South' raises a picture in many minds 
of dense swamps, umbrageous woods, tropical plants, sluggish streams, veno- 
mous reptiles, yellow fever and miasma. How much this idea is due to pic- 
tures usually found in school books, I will not stop to inquire." 

The North, entertaining these opinions of us, did not fail to impress the Eu- 
ropean mind with them. Accordingly you hear Vernon ITarcourt, one of the 
rising men of England (who was the author of the celebrated papers written 



802 THE SOUTHERN [November 

during the war over the signature of Historicus, upon the rights of belligerents 
and the duties of neutrals) say the other day before the Social Science Con- 
gress at Manchester, at which all the European world was present, that <b Gen- 
tlemen who had travelled in the Southern States have often seen persons sit 
down to a peaceful dinner with a revolver in each coat-tail pocket. Of course 
it was only for the purpose of self-defence, but then it very frequently hap- 
pened that before dinner was over two or three were shot." I doubt whether 
there is a gentleman present here in this vast assemblage with a pistol in his 
coat tail pocket. 

But we are to expect another slander. We are to expect to hear it said on 
this side of the water that this large amount of surplus products annually sent 
abroad from the South is owing to the labor of freed men. But gentlemen who 
assert this, forget that in turning loose from the field 4,000 000 blacks, they put 
into it 6,000,000 whites. Now, how came it, let us ask, that the impression that 
the South was lacking in energy and wanted enterprise got abroad? I will 
tell you how it came to pass. Gentlemen from New England came here who 
could understand and appreciate the value of our water power, but who knew 
nothing about the agricultural resources of our State ; and they, therefore, said 
to themselves, very naturally, what would not this water power, which is running 
to waste be worth, if utilized? Would it not be worth more than all the coal 
and iron of Pennsylvania? And because we did not utilize it to its full extent, it 
was taken as a proof that we were indolent and idle. Again, a gentleman 
from the mining districts of England would visit us now and then, and he 
would see and appreciate the vast mineral resources that lie undisturbed in 
their veins and bidden in the mountains, and would tell the fabulous sums that 
these would be worth in England. And because they were not utilized, he 
would say that we lacked energy. But we knew that agriculture was more 
profitable than they, and we devoted our energies and enterprise to agri- 
culture as the most remunerating industry. 

This water power that is running to waste, and these minerals that are lying 
idle, are our " tailings." It is very profitable sometimes, as you all know, to 
work ,' tailings;" and we now want labor from abroad — labor that is skilled in 
manufacture and in mining, to help us to also turn to account these sources of 
wealth. But as for ourselves, our land is so teeming with the benignant boun- 
ties of nature, that we have not the force or the time to attend to these other 
great sources of wealth. " 

Did you ever reflect that Virginia is in the latitude of the promised land ; that 
the same skies upon which David and Solomon and our Saviour gazed, are gar-' 
nished for us as they were for them ; that the Pleiades, Orion and Arcturus 
rise and set, and shine upon us as they did upon Job ; and that everything that 
is grown there, from the fig and the vine, the corn and oil, grow here as well — 
and other things besides? Did you know that Virginia and North Carolina 
have given the greatest gifts from the vegetable kingdom that have been given 
to man since history began ? — that the Indian corn, the potato and tobacco, be- 
sides other things, were gifts from this part of the world? Does it show any 
lack of enterprise or of energy to turn such bounties as these to account, and 
to teach the world their value ? 

Talk of enterprise and daring ! Who was it but the sons of Virginia and 
North Carolina who first crossed the Alleghanies and drove the Indian and the 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 803 

wild beast ? and in doing so they encountered dangers, hardships and suf- 
ferings to which those of the Pilgrim Fathers bear no resemblance ; and after 
they went, it was then, that the enterprising Yankee followed. 

Let no man hereafter reproach you with a want of what he calls a little 
Yankee enterprise. We don't want it. What we do want is Yankee thews 
and sinews — the hard-listed immigrant, the man of means; a little of the in- 
dustry and good husbandry for which the Dutch and the Danes and the Ger- 
mans are so famous, inspired and inspirited by a little Southern enterprise and 
energy. That's what we want. Give us that, and we will show you upon the 
hills and in the valleys of our dear old Virginia such an abode of human hap- 
piness and prosperity as the world never saw. 

But how are we to get these emigrants ? The Virginia Military Institute has 
undertaken to make known the great natural resources of the State. But after 
it shall have published its account of them, how shall we get it to the ears of 
those abroad who wish to know the truth about us? We have no means of cir- 
culating it there. Southern papers and Sjuthern periodicals are read only by 
the few, and they a very few, in Europe. We want the million to learn of 
these good things, and I can think of no better means of doing it, than that the 
farmers of Virginia exhibit a degree of public spirit similar to that which the 
farmers of Augusta have done with regard to this Fair; and by raising a fund 
for the translation of these reports into the German and other languages of 
Europe, and for circulating them there extensively. 

And that these reports shall convey the information most desirable and most 
useful to the emigrant, it is very much to be desired that the farmer shall fur- 
nish answers to the questions which have been propounded to them from the 
office of the Physical Survey of the Institute. The Dutch are already alive to 
the importance of this subject, and are talking of a line of steamers from 
Flushing to Norfolk. Holland is situated with regard to the centre of Europe 
and the seashore, as Virginia is. At Flushing, Holland affords the nearest 
and best seaport to all of Southern and Central Germany, extending as far 
back as the Valley of the Danube ; precisely as the Tide-water harbors of Vir- 
ginia do the nearest seaport to the centre of the Mississippi Valley, to St. 
Louis, and all the landings on the Missouri river. Virginia furnishes the ports 
which are farthest to the North, that are never obstructed by ice in win- 
ter. The same with Flushing on the other side. Flushing is but five hours' 
steaming from England. Flushing and Norfolk are between Baltimore and 
Bremen, where there is already a line of steamers in successful operation. The 
Dutch Government, appreciating at last the importance of Flushing as a seaport 
town for the heart of Europe, is now extending her lines of internal improve- 
ment from Flushing into her back country. This is what Virginia is seeking 
to do. Our Dutch friends say, " Give us a second, and we will bridge the At- 
lantic with a line of boats between Flushing and Norfolk ! " 

There is, I think, one thing which the farmers of Virginia have to learn, and 
that is to act more in concert than they have been doing. In travelling through 
the old countries you will observe that the farmers have there learned by expe- 
rience that good roads are much more economical than bad ones. And if you, 
gentlemen of Augusta, could only visit France and England and see th.3 roads 
there and the loads that are drawn on them by one horse and one cart, I think 
you would come to the conclusion instantly that about the best thing you could 
do would be to club together and make good roads. 



704 THE SOUTHERN [November 

Another feature is very striking in those countries as to clubbing together 
and acting together. The Ameri an travelling there will be charmed with the 
highly improved country and its hi^h state of cultivation — the elegant fields, 
the fine crops, and he will be continually looking for the splendid country man- 
sions to which such fioe plantations belong. But he will not find them. Al- 
though he will see many villages consisting of plain tenements, and which are 
the abodes of farm-hands, and he may find in the rural districts a village, per- 
haps as large as Staunton, in which I might uoubt if he could find half a dozen 
houses in which meals are cooked. Suppose a village of a thousand houses, 
instead of having a thousand kitchen-fires and a thousand cooks daily at work 
for at least an hour or two, he will find two or three bakehouses, to which every 
family in the village sends its meat to be cooked. See what economy in fuel 
alone ! It is the same with the bakery, and you will find emigrants coming 
here and wishing to settle, inquiring in the country, even, for the baker. 
These are small points, but in their multitude they involve vast sums. 



Correspondence of Southern Planter and Farmer. 

My Dear Sir, — In the running letters that I have lately addressed to you, 
some of our utilitarian philosophers will probably find little of practical value, 
yet I flatter myself that a majority of your readers will see in them something 
at least to excite serious reflection. I might, without difficulty, fill more than 
half your paper monthly with learned essays on the science of agriculture 
and its practical details, drawn from materials furnished by long study of the 
best authors, and more than forty years actual experience as a farmer. But of 
what avail would all this be to the great body of our suffering fellow-citizens? 
Who desires now to be informed upon the various theories of agriculture, or 
how to raise wheat, or corn, or peas, or beans, or potatoes, or turnips, or pump- 
kins, or squashes? It is not knowledge, but hope, that the people want. You 
know that I am of a most hopeful temper, and cultivate cheerfulness with as 
much zeal as others do cabbages and ruta-bagas, yet I cannot close my eyes or 
ears to the signs of public distress, or be unmoved by the dark prospect before 
us. The last crop of wheat barely paid expenses, and the corn crop of this 
year, taken as a whole from the mountains to the sea, is probably quite as short 
as any since the memorable season of 1816. The great breadth of land planted 
is urged as a reason in favor of an average crop, but this is one main cause of its 
failure. Large fields in the hands of freedmen unmanured and uncultivated, 
cannot yield a crop, especially of corn, which, of all plants, requires the most 
continuous and unremitting labor. The season was unpropitious, the spring 
rains and the summer droughts were alike disastrous, but the extensive failure 
may be assigned to the cause stated by your sensible correspondent from Gran- 
ville, N. C, the want of the greatest of all fertilizers, " sweat," a healthy se- 
cretion which the Freedmen's Bureau seems to have dried up. Actual want is 
staring many in the face. A friend of mine, not twenty miles distant, said to 
me the other day, " there are three things very scarce in this neighborhood — 
money, meat and bread." And I have no doubt if a searching inquiry were in- 
stituted, it would be found that these three wants are quite as urgent in other 
parts of the State. 



1868.] PLANTER AND FARMER. 705 

In this state of destitution the people look forward with anything but hope 
to the new year. The stay law will then expire by limitation, and the flood- 
gates of ruin will be opened upon them. My whole soul was in our late con- 
test for public liberty. I perilled all, and was perfectly willing to lose all for 
success. The brave and generous, even among our enemies, will approve this 
sentiment, for they will know how to trust the faith of those who were true to 
what they believed to be the cause of the r country. I suffered in common 
with my fellow citizens, and feel a melancholy satisfaction that I was deemed 
worthy to suffer in such a cause. I admire the sublime sentiment put by Ad- 
dison into the mouth of Cato — it is not meet that Cato's house should escape 
the calamities of a civil war. I envy not the tranquility of those who, stand- 
ing aloof, lost nothing by the contest, and now wrapping themselves securely in 
their warm doublets, safe from the storm, are regardless of the sufferings of 
those who must yield to its fury. Better far to have suffered with their country- 
men, and to have become generous by misfortune, and to be able to re-echo the 
noble sentiment of Queen Dido — 

Non ignara mali miser is succurrere dives. 

I came out of the war with ten dollars in cash, with two broken down horses 
on farms of three thousand acres, with fields abandoned, flocks dispersed and 
lands, for the most part, desolate and uncultivated. I could not but feel the 
embarrassments common to our people, yet by a hopeful spirit and energy and 
perseverance, I have been able to keep the wolf from the door, and to avoid the 
entanglements of judgments and other liens, and I have reason to thank God 
that I and all my house, in all its branches, are relieved from the fear of want. 
But I love Virginia, her ancient traditions and true-hearted people, and I can- 
not contemplate wiihout a pang the possibility of the utter ruin of so noble a 
race. 

I am often asked by men, trembling with apprehension, "What is your opin- 
ion ? Do you think the stay law will be 'lifted' at the end of the year?" 
My invariable reply is, No ! I cannot believe it possible that our people can 
be subject to so cruel a fate. Our military Governor is said to be a humane 
man, and can feel for the misfortunes of a brave people, and will know how to 
do his duty in his anomalous position. Now is the time for considerate judges, 
with the tact, judgment and mercy of the gentle Portia in the case between the 
Jew and the merchant of Venice, and for large-hearted legislators, whether 
civil or military, who can feel for the sufferings of the people, to do all in their 
power to mitigate their severity. 

It is fashionable with the unfeeling or unthinking to denounce the stay law 
as immoral in principle and ruinous in its effects. At the risk of my reputa- 
tion for integrity, which has been maintained unimpaired through a long life 
of active intercourse with my fellowmen, I will maintain the opposite opinion. 
I approve the stay law. It was an imperative necessity, was just and expedient, 
and is to be condemned only, because it fell short of its great object in not sus- 
pending indefinitely the judgment lien, and thus cutting up by the roots the 
whole harvest of litigation. The State has failed (I grant from inability) to 
protect the property of her citizens, on the credit of which most of their debts 
were created, surely it cannot be unreasonable or unjust for the Government to 
stay the rigor of its civil remedies, until the people can have an opportunity of 



506 THE SOUTHERN [November 



gathering up their scattered resources, and of making with their creditors the 
best settlement in their power? 

There is a principle of natural justice of daily application in the courts of 
all maritime countries, which, if the Legislature had possessed the power, it 
might have applied with entire propriety, in the existing relations between 
creditor and debtor in this Commonwealth. When different persons ship in 
a common bottom, and a part of the cargo is thrown overboard to save the rest, 
all parties interested are required to contribute, on the principle of geneial 
average, to the loss which has been sustained for the benefit of all. This prin- 
ciple in the language of Judge Stay " is not the result of contract, but has its 
origin in the plain dictates of natural law." And the principle of justice may 
be regarded as of universal application, " that a loss sustained for the sake of 
all, shall be made good by the contributions of all." The people of Virginia 
engaged in the revolution or civil war for a common purpose, and almost with 
entire unanimity. We all entered upon a common venture, and were bound by 
natural justice to make equal sacrifices in the cause. The owners of slaves, 
of bank stock, of corporation and railroad stocks lost all, the holders of bonds 
and mortgages lost nothing. Why should these last not be required upon the 
principles of natural justice to contribute to the losses of their confederates? 
As the State has not the power to adjust these losses upon the principles of the 
court of equity, surely it cannot be wrong to stay the hands of the creditors, 
until the debtors shall have an opportunity to make available their property 
saved from the wreck, and to enter into such compromises as justice may de- 
mand ? If for no other purpose, the stay law should be continued to eaourage, 
if not to compel these compromises. If the stay law was a necessity at the 
close of the war, surely it is not less a necessity now. Our affairs, which were 
then in a hopeful condition, have been rendered, by subsequent events, almost 
desperate. Political agitation, the Freedman's Bureau, short crops and tha 
want of the protecting and invigorating influence of a free State Government, 
have paralyzed the industry of the people. The act of the Legislature reviving 
the judgment lien after having for a short time suspended it, invited litiga- 
tion, and nearly all existing obligations have been put in suit. The consequence 
is that more than half the homesteads of the farmers are encumbered with 
judgment liens. The act of Assembly (Code 771, I 9,) provides that these 
liens shall be enforced in the courts of equity, and whenever it shall appear 
that the rents and profits are insufficient to pay all the debts in five years, the 
land &hall be sold. Let me illustrate the terrible effects of this provision. A 
thrifty farmer before the war owned a plantation worth $5,000, and slaves and 
other personal property worth $10 000. He has incurred debts for the im- 
provement of his property amounting to $1,000. The war strips him of every 
thing but his land. He has not been improvident ; he has committed no crime 
in contracting these debts. His creditors all sue him and obtain judgment. 
They summon him to a court of equity. The rental of his property adminis- 
tered by a court of chancery will not exceed 4 per cent , or two hundred dol- 
lars. The annual interest of the debt is sixty dollars, and to say nothing of 
the costs and charges of this expensive proceeding, the rents and profits will 
not pay the debts in five years, the lands must be sold, and the unhappy pro- 
prietor, with his family, be turned out of doors. This may seem to bo an ex- 
treme case, but such cases will doubtless be frequent in the the general wreck 



1868.1 PLANTER AND FARMER. 897 

« j 

of credit and property that must follow the repeal of the staw law. But what 
will be the effect upon the interests of creditors, when the debts are larger in 
proportion, and yet not so large that the property would not be sufficient 
under the prudent administration of the debtor, to pay the svhole or a large 
part of the debts? Fees, costs, and commissions incident to the expensive pro- 
ceedings of a court of equity would absorb the greater part of fie scant 
proceeds of a forced sale, aaad the creditors, like parties in a su.it in bankruptcy, 
would leave the court with small dividends and maledictions loud and deep 
on all concerned. How much better for both creditor and debtor to leave the 
debtor free to sell the whole or part of his property at a fair price, and pay his 
debts, or make such compromises with his creditors as may be deemed just. 

It is believed by practical men who seem to be well informed on the subject, 
that the real property of the State, if sold at forced sales, would fall very far 
short of paying all this judgment and other liens upon it. Is it too much to 
ask that this cruel necessity may be avoided, which can be done only by con- 
tinuing the stay law. But sixty days remain for action. Let ore Jitors and 
debtors unite in a petition to the military commander of this district to inter- 
pose his authority to avert this dire calamity, by extending the stay law at 
least for another year. 

I deem this subject at this time of far more importance to the farmers of Vir- 
ginia than matters of practical agriculture, yet I do all in my power by pre- 
cept and example to encourage them in their labors. I do not write on potatoes 
or turnips, yet I have a fair crop of potatoes, both sweet and Irish, and my 
crop of ruta-bagas though on a small scale, and manured entirely with home- 
made manures, is the best in all the country round about. My neighbors and 
friends, notwithstanding their many disappointments, are exerting themselves 
manfully to put in a wheat crop. My youngest son, after some interruptions 
from the weather, has put in, in the best style with his own hands with the drill, 
aided by a negro boy to fallow it, a fallow field of forty acres, and is now pre- 
paring, with sujh help as we may command, to put in a field of sixty acres of 
corn land, which I desire to put in grass. I mention these things to show that 
I by no means advise our suffering fellow-citizens to give way to despair, 
but to put their own shoulders vigorously to the wheel, though thev may have 
to call on Hercules to help them. 

Very truly, your friend, "Willoughby Newton. 

Linden, Hague P. 0., Westmoreland count]/, Oct. 9th, 1868. 

Dear Sir, — I have had my last years' numbers of the Planter and Fanner 
bound for preservation. When packing them for the binder, I desired that the 
advertising sheets should be retained, as they will hereafter furnish a record of 
the machines, fertilizers, implements and classes of stock and seeds recom- 
mended by agricultural furnishers during the year — information which will 
surely be useful in future years. Owing to the fact that a different quality 
and color of paper is used for the advertising sheets, the book will be one of 
variegated colors. I would respectfully suggest that, if the difference of ex- 
pense is not too great it might add to the value of your already very valuable 
monthly to have these useful sheets of the same color with the body of the 
magazine. Very respectfully, Chas. P. Stone. 

Goochland county, October 17th, 1869. 

In accordance with the suggestion of our correspondent, we have determined 
to use hereafter white paper in place of colored for our advertising sheet.— Ed. 



708 THE SOUTHERN [November 

Mr. Editor, — I noticed in your September number of the Southern Planter 
and Farmer what you designate as " a new wonder," and I will describe a 
similar one that appeared on a Concord or Isabella vine last year. We had 
the pleasure of dissecting this fungus or excrescence, caused by some insect or 
poisonous fly. It appeared like a small apple about one inch fr\ m side to side, 
and one half inch from stem to blossom end. The blossom end was very much 
sunken in ; the eggs were deposited beneath the bark causing it to swell and 
assume the form of an apple. When opened, in the place the seeds ought to 
have been, if it had been a fruit, was occupied by small cells containing an 
insect about one-sixteenth of an inch long, and about as thick as a pin. Some 
of the cells contained a fly similar to the fly in the oak ball, I hope this will 
set at rest the theory, which I believe you and your readers had formed, that 
you had discovered a new fruit, or rather that an apple had grown on a grape 
vine. A few days ago we had the pleasure of dissecting another of the "new 
wonders," which was similar to the one above described. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

U \y>^jJ M-< David Z. Evans, Jr. 

Town Point, Chesapeake City, Cecil county, Maryland. 



Our Exchanges. 

The Seminary Magazine — an illustrated Monthly — devoted to the inter- 
terets of education, and to the mental culture of the women of the South. Espe- 
cial attention will be given to the Floral Department. Three or four handsome 
illustrations of the most choice flowers will appear in each number, with arti- 
cles descriptive of each, mode of cultivation, floral interpretations, etc. Brief 
essays by school girls will appear in each number. Some of the best writers 
in the South will contribute to the Departments of Belles-Lettres, Light Lite- 
rature, Natural History, &c. Each volume of twelve numbers will contain 
seven hundred and sixty eight pages of entertaining and instructive reading, 
printed in clear, distinct type, on beautiful white paper, with nearly one hun- 
dred handsome illustrations. Sixteen pages in each number devoted to the 
Sabbath School interest. Everything of a political or sectarian nature, or of 
immoral tendency, will be carefully excluded, and contributors a e respectfully 
notified that articles of a sensational character will not be accepted. Sub- 
scription price $ 1 50 per annum, payable in advance. Address, M. W. Hazie- 
wood, Box 961, Richmond, Va. 

The Carolina Farmer. — Monthly — 32 pages octavo — price, $2 per annum. 
W. II. Bernard, editor and proprietor, Wilmington, N. C. It is gotten up with 
taste and liberality, and contains, in pleasing variety, a number of well written 
articles of an instructive and practical character, well adapted to the condition 
and wants of theCarolinas in particular and to the South generally. We wish 
it a prosperous and useful career, and welcome it as a co-laborer in the cause of 
agricultural progress and improvement. 

Cromo Lithographic Portrait. — We have received from L. Prang & Co., of 
Boston, a cromo-lithograph of " The Poultry of the World," containing "por- 
traits of all known valuable breeds of fowls" to the number of fifty varieties. 
A splendid specimen of this new achievement in the fine arts. We have had it 
neatly framed and hung up conspicuously in our office.