PROPERTIES OF INDIAN CORN.

IN our last volume, we noticed Dr. Jackson's Final Report on the Geology and Mineralogy of New Hampshire, with a promise of making copious extracts in some future numbers. We now fulfil that promise by giving the following condensed account of the properties and adaptation of Indian corn, and several other grains, trusting that it will be no less acceptable to those of our readers at home who have not seen Dr. Jackson's Report, than to our trans-Atlantic brethren, who have of late directed their attention to this important subject.

Some interesting facts will be noticed in the variable proportions of phosphates in different varieties of the same species of grain, and the great preponderance of them in Indian corn, beyond what is contained in the smaller grains, like barley, oats, and wheat; a fact that seems to explain their peculiar properties as food for animals; the more highly phosphatic grains being more likely to surcharge the system of adult animals with bony matter, producing concretions of phosphate of lime, like those resulting from gout.

Perhaps that stiffness of the joints and lameness of the feet, common in horses fed too freely with corn, may be accounted for by this preponderance of the phosphates. Young animals cannot fail to derive more osseous matter from corn than from other food.

The gluten and mucilage contain nitrogen, an element essential to the formation of fibrous tissue, muscles, nervous matter, and brain.

The oil is ready-formed fat, easily convertible into animal oils by a slight change of composition. Starch is convertible, also, into fat and into the carbonaceous substances of the body, and, during its slow combustion in the circulation, gives out a portion of the heat of animal bodies; while, in its altered state, it goes to form a part of the living frame. Sugar acts in a similar manner, as a compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in the formation of fat of animal bodies.

From the phosphates, the substance of bone and the saline matters of brains, nerves, and other solid and fluid parts of the body, are, in a great measure, derived.

ing readily, and it will be observed that a flint corn meal will keep sweet for years, even when put up in large quantities; but the Tuscarora meal will sour in a short time. The latter is the most digestible grain for horses, and is soft, but it is of little value for feeding swine. It is a good kind of grain for rapid cooking, for its meal is quickly boiled or baked.

Oily corn makes a dry kind of bread, and is not adhesive enough to rise well, without admixture of rye or flour. Rice corn is so dry that alone it will not make bread, but is dry like sand.

Oily grains are excellent for fattening fowls, and the rice corn, both from its size and oily nature, is admirably adapted for them.

I

Corn is sometimes raised for the manufacture of whisky, and the oil is saved during the fermentation, since it separates and rises to the surface. have been informed that 100 bushels of corn yield from fifteen to sixteen gallons of oil. It is made on the borders of Lake Ontario, and has been used in the light-houses on the lake.

According to my analyses, the proportions of oil in Indian corn vary from six to eleven per cent., the latter being the yield from Canada corn; while rice corn contains still more, but has not been fully examined.

Southern corn has more starch and less oil than our northern flint corn, and is much softer and better food for horses, though not so fattening for swine or poultry, and is, when ground, more apt to become sour.

When Indian corn is hulled by means of potash ley, the oil next to the epidermis of the grain is converted into soap, and the epidermis is detached. The caustic alkali also liberates ammonia from the mucilage around the germ.

Sweet corn appears like an unripe grain. Its origin is unknown; but it appears to have been used by the aboriginal inhabitants of New England, anterior to the settlement of the country by the Pilgrims.

It is a remarkable variety of corn, containing an unusually large proportion of phosphates, and a large quantity of sugar and gum, and but little starch.

Its excellence for food in its green state is well known and appreciated, and having stalks which The salts of iron go to the blood, and there con- are short and slender, they of course take up a less stitute an essential portion of it, whereby it is en-proportion of the saline matters of the soil. abled, by successive alterations of its degrees of oxidation during the circulation through the lungs, arteries, extreme vessels and veins, to transport oxygen to every part of the body.

Buckwheat and oats contain the least proportion, and may be raised on soil which is not fully supplied with phosphates.

Beans and peas are highly charged with the phosphates of lime and magnesia, while they contain but very little starch. They also contain salts of iron, and both the cotyledon and the germ are charged with all these salts; but the epidermis, or skin of the bean or pea, is free from them.

The use of the oil in corn is obviously to prevent the rapid decomposition of the grain in the soil, and to retain a portion of food until needed by the young plant, and is always the last portion of the grain taken up. It serves to keep meal from sour

The colors of Indian corn depend on that of the epidermis, or hull, and of the oil; the latter, when yellow, showing its color through a transparent epidermis; while if the hull is colored and opaque, the grain presents the same color.

In the Rhode Island white flint (a favorite grain in that State), the oil is transparent and colorless, and the epidermis is likewise free from color and is nearly transparent; hence, the meal is white, and the quantity of oil being large, it is less liable to ferment and become sour than some other varieties, and is in very good repute.

The yellow color of the golden Sioux, a twelve rowed kind of corn, is due to the color of the oil. Brown corn has a darker color, dependent on the combined colors of the oil and epidermis.

Red and blue corn owe their lively hues to the colors of the epidermis, and not to the oil.

GARDENING.—NO. 5-ITALIAN MODES OF COOKING MAIZE.

GARDENING.-No. 5.

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and everywhere assembling around him whatever Civil Causes affecting the Distribution of Plants.-- is useful and agreeable of his own or of other By the art of man, plants may be inured to circum-countries. The more difficulties he has to surstances foreign to their usual habits. The means mount, the more rapidly his moral faculties are deused for this purpose are acclimatization and cul-veloped; and thus the civilisation of a people is ture. The former of these is most easily effected, almost always in an inverse ratio with the fertility in going from a hot to a cold climate, in herbaceous of the soil which they inhabit." (Loudon.) Characteristic Distribution of Vegetables.-Plants, plants; because it often happens that the frosts of winter are accompanied with snow, which shelters like animals, live in two classes-social and antithe plant from the inclemency of the atmosphere, social. Associated plants are more common in the till the return of spring. Trees and shrubs, on the temperate zones than in the tropics, where vegetacontrary, are acclimated with more difficulty, be- tion is less uniform and more picturesque. In the cause they cannot so easily be protected from the temperate zones, the frequency of social plants, and cold, owing to the greater length of their stems and the culture of man, has rendered the aspect of the branches. This is also effected in some degree by country, in a measure, monotonous. Under the sowing the seeds of successive generations, and by tropics, on the contrary, all sorts of forms are the difference of temperature obtained by different united; thus cypresses and pines are found in the aspects or situations. An individual plant may be and bananas, palms, and bamboos, in the valleys. forests of the Andes of Quindiu, and of Mexico; rendered more hardy, or more delicate, by local or But green meadows and the season of spring are other causes; but the power of the species to resist cold or heat, drought or moisture, remains the wanting in the south, for nature has reserved gifts for every region. The languishing plants, which, vated in our hot-houses, present only a shadow of from a love of science, or from luxury, are culti the majesty of equatorial vegetation; but by the richness of our language, we paint those countries to the imagination, and individual man feels a happiness peculiar to civilisation. The features of many plants are so obvious and characteristic, as to determine at once their native countries. Asiatic plants are remarkable for their superior beauty; African plants for their thick and succulent leaves; of their leaves, and for a sort of singularity in the and American plants for the length and smoothness shape of the flower and fruit.

same.

Some plants which constitute the objects of gardening and of agriculture, have, time out of mind, accompanied man from one end of the globe to the other. In Europe, the vine followed the Greeks; the wheat, the Romans; and the cotton, the Arabs. In America, the Tultiques carried with them the maize. The potato and the quinoa are found wherever have emigrated the ancient Condinamarea. The migration of these plants is evident; but their first country is as little known as that of the different races of men, which have been found in all parts of the globe from the earliest traditions." (Humboldt)

colors more or less vivid, according to the chemical "A tissue of fibres more or less loose-vegetable mixture of their elements, and the force of the solar rays are some of the causes which impress on the vegetables of each zone their characteristic feaL. T. TALBOT. tures." (Humboldt)

ITALIAN MODES OF COOKING MAIZE.

The general effect of culture on plants is that of enlarging all their parts and altering their qualities, forms, and colors, though it seldom, if ever, alters their original or primitive structure. The effect of culture upon our garden vegetables may be noticed in the Brassica tribe, in the increase of size, and in celery and the carrot, in improvement of quality. The peach in its wild state is poisonous; but when cultivated, it becomes one of the most deli- WHILE journeying in Italy some years ago, I cious of fruits. The influence of civilisation, in was delighted with the admirable modes in which increasing the number of plants in a country, is the polenta or Indian meal is prepared in that coungreat, directly, by introducing new species, and in-try. I think, with a recent correspondent to the directly, by acclimatizing and final naturalization, by London Gardener's Chronicle, that the only fault of the influence of winds and birds in disseminating the Italian method is, that one is apt to eat too seeds. The Romans introduced into Italy the fig and almond from Syria; the citron, from Media; the peach, from Persia; the pomegranate, from Africa; the apricot, from Epirus; apples, pears, and plums, from Armenia; and cherries, from Pontus. The vine and fig are said to have been carried to France by birds; and in like manner the orange is thought to have been naturalized in the south of "Take Polenta (Indian meal) perfectly dry and Italy. The greatest refinement in culture consists fresh, moistened with boiling water, and perfectly in the successful formation of artificial climates for mixed by stirring with a wooden spoon until the the production of flowers and fruits belonging to a mass is reduced to a thoroughly smooth paste, of totally different climate from that in which the consistence to admit boiling. Keep it just below a work is carried on. Thus by the means of hot-boiling temperature until, by tasting, you find it to be houses the delicious fruits of the torrid zone are brought to perfection almost within the arctic circles. Casting our eyes on man, and the effects of his industry, we see him spread on the plains and sides of mountains, from the frozen ocean to the equator,

much, as he says, "I am ashamed to say it has been my case at the Hôtel de la Couronne, at Brides, near Moutiers. The landlord is renowned for his culinary skill; but, could he only make, or had he never made any other dish than Timballe de Polenta à la Savoyarde, that alone should render him immortal."

perfectly homogeneous; about 10 minutes suffice; stir the whole time. Remove it from the fire, and add as much fresh butter, strong brown gravy, grated Parmesan cheese, and as much garlic as suits your palate; grated ham is an excellent adjunct. Simmer

10 minutes, stirring the whole time; pour or turn of this country that pay every dime the worth of the mass into a well-buttered mould; serve with their meat, butter and milk, by feed, fencing, brown gravy. If you publish this, you will merit a and loss.

statue in the new Houses of Parliament, for I defy Friend Solon is down upon us "like a pile of the world to produce its equal as a farinaceous dish. brick." I will not dispute with him about the 'Twould make a skeleton corpulent.-Polenta dead Cherokee, or nondescript rose, nor deny that gnocchi are also capital. Stir in hot water, and the hedge of Mr. Charles B. Green, of Madison simmer till of a consistence which just allows it to County, did die; but I will assure him that the past run from the pan. Pour the mass on a board, and winter has been more severe than any I have when cold cut it into diamonds of an inch square. known here; and except the cold weather in The thickness of the paste should not exceed three- February, 1835, I have never seen the equal in the eighths, or half an inch. Put the squares close to South. Well, the rose here is alive and doing each other in a dish, but they should not touch. well. I have seen it in Warren and only one other Pile layer above layer, a little butter and grated place in Hinds, not' a dead one or a killed stemcheese between each; or, if you wish to eat it as a whereas, the American agave six years of age was sweet or pudding, pounded cinnamon, sugar, or killed, many stems of nearly twelve varieties of treacle. The butter, cheese, or sugar, prevent the the Bengal rose were killed, and many plants that bits and layers sticking to each other. Brown the have heretofore lived out were killed-I lost sevewhole by fire above and below, or bake in an oven, ral of the pomegranate for instance. I would like or steam until the cheese be softened, or the butter for Coke to make inquiries, and will refer to a and sugar incorporated in the paste. The said hedge laid down very near 30 years ago, on the gnocchi, made with common flour, are equally west and north lines of a Mr. Nott's premises in good. It is the Roman popular dish, and no oste- South Carolina, in latitude 34° N. I am confident ria's sign-board ever wants GNOCCHI FAMOSI in-that Coke can hear of hedges in South Carolina that scribed upon it. It is so general and common, that it forms the proverb invariably, should you officiously seek to interfere in the property belonging to another, or remonstrate on its abuse-Ognun precisely what is true, and as I cannot make any può far della suo pasta gnocchi. Every one is at excuse for my brother planters, I will only say it is liberty to make gnocchi of his own paste, i.e., any-pure carelessness that these unsightly gaps exist. body may do what he likes with his own.

AN OLD TRAVELLER.

CHEROKEE ROSE HEDGE.

YOUR number for March is before me, and I hail it with more than ordinary pleasure. I see friends Solon and Coke both are out. These two are a whole host within themselves,-secure a continuance of their pens, and you may rely on Northern and Southern and middle men being pleased.

are 30 to 50 years old. If this will not satisfy friend Solon then I will quit trying to convince the "old un." I am aware that friend Solon stated

can

The cuttings are generally early to make leaf, but the difficulty lies in cleaning the hedge row before the plant has made root. Negroes, you know,well, you may know it,-are a don't care set of turb the cuttings, and a great many die; the best creatures, they chop with the hoe so near as to disway to do, is to send a faithful hand to give the first and second working, paying particular direction to perform the work well, and not to mind the time; hoe the plants not too close, and pull up the Coke does not write the whole truth in objecting loosen the earth by pulling with a knife. I fine grass, or cut up that which has root enough to to fencing for his country; he has made a little mis- lay down a mile of hedge with four hands, a mule take in his calculation, but to his own disadvantage. and plow to help me, in a day. My plan isHe never took to figures, and well may he remem- move the present fence out, if possible; this fence ber when our old mathematical preceptor gave him row is rich land generally-if this cannot be done, a sound threshing for preferring oratory to figures. manure the hedge row. I then throw up a ridge I know Coke well, and have received many a with four or six furrows of the turning plow, havdrubbing in his presence for lack of hard sense. ing laid off a row to bed to; I then harrow down He says, "a mile of our worm-fence occupies half fine, with an iron-tooth harrow; I then stretch a an acre of ground." Let us see; a mile is 1,760 line-one hand with a dibble makes holes slanting yards in length, an acre 4,840 square yards,my fences under the line, a small chap comes after and drops, have a 5-foot worm, then the lap added will be another hand inserts the cuttings some six inches over 6 inches, we may say 6 feet, and always some deep, and presses firmly on the land above with the lost outside of the line of fence, which, if only a foot, and goes on to the next. My plants are put fraction over 2 feet, would be an acre lost to every in about one foot apart. Two hands can cut about mile of fence; and take fencing as it is through as fast as one can plant, with a pruning knife, a the country where the " Virginia worm fence" is neater and more workmanlike way. I have sat on used, and I hazard nothing in saying there is a loss the ground and cut for a day at a time, in preferof one acre to every mile. This swells the loss of ence to chopping with a hatchet. My notion is, is capital to $500,000, the interest on which would one do these things right, he will take care of buy enough food for Coke and for such others, to them when done. I have set this year over a mile, feed a large portion of his state. I will not inter- and think nine cuttings out of ten are now alive. I fere further with his subject, as I conceive he has a will clean out, this week, and earth as much as fair claim to it in the South. As to this part of the they will bear. I do not like setting them on ditch country, we are not yet without great aid from the banks; there is cost in ditching, if no advantage in range, we can kill hogs or cattle from the range the ditch to compensate. that are in fine condition. There are many portions

I have put out some 800 yards of the micro,

NEW COMPOST MANURE.-SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK.-No. 3.

phylla rose, for inside fencing, and find the small twigs on a ditch bank have died, at least 8 out of 10; these I have heretofore succeeded best with in garden culture.

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will be made known as soon as the amount of his present crops is ascertained.

SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK-No. 3. I cannot succeed with strawberries; have tried Hovey's, Kean's, Iowa Mammoth, Lagrange, and April (1846), a clear bright morning, but the Mr. Cockrill's Sheep.-This is the ninth of several other kinds. If I keep them clean they die ground is frozen stiff, and so it was one year ago the first summer, if I do not clean them, the weeds this day, but it was not so where I then was, 500 and grass make a case of them the first fall-must miles south, but there it was cold enough to kill I therefore conclude that the strawberry will not nearly all the peaches in the Ohio valley, and much do in this climate, when my friend W., within five other fruit, and some wheat. miles of me, has them on a little space, where they have been for five years, and I know, not only grows enough for himself, but to give an old neighbor a quart bowl full at a sitting? Must I likewise say the old-fashioned pink, the pheasant eye and the carnation, will not do in this climate, because some worm or the ant destroys mine yearly? I see them elsewhere. Must I conclude that this climate will not suit the dwarf box, because I was shown a small parcel, "the last of $300 worth," which afterwards died? Not so, for I find no difficulty in growing a cutting two inches long.

These reminiscences are now called to mind, because this is the anniversary of my visit to the Tennessee Shepherd," a title which some of the readers of the American Agriculturist need not to be told belongs to Mark R. Cockrill.

Mr. Cockrill's sheep walk is at and near his residence, seven miles west of Nashville, the drive to which is over one of the fine smooth Macadamized turnpikes which lead out of that city of rocks in every direction.

He was born on the banks of the Cumberland River, near the place where he now lives, some As to this rose for hedging the great difficulty tivated land in that region was filled with immense fifty-seven years ago, at which time all the unculis to keep it in due bounds; frequently a shoot, a cane-brakes, intersected here and there with buffalo vine, or runner, as you may choose to term it, will roads and Indian trails, upon which some of the shoot out 10-aye, 20 feet. But in the name of all early settlers paid a higher toll than we do now that is reasonable, what fencing can we make that upon these paved ones. Mr. Cockrill is one of is not objectionable? I believe a Cherokee hedge those western woodsmen that in his young days can be safe to turn all stock, in four years-the rail could outrun an Indian, or outclimb a bear. He is fence being there, and that cost not counted, for it medium size, spare built, "smart as a steel trap," must be there anyhow-and not to cost over two with a great flow of pleasing conversation, and unweeks' labor of two hands per mile, say, even bounded hospitality, and in whose family the counting hire at $12 per month, and found, &c.-visitor cannot but feel at home and comfortable. $15 per mile. And it cannot cost more for the next He owns sixteen hundred acres of land, mostly 25 years, to keep it properly pruned and trimmed in, very rough limestone hills, in places almost, and than to keep up a post and rail fence made out of occasionally, quite bare of soil; and a small tract anything save cedar and red cypress. I presume of very rich river bottom (interval) land. Fifteen two hands can attend to a mile a day, say, twice a hundred acres (counting the bare rocks), and in year. The cost is a mere trifle, for it can be done cluding the woodland, are in grass, the most of when too wet to hoe or to plow. which is Kentucky blue grass. He usually plants I have seen the Cherokee rose ever since I can about 50 acres of corn, which affords him as much recollect, and never heard of its dying out until as he needs. The corn land is exceedingly rich latterly, and I think it is very much like my grow-natural soil, on the banks of Richland Creek, near ing strawberries-don't feel interest enough in it to the Cumberland. do it properly. My reason for saying so is, I can find strawberries in the woods not a foot from my twelve different farms, which he has bought up The land occupied by Mr. C., is composed of fence, and if I would plant them on mould and give since 1835, at which time there were not ten acres the shade of peach trees, or even the north side of a of cultivated grasses upon the whole; and if the fence, I think that I would succeed. I know of farms ever were good, it was long time ago, some who lose all their peach trees, and if you neither are the buildings worth bragging about. would see some of our peach orchards, you would The fact is, he has been so intent upon providing wonder that the peach trees did not die when first pasturage and accumulating acres, that with the planted at the very idea of undergoing the muti-personal attention that he pays to his flocks, tolation by axe, plow, hogs, cattle, &c.

M. W. PHILIPS. Edwards' Depôt, Miss., April 6th, 1846.

gether with the care of 2,000 acres of cotton plantations in Mississippi, upon which he works 135 hands, he finds little time to devote to ornamental improvement.

NEW COMPOST MANURE.-Mr. Alexander Mc- When I was there, his flock, as I stated in the Donald, of Eufaula, Ala., informs us that he has March No., consisted of 1,400 fine-woolled, and 600 recently applied to a thin sandy soil, on pine land, long-woolled, and, all things considered that is, 40,000 bushels of a compost prepared from pine quality of wool, weight of fleeces, size and healthileaves and blue marl, both obtained on his farm, ness of sheep, long life and productiveness of having previously been exposed in a small enclo- lambs, I think cannot be excelled in the United sure where his cattle had been penned. The mode States. He also had forty head of very fine Durham of application, and the result of his experiment and grade cattle, none of which were less than

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SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK.-No. 3.

three-fourths blood, and some of them were very growers of Kentucky, that fall. His original finevaluable milkers :-30 jennies, breeding from a woolled sheep are from a Saxony importation of fine blood horse-one of the jennies is the biggest 1824. His fine clip of 1844 averaged 62 cents a animal of the kind I ever saw-keeps about 30 pound, and was sold for shipment to France. He high-bred horses and brooding mares, upon which has some sheep which he has made by crossing he serves his big jack, and raises fine mules, one of Saxony and Bakewell together, that for long silky which at work in his team is about 17 hands high, fleeces exceed anything I have ever seen. All and heavy in proportion. His stock is all first-rate, the long-woolled sheep are sheared twice a year. except hogs, and not one of them will he keep on In Mississippi, about 5 or 6 degrees farther south, his place because hogs will eat lambs. And if both fine and coarse-woolled sheep are sheared you ask why he don't keep them shut up in the twice a year. Mr. C. still prefers that country to pen, I can tell you that restraining the liberty of a grow wool, but not for his family residence, and he hog in that despotic manner, is contrary to the free says what I have often said, that no man can sucinstitutions of the Southern and Western States. ceed with sheep who depends upon his negroesthe master himself must be the slave. And this is why he keeps his flock in Tennessee instead of Mississippi; not on account of the sheep-family, but his own.

His flocks were at grass when I was there, but in the great drouth then prevailing, his land was overstocked and the feed poor; but he intended to shear his long wool in a few days, and start them for Mississippi, which would give him more room and feed at home. Mr. C. assured me that he takes care of this farm and stock with four field hands, assisted occasionally by some female house servants. But the wonder is accomplished by the never-tiring vigilance of the active master. I have never seen a shepherd more devoted to his business. There are few old sheep that he does not know by name on description, and can name the quality of the fleece. And he pointed out to me several ewes which I judge were Saxon Merino, that were part of five hundred lambs got by one ram in 1826, which I think a very extraordinary performance. It was accomplished by keeping the ram up, and very judiciously fed, and serving him only once to each ewe, which was then immediately removed. Some of these nineteen-year old ewes had fine healthy lambs by their side.

The grasses cultivated for hay are timothy, orchard and blue grass, and clover. The soil, as I have said, is strong limestone, and supported a natural growth of large timber, of oak, elm, sugartree, walnut, ash, hackberry, poplar, hickory, &c. Fencing timber is already becoming scarce, but whenever they shall learn how to build stone fences, they have the material in great abundance. Mr. C. trains his sheep not to jump, and if they were not so, his fences would not restrain them. The object Mr. C. has in view in sending the longwoolled sheep to Mississippi, instead of the finewoolled ones, is, that he intends to feed his negroes largely upon the heavy, fat mutton of this breed, and use the wool for negro clothing. By shearing them twice a year, their fleeces do not become burthensome, and the gain upon shearing twice a year instead of once, he finds to be fully 15 per cent. Mr. Cockrill keeps his sheep in moderate sized flocks, in summer as well as winter, with the rams always separate.

The foddering season where Mr. Cockrill lives, which is about latitude 36°, does not average over three months a year. He feeds hay, millet, oats in sheaf, corn fodder, and a moderate supply of I mentioned his manner of feeding in the March Southern corn, by one gill a day, which Mr. Allen No., upon the ground, without rack or trough; and says in his note to my article in the March No., is I am well satisfied that it is not the slovenly way not so oily as Northern corn. At any rate, Mr. Cock- that some of your Eastern readers will be inclined rill finds it good feed for his sheep, and is well paid to think it is. It is the natural way for the animal for feeding a moderate supply, by an increased to pick up its food from the ground, and by the quantity and quality of wool, besides the advantage manner of feeding in alternate lots, so that the hay of having the ewes in fine condition at the lambing is laid upon the ground before the sheep are let in, season, which is in April, and after the grass has they do not waste it. There is another advantage, got a good start. A visit to the old shepherd is not the seed does not get in the wool as it does from only pleasant but profitable. I have scarcely spent racks. a day more satisfactorily than while riding one of his beautiful blood horses over his place, and examining his flocks, and listening to the interesting and instructive conversation of one of so much experience and good sense.

Mr. Cockrill has a number of sheep which he drove when he moved his flock from Tennessee to Mississippi. In 1835 he sold his cotton plantation with the intention of quitting the business, and following that of wool-growing solely, and brought up his flock and drove them to Lexington, Ky., in search of a home, which he did not find to suit himself, until he returned to his own native hills on the Cumberland. Notwithstanding all this driving in a warm climate and hot summer, he takes pride in the fact that some of his sheep on exhibition, won the prize cup, over some of the pampered flock of Henry Clay and other wool

It must not be supposed, because the land of Mr. C. is hilly and rocky, that it is never muddy. You, Mr. Editor, can endorse for me when I say that no land in the world can exceed some of the steep side hills of the West, that are apparently half stone, for deep sticky mud. But by shifting the feeding ground and giving plenty of room, the sheep can be kept out of the mud. There is a great error prevailing in the West, in my opinion, in confining sheep in winter in too close quarters. Give them a chance to range and browse and get their noses to the ground. They will be more healthy. Mr. Cockrill thinks it a great folly to keep a large capital in Tennessee invested in " woolly heads," when" woolly backs" afford so much better returns of interest. In fact, he is well satisfied, and so am I, that the raising of cotton so far north, will not pay any interest upon the capital