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REVIEW OF THE SEPTEMBER NO. OF THE AGRICULTURIST.

had got down in our own country to 3 and 4 cents however useless it may be to write them to southper lb., for a prime article, thus making it a losing erners. But I am glad to see that one planter, the business to the dairyman. Now that same article writer of the article under review, is in a fair way is worth fully 7 cents, and upwards; and one to be benefited by reading the Agriculturist; and it million pounds of it were exported, during the last is a great pity that many others could not be induced week in October, from this port (New York) alone. to follow his example in both reading and writing Would Reviewer leave us to infer that this was in agricultural papers. going to benefit the pauper population of England, to the injury of the American dairyman? No; we will do him the credit to believe that he would draw no such conclusion; and yet we are sanguine in the opinion that corn and cheese will prove a parallel case.]

Foreign Cattle.-I agree with you most cordially, neighbor Bement, that we have imported enough at present. If we rightly improve those we have, we might better become exporters than importers We might just as well import our wheat and potatoes, as any more cattle. Many now have learned to think that nothing American is good enough for their perverted taste. We have the seed, and if as good cattle cannot be grown upon our soil as that of Great Britain, let us acknowledge the fact, and own our dependence again upon our old mother for all the common necessaries of life.

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Removing Stains from Cloth.-This is one of those plain, concise articles, that all grades of intellect can understand. It is the many such useful articles as this that gives great value to your paper. I like them.

Yellows in Peach Trees.-No doubt the cure is effectual. But I wish to know whether it would not also answer to cut them off even with the ground, and then the roots will sprout up and make new trees?

roller in the figure so as to serve for the axle, and by being made fast in the hubs of common wagon wheels, revolve with them. Geer from the axle direct into the cylinder. Have a revolving band on the centre of the axle, to which the coupling rod can be attached, and then the whole of the sowing apparatus can be attached to a common wagon, and not cost over $20. If the present machine is patented, my improvement is not; so all creation may use it if they like. There is no doubt, in my mind, about the feasibility of the alteration.

Management of Honey Bees.-I have only one remark to make upon this article. Mr. Miner condemns bee-houses in toto This is so contrary to old custom that I cannot at once agree to it. My bee-house is simply for the purpose of sheltering the hives from sun and storm, and I have never experienced the difficulties mentioned. But if Mr. Miner's plan of hanging up hives in the open air is Southern Agriculture.-Perhaps it is as your cor- best, it certainly is cheapest. But pray, Mr. M., respondent from Louisiana thinks," almost useless do your hives never warp and crack, and leak for any one to waste paper and ink to write to the water; and is the sun not too hot without any southern planter," &c., because he won't read. If shade whatever? Let us hear further from you on your plantations are too extensive to manure this point, and in a more serious mood. thoroughly," throw away one-half or three-quar- Sowing Machine.-For seeding, I prefer Penters, and treat the remaining part rationally. The nock's, for that plants and covers; but this may do fact is, your system of rushing everything is your well for spreading plaster, &c., which that would ruin. I don't know how it is with you, as I have not. But this costs too much, and I think it can be never visited your immediate locality, but I know simplified and cheapened. Construct the upper in many of the cotton plantations, the most destructive system of farming is pursued that I ever saw. The timber is barely cleared from the land before the soil is literally washed away down the steep side-hills, and the land spoiled for ever! Perhaps your land at " Redwood" is level, and only in danger of being worn out by the eternal round of cotton after cotton every year, which you cannot prevent, because you "have no time to haul large quantities of manure to the field." But I tell you that you do not need to haul manure; your land can be kept in good condition for ever by green crops plowed in, and by doing all your plowing twice as deep as you now do, which I venture to assert is not over two inches. If you think differently, I beg you to go into your fields unknown to the plowmen, and stick down a dozen pegs two inches below the surface, and then follow the plows and see how many they will plow up. If The Superior Corn Bread, found at Bement's the present low price of cotton continues, it will Hotel, I have eaten there, and endorse "good;" but drive you to cultivate other crops, which, if not I have eaten the superior of it made in a southern otherwise profitable, will save your soil from utter prostration. I have seen as fine Cuba tobacco grown a hundred miles north of you, as ever grew upon that Island. As for the assertion that northern farmers would be as bad off as your southern farmers now are, I cannot agree to it. Look how they are renovating some of the worn-out lands of Virginia. When your present exhausting system of farming in Louisiana has ruined the land, and its present occupants, northern farmers will then come and grow rich, where the system of starving the soil has ruined the owners. These are facts,

Colic in Horses.-The recipe is very good, but the difficulty is to know whether the complaint is colic. I have seen a good many horses die with a complaint that appeared like colic, which no medicine on earth could cure after the horse showed symptoms similar to colic. The directions for prevention are therefore the most valuable of the two.

negro cabin, with meal and water only, thoroughly worked into stiff dough and palatably salted, then laid between two cabbage leaves and buried like a potato to roast in the hot embers of a wood fire. Such corn bread is good-cheap-easily made-but never grind the meal fine. This is where the English will fail-they talk of "flour of Indian corn;" that spoils it most surely.

Succotash.-All right Mr. Farmer and Gardener Hope all your readers have got the pork, and will follow your plain directions to cook this excellent dish, which is often spoilt in making.

REVIEW OF THE SEPTEMBER NO. OF THE AGRICULTURIST.

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Imported Cattle.-I have said my say in remarks upon Mr. Bement's communication. Mr. Vail is a very enterprising friend of improvement, and has a beautiful herd of cattle; but suppose you admit similar articles from all the eminent stock-breeders in the country, including pedigrees, would it be interesting to the great majority of your readers? The half-dozen lines in your August No., with the addition of the importer's name, is all the space that should, in justice to your paying readers, have been occupied by this subject.

Adulteration of Milk.-There is but one way that" chisel" out the thistle, a thousand others will not; I can see which will be likely to secure us pure faith without works" will never rid the milk in the city of New York; and that is, by country of the Canada thistle, any more than in the establishing an extensive milk company under the negro's sermon it could make "de hog a gemman in surveillance of the police, subject to a forfeiture of de parler." their privileges if ever found selling adulterated milk. Having a large number of regular customers, it will be the interest of the company to sell nothing but pure milk, and certainly the interest of purchasers to buy from no other source This combination would brush down dishonest dealers. The subject is worthy of further thought and discussion. Wheat in Georgia.-I am well aware that good wheat crops can be grown in all the Southern States; but I wish to inquire of Mr. Terrell, how the grain can be preserved from the destruction of the weevil, which so infest all the country south of latitude 37° or 38°, that I have ever visited? If they do not infest Georgia, and wheat can be profitably grown there for " 37 cents a bushel," it is cheaper than it can be grown upon the boasted prairie lands of the West, maugre a late article in the New York Journal of Commerce, asserting that it can be grown for 16 cents! Mr. Terrell is an observing and interesting correspondent; but I would recommend to him to take great care that his observations made while travelling by railroad, are not erroneous. We have too many railroad travellers' publications now-a-days. His observation upon the true policy of the South to raise her own provisions, is worthy of all credit, and should be much more generally practised. But when that becomes the case, several of the North-western States will feel the loss of a home market, and at the same time learn that they have no foreign one. [Dear Reviewer, don't be so certain of that fact, otherwise we fear we shall be obliged to suspect you as one of the Editors of the New York Tribune.]

Private Agricultural Schools.-Well, if you "cannot agree with Reviewer," we will not quarrel. Your politics, which you proclaim in this article, are so different from mine, that it will probably be useless for us to attempt to "hitch our horses together." I believe the object of all governments should be to foster the interests of the people governed; and to collect and concentrate resources to accomplish great works, for great good, by a great combined effort of the whole people, through the agency of the rulers acting as managers for all the individuals, that no one individual can do. And I do not consider myself a bad citizen, though you do, because I advocate this "plain political axiom." But while you deprecate all governmental endowments of schools, why do you advocate “an annual appropriation for the collecting of materials and sending forth substantial public documents, containing real information to the agricultural community in regard to their business." The late bundle of trash from the Patent Office, I suppose you consider a substantial document of the class you wish to Drovers Dogs.-This cut is not quite "as clear patronize. Verily, friend, thou art inconsistent, as mud," though somewhat muddy; for to us un- and I fear somewhat agrarianish in thy principles. learnt in dogology, we are not able to distinguish | At all events, thou art not well versed in true poli"Boxer" from "Rose," and therefore it is not so interesting as

tical economy. "Let us have no national school," you say. Then let us have no national monopoly Domestic Fish-Ponds, with its clear, beautiful of the public domain, which instead of converting illustrations, and very lucid description, by an ex- the proceeds into schools, and roads, and harbors, cellent writer, whose new work upon the Trees for the benefit of those who pay their money for of America," I will read with pleasure, whenever them, have diverted every dollar so wrung from the the author sends me a copy. [You shall have one hard toil of the poor pioneer in the forest, for the gratis, if we have to send it ourselves.] cut-throat purpose of " glorious war," upon a defenceless people, to gain more territory to devote again to the same purpose. But this is not, I suppose, in your opinion," beyond the proper sphere" of government.

Practical Facts about Pork and Bacon.-This is from a prolific pen, from whence flow a great many practical facts upon a great many interesting subjects, and upon this one he writes exactly as though "he was brought up among the hogs." That this article is an interesting one, is proved by the fact that it is "taking the round of the papers." How to Destroy the Canada Thistle.-This is all very good doctrine; but how are you to induce every man to weed on his own side of the fence?" Weeds in fence corners, is another of the evils of our wretched system of fencing, which has not been sufficiently adverted to by the advocates of cultivating land without fence. And until that day of wisdom arrives, I, for one, despair of ridding the land of this troublesome weed, as well as many other of the evils of the system of compelling one man to fence against everybody else's cattle. Be assured," old farmer," that although you may

Dr. Philips Reply to Reviewer, is an interesting article, and I feel pleased to think that I have been the cause of drawing him out so fully. Still, he might have written more lengthily upon the several inquiries made, with equal interest. I am sorry to think from the closing paragraph of the Doctor's letter, that perhaps he thought my remarks were too much in a vein of ridicule, for an entire stranger to indulge in. But the truth is, he is no stranger to me, and I know he loves a joke and would laugh heartily now if he could "ferret me out," and learn how I know that peas" have a haulm."

Gardening, No. 7, should never have been thus entitled; for, although an interesting article upon geological science, it has not one word upon the

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science of gardening. "In uncultivated grounds, the seeds of several of the true grasses, as well as soils occupy only a few inches in depth of the sur- from the juice of the sugar-cane grass, is no less face," is an old theory that may be true in Europe useful than the production of hay, bread, beef, when it was first written, but it is not so when pork, paper, hats, mats, bags, and ladies' bonnets, applied to millions of acres of American soil; all of which are made of the "grass of the field which, in some of the western states, is deeper than that perisheth." And yet I am a strict temperance the plow ever runs. I do not believe that " every man. But I know that distilled spirit is one of the gardener or farmer who know the sorts of plants blessings of civilisation, and for many purposes not naturally produced upon a soil," would be able to only useful, but almost, perhaps wholly, indispendetermine its value for cultivation. I recollect being sable. How dreadfully is this good gift abused! told many years ago in Michigan, while land hunting," that wherever I found the burr oak, I should find warm, rich, sandy land; and yet, in truth, I found it afterwards growing upon poor, cold, hard, clayey land. So "these plants are not absolutely to be depended upon;" in fact, only in extreme cases, not to be depended upon at all.

Wool-growing in Western New York.-I like this kind of articles. In reviewing it I wish to ask Mr. Peters a few questions, which I am sure he will answer freely, to make his statements more plain to some of us dull-brained city dwellers. You state that we can buy farms at $10 or $12 per acre, that will carry "300 sheep to every 100 acres of cleared land;" but do you in the cost make allowance for woodland? Would not that be included in the price, and, of course, add to the capital? And, again, you allow no chance whatever for a poor man, or one even with $3,000 or $4,000, to engage in wool-growing in western New York. Must all of that class be driven to the prairies of the west? Now, it appears to me, if no man with a less capital than $14,000 can profitably engage in the business, that very few will undertake it without a better show of figures than yours. The truth is, that the capitalist can make "11 per cent." so much more certain and easy, that he will not engage in the laborious business of a sheep farm, without a prospect of much larger profits. Will twelve tons (and what kind) of hay without grain, winter 100 sheep? Is 20 acres of pasture, on an average, not a small allowance? Do you pasture meadow and grain fall or spring?

Feeding Large Dog in Town.-If with the first feed described, you will give nineteen twentieths of these dogs, each a sixpence worth of strychnine, it will save much future expense, and add greatly to the comfort of many thousand citizens, and still leave all the dogs that can be of any possible advantage to their owners or anybody else-dogs included!

Ladies' Department.-Not a word to say. I dare not look under that-what-d'ye-call-it? and I cannot see the beauty of the thing unless I do. So I will pass on to the

Boys, be Kind to Domestic Animals.-I could write a long sermon from this text; but when done it would not comprehend more meaning than those six short words. Let me but learn the natural disposition of a boy to be cruel to domestic animals, and I will paint his horoscope most truly; but it shall be an unenviable picture for him to look upon. Very likely the prison and gallows will form the end of the view. displeasing to me. No nation of people, except some of the very lowest grades of African barbarians, attempts to live without the use of domestic animals. Let them ever be treated kindly in all respects.

No trait in a child's character is more

Foreign Agricultural News.-Here I find an article from the Gardener's Chronicle, upon the subject of substituting other seed wheat, with a view of shortening the growing season, and consequently bringing on the harvest in summer instead of autumn. I should like to know what is the reason our winter wheat cannot be grown in England, and whether the experiment has been thoroughly tried with seed from this country? In this country, our seeding is done before the harvesting in England. What they call spring wheat there, which I believe is usually sown in February, when brought here, becomes winter wheat, and must be sown in autumn to perfect its seed.

Pulling Flax.-The directions will answer as well for this country as England. But there is so much labor attached to growing and preparing flax for the spinner, that other crops will usually be found more profitable here than flax, except when grown exclusively for seed, and then it need not be pulled.

Making Rhubarb (pie plant) Wine, or preserving it, I cannot see the object of here where we have so many other better things.

Bones Dissolved in Caustic Ley.-It seems curious that it should be necessary to publish this fact, known to every "old woman" who ever made soap, and much more curious that it should have ever been the subject of a patent. But that was in England, where one is restrained by an excise law from making his own soap out of his own bones, grease, and ashes.

The Potato Disease.--The remarks upon this go to Chapter on Grasses, which is well calculated to prove to my mind, that the cause of this lamentable give correct information to the boys. But, pray malady lies beyond the reach of all human skill; tell me, which is the real Kentucky "blue grass," and I fear it is destiny that we shall no longer dePoa pratensis or Poa compressa? [Botanists have pend upon this crop as a means of sustaining animal decided Poa pratensis.] What is called blue grass life. I sincerely hope that my presentiments will in New York is a different grass from that which is prove false. I cannot read an article upon the subso called in Kentucky. If E. L." will write an ject without having vivid pictures of human sufferarticle giving a plain description of each kind of ing presented to my mind."

hay and pasture grass-when sown-growth- The Editor's Table is not as sumptuously fursize-duration-use, &c., and the editor will illus-nished this month as usual, and so we can the trate with cuts [we will do it], it will be a very sooner pass over it.

valuable article for the Boys' Department of this Results of Hydropathy seems to be the most paper. I think that the distillation of spirit from tempting dish to a cold water man. This is un

doubtedly a good curative system; but like a great | Northern farmers to undertake to compete with many other new systems, it claims too much-so corn sugar against the southern cane? If you canmuch, in fact, that the whole is pronounced a not afford to exchange flour, you can mustard and humbug. I have myself experienced relief from hops. It is singular, too, if beans and peas, partia medicinal application of cold water upon the cularly the latter, cannot be grown as cheap as spine, for neuralgia; but it is far from infallible. wheat; yet they are quoted 50 per cent. higher. Your recommendations of ablution as a preventive, Again, sumac is quoted at about four-fifths the ought to be rigidly practised, and although I doubt price of tobacco, and yet it does not require so rich its effect to drive away" nine-tenths of the diseases" a soil, nor one-tenth the labor of tobacco. It is also of the human family, it might affect one-tenth, and worth more by the pound than wheat. There are would be so much clear gain. certainly great inconsistencies in these prices, which must wholly arise from the neglect of those who are the most interested, as to what is the most profitable crop for them to cultivate. REVIEWER.

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Ladies' Department.

LADIES' DEPARTMENT.

THE LIFE OF A FARMER'S DAUGHTER
ALIKE PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY when not carried to excess, the labor was most
USEFUL.

WHY how is this, my dear Mr. Allen-two numbers of the Agriculturist, and the Ladies' Department without an original paper? Such a thing has not happened before since January, 1845, when you first announced your intention of re-opening (in connection with the Boys' Department) these rather novel features in an agricultural journal. What has become of your sometime indefatigable correspondent, "E. S. "Do pray, tell her, we cannot

do without her.

return to a life alike physically and mentally useful. Ten years ago, the physical only was thought of in their education. They could spin and knit, weave and braid, wash and scrub, and beneficial for the body. But alas! the poor mind. Out-stripped and despised by its robust companion, it was dieted like a feeble child, till it found its sole nourishment in the scandals of a gossipping neighborhood. When awakened to the magnitude of this error, they ran into an opposite extreme, and the mental alone was cared for; living languages and dead, philosophy and mathematics, ologies and the fine arts were crammed into their heads, till much learning had well nigh "made them mad," while, in the meantime, the body was left to consume in indolence, like the mind before. They have not I hope the remarks of "Reviewer" have not found an equilibrium yet, but the prospect is paralyzed the pens of the sex; for, though not remarkable for courage, they surely would not be brighter, though it is difficult to determine which alarmed at the innocent notices of one holding the out of the two evils is the least. It is sad to see a bright and vigorous intellect joined to a feeble, thankless office of a critic. They must remember wasting body; but it is brute-like to mark a being that it is his province to decry everything that does full of life, and health, and animal strength, with not suit his peculiar fancies, and seem, at least, to the inner life glimmering only like the decaying despise all opinions but his own, and they certainly embers, with the soul which likens us to the godwould not quarrel with a man for performing like, slumbering in a lethargy of ignorance, dead to strictly the duties his calling may impose upon its high calling, and its vast powers. We will him. By the by, I wonder if it would be possible hope, however, even in these days of “piano for any one to sit down and write a candid, impartial review of an article or articles, unbiased by his own prejudices, unswayed by any tenets but those of peace and good-will; without sneering at practices different from those he has been accustomed to, or turning things into ridicule because he

thumping," to see the proper medium attained, and American women, laying aside their dyspeptics and affectations, with healthful, exercised minds and bodies, taking a stand that shall place them at once above the reproach of the wise, and the sneers of the ignorant.

Lynn, Oct. 2, 1846.

E. M. C.

The

does not understand them. I wish some one would try, if only for the novelty of the thing. To be! sure, the tone of a person's mind will give a coloring to his expressions, and he must have his own POLISH MANNER OF PRESERVING TOMATOS.-Boil particular thoughts about matters; but unfortunately water with as much salt in it as to give it an agree in the trade of reviewing, there is too often some able saltish taste, and let it stand till it is cold, then purpose to serve, which obliges the critic to lay pour it over the tomatos, which should previously aside justice, so that we generally have as much be freed from the green and all impurities, without reason to suspect his praise as his blame. This, breaking the skin, in a wide-mouthed glass bottle however, applies to reviewers in general; not to or jar, when they should be closely papered up ours in particular, to whom it is to be hoped these and set in a tolerably cool place, such as a store remarks do not apply. room or pay, but a cellar is not necessary. I do not know how it may be with some others tomatos should not be closely packed, but if posof the sisterhood, but for my part, I would quite as sible allowed to swim about in the jar; and in this soon hear the sex called "too effeminate and dys- way they are preserved in Poland till they come and peptic, and ridiculously full of affectation of deli-again, always taking out a few when wanted, cacy," as be sickened with appellations of "the covering the jar again. pretty dears," "sweet creatures," and angelic beings," which some writers are so profuse in using. While the one only savors somewhat strong- VEGETABLES, such as spinach, beans, peas, &c., ly of individual pique, the others are better befitting put a small teaspoonful of salæratus to every half the sentimental heroine of a love-sick novel, gallon of water in which they are to be boiled. than an intelligent flesh and blood woman. It seems, too, that American ladies need reforming mentally and physically. Now I do not know the latitude and longitude of our friend's locality, and therefore cannot even "guess" at the class of ladies forming his acquaintance, but he appears to be in an unfortunate situation somewhere, and the sooner he can get out of it the better.

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To PRESERVE THE BRIGHT GREEN COLOR OF

A DROP or two of honey well rubbed on the hands while wet, after washing with soap, prevents chapping, and removes the roughness of the skinit is particularly pleasant for children's hands and

faces in cold weather.

Nevertheless, while there is need of a reforma- ONE pint bowl of common salt makes three tion, the hope arises that it has already commenced quarts of brine strong enough to bear an egg, or in some parts of the country, and we will not float a potato, which is as good a test of its strength "wholly despair" that farmers' daughters may yet-this is a saturated solution.