discovered on the trunk and larger limbs previous to its affecting the foliage,) and then applying a mixture of common lye, or soft soap, and an equal part, by measure, of spirits of turpentine. This mixture I apply with a painter's brush to the entire trunk and larger limbs, and in every instance of attack previous to its use the trees have recovered from it, and those which had not been attacked by it have thus far escaped. Those grafted upon quince stocks appear most liable to the disease, and the quince tree itself here usually dies with it in from eight to twelve years, and frequently sooner. Query. Have we not poisoned the almost entire race of pears by working them upon quince stocks, and then, by grafting from them again upon pear stocks, communicated it to them? This disease appears almost to be a constitutional one with the quince, and if, upon experiment, it be found so, it had best be abandoned as a stock for grafting pears upon. The yellows is a disease peach trees are not subject to here, but, instead, we are annoyed with the depredations of the curculio, for which no effectual remedy has been found. Neither are our apple trees subject to the blight, as is said to be the case in the Northern States.

Grapes grow kindly here; many of the foreign varieties do very well yet, although they have not been cultivated many years, nor to any extent. The kinds most generally grown are the Scuppernong, Isabella, and the Warren, Segar Box, or Miller, of N. C., which, I am informed, are identical and indigenous in Georgia. The Catawba also succeeds well, in addition to those mentioned, and is a desirable variety here for general cultivation. The finer cherries, when grafted upon the Mazzard stock, do not succeed, as the bark of the trunk invariably splits, causing its death in a few years after transplanting.

The growing of fruit will, beyond question, prove profitable to Southern planters and farmers, and I have scarce a doubt that the apple can be grown, by proper care and culture, in every portion of the State. Yours, respectfully,

J. VAN BUREN.

NEAR BLAKELY, GEORGIA,
November 2, 1852.

SIR: In reply to the inquiries contained in your Circular, a brief statement will give the requisite views of the agricultural operations of this county-indeed, of most or all of Southwestern Georgia.

Indian corn and the cotton plant are grown on a large part of almost every plantation. Next to these, the oat crop is the most important; but wheat, rye, and barley grow well, and are produced as crops of secondary value, on which very little care or skilful husbandry is bestowed. Excellent crops-such as sweet and Irish potatoes, cabbages, beets, and most other productions of kitchen gardens-are grown in requisite abun dance for domestic use; as also, rice, sugar cane, and ground-nuts, most of which are consumed on the plantation.

Indian corn-very large fields of which are cultivated for the subsistence of horses, mules, and hogs, as well as for bread-is produced in

quantities per acre varying from ten bushels to forty; fifteen or eighteen may be assumed as the average for the county.

Cotton is by far the most important crop we have, and yields, per acre, from two hundred to five hundred pounds of marketable wool, according to soil, season, and tillage. Though seldom or never a total failure, this production is greatly curtailed by wet weather during the season of fructification-say from the middle of July to the middle of September. It is asserted by many observant cotton-planters, that, if from falling rains the inside of the bloom or blossom once becomes thoroughly wet, the fruit is inevitably blasted, and doubtless long spells of rainy weather at that warm season favor the generation of worms, which destroy the young bolls-sometimes to the extent of fifty per cent., or more. We have even remarked that dry summers are highly favorable to heavy cotton crops and the good health of the inhabitants. The customary pitch of crops in this county is about twelve acres in cotton and eight in Indian corn for each able-bodied hand or laborer, white or black; besides this, however, two or three acres to the hand in oats or other winter grain, and half an acre or more in sweet potatoes, with garden productions for family use.

Each

The customary allowance of food to negroes, in bacon or meat of equal value, is three pounds and a half weekly, and as much corn-meal as may be needed, (about a peck,) with unstinted access to the turnip patch, and the fields in which pumpkins and peas or beans are grown. family of negroes is also permitted to cultivate for its own use a sufficient garden spot, and to raise chickens. These provisions, so far as my acquaintance extends, are common; but some masters of slaves allow more, and some less. The sweet potato crop is a valuable one, and might, beneficially to the country, be much extended, as this choice esculent can be kept in good condition from one harvest to another, though it is generally eaten up by or before midsummer.

What we call the corn-field pea-of which several varieties are abundantly grown in all our corn-fields, especially on fresh lands-seems to keep our live stock of all kinds fat, during the fall and part of winter. It is for the most part eaten off the ground on which it is grown, none being gathered except for seed, and a few bushels for table use.

Some cotton planters do not raise meat for their own consumption, but buy it of those who have it for sale, chiefly the dealers in pork and bacon at New Orleans and other seaboard markets. They are, of course, able to cultivate much larger crops of cotton; but the usage in this county generally is to make plenty of provisions and less cotton-a course of farming that is probably more economical, at all events attended with less trouble and risk, and I doubt not secures the better feeding of both men and beasts.

So many acres of cotton, corn, oats, and other crops could not be cultivated without an extraordinary use of the plough; so in fact it will be found that no country on earth keeps and feeds so many ploughbeasts, horses and mules, as the cotton-growing regions of the South. They are a costly part of our plantation stock, and were it not practicable to raise sufficient forage on the place, and as much cotton as may be housed by Christmas, our system of agriculture could not be sustained; at any rate, the profits would greatly decline.

Thousands of mules are driven from the valley of the Mississippi, and

Rye is considered by farmers a renovating crop. For stock, it affords an excellent winter pasture; the grain, when chopped and fed to stock, is good food; and when stock, particularly hogs, are turned upon a field of rye, it will make them grow and fatten well. The straw broken down on the field, and ploughed under, makes a tolerably fair manure.

Peas are considered the clover of the South-the cow-pea, I mean. It grows kindly; poor land will produce peas finely, and, if the vine is allowed to remain upon the soil, and ploughed under, it is a great renovator. The pea is good for stock; nothing superior to it in nutritive matter. Beans not cultivated in our county as a field crop. Clover is cultivated by but few in this county; it is receiving more attention now than formerly, and the few who have tried it say that they have every reason to believe that it will succeed well in the valley, as well as farther north. I obtained the seed of the Alfalfa or Chilian clover from Governor Brown, of Florida, last year, and planted it as he directed me, and I find it to grow luxuriantly and vigorously in the hottest and driest weather we have here. It may do for extensive cultivation after we experiment with it a little. Our country, here in Alabama, is naturally intended for the growing of wool. If Scotland ever was, or will be, a wool-growing country, ours will certainly be. Bordering on our valleys are hills or mountain knobs, considerable elevations in places that afford the finest sheep walks and summer pasturage for sheep imaginable. If England can, or Scotland, or Saxony, or even our own countryman, Mr. Cockrill, of Nashville, raise sheep and grow wool upon lands worth fifty dollars per acre, what princely fortunes cannot the Talladega woolgrower realize when sheep-walks and summer pasturage can be had gratis? Our enterprising countryman, Mr. Cockrill, of Nashville, has proved, to the satisfaction of all unprejudiced minds, that the South is the place to grow wool profitably, and the place to grow fine wool. The mildness of our winters, compared with more northern latitudes, will place the advantages of wool-growing always on the side of the Southerner, even if other things were equal; but when we take into consideration the other advantages of the Talladega wool-grower, no comparison can fairly be instituted-the fineness of his wool, the mildness of winter, and cheapness of wintering, and the finest walks and richest summer pastures gratis. What comparison, I say, can be instituted between him and any wool-grower on earth? Between him and a princely fortune, no barrier stands! The question may intrude itself, Why do not the Talladega farmers turn their attention that way; their capital, &c.? The only answer I can make to the inquiry is, cotton, the great Southern staple, has blinded us to what is much more profitable; and, strange to say, wool is grown only for domestic purposes in Talladega county. The next thing that claims the attention of the farmer is his hogs; and the best breed is the native hog, such as we found among the Indians. By judicious selection of breeders, any sort of a hog may be raised from the native stock. The manner of putting up pork, and curing bacon and hams, will differ according to climate. We will leave that subject to the Buckeyes of Ohio, and notify them at the same time, that if they even attempt to cure bacon and hams in Talladega, they will have to alter their plan according to climate, or they will save nothing but the skulls and feet, and that by "sousing." With cotton and

rice, the Southern staples, come associated the slavery question. In the cultivation of wheat, corn, rye, barley, oats, and the grasses, slave labor is not so profitable. If the Southern slave-holder realizes any profit at all, it is in a cotton and rice climate exclusively-a land of few enjoy

ments.

The cotton crop of this county will be greater this year than last. The average production has always been considered 1,000 pounds per acre; and some claim more than that.

Every kind of crop succeeds well after cotton. In preparing the land for a cotton crop, it should be subsoiled, and the cultivation light. Cotton lands can be improved by scraping up decayed leaves, limbs, and the mould where these are rotting, and imbedding them in the ridge upon which the cotton is planted. Continue the process, and the land will improve in the production of cotton; and the reason is, these leaves, sticks, limbs, and mould abound in alkalies, and consequently are the very food adapted to the cotton plant. Nothing, we think, has destroyed more land than the cultivation of cotton, the cultivation being pretty much a surface affair. It exposes the land to the exhausting heats of summer, and keeps it in a condition to wash with every rain; and cotton requires later cultivation than any other crop, leaving the farmer no time to prepare manures, or improve his farm as he would desire. Therefore, I say, cotton has destroyed more land than earthquakes, eruptions of burning volcanic mountains, or anything else. Witness the red hills of Georgia and South Carolina, that have produced cotton till the last dying gasp of the soil forbid any further attempt at cultivation, and the land turned out to nature, reminding the traveller, as he views the dilapidated condition of the country, of the ruins of Greece. Rice can be successfully cultivated upon upland. I once made an experiment upon upland rice, an account of which I gave in last Report. An error, however, occured in that Report respecting the quantity of ground. The piece of ground was 60 yards by 20, in place of feet.

A gentleman of this county has made more by planting a quarter of an acre than I expected. He made 40 bushels of rice; which will make 160 bushels' yield per acre. Rice at four cents per pound (the bushel weighing 30 pounds) makes an income of $192 per acre; surpassing any crop the Southern farmer may plant by a vast majority, if he could get a market and cheap transportation. We look forward to the time when our Selma and Tennessee River railroad will afford us cheap transportation, together with the other advantages we have been endeavoring to enumerate; and then, with the blessings of health, and the advantages resulting from well-conducted schools, we hope to be able to show to the world that we are not outside Barbarians.

Fruit culture is beginning to receive attention. I was shown an apple tree by Mr. Samuel Graham, of Coosa county, found by him in the woods when small, which he removed to his orchard. Its growth was rapid, being now very large, and not more than six years since he removed it to his orchard; we might almost consider it a native tree. deep green foliage made it appear as indigenous as the oak in the wood. The fruit possessed very little acid when growing, even in May, but considerable aroma; it is a fall or winter apple, never having born fruit

high tides. The harvest in this neighborhood, which ought to have been commenced on the 9th to 12th, was not fairly begun until the middle of September, and then under many disadvantages. The season was so wet that much of the rice was imperfectly cured. The rice was over-ripe when eventually reaped, and wasted very much in the handling. Another storm, on the 9th October, overtook the harvest, still unfinished, and added, of course, by its effects, to the damage previously sustained by the crop.

From the foregoing statement I infer that the crop of rice, though it may not be inferior, in the number of bushels, to that of an ordinary season, yet in the number of barrels of clean rice for export, it will be less. We may suppose that very prime parcels will be the more highly estimated, owing to the scarcity of such.

In respect to improvements, I am inclined to think that the draining of rice-fields might be improved, and the harvest somewhat facilitated, if we could be furnished with a flood-gate of the nature and for the uses of a tide-lock, but not so expensive. Rice flour is believed to be the best manure which has been used thus far, stronger and more diffusible than either chaff or rice straw, though more costly.

The cheapest of all manures, however, is the sediment deposited upon the fields themselves by our great rivers in their occasional overflow. A remarkable instance of this deposit occurred on North Santee, in the year 1845, I think. I examined the crust of deposit on Mr. Andrew Johnstone's plantation the year after, of which I preserved a specimen, over two inches in thickness. I caused to be sown in April last a small sample each of four varieties (the best of near twenty, which were furnished me by Mr. Lawton, the active president of the South Carolina Institute) of foreign rice, the product of which I have not yet examined. The opinion of my overseer is that they are all inferior to our own seed.

I am, very respectfully,

To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

ROBT. F. W. ALLSTON.

LAURENSVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA,
September 27, 1852.

SIR: In reply to your inquiries on points belonging to "rural affairs," I take pleasure in answering as follows:

Wheat.-Guano has not been used in the production of this crop, within my knowledge. The average product per acre, from seven to ten bushels. November the time for seeding, and June the time for harvesting. Soak the seed in blue-stone solution-about one pound for every five bushels, which is almost universally regarded as an effectual remedy for smut; about three pecks to one bushel of seed per acre. Plough, generally, only once; the yield increasing. Wheat after cotton; corn after wheat; sow early-best remedy for Hessian flies. Sun well, and put up while hot, to prevent the injury by the weevil. Average price in 1852, $1 25. No grass-seed sown with wheat.