sample. This custom also obtains in regard to such merchandise as is not susceptible of being packed. For such of the latter category of goods as preclude the taking of samples, (pieces of machinery, for example,) a leaden seal is placed, if possible, on some part thereof; and when this is not practicable a detailed description is made of the merchandise and inscribed on an "acquit à caution," or certificate of guarantee, the nature of which will be found described further on, (Form No. 7 bis.) Upon the fulfilment of the foregoing formalities the customs deliver to the merchant an "acquit à caution," or certificate of guarantee, which describes the contents of the cases to be forwarded, their marks and numbers and gross weight, as well as the nature of the goods themselves, and if of a prohibited character, their measurement. The "acquit à caution," or certificate of guarantee, mentions likewise the port or place of destination of the same, and the time accorded for its conveyance. The goods, together with the " acquit à caution," or certificate of guarantee, are then placed at the disposal of the declarant, who is at liberty to forward the same in any way he may judge fit, and even the railway, but not in sealed wagons or by special train. On the arrival of the goods at their place of exit from the country they are presented with the sample above mentioned to the officers of the customs for examination, (the "acquit à caution" serving for this purpose,) and when this formality is gone through, the goods are escorted to the extreme frontier. The "acquit à caution" is then indorsed with certificates attesting the departure of the goods as above, and is finally sent back to the customs from which it emanated, and the merchant thereupon is absolved from all further responsibility, and his bond cancelled.

In case of fraud, it is the customs at the place of departure of the goods which prosecute the forwarder. The penalties for fraud are the following, viz: If goods are abstracted and others substituted for them, the latter are confiscated and a fine of 500 francs imposed when they are described in the "acquit à caution," or certificate of guarantee, as of a prohibited character, and 200 francs if otherwise. If there is a deficiency in the quantity of the goods described as prohibited, without substitution, the fine is 500 francs; and in the case of goods free to entry thereof, are taxed with the payment of four times their duty. The deficiency in weight is attended with no penalty when the same is unimportant and can be attributed to natural causes.

When the sample mentioned above is not produced and presented to the customs officers at the frontier, and there is no reason to suspect fraud, the goods themselves are allowed to continue their journey. A new sample, however, is taken of them and is returned to the custom house of the port or place of departure of the merchandise for examination, and the merchant is called upon to subscribe a bond or give security for the payment of the fines and penalties of the law in case fraud is afterwards discovered to have taken place.

As regards tissues, (woven articles,) which are similar to those manufactured in France, a board of inspectors attached to the bureau of the ministry of commerce (at Paris) examine the sample and determine whether the same are French or not. Their decision is immediately transmitted to the customs at the place of exit of the merchandise aforesaid, and if the same is favorable the guarantee or bond of the merchant is cancelled. If not, the customs officers indorse the fact on the merchant's "acquit à caution," or certificate of guarantee, and proceedings are commenced and the fines and penalties prescribed are imposed accordingly.

When the leading or seals of a package or case are broken, the customs at the port of exit of the goods examine the same minutely, and if suspicions are entertained the same course as for the loss of a sample is adopted.` Merchandise presented at any other " bureau de sortie" or frontier custom-house than that designated in the "acquit à caution" can be forwarded out of the country with the permission of the head officer of the service. As a principle, if the conditions stipulated as to time only in the ("acquit à caution") certificate of

guarantee are not fulfilled, that instrument becomes null and void, and the cus toms have the right of refusing all verification of the goods, and can hold responsible the forwarder, but in such cases they are indulgent. They, however, rigidly examine the merchandise, and, if doubts are entertained, the same measures and precautions as for the loss of a sample are taken.

The merchant has the right of declaring his goods upon their arrival at the frontier custom-house or place of exit from the country, either for exportation or the consumption, or for deposit in the warehouse of the customs. If goods during their transit are either stolen or destroyed by fire, or lost by unavoidable circumstances, and the merchant justifies the loss or destruction by a certificate from a competent authority, the customs waive all the penalties of the law, but exact the payment of the entry duty on the goods if not of a prohibited character; and if so, their value. Merchandise in transit by the ordinary routes or roads of travel is subject to no custom-house tax, but all the expenses of transportation, &c. must be paid by the forwarder. The sealing or leading (plombage) of cases of goods is at the charge of the customs.

MARSEILLES-GEORGE W. VAN HORNE, Consul.

JUNE 8, 1863.

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of April 23, requesting a report upon the cultivation of madder.

I beg to enclose herewith such information as I have been able to gather upon this subject. My first step, after being informed as to your wishes, was to place myself in correspondence with a number of the most wealthy and enterprising cultivators of this plant.

Under the auspices of two or three of the leading merchants of this city I was enabled to address myself to those most capable of informing me fully upon the subject. Their several responses constitute my report, if report is the name for it.

My second step was endeavor to purchase some treatise upon the subject to supply any facts which might escape the notice of the cultivators.

CULTIVATION OF MADDER.

*

Madder was cultivated for many years in Anatolic, (Asiatic Turkey,) Zealand and Flanders, ere its peculiar qualities were known in France. Notwithstanding the early privileges accorded to its culture by Louis XV, it was not cultivated for its dyeing qualities until late in the reign of that monarch. It was imported into the department Vaucluse in 1766, by John Alther, a refugee from Smyrna, who had been struck by the analogy of the climate of the latter country with that of France; but its cultivation did not attract much attention until after the annexation of the country of Avignon to the kingdom of France. It has since become the fortune of this department; its yearly exportations yielding more than twenty-five millions of francs.

Description of the plant.-The madder, rubia tinctorum sativa, when sown singly and near a wall, grows in stalks of three or four feet in height, and from one foot two inches to one foot five inches when sown in quantity. The stalks are square, knotty and rough. Each knot is furnished with five or six leaves, in a manner known by botanists as verticil. These leaves are long and narrow, and garnished at their borders with fine hard teeth. Branches shoot forth from the stalk immediately above these leaves, bearing on their extremities a very small flower, whose color is a greenish yellow. This flower, of one leaf only, cut at its border into four or five parts, is shaped like a cup pierced at the bottom, and contains four stamens and one pistil, of which the base, being the embryo, becomes a fruit, sometimes forming into many pomes, but oftener into

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one only. This fruit, when ripe, is black and round. The roots of the madder are long and crawling, divided into several branches, ligneous, and, before they are submitted to the contact of air, yellowish, and possessing an astringent taste. The root is the only important part of the plant, for it alone contains the coloring matter. The leaves, however, are gathered when dead, and served as fodder to horses and mules.

Soil. The madder grows in all kinds of land, but is not everywhere equally productive, or of the same quality. In dry or sandy lands, and on the hillsides, the root remains small, produces little, and after hituration, has a very light color. The root itself, when dried in the air, is of a red orange. This quality is the least valuable, and is cultivated only for changing the tilth. The madder likes soft, light, rich, cool lands. The roots then are very abundant, grow rapidly, and, when dried in the air, have a gray color. The powder is deep and the color a dusky red.

Varieties. In the department of Vaucluse there are two qualities of madder, arising from the difference in the quality of the soil. They are known as roses and paluds. The roses, also called alizares, grow in all strong soils, on hills and in sandy and clayed lands. Their roots are from a red orange to a grayish color. On the shores of rivers whose waters are slimy, the madder produces roots of the latter color. They are called half-paluds. In former times, in the middle of the department of Vaucluse were extensive swamps, (called in patois paluds,) made by the flow from the Fountain of Vaucluse. Subject to these floods or inundations, these lands were left to the prey of coarse grass, and were little thought of by the poor proprietors, who were only too glad to part with them at any price; but when wealth and enterprise had effected the enraisement of the waters of Vaucluse by drains, conduits, &c, the face of the country was changed, and the lauds soon rose in value. They are now exclu sively devoted to the cultivation of madder. The roses taken from these lands wear a very gray external appearance. The powder is dark, and the dye a dark red, owing to the carbonate of lime and carbonate alkaline, which the root extracts from the soil. These lands contain from 60 to 70 per cent. of chalk. For a long time England would not take these roots on account of the color of their powder; but now no objection is made to its appearance, whether light or dark, provided the dye produced by it is of a fine color.

It would be useless to attempt the cultivation of madder on undrained, overflowed lands; the seed would perish. Experience has proved that lands where the madder is cultivated for the first time produce a larger crop and of a better quality than where the cultivation is often repeated., Hence the quality paluds has somewhat diminished as the earth has become more or less exhausted of the necessary aliment, where the cultivation has not been varied. It is the usual custom to alternate with wheat, potatoes, or other crop.

Tilth.—When it is proposed to sow the madder in cultivated or old lands, one prepares the ground as for any other seed. Manure holds the first place in the thoughts of the cultivator.

There must be ten metres cubes (a little more than ten cubic yards) per eminée, (an uncertain measure, because varying in different departments;) and a little while before sowing, 180 pounds of oilcake. (Another correspondent says, forty one-horse loads of dung per hectáre, about one-half acre, and 4,400 pounds of oilcake.) New lands do not require as much manure as old.

If the land is new, it must be broken in autumn, with a large plough, and some time after on labour de nauveau, (cross-ploughs,) in order that the frosts of winter may render the soil pliable. In early spring it is worked again, and is generally ready for the seed in the month of March or April.

Seed. The seed should be perfectly dry and free from fermentation. The seed of the paluds is much better than that of the roses. One may preserve it in a good state for two years by keeping it in a dry place and subjecting it to a thorough ventilation.

Sowing-A ridge, eight or nine inches wide and one and a half inch deep, is made with the spade and sowed. At a distance of ten inches another ridge of the same size is run, having care to cover the seed of the first ridge with the earth taken from the second, and so on to the completion of the third ridge. These three ridges form a plat-band about three feet wide, separated from each other by a space one and a half feet in width, left as a path for the laborer in weeding. From this path, also, is taken the earth to cover the plants in autumn when the leaves are dead. For the sake of economy these paths are sometimes planted with potatoes, beets, &c.; but such extra plants should be put far apart.

If the earth is well pulverized, instead of the seed being sown, one had better transplant roots of the preceding year's growth, as crops attained from the plants display much finer roots than when raised directly from the seed. But if the ground is not pliable, but hard and clayey, the plants would not grow well, and possibly would not take at all; in this case, seed must be sown. acre of madder produces seed sufficient for three or four acres of sowing.

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Transplantng. For the transplanting of roots as indicated above, ridges about three feet wide and three inches deep are made, and the roots laid therein just free from each other; and between these ridges an uncultivated space is left as in sowing.

Weeding. The seed is sown or the roots transplanted in March, and great care must be observed in keeping the land free from weeds; the paths also being attended to in this respect.

Irrigation. When the land is dry from drought, it will be necessary to water it by irrigating the intermediate paths if possible. Slimy water is preferable to clear water for this purpose.

Covering. In autumn, when the plants lose their verdure and turn to a grayish tint, they must be covered with one and a half or two inches of earth taken from the paths. In the following spring the clods must be broken with a rake.

Digging-The madder cultivated in strong dry soils may be removed in three years, and from wet lands in eighteen months. Thus the madder of the mountains requires three years to mature well, while the paluds may be dug in four and a half months to three years. The roots should not be extracted until the seed has been produced. Some cultivators who are pressed for the moneyed results of their labors do not wait for the seed; but the madder thus prematurely gathered is of an inferior quality.

The ramifications of the stalk are first cut, dried, and thrashed for the seed The straw or refuse is saved as fodder for cattle. The roots are then dug with he spade or fork; and, as their length will average one and a half feet, it can.

be seen that their removal leaves the land in a prepared state for some other crop.

Drying. When dug, they are spread on the aire, (usually a level spot of ground paved with stone or brick,) where they are dried by the action of the sun and air. When the larger roots may be easily broken, they should be heaped up so that the small tips (petits bouts) may become thoroughly dry. Care must be taken that this place be free from all dampness.

When the roots are sufficiently dry. they are embailed and sent to the manufacturer's, where they are stored in a well-ventilated granary. They are taken from the granary in proportion to each day's demand; and having been caused to lose fifteen or sixteen per cent. of water in a drying oven, are passed under a large mill-stone and ground to powder. The bolters keep the coarser portion for a second grinding.

Garancine. In order to concentrate the coloring matter into a small volume, the madder is subjected to different processes. First it is washed, to cause it to lose the yellow coloring called hauthine. It is then boiled with fifty per cent. of sulphuric acid at 66°, so as to render the fibre soluble. Afterwards, it is again washed to cleanse it of the acid; then pressed, dried, and ground.

The water of the first washing is poured into a large basin, where it is kept some time in a state of fermentation; and when distilled produces a very strong alcohol used in the arts, and which, when rectified, may acquire a pleas

ant taste.

OCTOBER 12, 1863. I have the honor to transmit herewith: 1st. The annual commercial report from Marseilles; 2d. The annual commercial report from Cette.

ANNUAL COMMERCIAL REPORT, MARSEILLES.

The condition of American commerce at this port for the year ending August 31, 1863, is shown by the following tables of exports and imports made from the manifests of all vessels arriving from and departing for the United States. Tabular statement showing the exportations from Marseilles to the United States for the year ended August 31, 1863.