CULTIVATION OF RICE. "Landgrave Thomas Smith, who was governor of the province in 1693, had been at Madagascar before he settled in Carolina. There he observed that rice was planted and grew in low and moist ground. Having such ground at the western extremity of his garden, attached to his dwelling-house in East Bay-street, he was persuaded that rice would grow therein, if seed could be obtained. About this time a vessel from Madagascar, being in distress, came to anchor near Sullivan's Island. The master of the vessel inquired for Mr. Smith as an old acquaintance. An interview took place. In the course of conversation, Mr. Smith expressed a wish to obtain some seedrice to plant in his garden, by way of experiment. The cook, being called, said he had a small bag of rice suitable for that purpose. This was presented to Mr. Smith, who sowed it in a low spot in his garden, which now forms a part of Longitude-lane. It grew luxuriantly. The little crop was distributed by Mr. Smith among his planting friends. From this small beginning, the first staple of South Carolina took its rise. It soon after became the chief support of the colony.' "Its introduction contributed much to the prosperity of that part of North America. It became valuable, not only for consumption at home, but as an article for exportation. By an act of parliament, 3rd and 4th of Anne (1706), rice was placed among the enumerated commodities, and could only be shipped directly to Great Britain; but afterwards, in the year 1730, it was permitted to be carried, under certain limitations and restrictions, to the ports of Europe lying south of Cape Finisterre. Its culture had so increased, that, as early as 1724, 18,000 barrels of it were exported; and, from November, 1760, to September, 1761, no less than 100,000 barrels were shipped from South Carolina. "In 1770, the value of this article exported, being in quantity about 160,000 barrels, amounted to 1,530,000 dollars. "Wine.-North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana, rank highest, in their order, in the production of wine. In Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, and Kentucky, some thousands of gallons are likewise produced. Two acres in Pennsylvania, cultivated by some Germans, have the past autumn (1842) yielded 1500 gallons of the pure juice of the grape, and paid a net profit of more than 1000 dollars. Still, the quantity produced is small. The cultivation of both the native and foreign grape, as a fruit for the table, seems to be an object of increasing interest in particular sections of our country; but any very decided advances in this product are scarcely to be expected. "Near Mississippi city, in Mississippi, grapes are said to succeed well. One person is mentioned who had, on an average, from vines four years old, over 200 fine bunches to the vine Some others have had over 500 bunches to the vine. Mr. Mottier, of Delhi, near Cincinnati, has six acres wholly devoted to grape-vines. The vineyard was planted in 1829, and began to yield fair returns in two or three years; and, during the whole period, he has lost but a single crop. He finds there a northern preferable to a southern exposure. The Swiss vine-dressers, it is said, say that, in Switzerland and Germany, if they save the crops of three years out of five, they think they do well. About 1500 gallons of wine were made last year (1842), for which he finds a ready sale at one dollar per gallon. The Catawba affords a white wine in good repute with connoisseurs, resembling Rhenish. The Cape grape makes a red wine more like Burgundy. His vines, this year (1843) are in a very promising state; and should nothing untoward occur, he thinks they will yield him from 200 to 400 gallons of wine to the acre.' There are also said to be some half-dozen other vineyards in the vicinity; and the amount of American wine manufactured there, and the preparations for extending the business by Germans from the valley of the Rhine, are stated to be larger than would be imagined. The Scuppernong grape of North Carolina has been pronounced by a French gentleman, not very ready to admit the excellence of American grapes, to be equal, if not superior, to any he had ever seen in France.' It is said that, in southern climates, under the best management, 2000 gallons an acre may be calculated on as a vineyard product. Some of the vines of ten or twelve years' growth yielded half a barrel a-piece.' A gentleman in North Carolina, who this last year made thirty barrels, intends the next year to make forty or more. The culture of the grape has also been successful in Louisiana, and the following calculations have been said to have been the result of experience: One acre planted with 1000 vines will produce a crop of fruit weighing 50,000 lbs., which will yield, after pressing and allowing for all waste, 16,6664 lbs. of pure juice, or 2083 gallons of wine. Some clusters of the kind, called the grape of Canaan, are said to weigh from five to six pounds a bunch. The grape has also been cultivated very successfully as a fruit for the table, in the vicinity of New York. One gentleman at Croton Point is said to have twenty acres of the Catawba and Isabella grapes. The country abounds with many fine native grapes, some of which have already been adapted for cultivation. A southern journal speaks of the discovery, within the past year, of a white cluster or bunch grape, indigenous to the United States, in a remote unsettled part of Leake county, in Mississippi, on the Yokanodkano river. The bunches are very large; the fruit transparent, thin skinned, and oval; pulp soft, with three seeds inclosed; it is a great bearer, of delicious flavour, and was long known to the Indians. It is called the Yokanodkano grape. "As a good mode of preserving grapes, it is recommended that they be put in tight boxes or kegs in alternate layers with carded bats of cotton.' "The whole amount of the wine crop in the tabular estimate for the United States, is 139,240 gallons. "Madder, which was mentioned in the report for 1842, is said to repay a net profit of 200 dollars to the acre when properly managed. It produced on the farm of a gentleman, who has devoted some attention to this product in Ohio, at the rate of 2000 lbs. per acre, and he believes it may be made to produce 3000 lbs., which is a greater crop than the average crops of Germany and Holland. It is probable that it may hereafter be more an object with our farmers, but the introduction of its culture among them must be gradual. Nine acres have been planted by one person in 1839, which he harvested in 1842. The labour required is said to be from eighty to 100 days' work per acre, and a crop is not reaped till it is three years old. The nature of the soil in which it is cultivated is said to have considerable influence on the colour of the dye produced from madder. 6 "Olives, it is asserted, may be grown in some of the southern states. A gentleman in Mississippi, is stated, in an agricultural journal, to have the olive growing, which, at five years from the cutting, bore fruit, and was as large at that age as they usually are in Europe at eight years old.' The olive here,' it is added, will yield a fair crop for oil at four years from the nursery, and in eight years a full crop, or as much as in Europe at from fifteen to twenty years of age.' The lands and climate there are stated to be as well adapted to the successful cultivation of the olive for oil, pickles, &c., as any part of Europe. Some hundreds of the trees are said also to have been growing in South Carolina, and the owner expressed his conviction that this product would succeed well on our sea-coast of Carolina and Georgia. The frosts, though severe, did not destroy or injure them; and in one case, when the plant was supposed to be dead, and corn was planted in its stead, its roots sent out shoots. It is well known to be a tree of great longevity—even reaching to 1000 or 2000 years; so that when once established, it will produce crops for a great while afterwards. The expense of extracting the oil is also stated to be but trifling. Indigo. This was once a most important crop in South Carolina, and some attention has been given to it by an individual or two in Louisiana, and the enterprise is said to promise success; and enough might undoubtedly be raised in this country to supply our own market, so that we should not be dependent on other nations for this article. Some indigo produced at Baton Rouge is pronounced to have been equal to the best Caraccas, which sells at two dollars per pound; and the gentleman who cultivated it remarks, that one acre of ground there, well cultivated, will yield from forty to sixty pounds; that it requires only from July to October for cultivating it; that there is not connected with it one-third of the expense of time that is generally required for the cultivation of cotton. He, therefore, intends in future to turn his attention to the cultivation of indigo, in preference to cotton. "General Remarks.-The root crops form a very important item as fodder, and are cultivated with increasing success in many parts of the country. The turnip has not yet become as great a favourite among our farmers as it is in England, where very large crops are produced; nor are carrots, the product of which has sometimes in England reached to over thirty-seven tons per acre; or parsnips, which are said to be excellent food for horses and cattle. Parsnips, also, stand the winter better than any other root vegetable. Swine, too, are fond of them. Besides the ruta baga, mangel wurtzel, sugar beet, and other varieties of the beet, occupy a useful place on the farm, and are more or less cultivated in this country. "An account of an experiment respecting the raising of pumpkins on grass land, and the great amount produced from one vine, furnishes some important facts with reference to the culture of that product, showing that it might be rendered very profitable. "The productions of the orchard-apples, peaches, and pears, and other varieties of fruit-are most successfully raised for market in some of the states. The peach orchards of New Jersey and Pennsylvania form a source of large profit to their enterprising proprietors. The apple crop suffered severely the past year in some of the New England states. "Many farmers in Wisconsin territory are said to be beginning to give their attention to the production of wool; large flocks have been introduced into the southern counties. "Much is doing to ascertain the best breeds of cattle for our country, and many noble specimens have been exhibited the past year at the agricultural fairs in various parts of the union, showing the increasing attention which is given to this subject. "The products of the dairy, too, and the apiary, with the new methods of raising poultry, might claim a notice. The subject of the best modes of cultivation, manures, and the proportions of the various parts of husbandry to one another, belong to the general subject.”—Mr. Ellsworth's Report. Prickly Comfrey-Some experiments have been made in the New England states for feeding cattle; and that on being gathered only once in two years, an acre produced 2400 bushels. It is regarded as indigenous to America. Apples.-The following are extracts from letters to Mr. Ellsworth: "For some years I have been experimenting upon the apple-tree, having an orchard of 20,000 bearing Newtown pippin trees. I have found it very unprofitable to wait for what is termed the bearing year, and, consequently, it has been my study to assist nature, so as to enable the tree to bear every year. "I have noticed that it produces more profusely than any other tree, and, consequently, requires the intermediate year to recover itself, by extracting from the atmosphere and earth the requisites to enable it to produce. "One year is too short a time for so elaborate a process, and, if unassisted by art, the intervening year must necessarily be lost. If, however, it is supplied with the necessary substances, it will bear every year-at least, such has been the result of the following experiments: "Three years ago, in April, I scraped all the rough bark off several thousand trees in my orchard, and washed the trunk and limbs within reach with soft soap, trimmed out all the branches that crossed each other early in June, and painted the wounded part with white lead, to keep out moisture; then split open the bark, by running a sharp-pointed knife from the ground to the first set of limbs in the latter part of the same month, which prevents the tree from becoming bark-bound, and gives the inner wood an opportunity of expanding. "In July, I placed one peck of oyster-shell lime around each tree, and left it piled about the trunk until November, during which three months the drought was excessive. In November, the lime was dug in thoroughly. The following year (1842), I collected from those trees 1700 barrels of fruit, some of which were sold in New York for four dollars per barrel, and others, in London, for nine dollars; the cider made from the refuse, delivered at the mill two days after its manufacture, I sold for three dollars seventy-five cents per barrel of thirty-two gallons, not including the barrel. In making cider I never wet the straw. After gathering the fruit in October, I manured the same trees with stable-manure, having secured to it the ammonia, and covered it immediately with earth. "Strange as it may appear, this year (1843), the same trees literally bent to the ground with the finest fruit I ever saw. The other trees in my orchard, not treated as above, were barren. "I am now placing around each tree one peck of charcoal-dust, and propose, in the spring, to cover it from the compost heap. "I have grown corn, beets, and carrots, in pure charcoal-dust, likewise cuttings of the rosebush, camella japonica, grape-vine, and wax-plant, and believe it to be one of the most valuable manures we have. Once placed upon the soil, it is there for ever. "Plums.-Fourteen years since, I removed eighty plum-trees from the lower part of my farm in the month of May, and set them in rich, sandy loam land, which is the best soil for them. They were valuable varieties, such as the blue gage, yellow egg, magnum bonum, &c., and had borne profusely four years before they were taken up. For the space of thirteen years after their removal they never bore a single plum, although they grew luxuriantly. In the fall of 1842, I placed half a bushel of shell lime round each tree, and last March, half a bushel of pulverised charcoal. In May they were covered with blossoms, and bore a profusion of fruit. "When large black excrescences appear on plum-trees, I cut off the limbs affected, and burn them. They are caused by a worm." CALCULATION AND ESTIMATES OF PRODUCTION OF WHEAT AND OTHER BREAD STUFF GRAINS, AS BEARING UPON CONSUMPTION IN, AND EXPORTATIONS FROM, THE UNITED STATES. THE following statements and tables are prepared from official accounts, and from a series of observations and tables which were drawn up and published in an extra number of the Philadelphia Commercial List for 1842. The cause of that alarm, which has been so generally manifested by the landed interests of England, as to the United Kingdom, in the event of a free trade in corn and other food from America, has, it will appear, no foundation. Mr. Gladstone has, with forcible truth and ability, in his recently published remarks, proved how utterly groundless have been the complaints against the liberal portions of the tariff of 1842. The following statements and tables will show that the export of corn and flour from the United States has not increased in proportion to the increase of population, and goes far to prove how little the landed interest of the United Kingdom has to fear from the competition of American agriculture. We could further prove that, in the advance of nations, the consumers of agricultural produce increase more rapidly in numbers than the producers. The reason is, that cities, manufactures, trades, navigation, &c., draw people from cultivating the soil, and from the rural districts. This is especially the case in America. In the United States the population employed in agriculture has, it is true, increased rapidly, but not so rapidly as the population of the towns, and those employed in the fisheries, in ship-building, in the timber trade, in the fur trade, in the producing of naval stores, in navigating the ocean, rivers, lakes, and canals; and as those employed in manufactures, handicraft trades, and on railways and other public works. We must also take into our calculation those employed in agriculture, who are not producers of wheat, other bread stuffs, and food, viz., those engaged in the cultivation of tobacco, of cotton wool, and, in Louisiana, of sugar. The author of the interesting papers which were prepared for the Philadelphia paper, which we have quoted above, describing the wheat crops ob serves: "It is very generally believed abroad, that this valuable grain is of very general culture in our country, but such is not the fact. This table divides the states and territories into three districts:-The first embraces the six New England states; the second, the states in what may be called the 'Wheat District,' extending from latitude 35 deg. to 45 deg. north, and from longitude 5 deg. east to 15 deg. west of Washington; and the third, states south of latitude 35 deg. The cultivation of wheat was commenced in the New England states at quite an early date after their first settlement, and with sufficient success to supply the wants of the colonists, but it could not be continued with profit when Pennsylvania was settled, and its lands, more congenial to wheat, subjected to the plough. Then, the hardy and adventurous sons of the Puritans, found it their interest to cultivate' the ocean, and, by exchange of its productions purchase flour and grain from the descendants of Penn. The efforts made since the revolution, and, by aid of bounties, even down to within three or four years, to revive the cultivation of wheat in the eastern section, have proved alike unsuccessful; and the agricultural pursuits of New England will, doubtless, in future be confined to the more suitable |