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TAKE IT,
THE CHEROKEE
Agriculturist
AND
Patron of Husbandry
PROSPECTUS
OF THE
CHEROKEE AGHICUITUBIST,
A MONTHLY EIGHT-PAGE PAPER,
Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and
all Branches of Farming Peculiar
to this Soil and Climate.
TO APPEAR ABOUT AUGUST 1, 1875.
The title of this paper indicates
its field of labor. The intelligence, energy
and prosperity of the farmers of the best Agri
cultural district in the State, is considered a
sufficient guarantee of the success of such a
journal. The same necessity which urges an
active co-operation of the tillers of the soil,
for their advancement and well-being, sug
gests the importance of a channel through
which their theories, their practical experi
ments and successes, may be made known to
each other for the general good and profit of
the entire section.
We hope therefore to make the CHEROKEE
AGRICL LTURIST a farmer's messenger, bear
ing the glad tidings of successful husbandry
from one unto another, until each little farm
that dots the hills, the coves, and the val leys
shall shine out in their verdue and majesty
thus transforming this lost Paradise of ours
into an ever-blooming Garden of Eden.
Through the sound logical wisdom of the
sun-browned husbandman, rather than from
the sanctum-shaded editor, arc these bright
hopes to be realized. Froni the fullness of ev
ery good farmer’s experience, therefore, do we
intend to gather the treasures of a life’s time
of toil.
We intend to make the main feature otthe
AGRICULTURIST its correspondence columns
a large number of which are promised by the
most successful farmers of Nqjth Georgia,
We shall also secure the editorial assistance of
a number, whose ability and success is well
known. Altogether it shall be a paper which
shall prove a welcome and profitable visitor
to every country home.
It will be a handsome cight-page paper, prin
ted on good paper, from cleai new type, the Ist
of every month, and mailed free of postage.
TERMS—FIFTY CENTS A YEAR.
Special Rates to Granges.
I trust to the kindness of my old friends to
give me a helping hand, and a good start.
The courtecies of the Press will be duly con
sidered and appreciated.
Address ail communications to
H. A. WRENCH, Pub’r and Propt’r,
Opp. National Hotel. Dalton, Ga.
Timely Farm and Plantation Top
ics.
THE DARK SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
The prospect is not very cheering
just now, it must be confessed. The
last cotton crop is sold -and has not
brought much money—or rather, it
has not put much money into the
pockets of the planters, bur fences
arc bad and getting worse ; our farm
buildings are dilapidated; our stock
is lean and badly cared for; labor is
“unreliable;” debt and liens hang
heavily oyer us; our lands need ma
nures, but we have no money to buy
them—but we need not go on with the
enumeration. There is much unseem
ly’ and unnecessary croaking among
us, as there always is everywhere ; but
the conditions wc have indicated arc
sad facts with too many. They’ arc
making no progress toward prosperity,
but getting poorer and poorer, year
by year. This is the dark side of the
picture, but it is the only’ side that
many are able to get a glympse of at
present. In some parts of the South
there may be few indications of any
change for the better, and the croaking
we depricate is scarcely to be wondered
at, and we are slow to blame those who
are running down hill for not seeing
those who are ascending, and not be
lieving it possible to ascend.
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THE PICTURE.
This wc fear is too seldom looked
at. Some nmy’ doubt its existence,
because they do not see it. It is as
clearly established a fact, however, as
the reverse. It shows, first, a slow
but steady progress in both the theory’
and the practice of farming in the
South; second, that the use of fertili
zers, both home made and commercial,
is becoming better understood and, as
a consequence better results are se
cured by' their application ; third, that
a large and increasing number of far
mers are improving instead of deteri
orating their lands, year by year;
fourth, that good farmers (and their
number is increasing) are making
more per acre and more per hand than
they ever did before ; fifth, that an in
creasing number of farmers are diver
sifying and planning to diversify’ their
crops; sixth, that that class called
(formerly with something like pity
mixed with contempt,) “small far
mers,” are generally’ more prosperous
than they’ ever were before, and are in
a fairway to become large farmes in
a legitimate manner, through a strong
healthy’ growth in prosperity and
wealth. They put their own hjnds to
the plough, as occasion requires.— Pa
red Carolinian fur June.
A Model Hen Farm.
Os a hen farm near Marietta, Ga.,
the Atlanta Herald says: Mr. Laubere
keeps his fowls in flocks of fifty. To
these fifty hens are added about four
cocks. To each flock of fifty he gives
one acre of ground ; that is, he allows
them the run of one-half acre this year
and the other half acre next year, cul
tivating the unoccupied half acre
every year with some paying crop. The
farm, with its eight hundred occupants,
thus occupies sixteen acres. Half of
this is all the time under cultivation,
so that only’ eight acre really’ detract
ed from agricultural purposes. The
farm lies pretty level and is a beauti
ful sight; its regular succession ol
fences, its alternation of cultivated
spots, its scores of crowing chanti
cleers and clucking, matronly hens,
make a picture worth going a hundred
miles to tee.
A dispatch from New’ Orleans
states that a riot is apprehended at
East Feliciana, where the negroes
have assumed the offensive and are col
lecting and arming through the parish
for the supposed purpose of capturing
the town of Clarion.
A bolt of lightning struck a car
rii:“g in a funeral procession in New
York, on the 26th, knocking the dri
ver from tLe box, fatally injuring him,
and throwing the inmates of the car
riage into the road.
... —— - —•
A monster baby was born in Spring
field, Massachusetts, a short time
since. It weighed 20 pounds and 2
ounces, and was as fully’ developed, in
every particular, as an ordinary babe
a year old.
Cincinnati quotes wheat at 1.65
to 2.75 per bush.; Chattanooga at
1.05 a 1.10.
What is the true Policy of Farming.
The true policy in farming consists
in our own corn, wheat, rye, orts, peas,
hay, stock and meat. When a farmer
has for himself, his family, his hands
and his stock an abundance to eat
raised at home, when he does not need
to purchase anything but groceries and
clothing, he may’ depend upon it, he is
pursuing a better policy than the plan
ter who raises cotton at 10 or 15 cents
per pound, perhaps sells it at a loss,
and buys his corn at $1.50 per bushel,
his meat at 18 or 20 cents per pound,
and has no flour but what he buys at
the store, and all these things on a
credit. Let any man who pursues this
policy who thinks he is making money
by’ raising cotton and buying all his
provisions at market prices, calculate
the expenses of making his cotton
crop, and he will find that his policy is
far from being the true one. To ena
ble the South to recover as speedily’
as possible from the ruinous losses re
sulting from bad government and the
war, w-e will have to adopt a diversi
fied husbandry, by which we will
make nearly- we need at home and have
our cotton as a surplus crop. When
this true policy’ of farming has been
brought into general use, it will result
in independence, abundance, credit,
and, in time, wealth.
As soon as we have plenty of pro
visions made upon our own soil for
man and beast, there will be plenty of
mouths to eat them. The tide of im
migration which now flows westward
will turn to the South, and foreign
skill, muscle and money will be direct
ed to our country, which is richly’ en
dowed in all that constitutes natural
wealth and prosperity. We have now
every’ facility, capital and skilled labor
excepted; and as soon as we make an
abundance of supplies our political
status is fixed and society becomes re
organized upon a firm and enduring
basis, w-e can have as many’ immigrants
as we desire ; but, in the meantime, we
should out ever inducement for farmers
of the West and the North to come
and settle among us to buy’ our sur
plus lands, and help us to build up
and beautily our waste places. Noth
ing will conduce more tr this desirable
end than for our farmers, as they’ have
done to some extent this year, to pur
sue the true policy’ in farming, and
make all their provisions at home for
home consumption.— Farmers Vindi
cator.
• -♦
Beyond the Stars—What 1
’Tis easy to trace the soul to the hour
That deprives the form of its breath ;
But who shall follow the spirit’s flight,
When it seeks the portal of death?
Who rend the vail that hides from our view
The future, beyond the bright stars ?
Who follow the spirit’s upward flight,
When it breaks through our earthly bars?.
What—ah! what is that future state?
And where, oh where is the goal
Which Christians say is the resting place
And home of the deathless soul?
Is it beyond the dark blue sky—
Beyond where the stars now shine;
■Where the angels sing their songs of praise
To the spirit of God divine?
Can life be the end of all our hopes?
Is the struggle with death all o’er?
Oris there a life beyond the tomb,
■Where the soul lives evermore?
Does the soul exist when life has flown,
Or sink, like the corse, into night ?
Let us rather believe the brilliant mind
Still continues its upward flight.
Let us think that the soul can never die—
That its mission will never end ;
That there is a land beyond the sky,
Where friend will still meet friend ;
That, freed from the turmoil and ills of life,
troubles, wounds and scars,
The soul will worship the God of Light
In His mansions “beyond the skies.”
Isaac M. Singer, inventor of the
Singer sewing machine, died in Europe
on the 2Gth. He was born in America,
Oct. 11th, 1811, and was nearly’ G 4 years
of age. He was worth millions, and
leaves a wife and children to enjoy it.
Wheat at Nashville.
The Nashville Union and American
of Tuesday says :
There was much excitement this
morning among millers and wheat
bupers generally, owing to the contin
uation of wet weather throughout the
west, causing widespread damage to
all small grain. The market was
buoyant, advancing fully’ 2i- cents per
bushel, but closing so unsettled as
hardly to be quotable. Some buyers
quoted best at $1.30, but the highest
price we beard of in actual sales was
$1.27|. Very little wheat was offered
and receipts were small.
Flour was also buoyant and unset
tled on account of scarcity as well as
the condition of the grain market.
We quote 25 cents per barrel higher.
It is conceded by’ our merchants
that Tennessee will get more money’
for her wheat crop now than she would
had not the wheat of the country, in
cluding her own, been so damaged by
the wet weather.
The Dog Nuisance.
The value of sheep killed by rrogs
in the Unigid States for 1866, is esti
mated by the Commissioner of Agri
culture at two millions of dollars.
The subsistence or the whole number
of dogs in all the States is estimated
by him to cost annually fifty millions
of dollars.
These sre startling figures to an
overtaxed community, and should com
mand the attention of the Commis
sioner of Internal Revenue. Ffty-two ■
millions per annum lost by dogs, to
say nothing of the frightful deaths
from hydrophobia which they occa
sion I We say lost, for, with the ex
ception of a very few terriers, sheep
dogs, pointers and hounds, they’ furn
ish little in the way of set-off to the
enormous charge resulting from the
depredations and consumption of food.
Not five in a hundred are of any value.
The efficiency of the watch dog is ren
dered of little avail against profes
sional burglars, who use chloroform
or stry’chnine when a regular job pre
sents itself, which they administer even
when a door is interposed between the
burglar and the more respectable an
imal.
Five hundred thousand sheep are
annually’ killed, amounting in value to
two millions of dollars, and the num
ber, annually injured is three hundred
thousond, at an estimated loss of six
hundred thousand dollars, and this
wholly’ by’ dogs.
The mere statement of these as
tounding facts, and that fifty’ millions
of dollars are required to feed the five
millions of dogs within the limits of
the United States, would seem to be
sufficient to call upon Congress—
which brings everything useful toman
kind within the vortex of taxation, to
afford immediate and effectual remedy’
and we submit that the time is now
propitious for this effort w’hen a fond
ness for fox-hunting will readily be
yielded to demands for food and for
that species of agriculture which will
speedily enrich overworked fields, and
furnish, in the same instrumentality, a
means of clothing our own population.
So far from the movement being un
popular it will be hailed with delight
in the great wool-growing states, and
by’ all the Southern States which have
the benefit of mountan ranges, and
particularly, also, by the western part
of our continent, whose interest as
wool-growers will be promoted by the
tax. “The Southern and frontier
States (says the Commissioner) show
greater losses in proportion to extent
of flocks than more central regions.
The reason is plain—there are more
dogs under fewer safeguards. In
many of teese localities wool-growing
is attempted and abandoned for the
sole reason of these of these uncheck
ed ravages.”
The dog is accounted the friend of
man. The St. Barnard is a noble ani
mal, and frequently saves human life,
and constitutes an exception, but the
details of the ravages of the common
dogs among sheep—the better friend
of men—proves this to be otherwise.
The instincts of the sheep inform them
that the dog is a natural enemy. He
is so, not merely’ for food, but for ma
licious mischief, as having once tasted
blood, he will kill large flocks at a
single raid. One is the consumer to
the tune of over fifty’ millions of dol
lars per annum, the other a producer
to the extent of uncounted millions.—
Exchange.
Hollow Horn.
A remedy’ says the Piural Nev:
Yorker, for the cure of the hollow
horn, in cattle, is to dissolve a table
spoonful of copperas in warm water,
and mix it with the creature’s mess, if
it is not past eating; if it should be
pour it down. This dose will seldom
need to be given more than once. It
has been our remedy for many years,
in a large dairy.
Mules.
If you want mules for farm work,
select mares of medium size, not over
three years old, train them to the
work you want them to do, by gentle
treatment, speak kindly to them in
gentle tones. Do not get in a passion
and swear. The mule never swears,
does it comprehend its meaning any
further than to know that the swearer
is not its friend. Feed just high
enough to keep it in good working
condition; if fed too high its feed and
legs become too weak and give out
Stock Journal. •
Take cur paper and profit by' it.
Orchard and ilineifanL
Renovating old Orchards.
Several modes are recommended
how this can be successfully done;
but we do not see how it can be more
effectually done than by the one we
have frequently recommended. That
is to cut out all the dying wood, and
three-fourths of the suckers, scrape
the trunks of the trees completely,
removing all the old, hard, broken
bark; wash with a preparation of
whale oil, soap and Water, a pound of
the soap to a bucket of water ; and
give the orchard, not merely’ under
the trees, but every part of it, a heavy
top-dressing of good barnyard manure.
If there is any’ life or productiveness
left in the trees this will bring it out.
The suggestion that the trunks of
the trees should be shorn of all the
boughs and allowed to sucker, and
some of these when large enough graf
ted, will prove a failure. The graft
ing of the ordinary’ suckers growing
from the trunks of old trees can rarely
be done with success. We tried this
several times and the grafts all died
at the end of the second or third year.
Far better to graft the old trees wheh
cver there is any smooth-barked wood
near enough to a main bough. They
w’ill not only’ grow, but in most cases
fruit the second year, and always the
third year.—(jerman/own Telegraph.
How to Apply Sulphur to Grape
Vines.
There are convenient but expensive
apparatuses for applying sulphur to
grape vines as a remedy for mildew
and the destruction of insects. Those
who cannot afford to purchase them
may’ cheaply supply themselves with a
very duster by getting a tin
ner to cylindrical box, about a
foot two and a half and three
inches inWameter. Have it perfora
ted with sirfall holes at the front and
all around, but not at the rear end, as
it is not pleasant to have it fire in that
direction. Let the (JTp be like a pep
per box lid, but on, fastened
with a little wire to work into a notch
like a bayonet fixhire, or the lid will
fly off. Have two stout tin rings,
about an inch in diameter at one side
and one at each end, for the handle,
which may be six ten feet long to
suit the one Fill the box
with flower of sulphur, fasten on the
cap, and you are ready for work. If
there be the least bit of wind, be sure
to go against it, when applying the
sulphur, or it will blow dust on you.
Walking backwards, giving your ma
chine a vigorous jerking backward and
forward, under and along the vines,
and the dust will touch almost
spot on the foliage. This simplJßqi
paratus is recommended by Mr. Sam
uel Miller in the Hural World.
Mulching.
Mulching is the process of spread
ing a substance not a good conductor,
upon the surface of the ground, to
prevent the moisture from escaping
therefrom. Trees, shrubbery, etc.,
newly’ transplanted, should without
delay’ be thoroughly mulched to insure
success. Rotten straw from the barn
yard, or decayed chips from the wood
pile answer a good purpose. This
not only answers the purpose indica
ted, above, but prevents weeds or grass
from interfering with the steady’ growth
of the trees. Raspberry, blackberry
and strawberry plants require this to
insure large, juicy and delicious fruits.
In their native wilderness they seek
these conditions, and succeed perfect
ly’ in no other.
With this care, which requires but
little labor, the soil retains its fertility
for a longer time, is kept cooler, and
the conditions of moisture kept more
evenly supplied, which will give the
plants a more uniform growth, and a
greater certainty’ of a long lease of
life.
Keeping Pears.
When mid autumn pears are so
plentiful as not to pay’ the growers for
sending them to market, they should
have recourse to heat for the purpose
of keeping them out of the market,
and thus regulate the supply. Let a
quantity’ be picked off the trees a fort
night before they are ripe, and expos
ed to the sun ; if under glass so much
the better. Let them lie until the
skins are shriveled a little ; then store
them in a dry room, and they’ will not
soften and be ripe till a month or six
weeks after their usual time of ripen
ing. The loss of water they have sus
tained by’ evaporation renders them
less disposed to soften towards ripe
ness, yet their sugar and flavor remain,
good.