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4
gSjmner of the jeouth
slanter’g Journal,
DEVOTEDTO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE
HEWS, M EMORIES OP TUB LOST CAUSE,
LITERATURE, SCIKNOB and ART.
HfSNRY MOORE,
A. K. WRIGHT.
PATRICK WALSH.
TERMS—S3.OO per Annum, in Advance
SATURDAY, nov. 4, iH7i.
Roster of the C. S. A.
We are now prepared to furnish all
numbers of the last volume of the
Banner op the Bourn, containing a
Roster of the Civil, Military and Naval
Departments of the Confederate States,
together with other valuable contribu
tions to the history of the struggle
for Southern Independence. Price $2.
Cultivation as Manure.
IV.
We notice now the absorbent powers
of the soil, and how far these are de
pendent on cultivation; or, in other
words, we propose to show that culti
vation is manure, because it increases
the absorbent power of the soil, and ac
tually enriches it by its contact with
the atmosphere. It lias been observed
that when a solution containing am
monia, or other alkaline salts, was passed
through a portion of soil, the soil sep
arated ' the ammonia from the liquid,
and held it, and this action was finally
traced to the presence of bodies in the
soil known as double silicateaAsili
cato is a compound
TTut the
double silicates are very peculiar, for
in these we have the silica combining'
not with one body, but with two; for
example, there is the double silicate of
soda and alumina, the double silicate
of lime and alumina; and a third
which is the double silicate of ammo
nia and alumina. Alumina is present
in each, and the difference is that soda
is present in tho first, lime in the second,
and ammonia in the third. In most
soils we find these double silicates, but
their value varies considerably. The
double silicate of soda, and the double
silicate of lime are each capable of
separating ammonia when it is dissolved
in water, but tho double silicate of
lime alone has the power of separating
ammonia from the air; the double sili
cate of lime is, therefore, decidedly, the
more valuable salt. The double sili
cate of soda is readily converted into
the double silicate of lime when lime
is added to the soil, consequently the
addition of lime to tho soil renders it
competent to absorb more ammonia
from tho atmosphere, and thereby gives
it greater power of acquiring fertilizing
matter than it previously possessed.
Tho lime has a double action in this
case, viz; it sets free part of the am
monia which is found dormant in all
soils, and renders it active and availa
ble, and also renders the soil more capa
ble of absorbing the fertilizing element
from the air.
Thus it is seen that there are within
the soil itself, elements or properties
capable of separating ammonia from
the rain and from the air, and preserv
ing it, until it is required by the crop.
The facilities for the increase of these
powers are two, viz: the free exposure
of the soil to the air, and the passage
of rain through the laud. The tillage
of the land is just the agency required
to accomplish these results, for the
turning, stirring, and crusliing of the
soil, by the hoe, plow, spade and roller,
BANNER OF THE SOUTH AND PLANTERS’JOURNAL.
promote the exposure of fresh portions
of the soil to atmospheric action, and
the soil is thus furnished with the
means and power of exercising what
ever capacity it has for the secretion of
ammonia from the air.
Many operations of the farm which
are supposed to have only mechanical
value, in preparing the land for seed,
and giving freedom and growth to the
roots, assume fresh importance when
viewed in the light of these princples,
as so many means of exposing the par
ticles of soil to the air, for by means of
thorough cultivation we accomplish
both purpses fully; the roots have free
room for easy growth, and the soil ac
cumulates new stores of fertility from
tho air.
Many an extra ploughing has seem
ed to the eye productive of no material
change, or benefit, but the succeeding
crop has in many such cases given evi
dence of increased capacity for produc
tion, which, until lately, has been set
down .oh simply resulting from the me
chanical condition of the soil being
more favorable, instead of being re
ferred in large part to the increased
supply of fertilizing constituents afford
ed to the soil from the air.
Thus or cultivation affords its own
advantages to tho soil in every con-
ceivable way.
The active mineral constituents of
tho soil are afforded for present support
of the growing crop. The dormant
elements are gradually brought from
a useless to an available condition, and
the grit of the soil is advanced through
tho successive degrees that nature has
provided to bring it to its future state
of usefulness. The air about us is
of its ammonia
andcarb^Hßl[|h|kM^L^ e *' rosts
are converted to
good, and the inorganic elements are
prepared for vegetable nutrition.
Cultivation is a manure, because un
der its influence all tho stores provided
by nature are opened to the wants of
vegetation, and every source yields its
supply.
Labor Saving Appliances.
An exchange tells of a blacksmith's
shop in Brooklyn, in which a revolving
bellows is worked by one dog, and
blows the fire on four forges. The
tread wheel is obout eight feet in diame
ter, hung like an old-fashioned water
wheel, having two sets of 6pokes or
arms, about twenty inches apart, with
boards nailed to the periphery of the
segments. The dog works on the in
side as a squirrel ruus within the wire
wheel of his cage. Four large dogs
are kept for no other purpose than to
drive this wheel. Each dog works it
two horn's and a half daily, making ten
hours in the aggregate. No one man
could perform that service incessantly
for ten consecutive hours. The ex
pense of keeping those four dogs is
stated to bo about ten cents each per
day.
Many kinds of heavy manual labor
can be performed advantageously and
economically by mechanical appliauces
for utilizing the power of steam, water,
wind, or horse power, dog power or
sheep or goat power, and therefore
should never be performed by human
muscle. There are other kinds of hard
labor that will always, perhaps, be per
formed by hand. P. when a man lias
in his possession one or two fat horses,
he ought to contrive some cheap ap
pliance by which dumb animals may
aid in performing laborious drudgery.
Horses were made to work, and to be
the servants of man; and heavy work
does not hurt them any more than it
does a kitten to play, provided they
are not worried and abused by harsh
and cruel drivel's. It may be necessary
for men and women to milk cows by
hand, (though even this is not beyond
the reach of ingenious machinery,) but
the ever changing wind, the tumbling
stream, old dog Tray, or the submis
sive sheep may be commanded to do
the churning. At an expense of only
a few dollars for lumber and manual
labor a, wooden tread wheel may be
made for either a sheep, goat or a large
dog, that will work the chum or tarn
the grindstone. Dogs are generally
the aristocratic loafers of the animal
kingdom. Avery few do efficient duty
as watchers or guards; a still smaller
number are useful in hunting; but the
vast majority of dogs play upon the
sentiment of mankind with expressive
eyes and eloquent tails, and lead a life
of pampered ease.
The high prices now demanded for
human labor, necessitate the most judi
cious economy in the employment and
appropriation of manual forces. A
man who has a span of good horses, or
a yoke of good oxen, or a steam en
gine of two-horse power, is in jiosses
sion of a force equal to ten faithful la
borers. If he has mechanical appli
ances with which his oxen or horses
can perform his bidding, the team will
often do the work of ten men. The
thousands of acres of unimproved land
all over the conutry need more produc
tive forces. Let idlers stand aside and
let horses and steam engines jierfomi
what eye servants demand an extor
tionate price for doing.
Setting Trees.
To insure success in setting trees,
begin early in the fall as convenient
Dig the holes two and a-half to three
feet deep, and wide enough to take in
all the roots, gijai*m<Lstnall. without
crowding. Lily the top soil on one
side to itself and the subsoil on the
other side. Have some good loam or
woods earth hauled, and one or two
bushels of it put down by each hole,
according to the size of the hole, and
the tree to be set in it. Let all this be
done and everything is in readiness be
fore the tree is taken up.
In taking up the tree be very careful
to cut as few roots as possible. The
larger ones should be cut with a spade,
and the rough edge trimmed off smooth
with a pocket knife. The small root
lets should be unbroken, and if the
removal is only a short distance, pre
serve as much native soil clinging to
the roots as possible. Trim the tops
of the trees pretty closely, letting the
top correspond in proportion to the
roots that are preserved.
Set the tree in the hole to the same
depth at which it grew in its original
position, first filling in the woods earth*
or foam, in the bottom of the whole.
Then draw in tie top soil and remain
ing woods earth, shaking it down
among the roots and pressing a very
little. If very dry, settle the soil down
with a little water.
New Music —We have received
from Messrs. G. D. Russell & Cos., 126
Tremout street, Boston, Mass., the fol
lowing pieces of new and select music:
I've only jwt Found Out; a banjo
song, arranged for the piano,—by Geo.
F. Hartly: 30 cents.
Sleighing /Sony; by J. C. Proctor:
35 cents.
1 Vake from thy Slumber, Love ;
Serenade, by Samuel N. Mitchell: 30
cents.
The Regatte; a yacht song, by
Oliver Optic: to cents.
Washington Elm ; a Quickstep, by
Chas. Moulton: 40 cents.
They are haDtlsoroely gotten up, and
will be sent (by mail upon receipt of
price.
Literarv Notes.
THE rOCNO BYRON OF THE WEST.
‘‘SONOS OK THE SIERRAS."
CONCLUDED.
BY PAUL H. HAYNE.
We proceed from Miller's life to his
poetry. “Songs of the Sierras” con
sist ot ten jKiemsjof considerable lengtli,
in addition to the beautiful dedicatory
lines “to Maud" whom we take to be
the poet's little daughter; for Miller—
as we have neglected remarking
hitherto, is married, and (« la Byron,)
separated from his wife! The chief
of these pieces we shall analyse as
briefly as possible; endeavoring to show
wherein their real strength consists,
and frankly exposing what seem to us, j
their numerous shortcomings; their!
roughnesses, and eccentneities of
thonght, treatment, and rhythm.
The first story called ‘C4 rizonian" is
in its plot commonplace enough. The
hero, bom in the East, and loving a
blonde beauty, cannot marry her, be
cause they both are poor. Therefore,
he girds-np his loins, and travels
Westward in search of gold. Years
are consumed in this quest. Encoun
tering meanwhile, a “sun-maid,” (as
Mr. Miller expresses it,) he falls not,
over purely, in love with her, alwavs,
however, cherishing the recollection of
his distant sweetheart, and day by day
gathering the gold, which is finally to
make their union possible. One evening
tl»e jealousy of his tropic mistress is fear
fully aroused, and in the midst of a
tremendous upheaval of the elements,
she throws herself into a neighboring
river, and is drowned! Half stunned
by this catastrophe, and haunted for
ever after by the ghostly eyes and face
Um. jlfad woman, wta> appeare to
him in various shape?;—the miner,
now a wealthy man,—seeks his youth
ful home, eager to meet writh, and es
pouse, his earlier loye. The denoue
ment is precisely that of one of Tenny
son's most perfect idyls. Wholly un
conscious of the lapse of years, the
man comes across the Annelte Mc
(Leod of old—or so he dreams—in her
native village, addresses her, and to
his dismay, finds she is Anneltes
daughter! From that moment, it is
“all up with our unlucky sentimen
talist. He goes back to the “gold
diggings,” and the mountains of the far
West; becomes a confirmed misan
thrope, who'envies the quiet existence
of the cattle in the clover, talks a vast
deal of rather spiteful twaddle in re
ference to the world and society, and
briefly, degenerates into an unreaso- i
nable, ami by no means fascinating in
dividual; a moral hypoeondraie, in :
fact!
by surely," our readers may ex
claim, “there is nothing original, or
striking in all this!” True! but the
extraordinary merit of the poem ap
pears in the eloquence of its descrip
tions of natural phenomena; in the
superb freshness'of its lyrical bursts,
which with their unstudied passion,
and earnestness, are sometimes thril
lingly grand ; and in a certain reckless
savage intensity of tone and style,
demands instead of soliciting atten.
tion! Two extracts w|l suffice to
exemplify our meaning. The first
depicts the storm in which the “brown
ladye," of the midnight eyes, and im
passioned spirit—loses her life :
*'l lay in my hammock; the air was
heavy
And hot and threatening: the very heaven
Was holding its breath ; and bees in a bevy
Hid under my thatch; and birds were
driven
In clouds to the rocks in a hurried whirr
As I peered down by the path for her.
She stood like a bronze bent over the river.
The proud eyes fixed, the passion unspoken—
When the heavens broke, like a great dyke
broken.
Then, ere I fairly had time to give her
A shout of warning, a rushing of wind
And the rolling of clouds, and a deafening
din,
And a darkness that had been black to the
blind,
Come down, as I shouted, “come in! come
in!
Come under the roof, come up from the
River,
As up from a grave—come now, or come
never!”
“The tasseled tops of the pines were as
weeds.
The red woods rocked like lake-side reeds,
And|the world seemed.darkenedand drown
ed forever!”
Now, observe the lines we have
italicised. How vigorous, and full of
suggestive images they are!; especially
the lines which refers to “a darkness
that had been black to the blind, ”
a whole poem, by the way, in itself,)
Our next extract is an exquisite
passage, in the faith, tender feeling
and exalted trustfulness of passion, it
displays, rendered only the more ef
fective, by the terrible disappointment
which ensues:—
“She has braided her tresses, and through
her tears
Looks| away to the West for years, the
years
That I have wrought, where the sun tans
brown :
She has waked by sight, she has 'watched
by day.
She has wept and wondered at my delay,
Alone, and in tears, with her head held
down.
Where the ships sail out, and the seas swirl
in,
Forgetting to knit, and refusing to spin.
She shall lift her head, she shall see her
le>ver,
She shall hear his voice like a sea that
rushes,
She shall hold his gold in .her hands of
snow,
And down on his breast she shall hide her
blushes.
And never a care shall her true heart
know,
While the clods arc below, or the clouds
are above her!”
All of Mr. Miller's longer narrative
poems resemble “Arizonian ” in one
particular: They are utterly destitute
ot a genuine characterizationJ In
their b eroes we find the LaraJ and
Corsair of Byron- revived under dif
ferent circumstances, and among dif
ferent scenes. These old acquain
tances stalk before us, with the fami
liar theatrical stride; only, they address
us now’ an-ayed in the sombrero of the
Mexican Alcalde, and with the belt
and beard of the Californian miner.
Their sentiments, we need hardly say,
are wholly unsoftened, and unchanged.
Society has somehow’ wronged them,
and they hate and despise society.
The amount of cursing at the expense
of their fellow’ creatures, which these
truculent gentlemen indulge in, is
harrow’ing to gentler spirits.
As for Mr. Miller’s heroines, they—
as an English journalist truly observes
—are one and all, the merest “lay
figures’'—vague, mystical, wtih ab
solutely nothing to make us distinguish
or subsequently remember them, be
sides their “w r onderful eyes,” and
magnificent length of tresses, unless
indeed it be their untamed passions,
unregulated desires, and generally
dismal fate! When, therefore, the
Critics talk, (as some have talked) of
Mr. Miller’s Homeric quality, and the
probability of his becoming “the Home
of America,” they utter but random
nonsense; ignoring the man’s actual
gifts, his special and splendid genius,
which—as we have said—is con
spicuously, essentially, in its every
peculiarity of conception and style, of
imagination, rhythmic force, color,
treatment, and unconscious art, lyrical
and only lyrical!
“ Walker in Nicarauga ” is a poem
of more equable, sustained power than
“ Arizonian ,” although even here
where the author has a real personage
to portray, one with whom he was
habitually brought in contact, it is
amazing to see how vaguely he has
painted him! But with Nature, Mr.
Miller is thoroughly at home. His
Nicaraguan poem is starred all over