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Sheep for the South.
In rebuilding the pro«|>erity of our
Southern States t here is no branch of
industry calculated to contribute more
certainly than sheep husbandry on a
small scale. We do not wish to be un
derstood as advocating sheep raising
exclusively; but we do insist on this
industry forming a link in that chain of
diversified forming which is the basis of
an independent and lasting prosperity.
We have uniformly and energetically
thrown the whole weight of our in
fluence, since the war, against the al
most exclusive cotton culture which has
well nigh bankrupted our section; but
we have never advised the abandon
ment of cotton, On the contiary, we
have constantly urged the farmer to
make it the main feature of his market
crop, being careful to diversify his
energies to the extent of making his
farm self-sustaining. In this diversity
sheep should have prominent places.
No farmer throughout the cotton re
gion should be without his flock often,
twenty, or fifty head, according to size
and location of the farm.
All experienced formers well know
that simply purchasing the flocks and
driving them home, without further at
tention will result in failure and loss.
Tlie effect will be profitable or not ac
cording to the care and intelligence
bestowed upon it, and those who are
not prepared or disposed to bestow these
had best let it alone.
The intelligent farmer will first de
termine the number of sheep he is pre
pared to care for. If he has pasturage
for twenty fiead only, he will not go
beyond that number. This question
settled, he will next direct his inquiries
to the breed best adapted to his locali
ty and the wants of his market. If he
is s > situated that the fleece forms the
item of profit, he will select the breed
the wool of which is most valuable. If,
on the other hand, his market offers
greater profits for mutton than wool,
then he will select the breed most pro
ductive of mutton. In either easel
economy will suggest that he buy the
common native ewes ot the country,
, i,t-/0 UfJftO j
the breed desired by carefully selecting
and purchasing such bucks ns will lead j
to the end in view. Those who have
noexperience will be astonished at the
rapid progress the proper care will
make in transforming a flock of common
ewes into beautiful Merino, or Cots
wolds, or Southdowns, or whatever
breed may be desired. Seven-eighths
constitutes what is termed a “thorough
bred," and a little calculation will show
how short a time is required to bring
sheep to this point of purity.
Now as to the profits. The increase !
of sheep with proper care is never es
timated with any degree of certainty
because of the great variation depend
ent upon breed, pasturage, care, Ac.,
while the price is equally unfixed. The
farmer who gathers up his sheep but
once a year, at shearing time, gets two
to four pounds per head, for which he
realizes from eighteen to thirty cents,
while the farmer who pastures and
cares for his flocks gets a yield ot ten
to eighteen pounds per head, for which
he realizes thirty to seventy-five cents
per pound. In the first case, the profit,
though trifling, is clear, and in the last
it is subject to the charges of invest
ment, pasturage, feed, care, Ac. In
the last instance, however, the flock is
entitled to a credit for its fertilizing i
deposits on the form, an item of the
first importance to both sections of our
country, and one that is not sufficiently
appreciated. The profits in almost
every instance are larger than those of
most all branches of farm industry, and
are not to bo dispensed with by the
skillful husbandman. —South Land.
Improvement in Farmers. —The
Mark Lane Express in an article on
fanners associations, says: “There is
nothing more noticeable when review
ing the progress of Agriculture during
the last quarter of a century than the
improvement which has characterized
the conduct of our public meetings or
social gatherings. There was a time
when the long clay pipe, the somewhat
boisterous stave, and the “hot stopping"
were regarded as the chief inducements
for getting'farmers together. But these
days have gradually passed away,
and with some experience of other
large assemblies, we are inclined to
think that nowhere will men as a rule
BANNER OF THE SOUTH AND PLANTERS’ JOURNAL.
keep closer to the point or carry
themselves more becomingly than the
occupiers of land when they draw
into a focus at a .Society’s show or a
Club's discussion. More information
has been disseminated, more intelli
gence developed by such a means than
through any other cause which could be
spoken to. By the further a'd of a
good reliable report this system of mu
tual advantage comes to be almost in
finitely extended. Many a man who
would fight shy of a regular essay, al
though he found the pages ready “cut"
to his hand, will eagerly turn to see
what his next door neighbor had to say,
or a famous agriculturist to offer on the
merits of the principle under consider
ation.
The Domestic Food Supply.
We have rested all our lives on two
propositions, with an invincible faith,
that knew no doubting until yesterday.
The first was ami is that North Caro
lina will never run short of herrings ;
and the second was, (but not is) that
the supply of eggs and chickens will
never tail in Georgia. This pure and
childlike faith in which we were
reared from the earliest infancy has
now failed us, at least in respect to one
half of it, and we know not where to
look for another creed. Like a ship at
sea without compass or rudder we are
drilling on the quick sands of universal
incredulity.
Gentlemen, think of it for one
moment. For many generations a
hide-covered Georgia cart coming to
town has been a synonym for eggs
and chickens. You never thought of
asking what the man on the mule or
the woman in the cart had for sale—
you knew it was eggs anil chickens.
And what is more—to come down to
particulars—you could almost tell
the month of the year from a glance at
the load. There was no need of look
ing into the Almanac in those days.
Just look into the cart and the relative
i supply of chicks and eggs, and the
size and development of the former,
would tell you the month fijoiu L'hti.sL.
mas to Decerftber again.
But ail this is gone—played out—
and now it is our solemn and mournful
duty to announce that Georgia, or at
least, tins part of it, is dependent for its
supply even of eggs, on Tennessee ;
and not on East Tennessee merely, but,
perhaps, the bulk of our eggs comes
from Nashvilie. It is a fact, the
grocers are bringing eggs from Nash
ville, and so soon as the railroads get
running express trains, will, doubtless,
import them from Cincinnati, Chicago
and St Louis.
The other day we asked a man what
part of the food on his table was pro
duced in Georgia? and after thinkimg
the question over, he replied—sweet
potatoes, milk and eggs. Now he
must strike off two of the trio. Sweet
potatoees are gone and the eggs come
from Nashville. With a patent re
frigerating car, milk will soon be
brought here from the Northwestern
prairies. In the name of all that is
good and gracious, where are we
Georgians coming to?
The other day we learned from the
President of the Western and Atlantic
Railroad, that the road, among its
western importations, since the Ist of
January last, had brought into Georgia
a little fraction short of 29,000 bales of
hay, of a probable average value of
five dollars per bale—that is to say, a
hundred and forty-five thousand dol
lars worth of hay in three months of
the eurent year.
On the same day we had from the
form of Col. Lampkin, in Monroe
county, an average sample of clover
from a thirty acre field, sown last
September—showing a growth of four
feet, and a crop which will certainly
yield next month over -1,000 pounds of
hay to the acre—the first cutting. The
history of clover growing in Georgia
1 the last four years, in our opinion, de
monstrates that we can beat Ohio in
I the production of hay, and yet this
! pitiable spectacle of unthriftiness is
1 presented.
; Is it possible for any country to
j prosper where the food of man and
beast, even down to forage is so gen
! erally imported from abroad? If it is,
|we are entirely mistaken. Sometimes
j we an led to hope that affairs in this
j reaper are gradually mending outside
] the to ns in Georgia, but if so, how
do the towns show yearly a smaller 1
and smaller proportion of Georgia I
raised food in market—less beef, mnt j
ton, porlf, poultry and eggs, and even I
fish and game of Georgia production ? ,
— Macon, Telegraph and Messenger. '
Immigration to the South. —ln a
previous article we indicated Southern
Europe as the most likely field for the
South to seek that immigration which
is so imperatively needed for the
restoration ot her exhausted labor.
But the South must do much more
than seek abroad in order to enconnige
a substantial immigration of a thrifty
and useful class. She must oiler
adequate inducements at home, and
these inducements must be such as will
compete with the zealous, determined,
and intelligent efforts made by the
States of the Northwest, their railroads
and land agencies, to keep the tide of
population flowing in their direction as
it has hitherto done. Land must be
eheajiened to immigrants; labor and
good wages assured them ; and es
pecially must they feel sure that they will
enjoy that perfect sociale quality that is
so large an element in the inducements
which actuate the European proletaire
when he abandons his old home and
ancient associations and customs for a
new home in the untried West. If
the planters of flic Carolina*, Georgia
and Virginia, instead of encouraging
the appointment of jioliticians as
“State emigration agents,” were to
form themselves into “homestead
societies,” subscribing laud instead of
money, and guaranteeing to incoming
labor small farms at nominal prices, the
houses which are to lie built and
paid for out of the wages of the im
migrants, they would not only procure
labor, but that very kind of permanent,
settled, domesticated labor which they
themselves most need, and which will
be most useful in restoring the State to
a healthy condition. Let it be known
to the thy tty peasantry of the agricul
tural pqlts of Italy that a married
man, bjvguing to the South, can obtain
lat oiijgAiitarm of twenty or thirty
with a lipnsc imon it for
his nmuftdiaSoccupancy, allof which
he can make his own free-simple
property by the labor of five years,
and an important immigration will be
at once secured.
The essence of the matter is that the
South must not invite a peasantry, nor
a tenantry, but a yeoman class of small
proprietors, who will identify them
selves with the best interests of the
country, and becomo at once an indus
trial resource, the backbone of con
servatism, and the bulwark of liberty.
And all this the Southern people can
do, now. at once, and efficiently, with
out putting their hands in their pockets
for a dollar, and by their own in
dividual unaided personal efforts.—
Washington (D. C.) Patriot.
Noxious Insects. —Young cabbage
plants, after being transplanted, are
frequently cut off at the stem by a
black grub, which lodges in the ground.
Whenever that is observed, search
around the root of the plants, cut off,
and you will find the grub a quarter of
an inch under the surface, and kill it.
If it is not there, it will be on the next
plant to it, and near by there will be
another. They are always in pairs,
and near to each other. There is a
small black flea in vast numbers, which
eats off the leaves of young cabbages,
both when they have just come up
from seeds and after being transplant
ed. If the plants are lightly dusted
over with fresh slacked lime for two
mornings, while they are wet with dew,
the lime will kill or drive off the fleas,
and the plants will thrive. There is a
greenish, mealy louse that attacks cab
bages when half, or nearly full grown,
frequently covering the whole plant.
A dusting ot fresh lime, for two morn
ings, over the plants while wet with
dew, will kill all the intruders. A
large, green grub, with black bauds
around its body, which devours the
leaves of carrots, celery, parsnip and
parsley. It is slow in motion, and can
be gathered with the hands and killed.
.Six thousand acres of tobacco, it is
estimated, were grown within 1 j miles
of Edgerton, llock county Wisconsin,
the past season.
A cow in Dover, Tenn., excites the
envy of her companions in fly-time. She
has two tails.
Distinguishing Ediih.e Mushrooms.
—A writer in the English Mechanic
gives what he considers to be an in
valuable rule for distinguishing the
true mushrooms from the poisonous
species. He remarks, in the first place,
that the true mushroom is invariably j
found in rich open pastures, and never
on or abont stumps or in woods; and,
although a wholsome species sometimes
occur in the latter localities, the writer
considers it best to avoid their products. ,
Avery good point, in the second place,
iis the peculiar intense purple-brown
1 color of the (pore-dust, from which the
ripe mushroom derives this same color '
j (almost black) in the gills. To see j
these Bpores, it is only necessary to re
move the stem from the mushroom,
and lay the upper portion, with the
! gills downward, on a sheet of writing
paper, when the spores will be deposit
ed, in a dark, impalpable powder, in a
short time. Several dangerous species,
j sometimes mistaken for the true, have
| the spore urn-brown, or pale umber
brown.
In the true mushroom, again, there
is a distinct and (rerfectcollar, quite en
! circling the stem, a little above the
I middle, and the edge of the cap over- 1
! laps the gills. In some poisonous spe
| eies this collar is reduced to a mere !
fringe, and the overlapping margin is
! absent or reduced to a few white scales.
' Lastly, the gills never reach to nor
touch the stem, theie being a space all
around the top of the stem, where the
' gills are free from the stalk.
1 There are numerous varieties of tme
mushrooms, all of them equally good
for the table. Sometimes the' top is
; white and soft like kid leather; at other
times it is dark-brown and scaly. Some
| times, on being cut or broken, the J
1 mushroom changes color to yellow, or
| even blood-red; at other times, no
| change whatever takes place. To sum j
j up, it is to be observed that the |
mushroom always glows in pastures;
always has dark, purple-brown spores;
.always has a perfect encircling collar;j
and always has gills which do not
| touch the stem, and has a top with an j
| overlapping edge.
| —-feeejsiirf^
leated for testing trie gPiulWucss on
mushrooms, we are informed that,
. however much any particular fungus
may resemble the eatable mushroom, j
\ none are genuine nor safe the skin of ]
which cannot he easily removed. When j
taken by the thumb and finger at the
overlapping edge, this skin will peel
upward to the center, all around, leav-!
1 ing only a small portion of the center i
of the crown to he pared off by the !
Wont> Ashes. —ln answer to several
inquiries concerning the value of wood
ashes as a manure, we reply that ashes
from the wood of the hickory, sugar
maple, elm, Ac., contain about 50 per
cent, ot potash compounds, consisting
chiefly of combinations with carbonic
acid and silicia, while theashes of pine
wood will rarely yield more than 20
per cent. Ashes saved from clearings
often contain earth mixed with them,
in gathering the remains from fires.
When wood is used for burning lime.'
i the ashes are often put into the market, j
■ largely mixed with substance. Sifted :
! coal ashes are sometimes used to adul
| teratc wood ashes, and the fraud can
! hardly be detected by the eye.
Leached ashes always retain a por
! tion of potash, usually slow in coinbi
! nation with silica or phosphoric acid,
i These compounds are slowly soluble in
! water, and, therefore, are not removed
in leaching, but they are valuable, es
pecially to grain crops and grasses.
Ashes, whether leached, or unleached,
should never be suffered to go to waste.
Even coal-ashes may be used to good
advantage on stiff-clay soils. Their
effect, however, is more mechanical
than chemical.
Sewerage System in Milan.— The
sewerage system adopted in Milan, is
recommended by Mr. Child, of Oxford,
as being suitable for small towns and
country villages. Its essential feature
is the drainage of the houses into
water-tight cess-pools, which are emp
tied frequently, efficiently, and quite
inoffensively, by means of a barrel
cart, previously exhausted of air, and a
i liwse. The barrel-cart then conveys
j the sewage to a depot at a convenient
distance, where all that is saleable is
■ sold to farmers, and the rest is manu
i factured into a kind of dry artificial
j guano. Many small towns and villages
lie on dead flats or at the bottom of
deep valleys, where ordinary sewerage
works could not be established without
an expensive provision for raising the
sewage in order to render it available
for irrigation. In such places the
Milanese system might be carried-ont
with ease, and at comparatively small
outlay. A certain number of cess
pools must be rendered water tight—
a process not very expensive. One
cess-pool would serve for several cot
tages, and frequent emptying would be
better than large sized of inclosures.
Two barrel-carts must be procured, and
these, with a small steam engine at the
depot to work the air-pump, would to
gether with about three men and two
horses, form the whole of the apparatus
required for testing the system or, a
small but sufficient scale. On the day
on which Mr. Child visited the depot
near Milan, formers' were waiting there
literally in scores, to obtain their sup
ply of it; and he feels sure that, if
landed proprietors or farmers were to
give this system a trial in this country,
they would find it worth adoption.
How the Farmers Are Fleeced.—
The Free Trade League puts forth an
illustrated paper, showing up the
iniquities of the present tariff law. It
is called the People's Pictorial Tax-
Payer. It contains facts and figures
well calculated to startle the tax-pavers,
who are each year robbed of more
millions than the necessities of the
Government require, for the benefit of a
comparatively few Eastern manufactur
ing capitalists. The illustration, show
that
Per cent.
The farmer rises in the morning and
puts on his flannel shirt taxed 55
His trousers taxed t>o
His silk vest taxed 60
His coat—Cloth taxed GO
Buttons taxed 40
Silk lining taxed 60
Padding taxed 150
Draws on his boots taxed 35
Sits down to, breakfast from a plate
taxed 45
Knives and folks taxed 35
Reads a newspaper—Paper taxed... 20
With ink taxed 35
Au.l Wp" taxed . . . . . 25
Hitches his horse, shod with nails
taxed 67
To a plow taxed 45
With trace chains taxed 100
And harness taxed 35
He goes to a village store and buys
his wife a hankerehief taxed . 35
Shawl (I suppose woolen) taxed 200
Silk for a dress taxed 60
Hat taxed 40
Stockings (I suppose worsted)
taxed v. 75
Boots taxed 35
Silk cravat taxed 60
Silk umbrella taxed 60
Needles taxed 35
Thread taxed 73
Pius taxed 35
Gloves taxed 50
Steel pens taxed 70
Rice taxed 82
Soap taxed 70
Candles taxed 40
Starch taxed 50
Paint taxed 25
Gets a ballot and votes for protec
tion under the old flag ..... 100
Is it not strange, with these startling
figuers staring them iu the face, that
honest, truthful men can be still driven
to the polls and made to vote the Radical
ticket?
Swindling os Commission.— Memphis,
April 24.—Some weeks since a man
calling himself Barns came here, rented
a house on Shelby street, and put up an
imposing sign “S. M. Webb & Cos.,
Commission Merchants.” In a few days
several telegrams were received at the
banks inquiring about the standing of
the firm. The bankers thinking it was
S. M. Webb & Cos., an old firm here,
replied “ Webb & Cos. are perfectly re
liable,” since when a large amount of
goods from Louisville, Cincinnati, New
York, Cleveland, Pittsburg and Wheel
ing have arrived for the new firm, and,
as has since transpired, were sold for
what they would bring and Barns de
camped. Several parties are now here
trying to recover goods, principally
meats, nails, and hardware. The amount
involved is unknown, but will doubtless
amount to many thousands.
The following dialogue is said to have
taken place in a school near Salisbury,
England ; “Now, then, the first boy of
the grammar class stand up 1” First
boy stands np blushing : “Here I be
zir.” Examiner : “ Well, my good boy
can you tell me what vowels are ?” First
boy: “Yowls, zir? Ees, of course I
can.” Examiner: “Tell me, then,
what are vowels ?” First boy, grinning
at the simplicity of the * question :
“ Yowls, zir ? Why, vowls be chickens !”