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2 Official Organ of the Patrons of Husbandry. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, OCTOBER, 1874. PRIZE ESSAY. DIVERSIFIED FARMING. By Colonel T. C. Howard, of DeKalb County. As ft general rule in business affairs, con centration of power, either of intellect or capital, is perhaps the safest. Few men have the versatility of talents and extent of acquirement which doing a great many different things requires. It is said no man ever gained a perfect command of more than one language, and it would seem that few universal geniuses, illustrating great profi ciency in and practical acquaintance with all sciences, ever lived. Unity of purpose, collect ed energies, and undivided attention in busi ness, are almost universally the surest guaran tees of success. For illustration, we might say the merchant had better let shipping alone, though no man is more interested in transportation. And the professional man who hopes to attain great distinction had bet ter leave manufactures and tillage.to those whose peculiar habits and interests have in duced them to adopt those industries as their life long avocations. But there are exceptions, it is tritely said, to all rules, and the farmer’s life furnishes a noted and most interesting exception to the rule we have propounded in the openinglines of this paper. And why? Bimply because a farm is a little empire it self. There is an extended chain of depend ent interests, which diverse as they seem, are j et necessarily brought under the charge and development of a single mind, which presides over the farm. The attempt has been made in the cotton planter’s experience, to unify and centralize his industry, and the miscarriage and loss which have resulted from the attempt have nearly desolated the entire cotton producing States. So, too, do we see in the ease of Ireland some twenty years ago, and in the present awful state of famine prevailing in certain large districts in British India, that the exclusive depen dence on rice and the potato in those coun tries respectively, has resulted in such fr'glu ftd distress as to be a warning for all time to come IBe farm is veritably a microcosm, a gov ernment, a community, a little world in itself. And while society, as an organized existence, cannot spare any art, appliance or conven ience which the world's progress has sup plied, so it is with the farm, it must “ have and hold ” a universal lien on every art, and must receive tribute from aliundred allied and kindred industries. The great industrial and economic problem which the farmer’s condi tion calls on him to solve, is, how can this tribute he best and easiest secured. Living in this latitude, the grave matter for him to de cide is, how far must self-reliance be depend ed on to furnish those irresponsible necessa ries which go to make up the great and vital sum total of the fiynily provision. Does lie raise breadstuffs, is it better to depend on the stock-breeder for bis work animals, should he buy his syrup, his meat, the ordinary clothing of the family; or if his staple pro duction is cotton it becomes a great question underlying all success, how many things auxiliary to his chief pursuit must he consid ered and undertaken. Right here is the turning point in the history' of thousands of Southern men w ho have elected agriculture as their pursuit and dependence in life. Many specious and delusive estimates are made as to the value of farm labor, as set off against the market value of the thing pro duced in the way of economical device. How often have we heard cotton-raisers de clare under the excitement of high priced cotton, that they could demonstrate that a pound of cotton worth 15 cents could be rais ed easier than a pound of bacon worth 12J. These same “ ready calculators” could just as easily demonstrate that the true pas torage of work stock was to bo found in the cotton field. And so it is, both with fanner and planter in very many instances, alas, too many for our country and time, the tenden cy has been to isolate into specialties our par ticular crops, and to contract the basis of ag ricultural operations into as nnrrow a com pass as possible. This tendency is only of a modern dale. In the day of solvency and success, in the history of our agriculture, men did not so reason nor so act. The prevailing idea whs that the farm um 4 oe self-sustaining, that it was sound economy to raise and make in our farms everything entering Into home consumption which could be secured at borne at a safe and reasonable cost. Act ing oH this principle, as we might with jus tice and exactness call it, thousands of mules and horses were raised in Georgia, but these are now bought in Kentucky. Millions of plow stocks and ax handles were construct ed on our own places, but now they, too, are brought from the distant shop. Hogs, and sufllctOdtfor the purposes of the family, were raised on our farms, but now we find that htags itti-i (j* dm<‘o cannot live iu tbc same tertffuryvairtLgosUjpbystpp we go backward into absolute.and,prtiiitile'idependence on the thrift andv-ehterprise of strangers. Com- plaints and depression pervade the entire farming community ; the staunch citizen of the former time that stood impregnable on his own soil, and with his hand on the latch of his gate ready to throw it open to all com ers, now feels the old time hospitality a bur den, and thatclass that was once well housed and secured, let what financial tempest come that might, now is of all others most em phatically the debtor class, and most hopeless ly involved. Does the rule and triumph of bad men and worse principles explain all this decline ? The idea of exclusive cultivation of a special, we care not what that staple be, whether it be cotton or grass, is the reason rather for our present embarrassments as farmers and planters, and the grave compli cations into which our agriculture has fallen. As we are not writing from a purposeless love of disputation, but from a profound in terest in the question of reform, and from the sinecrcst love of our section, we propose now to give a practical illustration of the policy aid exceeding benefit that is to be found in “Diversified Farming.” But before we enter upon this homely and matter-of-fact detail, we must allude to an incident of expense and oss which is too often everlooked in our es timates of the year’s current business on a farm where supplies are not raised at home. How few 'ever count the cost of the mere trouble and expense of collecting material and making the proper selections and pur chases of what must be procured from oth ers. Is corn to be bought and brought home? Who ever adds to the price of that corn the time of a hand and team which are employed in the transportation 1 In fact, who can un terlake to say what that hand’s labor, and the services of that team, were really worth when they were very likely withdrawn in the very crisis of the crop. Then the hurry and want of caution witli which we act in the face of narrow provision of the most vital neces saries, inevitably leads to improvident and usurious rates of expense. The work animal is to be supplied, and who furnishes it ? A stranger we have never seen, from Kentucky or Ohio. We must take his representations and if in debt, his credit price, along with the mule or horse we should have raised for ourselves on our own places, broken and trained for our own use and according to our peculiar notions of what was best for our separate cases. A calm and concentrated at tention to the farmers every-day work, is of all things, next to economy, the most need ful quality for securing a farmer’s success. Can this frame of mind exist where the stores are running low with fearful rapidity, and the consumer knows not from whose barns or smoke-houses, or with whose cash, he is to replenish. Debt is to most men a hard task master, but to the farmer he is a grinding, re morseless tyrant. We venture to there cannot he one farmer in every fifty' who is pressed with debt or harrassed by slen der supplies, that is quiet enough in his mind to project or execute plans of restoration and improvement either in his methods of culti vation or in additions to his estate. T.’iig struggle is one & self-ptYservaiion, and not for enhancement or embellishment. We will now proceed to a minuter treat ment of our subject, and place before our readers a few figures which w ill afford a clear er insight than the discussion of general prin ciples. Let us assume that two farms of one hundred acres, each, are in the hands of men of the same intelligence and means The outfits oil these two places shall be the same, and the capital to work equal. But the proprietor of the one farm shall be a be liever in the superior value ol cotton raising and in the economy and wisdom of raising col ion to buy all things needful for the support of the family; while the proprietor of the oth er shall hold to (lie faith of “ Diversified Farming.” To make the comparison fairly between these two men, we must insist that they shall practically be consistent an live by their faith. We must expect to see cotton raised exclusively by the man who in sists, as we have heard him assert, that it was easier to produce a pound of cotton worth 15 cents than it was to raise a pound of bacon worth 12j cents. He must he con sistent with his practice, when lie teaches and proclaims that corn cannot be raised bv a Georgia farmer in competition with the Ken tucky or Ohio farmer, aud he must go to the depot for his corn and forage. On the other hand, a large proportion of provision and forage crops must he the staples of the man who denies the cotton planter’s theory aud decries his piactiee, and believes in the doc trine of “ Diversified Farming. Then, let the one hundred acres of the first named party he devoted to cotton. Let the seasons be propitious and the yield so liberal that no exception can be taken. We will then have for every acre planted 250 pounds of lint —say for the oue hundred acres fifty bales, of 500 pounds. At the dale of this writing, in the city of Atlanta, this cotton is worth less by a small fraction than 15 cents per pound. We assume that it is all worth, the whole fifty bales, 15 cents per pound. This is, as all will admit, too liberal an estimate, for who could gather the sumrnor and “ storm ” pickings and prepare them so that they should be of liko value. But we say let this fifty bales of cotton be worth the sum of $3,750. Here we have the year’s Income to the credit of the man who believes it is easier and better to raise all cotton, and it does seem that it would be unreasonable and in contradiction of universal experience to claim a larger yield for liis urres. For the present we do not discuss expense of production. We now pass to the day book of tlio man who believes iu the doctrine of mixed husbandry. He plants in corn 50 acres of his hundred, and he should make on laud that raises 350 pounds ol lint cotton to the acre at least 25 bushels of corn, say on the 50 acres, 1250 bushels, worth to-day $1250. Then we have twenty-five acres in cotton Hl<g SSI ©Mir I ill sx'M,EL : MsxMi‘ producing 12i bales, worth say $937,50. Fiv e acres in sweet potatoes should certainty-pro duce 750 bushels, worth on an average of the whole season $750 dollars. Ten acres in‘gts will make 200 bushels worth $l5O. Two acres in Irish potatoes will be worth and three hundred bushels per acre ia now%>o common a crop to brag on any longer. Two acres in clover will make 8000 pouCbvtßßfh to-day li cents per pound, say Six acres in wheat, say eighty bushel* will be worth $l2O. The fodder from 50\scres of corn at 200 pounds per acre will be 4fovth at market rates as we write $l5O, and the peas from the same ground, at a yield of five bushels to the acre, will be worth s3fsr We have not included the value of the shucks from 1250 bushels of corn, for we set them off against the cotton seed from fifty bales of cotton. Let U3 recapitulate. Fifty hales of cotton at 15 cents are worth $75 per bale, and the sum total is $3,750. The “Diversified Farming" has made Com worth $t,S5<A 00 Cotton worth 937 50 Sweet Potatoes worth 00 Oats worth 15g,00 Irish Potatoes worth J:Sll*fco Clover worth J2jfcoo Wheat worth t|H| Fodder worth JBW Peas worth $4089 50 Showing a difference in favor of “ ltgpd Husbandry" in the year’s work of three hun dred and fifty-nine dollars and fifty certs. But shall the comparison of advantagejitup here? Here wc have in excess over the cotton planter’s production, enough topay by way of rent on the farmer’s land, more than thirty per cent. We have for the one family a grf ss in come of specious and alluring character, de rived from a staple which represents in small bulk large values. The sales of this pr iduc tion are easily effected, and we admit, in com parison with the marketing of other ag ricultural produce, more cheaply effeo ad. But here ends the advantage. The res lifts of the year’s labors and successes must nIUANt invested and reconverted. Reconverted must be into the absolute necessaries with transportation and all sorts of imposi tions added. Then there are no incidental advantages, none of rotation, of pasturtge and gleaning, of manuring and improvement of land. The supplies are in such shaped and are of such character very often, as to in duce either wasteful consumption, ol a grudging and niggardly dole. While in nie instance of “ Diversified Farming,” the inci dental advantage are so numerous and im portant, as almost to rank with items of principal value. The amount of stock and poultry which should be kept as gleaners on the farm, are so vital to the support and com fort of a family as to be now regarded by all who are accustomed to a generous living, as simply indispeusible. But besides all this, who does not know the incieased ex pense that would tall upon the whole crop wits cotton ? It would be uttwj- out of the power of t*he small farmer who® planlcd one hundred acres in cotton to gath er such a crop as we have allowed him to make, with the same force which produced"' it. He must from September begin the hir ing process, aud as the season advanced aud became more inclement, the charges on his crop, for the mere gathering, would become heavier and heavier. But let us sup pose that these two representatives of our farming ideas keep up for a series of years their distinguishing differences in manage ment. The man who elects all cotton can never keep a supply of slock, and it is ques tionable if he could keep at a living profit any other stock except the horses or mules he must of necessity have for his daily tillage. Weneed not draw the inference. What would be the state of that farm that supported no stock as to its degree of impoverishment at the end of a half decade. W hat sort of a life would that family endure which, though located in the country, had no butter, no milk, no mut- J ton nor bacon? We have many such re proachful examples to our rural economy and management in kind if not to the degree we have here depicted. One tiling is cerlaiuly true, that while we enjoy in our favored sec tion a wider range of production than can be found in few others on earth, while our hospitality might be mado illustrious by a more generous cheer than auy other peop'e could dispense, we yet are getting to feel this hospitality a burden, and are unwillingly-ad mitting to ourselves that that noble virtue is becoming more aud more restricted every day. Here is reason for it. Cotton is de pleting the purse and shrinking the soul at the same time. Men cannot warm their houses with generous hospitality when, year after year, the balance is on the wrong side of the ledger, or can that hospitality thrive on bitter herbs or on attenuated soups. One more thought before we close this discussion. Suppose on every farm in Geor gia an abundant and generous supply of provisions was secured for the family and unstinted forage for the needful stock? Would that our legislators and leading minds would ouly stop to cousider carefully what all that means. It means freedom from debt. It means tax-paying power. It means au abounding, fervent, good neighborhood and hospitality. It means the love and adorn ment of home, and the consequent devotion of the possessors of happy homes, to this no ble old State that wo mean to stand by till death. With this superabounding fund of good things of life, more money could be de voted to schools, churches, the Introduction of the thousands of domestic conveniences which the nidimenlal aud uncompromising necessities of life—such us food and raiment— will not now sulfur us to think of. “Diversi fied Farming’’ is our hope and, we say, in all moderation, our only reasonable hope of se curing this enviable state of domestic and so cial advancement. We risk nothing when we declare to every fanner in the South who shall read these lines, that every family of eight persons in Georgia who owns fiftyacresofland may secure a boun tiful support on less than fifteen acres. But exclusive attention to a single staple will not— cannot do this. Cotton will be the last thing to secure this delightful abundance and inde pendence. “Diversified Farming” will inevi tably do it as long as a good Providence sends us the “ early and the latter rain.” This is a vital question, and we wish we had the space left to expand the discussion of it as it so well deserves. In fact it is the greatest of all our social and economic problems. “A support for the family” is the one great, fundamen tal fact upon which all material life must rest. But the solution of this problem the Editors of The Grange, have suggested, when they propounded the theme we now discuss. In “Diversified Farming” we have as we shall now, in as few words as possible proceed to show, the safe and ready way out of the embarrassments w hich now environ our rural population. Let us take a family of eight persons, the father and the mother, and six children from sixteen to four years ot age. This family couldjnot possibly need more than one hunched bushels of corqjjneal. This should be raised on four acresjof land. No Patron in Georgia will consent to lag so far behind the age as to consent to a small er production than twentj'-five bushels on an acre of corn. Nine barrels of flour would be an ample , supply for our family. This will require fs(%-five bushels of wheat, and three acres will ho amply sufficient for that yield. We now' have a half acre in Irish po tatoes yielding at least seventy-five buhshcls, and three-quarters of an acre of sweet pota toes, which would allow a bushel of each u week of these standard and delicious vegeta bles for the entire year. One good cow, or two indifferent ones, will furnish 800 gallons of milk for 200 days in the year. At 12 quarts, or thereabouts, to the pound, we would have 370 pounds of butter, besides the buttermilk. One acre in clover, or broad cast peas, is ample breadth for the fullest sup- Iljly of hay for these two cows. With the bor ders of our garden put down in lucerfie, - which may be cut once every month from 10th-of February till the last of summer, tfie supply will bo superabundant. Thirty hens will supply 1200 eggs or 300 chickens. An orchard of apple trees, containing 25 trees standing on a quarter of an acre, will, if cared for as the yearly crop is, bear in five years an annual crop of seventy-five bushels, an al lowance of three bushels of fruit for every week for six months in the year. Now add the fruit from twenty-five peach trees, and the same number of pear trees, in all only 75 trees less than the writer has standing on three-quarters of an acre, and we have for present use, for drying andjpreserving, not less perhaps than one hundred bushels of the most refreshing and health-giving nourish ment ever vouchsafed to man. Next, give the, family the sixteenth of an acre in the small fruits, strawberries, raspberries, and gooseberries, for consumption or exchange for more desirable commodities, and we think the most enlarged expectations in such provision as this would be fullj' grat ified. We have not yet provided for lard and meat. The yield of but five hogs kept in the stye, if well cared for, will produce be tween eight hundred and a thousand pounds of meat and lard, which, with the butter al ready provided for, would be an abundance for our lamily of eight. If these five hogs, for the ten months they are kept up, did not re ceive a morsel from the garden, kitchen, or the gleanings of the field, they could b(Gully grown and fattened on one quart, each, of meal made into mush. This would require about 45 bushels of corn, which should be raised on less than two acres. Wc have said nothing of our horse with which all this corn, wheat, and other stuff is to be made. A horse may be kept the j-ear round in a livery stable on seventy-eight bushels of corn and 1500 bundles of hay or fodder. With the pas turage on a farm, fitly bushels of corn and fif teen hundred pounds of hay would be ample provision. Tiiis would require two acres in corn and less than half of an acre in clover or pea vines. Let us go back, now we have laid the foun dation of the family’s support on the essen tials and indispensibles, and speak of the seventy-five pounds of honey that three hives will furnish, the grapes at one ton to the acre, which 25 Concord grape vines will supply, and the vast amount of the best food enjoyed by the human race which only one half acre in a garden will afford, to say nothing of kids, lambs and pigs which a few acres of enclosure would allow us or the unnumbered acres of our commons and woods would sup port Let us now recapitulate. We asked for four acres for corn bread, three for wheat, two for clover or peas for cows and horse, for the orchard one acre, for potatoes one acre, for the garden a half acre—the sum total less than twelve acres, we believe. High farming, such as a Georgia farmer and Patron should not be ashamed of, will accomplish all we have assumed, and much more on less than half the surface we have asked for. Indeed, the small farm system, and the reform which is to grow out of it, can only be perfected by high culture, and after all it is the true econo my, and in one decade will be the universal doctrine and practico. Now we are about through with our task. What we have said we trust may be valuable os a suggestion, if not as nu example to be literally followed. We are sure our figures are not fallacious, either as to the sufficiency of provision and supply or as to the rate of production. One closing remark may be par doned. Let us reticct one moment on the all pervading influence on our social life, our po litical life, our moral life, which comfort and abundance, universally diffused, would exert. In the example, furnished by France, of re- sources scattered or rather hidden, all over that extended country, in nmazing affluence, on her little ten-acre farms, held in fee sim ple, the statesmen of the world may see what a cheap nursery of patriotism, as well as wealth, these well-tilled plats of ground stand for. Let a man feel that this little patch is his home for life, and is his to leave to his children after him, and we may rest assured that every one of its capabilities will bo brought out that reflection, industry, interest or hope can invoke. For the Georgia Grange.] COTTON CULTURE. i By W. D. Croom, Esq., of Houston County, Georgia. The subject which heads this article, has, within the last half century, engrossed more attention and elicited more skill, perhaps, than any other subject connected with ag r culture. It has brought into requisition, not only the best agricultural talent of America, but that of Europe; has, for various pecuni ary reasons, contributed its quota for its thorough development, all of which have only gone tb make up the wild cotton-nMnia which has well-nigh placed the cotton-grow ing region of this country hors du combat, and which would have long since produced a lamiue unparalleled in the annals of this country but for the teeming granaries and smokehouses of the great Northwest. But it is a patent fact to every rationally observ. ing mind, that the pinacle of fame in this subject has not yet been reached, from the simple fact that the subject has not been correctly studied nor judiciously practised. Therefore, a few thoughts from my humble pen will, I presume, not be considered super abundant, since it is a fact that the many changes wrought upon this country by the fortunes of the late war, have made a thor ough practical knowlcge of cotton-culture more necessary to ensure the success of the farmer than at any other period during its history. Encouraged by the high price of cbtton, and prompted (perhaps I’d better say infatuated) by thq cotton mania before laded to, immediately after the close of\ie late war, the devastating arm of which, un manacled, had swept cyclone-like over the whole country, destroying in a few days the amassed wealth of years, the farmers, true to that indomitable pluck so characteristic of the Southern people, without pausing to re flect, set out to repair their losses, and build up the future by extravagantly using com mercial fertilizers at a ruinous outlay, and planting cotton to the almost total exclusion of every other crop. What has been the fatal result? Let the poverty, bankruptcy, and ruin which stalk defiantly abroad the land, straggling in every rural pathway, tell the woeful talc. But I am digressing, and will at once re turn to the subject. Sad experience, then, has fully demonstrated that cotton can not be profitably grown upon no whjcli is not self-sustaining; but in this connection it must be admitted that cotton growing in this country is to ascertain extent a matter of necessity. llow, then, is this to he done and at the same time make the farm self-sustain ing? These are the propositions for dem onstration in this essay. Diversified farm ing, based upon a regularly rotated system, with a reduced acreage of cotton, at least one-half from its present maximum, with a higher and more thorough mode of culture, are the great auxiliaries to be relied upon in the consummation of these noble ends which alone can disenthrall the farmer, place his feet upon the rock of independence, and give him that position which nature designed him to occupy,—the noblest of creation. Let every farmer resolve, henceforth, that of every fifteen acres of land he plants, but five shall be plauted to cotton, the remaining ten planted fo grain and root crops. Let the rotation be such as to regularly rotate the same land around for cotton every third year. Let cotton, in every case, succeed small grain of some kind. Let the prepa ration for cotton be thorough, plough the land deeply, and apply the manure or fer tilizer deeply in drills drawn three and a half feet apart, which should be thoroughly mixed with the soil by running a small spon toon in the drill after the manure has been put in; these are all protections against droughts so peculiar to this country. Raise a very flatbed,slightly elevated at the center; this is also protection against drought. For this latitude, if cotton seed be planted on natural soil or home-made manures, the planting should be from the Ist to the 10th of April to insure success. If planted on commercial fertilizers, a little later will he better. The seed in every case should be covered very shallow. Experience has long since taught me that bad stands oftener re sult from deep covering than any other known cause, where good seeds are planted. So soon as the plants are fully up, the cul tivation should commence. It is a well known fact to every observing farmer, that notwithstanding cotton plants are puny at first, they soon become strong and powerful growers, whose roots are capable of penetra ting the hardest soils ; ploughing in the cultivation is not essential, but is Un questionably injurious for reasons which will hereafter be shown. Then, let the ploughing through the cultivation be done with a broad winged sweep, swarding at least twenty-two inches. Chop to a stand by leaving the plants two in a bunch, ten to twelve inches asunder. It is not claimed that two stalks in a bnnch will double the yield ovor the one stalk rule so long practised, but the yield will thereby be greatly enhanced. The plough ings should be consecutively every two weeks, and the hoeings in like manner till the first fruit is grown, at which time the cultivation should cease. The space of one week intervening between the ploughs and hoes. The land must be kept thoroughly clean and free from weeds and grass, as these absorb moisture and nutritious matter much more rapidly than the cotton plants. About the time the plants begin to fruit, fibrous roots or feeders begin to grow and permeate the soil in every direciion, ranging near the surface, no doubt fur the purpose of drawing upon the atmosphere for food for the fruit not found in the soil. This is the most critical period of the cotton crop, and success or failure depends Uj on the manage ment and cultivation at this period. Deep ploughing is to be avoided as ruinous. These fibrous roots must not be disturbed nor broken by the point of the plough, nor must they be smothered by hilling or dirting up the plants. In the event of the former, a retrogression of sap will be produced causing a disgorging of fruit, from which the plants can never be fully resurrected; in the event of the latter, the plants and fruit will be de prived of the benefits to be derived by these fibrous roots from dews and hydrogenic gases deposited upon the surface during the night time, causing disease, such as blight, rust, etc. In conclusion, it is but simple justice to state, that I have not vritten with a view to encourage or extend cotton culture, but upon the other hand, to impioveit and raisejMfl a higher standard, that the acreage rnayTie reduced and the supply and demand kept within healthy paying limits, and that the acreage of other crops may be increased in like manner as the acreage of cotton is re duced so that the farms may become self sustaining and the cotton crop become a surplus. For tbe Georgia Grange.] Cotton Planters, Editors Georgia Grange: Permit me through your valuable paper to offer some suggestions about improving cotton. Di rectly after the first picking, select for seed the best five-lock bolls from the best stalks, on limbs about half way up the stalk. This is selecting observa tion, and is of gres(, benefi%_But then there is science in this business. '-lYrst observe and understand the law of ture’s beautiful laws remarkably exemplified iu cotton. Choose your type, select from that type, and from the product of these seeds se lect again from year to year, until it becomes fixed and established. To describe the type of my own choice would occupy too much space. Do not mix cotton, that is do not plant cither different kinds or different types together; they will surely degenerate. Its chief mode of degeneration is by a multiplica tion of its types and also tall stalk, long limbs and long joints, thereby showing a strong disposition to return to the cotton tree, whence it came. Year before last I bought one pound and a half of improved seed cotton. This, the third year, I planted about one hundred and fifty acres of that cotton, and have a good stand ; jsold between twenty-five and thSfULbJfshels, and have about thjfty bushels left over. If my orders and instructions had b?en better attended to, the result would have been much greater. A planter in this community would do well to get a few improved cotton seed to begin with, from Georgia, where science and experiment have wrought out such wonder ful results in agriculture. Col. J. \V. Jennings, of Dennison, Texas, in speaking of the obligations and advantages of a membership of the Grange goes on to enumerate and dereant in the following practical and felicitous manner. We com mend his suggestions to all Grangers, and hope they will be carefully observed. He says: It is the duty of every Patron to know' all that can be learned, ancl to communicate all that lie knows, which would enlighten, in struct, or benefit his co-workers in the Grange. It is his duty to report the amount ofland in cultivation, the prospects of crops, the condition of bis neighborhood, bis ex perience with certain kinds of implements and seeds, the plan of grafting the best kinds of fruit, the result of his experience in cul tivating, liis theory of breeding and keeping stock, the best kinds of stock for this country, liia experience with hogs, and the best breeds for this climate, his remedies for diseases in stock, poultry, bees; iu fact, to make the GraDge a school of instruction, thereby in creasing the interest in its labors. Some may say how are wc to gather this knowl edge? I will say that no farmer who takes interest enougli in the organization to become a member thereof, but has some idea tl at would be new to others, and they would soon take pleasure in imparting the same to the less enlightened brother and sister. The sisters can give their experience in buttei and cheese-making, in their arrangements of household affairs, bread-making, keeping both house aud out-door plants, their system of preserving, making pickles, and every thing instructing aud interesting. The younger persons have an important part to take in the Grauge, if they will only take hold and exercise it. The proper sphere for them is to arrange and beautify the Grange, decorate it with fragrant flowers, emblems of purity, prepare the feasts and picnics, attend to the music, and make the Grange a place of delight for older members; we will then have taken the first step to wards tilling the mission for which we are created. We are nil, more or less, depend ent creatures; to help one another and to mske life's burden light, is one of the ends we have to view. We want more and better reading in our homes; we should encourage agricultural papers. Wc cannot over estimate the valu able information gleaned from their perusal. Our State agricultural papers are very limited, and we should strive and get the best. As Patrons, let us have more knowl edge, and try and dispense it liberally, and all will be well with our Order. A zealous but Ignorant negro preacher, ill expounding to his flock as to the astounding nature of miracles, got a trifle confused as to the matter. He said : “My beloved friends, the greatest of all miracles was ’bout loaves and fishes. There was 5,000 loaves and 2,C00 fishes and de twelve 'postles had to eat 'em all, and de miracle is dey din’t bust.