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AGRICULTURAL.
DANIEL LEE, IH. D., Editor.
u PERSONAL.’’
Under the above heading, the proprietor of
this paper has complained to the public in its
columns, that its agricultural editor has, through
“haste and inconsiderateness,” done injustice
to Dr. Ford and CoL Cumming, and that, too, in
violation of “an express stipulation” between
Mr. Gardner and Dr. Lee, “ that the slavery
question should not be discussed in these col
umns.”
Since this subject has been brought before the
public, we will state our understanding of the
matter as plainly and briefly as we well can.
There is no written agreement, or “ stipulation"
of any kind whatever between the proprietor
and agricultural editor of this paper. All is
verbal, and a matter of mutual confidence and
fair dealing. We did not understand that the
slavery question should not be discussed in the
Field and Fireside. Had this been clearly ex
pressed, we should not have written and pub
lished in the first number of the paper an arti
cle headed “ Agricultural Statistics,” the whole
object of which was, to present the “ slavery
question” in a light more favorable to the insti
tution, and more in consonance with the unalter
able and eternal principles of truth and justice,
than many statistical and other writers had
placed it One of the editors of the Working
Farmer assailed Virginia slavery in the London
Mark Lane Express and London Farmer's Maga
zine, which was promptly repelled “in these
columns by discussing the slavery question.”
Mr. Gardner has forgotten that he, quite re
cently, lent us a copy of Helper’s “ Impending
Crisis,” that we might expose, as we have done,
some of its many falsehoods on “the slavery
question.” The idea that an agricultural editor
can vindicate the employment of slave labor in
the planting States, and at the same time ignore
the vital question of negro slavery, we regard
as impracticable, to say the least of it. At the
same time we can affirm in all sincerity that we
have no wish to say one word on the subject,
except so far as it shall appear to impart inter
est and value to the journal with which we are
connected.
In reference to its agricultural matter and
contributors, we confess that we have been
greatly disappointed. There are moro names of
contributors published every week in the Coun
try Gentleman than we receive in three months.
Our labors in the State University have been
much more than doubled, and will prevent that
care and caution which keep even a running pen
from frequently writing for the press, hero a
word too little, there a word too much, and often
a word out of place. We are willing to place
the pen-editorial in the hand of one who has
more time and ability to do full and equal just
ice to the great planting interest and to the pro
prietor of the Southern Field and Fireside.
But we want Dr. Ford and CoL Cumming to
know that, when we put editorial scissors to
their speeches, as reported in the Constitutional
ist, our purpose was not comment, and least of
all unkind criticism, but to add variety and in
terest to our editorial columns, by giving their
views and those of Mr. Gibson to our readers.
We needed a few paragraphs that had the spirit
and attraction of living themes; and they fur
nished the material. Dr. Ford says:
“ I am tempted to ask, what the object of this
editorial ? Surely not to deliver the opinion of
the editor upon the subject of selling free ne
groes into slavery; for a bench of Judges, aided
by a bar of lawyers, could not determine his
opinion on this question.”
Our object was two-fold: First, to grind out a
fair editorial grist, when we had not one kernel
of corn iu the hopper—a feat that was easily
achioved. And secondly, to prompt Dr. Ford
by gentle means, to write a communication for
our paper, which, from his known high charac
ter and ability, all would read with pleasure, and
probably with profit.
Have we not attained both objects without
harming any one, or expressing any opinion of
our own ? Suppose Col. Cumming should give
the public a column or two of his ripe thoughts
and large experience on the the negro question,
whether as a freeman or a slave ? Dr. Lee’s
opinion is of no possible consequence on this
subject. It is, however, one of deep, universal
and commanding interest. The question—What
shall be done with free negroes? is now seri
ously agitating the public mind, not only at the
South, but in every free State at the North. It
is not our purpose to discuss it; while it is folly
to attempt to conceal the fact, that both branch
es of the Legislature of Georgia have repre
sentatives of public opinion from every county-
The Governor is presumed to represent the
whole State. What is public opinion, as em
bodied in law, in reference to free negroes ? Go
to the State of Now York, and you will find
public opinion equally divided, and equally warm
and hostile as to the proper status of the negro.
We have seen negroes drawn to sit on juries,
and white men refuse to serve; and white child
ren withdrawn from public schools, at which
colored children were taught in the same classes.
The fundamental errors contained in the Decla
ration of Independence, are at the bottom of
this universal agitation. Truth alone has the
elements of unity and peace. The truth is what
we seek.
There are some five million negroes in the
Anglo-Saxon part of North America, and if we
could learn the truth concerning them, it would
produce both unity and harmony, not only be
tween the citizens of Augusta and the Legisla
ture, in which the rural districts are so largely
represented, but also between Virginia and Mas
sachusetts, Kentucky and Canada. Free ne
groes are as much a difficulty and a pest in Can
ada as in New York, Ohio, Illinois, and in all
XKK SOVXKSKS EXXLB ASM ESRXBXBX.
the Southern States. It is absurd to call this
difficulty a mere local question; and no less ab
surd to meet with stern, public rebuke, an im
personal, and honest inquiry after the hidden
truth in this matter, as though the truth could,
by any fair construction, inflict “gross injustice”
on a man of truth, and a man of science, like
Dr. Ford, or CoL Cumming. They stand on
higher ground, and as Christians must rejoice in
view of the good time coming when the lion and
the lamb shall lie down together, and all injus
tice cease, because truth has banished falsehood
from the human understanding and the human
heart.
SHEEP HUSBANDRY PROFITABLE.
Nathan Cope, of Columbiana Co., 0., in writ
ing on the profits of farming compared with
sheep husbandry, in the Ohio Farmer , takes the
ground that “ many of us ” farmers of this sec
tion, “ could make more money than we do with
half the labor, providing we farmed no more
ground than we could put in high state of culti
vation, and stocked the balance with sheep, pro
ducing heavy fleeces of wool.” The following.
paragraph is worth quoting in this connection:
To make farming profitable, the ground must
be in a high state of cultivation. Sheep not only
produce larger incomes in proportion to the
capital invested and labor employed than other
stock, but they furnish the farmer with the most
efficient means of enriching his soil. The win
ter manure is equal to that of heavier stock: the
summer manure is more than double, from 100
manner in which it is distributed on the ground.
It is generally believed by men who have kept
large flocks of sheep for a number of years, and
observation has fully convinced me of the fact,
that sheep improve land on which they pasture,
more than any other animaL They are also
much more efficient in destroying briars and
shrubs that could not be eradicated without the
plow. No doubt many persons entertain a very
erroneous opinion in respect to sheep impover
ishing the ground on which they pasture: such
was the prevailing sentiment of many persons
in this section of the country fifteen or twenty
years ago. A farm adjoining the farm on which
I now reside, was frequently the subject of such
remarks. But at this time, it is admitted by all
that I have conversed with on the subject, to be
one of the most productive farms in the neigh
borhood. The owner has stocked heavily with
sheep for thirty or forty years. I have frequent
ly heard him remark that some persons thought
he was injuring his farm by stocking so heavi
ly with sheep. But he says “My farm is con
stantly growimg richer, as my crops sufficiently
prove.”
Mr. Cope thinks the Spanish Merino, bred in
variably from pure blooded bucks, the most pro
fitable breed for his section. Thirty-three to
forty acres will keep a hundred such sheep, sum
mer and winter, and the annual sales of wool
and lambs from such a flock, often overgoes
three hundred dollars, meanwhile the expense
and labor is light and the fertility of the farm
constantly increasing. The subject is one wor
thy of the attention of farmers generally. Other
breeds claim the favor of farmers in some sec
tions, and no doubt each are valuable in the
hands of those who care for them properly, and
understand the disposal of their products in
wool and mutton to advantage.
—♦>»
TO PREVENT THE SOURING OF CIDER
Although this is not the season for making
cider, yet as a correspondent calls our attention
in the last number to the use of sulphite of lime,
(misprinted iu his copy, and in this paper
sulphate ) to prevent properly worked cider from
souring, we will notice his recipe. The sulphite
of lime is formed by the union of sulphurous acid
with lime, and this salt, or rather its acid ope
rates to prevent the oxidation of alcohol in cider,
wine or beer, by which it is transformed into
vinegar, as is witnessed when cider, wine or
beer turn sour. The sulphate of lime, or sul
phuric acid will not have the same effect, be
cause the sulphur is already fully saturated with
oxygen. Th.e sulphur in mustard seed operates
in a manner similar to that in the sulphite of
lime, to arest the acetous fermentation when put
into cider, beer or wine. The juice of our com
mon blackberry, like that of the grape, apple and
peach, yields a beverage of much value, if pro
perly managed. The blackberry is being large
ly and profitably cultivated at the North.
Its fruit is very suscoptible of improvement
and from it a fair wine may be obtained. In
preserving all wines, and other fermented
liquors, tight corks and well stopped bottles are
indispensable, to prevent alcohol changing into
vinegar. To convert must into wine and the
sweet of apples into cider, a proper tem
perature is necessary, or no vinous, or alcoholic
fermentation will take place. 'All changes of
this kind are purely chemical in their nature,
and should be studied in that connection.
Smoking Meat. — A correspondent of the
Chester Coirnty (Pa.) Times, describes his mode
of smoking meat as follows:
I have a small room, through which the chim
ney stack passes, completely plastered; all the
chinks about the door closed up, and the floor
covered with zinc, so that no smoke car, escape,
and that by no possibility (although there is not
a bit of danger,) anything can catah fire. There
are two holes, similar to pipe-holes, punched
through the chimney—one atynit twelve inches
from the floor, and the other about six inches
from the ceiling, so as to admit of the ingress
and egress of smoke from the chimney. The
smoke will go in the, lower hole, and out of the
upper one: The meat can be hung on a wooden
crane, which may be swung round as to expose
all portions of it to the action of the smoke. I
have sheet-iron slides put over the holes men
tioned above, so as to render the room perfectly
free from smoke, thereby sui mounting any diffi
culty in the way of using the room for any other
purpose. If you have no room in the attic suit
able for the purpose a closet, say six feet square,
can easily be built adjoining the chimney, at a
very little expense and trouble, which will ans
wer every purpose. The closet must be made
“smoke-tight,” and either lined with tin, or
fire-proof paint on the inside, so that there will
be no danger from sparks which might enter
from the chimney and set fire to wood.
I am sure if my neighbors would try this plan
of smoking meat, aud save the expense of build
ing an out-house for that purpose alone, they
would see the advantage of it; and there would
not be near so many “locals” in our country
papers, headed “Smoke-Houses Robbed,” “Hams
Stolen,” Ac.
INTERESTING SCIENTIFIC FACTS.
Where the sea is five miles deep, the salt it
contains would cover a thickness of 500 feet,
and if applied exclusively to land or continents,
it would cover the whole a fourth of a mile thick.
Os this, five-sixths is common salt and the rest
other salts.
The equator of the earth, by daily rotary mo
tion, moves a mile in three seconds; Jnpiter,
twenty miles in a second; the earth moves
through its orbit nineteen miles in a second ; the
sun and system through the depths of space five
miles per second ; and the most rapidly moving
fixed sta: moves eighty-seven miles a second, or
about a million miles in three seconds. Yet it
is so remote, as to pass only one degree in tbe
heavens in 500 years.
Iguanodon, the fossil remains of which were
discovered by Mantell, beneath the chalk forma
tion, in Sussex, Eng., was an herbivorous, mas
ticating reptile, and so large that the circumfer
ence of the thigh bone was thirty-five inches.
Electric sparks drawn frOm red hot iron and
ice, are precisely similar as relates to tempera
ture, or in their power to fire inflammable sub
stances.
When common turpentine is distilled, spirits
of turpentine is expelled, rosin remains behind.
Tar is impure burnt turpentine.
The power of metals to conduct heat, is in the
following order—silver, (best) gold, tin and cop
per, (nearly equal), iron, platina, lead.
Solids becomo luminous in the dark, when
Leu ed to 600 deg or 700 deg., and in broad
daylight at about 1000 deg. Fah.
According to Perkins, 7000 atmospheres com
presses water only one-twelfth—which would be
the pressure of the sea at a depth of thirteen
miles.
Before printing was invented, it required the
entire earnings of a common laborer, thirteen
years, to purchase a fairly written copy of the
Bible—and a skillful highly paid scribe three
months to write it. Now, by means of the press
and steam engine, a laborer may buy two good
Bibles a day, and the equivalent work is done by
machinery in a few seconds.
We clip the above from one of our best agri
cultural exchanges, the Albany, N. Y., Country
Gentleman. The cheap printing of Bibles and
other books is a good illustration of the wonder
ful progress already attained in almost every
branch of manufacturing industry. We recent
ly bought at the regular price of the article, in
Athens, Ga., a well printed and bound Bible for
twenty-five cents; and as most laboring men
command at least a dollar a day for their pro
ductive industry, it follows that four Bibles may
be had for the proceeds of a day’s work.
We wish we could say that the ability to read
this all-important Book—a common school edu
cation—is as cheap, and accessible to the citizens
of Georgia, as is the Bible to such of them as can
read. But from a strange infatuation, a deplora
ble popular error, the importance of being able
to read the Bible and all other useful books, is
not appreciated.
The present policy of the State treats reading
as though it was a foolish luxury, to be tolerated
in the rich, but carefully denied to the poor.—
They are not to participate in the inestimable ad
vantages of cheap printing, and in the great con
solations that flow from the habitual perusal of
the teachings of inspired penmen 1 It is the ina
bility to read by tens of thousands, and the little
taste for literature of any kind by millions, which
render the publishing business so limited and so
precarious at the South. Its common schools
must be multiplied and improved before even
journalism can achieve a tithe of the good that
appertains to its high calling. Religious papers
might confer incalculable benefits on society,
cheap and excellent as they may be produced by
the million copies weekly, provided they had at
tentive readers, and the masses were ... able to
read. So much uncultivated intellect in the
planting States is discreditable alike to our en
terprise, our intelligence, our patriotism, and our
philanthropy.
i i»i
HAN AND NATURE.
Finer use of the English tongue has seldom
been made than by Sir David Brewster, in his
recent Inaugural Address at the opening of
the Edinburgh University, if we are to judge
from the following extracts:
THE STUDY OP THE SCIENCES.
The acquisition of the languages of Greece
and Rome, the art of rightly using your intel
lectual powers, and the rigorous methods which
are embalmed as the abstractions of number and
of magnitude, are but the mental ladders by
which we scale the precipice of truth and as
cend to the intellectual regions above and be
yond us. To such of you as are about to enter
upon the scientific portion of your course, by
the study of natural philosophy, chemistry and
natural history, I cannot resist the opportunity
of offering a word of counsel and encourage
ment. There are no branches of academical
study which more imperatively demand the as
sistance of a public teacher than the sciences I
have named. Other departments of knowledge
may, to some extent, be pursued in the closet,
but it is only by the aid of well-devised appara
tus, by the exhibition of instruments and speci
mens of natural objects, and by studying the
productions of the material world in their own
localities, that a sound and practical acquaint
ance with these sciences can be attained. With
such auxiliaries, a wide field of knowledge will
be spread out before you, in which every fact
you observe, and every truth you learn, will sur
prise and delight you. Creations of boundless
extent, displaying unlimited power, matchless
wisdom, and overflowing beneficience, will at
every step surround you. The infinitely great
and the infinitely little will compete for your ad
miration ; and in contemplating the great
scheme of creation which these inquiries present
to your minds, you will not overlook the almost
superhuman power by which it has been de
veloped.
WHAT SCIENCE HAS DONE.
Fixed upon the pedestal of his native earth,
and with no other instrument but the eye and
hand, the genius of man has penetrated the dark
and distant recesses of time and space. The
finite has comprehended the infinite. The being
of a day has pierced backward into primeval
time, deciphering its subterranean monuments,
and inditing its chronicle of countless ages. In
the rugged crust and shattered pavement of our
globe, he has discovered those gigantic forces
by which our seas and continents have changed
places—by which our mountain ranges have
emerged from the bed of the ocean—by which
the gold and the silver, the coal and the iron,
and the lime, have been thrown into the hands
of man, as the materials of civilization—and by
which mighty cycles of animal and vegetable
life have been embalmed and entombed. In
your astronomical studies, the earth on which
you dwell will stand forth in space a suspended
ball, taking its place as one of the smallest of
the planets, and like them pursuing its appoint
ed path—the arbiter of times and seasons. Be
yond our planetary system, now extended, by
the discovery of Neptune, to 3,000 millions of
miles from the sun, and throughout the vast ex
panse of the universe, the telescope will exhibit
to you new suns and systems of worlds, infinite
in number and variety, sustaining, doubtless,
myriads of living beings, and presenting new
spheres for the exercise of Divine power and
beneficience. * * *
“THE GRAND TRUTHS OF THE MATERIAL WORLD.”
In the blue heavens above, in the smiling
earth beneath, and in the social world around,
you will find full scope for the exercise of your
noblest faculties, and a field ample enough for
the widest range of invention and discovery.
Science has never derived any truth, nor art any
invention, nor religion any bulwark, nor human
ity any boon from those presumptuous mystics
who grovel amid nature’s subverted laws—
burrowing in the caverns of the invisible world,
and attempting to storm the awful and impreg
nable sanctuary of the future. If these views be
sound, the instruction of literary and theological
students, and indeed of the whole population, in
the grand truths of the material world, becomes
the duty of a Christian Church and a Christian
State. The knowledge which used to constitute
a scholar, and fit him for social and intellectual
intercourse, will not avail him under the present
ascendancy of practical science. New and gi
gantic inventions mark almost every passing
year—the colossal tubular bridge, conveying the
monster train over an arm of the sea—the sub
marine cable carrying the pulse of speech be
neath two thousand miles Os ocean—the monster
ship freighted with thousands of lives —and the
huge rifle gun throwing its fatal but unchristian
charge across miles of earth or of ocean. New
arts, too, useful and ornamental, have sprung up
luxuriantly around us. New powers of nature
have been evoked, and man communicates
with man across seas and continents, with
more certainty and speed than if he had
been endowed with the velocity of the race
horse, or provided with the pinions of the eagle.
Wherever we are, in short, art and science sur
round us. They have given birth to new and
lucrative professions. Whatever we purpose to
do, they help us. In our houses they greet us
with light and heat. When we travel we find
them at every stage on land, and at every har
bor on our shores. They stand beside our board
by day, and beside our couch by night. To our
thoughts they give the speed of lightning, and
to our time-pieces the punctuality of the sun;
and though they cannot provide us with the
boasted lever of Archimedes to move the earth,
or indicate the spot upon which we stand, could
we do it, they have put into our hands tools of
matchless power, by which wo can study the re
motest worlds; and they have furnished us with
an intellectual plummet by which we can sound
the depths of the earth, and count the cycles of
its endurance. In his hour of presumption and
ignorance man has tried to do more than this;
but though he was not permitted to reach the
heavens with his cloud-capt tower of stone, and
has tried in vain to navigate the serial ocean, it
was given him to ascend into the empyrean by
chains of thought which no lightning could fuse,
and no comet strike; and though he has not
been allowed to grasp with an arm of flesh the
products of other worlds, or tread upon the
pavements of gigantic planets, he has been en
abled to scan, with more than an eagle’s eye,
the mighty creations in the bosom of space—to
march intellectually over the Mosaics of sidere
al systems, and to follow the adventurous Phse
thon in a chariot which can never be over
turned.
hi
FRENCH AGRICULTURE.
Luther H. Tucker, Esq., one of the Editors
of the Country Gentleman, thus describes some
features of French agriculture, as seen by him
in a recent visit to France and other parts of the
continent:
By drawing a line north-westerly from Per
pignan, near the Mediterranean end of the Span
ish boundary, to Greenoble, sixty miles south
east of Lyon?, the reader will be able to describe
for himself upo>. any map, the northern limit of
what we have mentioned as constituting, in
Young's classification, the zone of the olive and
the orange. A second line from Rochefort at
the mouth of the Charente, to Strasburgh, is the
northern limit of the maize region; a third from
the mouth of the Loire, passing almost through
Paris, to Mezieres, will show the limit of the
vine and the mulberry. Thus wine, which is
no longer made after passing the parallel of 46°
lat. on the western coast, is still a common pro
duct as far north as 49 upon the eastern boun
dary of the country. Humboldt states the mean
annual temperature at Nantes to be a fraction
above 55°, (55.2) and that at Paris just 4° lower,
and as wide extremes are unknown, the general
equability of the climate is at once apparent.—
The zero of the French (centigrade) scale is fixed
at the freezing point of Farenheit. Perhaps it
is no exaggeration to say that the mercury falls
ten or fifteen degrees below the cipher on our
thermometer, nearly as often as it does on
theirs.
Agriculture is entitled to be considered the
prevailing interest in France, although her man
ufactures and commerce have grown within the
past half century to occupy a position compara
tively more prominent than was previously the
case. Her active population is estimated from
governmental statistics to be 23,500,000, (chil
dren, invalids, Ac,, deducted,) and out of this
number over 60 per cent. (1856) are said to fol
low agricultural pursuits. The extent to which
the land has been subdivided among small pro
prietors and renters, seems to me to have been
somewhat exaggerated. The total number of
taxed landed properties was rated at nearly
eleven millions in 1835, but the total population,
inactive and all, interested in agriculture, was in
1856 only 20,351,628. Os these there were sev
en millions of proprietary farmers, and four of
tenant farmers with their families—the remain
der (and nearly one-half of the total,) laborers,
servants and woodmen. Four or five to the
household, which is probably a safe calculation,
would therefore reduce the number of separate
farms to about two millions and a half, giving as
a result an average size of perhaps forty or fifty
acres. To ascertain a fairer average, however,
Lavergne, who arrives at his conclusions from
different figures as a starting point, would place
the host of small farmers in one class, occupying
one-third the land, and compute the other two
thirds as in the ownership of about 40,000 pro
prietors at the rate of some 200 acreß each.—
The smallest cultivators would include the mar
ket gardeners in the vicinity of cities—many of
them, mechaiics and others, with merely a bit
of land for the employment of leisure time.
This subvert of the distribution of property be
comes the mare interesting because it was one
of the victories of their Bevolution that the peo
ple should have the power of purchasing lands,
and tha) the odious systems of primogeniture,
entail and perpetual devizes should be abrogated
forever. Predictions of ruin to the country from
the conattnt division that was anticipated by
some, hate been frequently made; the entire
lack of a] energy and enterprise in such a horde
of ignorat and poverty-stricken land-holders,
prophecid—and a consequent relapse into bar
barism amost threatened by the aristocratic con
servatist Monopoly in an old country like
France I* England, he would argue to be as ne
cessary b the holding of landed property, as it
once wd thought essential in trade.
The ourse of events in all the dealings and
relation of men, however, tends naturally to an
equilibriim; and I think there is nothing in the
present endition of France to show that the
evils of ler system are not self-corrective in the
end, an that legal restrictions in respect to prop
erty askell SB commerce, are not often product
ive of nt>re evil than good. It is the impression
with wlch I left that country, that in no other
is therenow a greater interest felt in agricultu
ral impovement— in proportion to the general
difTusioi of intelligence and education among
those elgagcd in tilling the soil. There is noth
ing in hr condition to warrant the extravagant
which upon English farms is dwarf
ed into tierely a reasonable outlay. But the
larger poprietors seem as eager to introduce
and enourage improvements appropriate to their
circumshnces and position, as their compeers
elsewhee. And government is giving to pro
gress inlthis direction every impetus in its pow
er. Tin re is a Department charged with the di
rection <f “ Agriculture, Commerce, and the Pub
lic Worts;” much pains is taken in the collec
tion of tatistics, in the support of the regional
exhibitfcns, sometimes in the importation of
stock. The means of agricultural education, as
we havl seen, are liberally provided. Aside
from wjat the government does, the Emperor
hiinselas constantly setting an example of agri
cultural improvement.
I UQW THE EMPEROR F4RMS.
Perjaps it will not be out of place for me to
avail iytelf here of some .interesting facts de-
length in the late correspondence of
Charle Stevenson, Esq., to the North British
AgricUturist. Napoleon, it appears, commenced
bis agicultural operations in the year 1852, with
a thoisand acres on the estate of Sologne—since
grad tally increased until it is now more than
seven times its original extent. Other estates
in Latdes, and a tract occupied by him as tenant
of the State in Champagne, make a total of twen
ty-sixfarms now under his charge, including
more ban 50,000 acres. Nine more farms are
to be 'eclaimed during the present winter and
coming spring. Scattered over different parts
of thetcountry, “ chiefly in the less improved
districts,” —generally situated upon soils natu
rally p)or or exhausted under previous cultiva
tion—jhese farms have required heavy expends
tures, loth In the erection of sufficiently exten
sive aid commodious buildings, in stocking with
animals and machinery, anti in conducting the
other inprovements set on foot. Among others
who are following in the Imperial footsteps are
mentiomd the Princess Baciocchi, who was an
exhibitor and prizetaker at the show I attended
at Nantes; M. Fould, Minister of State; the
Count de Moray, Baron Rothschild, and others.
We can have little idea, moreover, of the influ
ence of the Imperial example, where every word
that issues from his lips is regarded as the law
of France, just as every change in the attire of
the Empress rules the fashions of the world.
Take, for example the eight farms in Cham
pagne—a part of lands bought by government
for the encampment of Chalons. Each is 741
acres in extent; has eight farm horses of the
Percheron breed, “ generally mares for breed
ing;” is stocked with fifty-six Bretonne cows,
whose milk is mostly churned; grazes one-thou
sand sheep—the males pure Merino from Ram
boutllet, and the females generally a Champagne
cross of the Merino blood. The customary way
of sheep-keeping is pasturage during the day,
and house-shelter at night, with a feed of green
or dry forage, and a little rye meal or unground
oats mixed with bran, say a pound per head.—
Oats is the chief grain produced, there being up
on six of the farms 1,000 acres thus employed,
against only 29 in wheat, 89 in rye, and 80 in
barley. This is probably on account of the camp
consumption of oats, which not only gives a
ready market, but also supplies in return the
manure of three or four thousand horses —the
latter, it is expected, together with the annual
purchase of 48 or 50 tons guano, affording the
means of yearly reclaiming and improving an
additional surface. A large area is also to be
occupied with crops for green or dry forage,
where the military manoeuvers can go on with
out injury, comparatively speaking, to its growth
—this grass farming being termed by the French
the extensive system, as opposed to intensive cul
ture or “ high farming.”
WAGES AND WINE IN CHAMPAGNE.
It may be interesting to add that the eight
farms are under one director, who receives a sal
ary of $1,200, with S3OO for traveling expenses,
and a cashier or accountant who receives SSO0 —
both having house accommodation provided.
There is also one veterinary surgeon at S3OO a
year; a steward upon each farm at S3OO a year;
a plowman to each pair of horses at S6O a year
with food and lodging; one shepherd to each
farm at S2OO a year, with cottage provided;
cattlemen, with their wives, who receive the
same sum as the plowmen. Soldiers are allow
ed to work when other labor cannot be had, and
receive about thirty cents a day for their labor.
“ The wife of the farm-manager or steward on
each farm undertakes the boarding of all the
servants,” receiving for each SIOO per annum,
and about a pint of milk daily, and about S2O a
year is allowed the steward for the bedding of
each man—the beds furnished by the employer.
The breakfast is coffee and milk, with wheat
bread and one or two eggs, between four and
five in the morning ; soup and beef with wine at
mid-day, and the same a second time at night.—
The wine furnished is a red champagne, not
sparkling, one bottle to each, which would be
sold here most likely for a dollar or more per
bottle, but which costs at home eight or ten
cents.
The soils upon these farms is mostly thin and
chalky, “there being little argillaceous, silicious
or vegetable matter present.” The price paid
for the land by government was $25 per acre or
thereabouts; but it seems that republics* au
thorities are not the only ones who find prices
rise when they come into a market as buyers, if
the further statement be true, that this is about
double the real value per acre in the district. It
is thought, moreover, that from $15,000 to $20,-
000 dollars has also been invested for stock, Ac,
upon each farm. As the land was bought pri
marily for military purposes, the price paid is less