No. 85. J 349 



The extraordinary results, so fully proven of late, to flow from the 

 use of minutely divided charcoal, would perhaps authorize another 

 mode of treating the rice offal, which is to burn it with a smothered 

 combustion in small kilns, or in heaps partly covered with soil, where- 

 by it might be converted into a species of charcoal, I should anticipate 

 from such a preparation of the husk, whether applied alone, or pre- 

 viously mixed up with putrescent matters into a compost, the most 

 marked effects.* 



I conclude this report with the hope, that this inquiry, which is by 

 no means supposed to have exhausted the subject, or to have reached 

 that rigid accuracy of result, which it is to be hoped may one day be 

 obtained, may afford the rice planter more valid reasons than he be- 

 fore had, for husbanding those mineral elements of his crop with a 

 religious care, the neglect of which, with whatever apparent impunity 

 it may at first be attended, cannot fail in the end to involve him in a 

 hopeless struggle against nature. 



C. U. SHEPARD. 



Charleston J Jlpril 6th, 1844. 



AGRICULTURE OF MISSISSIPPI. 



BY M. W. PHILLIPS, EDITOR OF THE SOUTHWESTERN FARMER. 



Log Hall, Edwards' Depot, Miss., 

 August, 1844. 



Benj. p. Johnson, 



Corresponding Sec'y : 



Dear Sir — Your request, " on behalf of the Executive Committee 

 of the New-York State Agricultural Society," shall receive my most 

 cheerful attention. 



With a climate and soil not excelled by any portion of our conti- 

 tinent, — with every facility to rear all necessaries, — with many of 

 the luxuries of life, — the farmers and planters in this rich valley, do, 

 far too often, lead a miserable life in laboring to accumulate, with 

 the sole intent of adding to their effective force, that they may make 

 more. 



I speak from facts that can be substantiated, when I affirm that 



• I need scarcely to add, that the difiFerent composition of the stem and leaves of the 

 rice, ■would scarcely justify a similar procedure with these parts of the plant, since un- 

 less the temperature be regulated with great care, the silica would form with the associa- 

 ted alkali, a true glass, which for agricultural purposes, would be nearly as inoperative as 

 common sand. 



