58 ♦ 



made of rotted jute. Mr. L, says the jute is acknowledged to be 50 per 

 cent, superior to the India article. Inspection of these very fine speci- 

 mens, by those interested in this new American industry, is invited. 



Bengal. — The increased demand for jute in Calcutta, whence almost 

 all that is manufactured is imported, has stimulated the culture of the 

 plant in India in a high degree. In Bengal, where twenty years ago 

 jute was only cultivated for individual use, the plant now forms a staple 

 product of the country. Next to rice, it is the principal product ; and, 

 as compared with rice, it is found to be the safer and more certain and 

 profitable crop. In several divisions of Bengal the culture has been ex- 

 tended enormously within three or four years, and yet the demand for 

 exiiortation is by no means met. Both high and low lands are found to 

 be adapted to its growth, and it is easy and sure of cultivation ; and so 

 remunerative that the condition of the ryots, or cultivators, is seen 

 already to have been much improved by it. Hitherto India has not 

 merely raised the best jute, but it has been almost the only country 

 where it was grown at all. The culture in the United States is only just 

 beginning ; but, as will be seen from the opinion quoted above, in regard 

 to Louisiana, we have already succeeded in producing a fiber which com- 

 petent judges pronounce to be superior to that of India, 



Ikternatio]n^al Houticultural Exhibition and Botanical 

 Congress in Italy. — The Department of Agriculture has received 

 through the State Department an official communication from Count 

 Zanniui, the chargi? d'affaires of Italy here, giving information that an 

 International Horticultural Exposition and a Botanical Congress will be 

 held coincidently at Florence in Maj' next, under the patronage of the 

 Eoyal Tuscan Horticultural Society ; and that -the project is commended 

 by the government of the King of Italy to that of the United States, 

 to the end that commissioners may be appointed to take part therein. 

 It has npt been deemed advisable to request legislation upon the sub- 

 ject; but Count Zanniui has been informed that such information will 

 be given through this Department as will enable horticultural and other 

 bodies in this countr}-, if so disposed, to take part in the exhibition and 

 congress. The former will embrace exhibitions of fruits, plants, flowers, 

 &c., for the best collections of which gold and silver medals will be given, 

 respectively, by the King of Italy, the minister of agriculture, and an 

 association of lady patronesses in Florence. The botamcal congress 

 will be occiipied with memoirs, essays, and discussions of appropriate 

 topics. Both the exhibition and congress will remain open from the 

 11th to the 25th of May. 



Guinea grass. — Mr. C. Codrington, of Florida, formerly of Jamaica, 

 communicates to the Department iif paper touching the cultivation and 

 natural growth of Guinea grass in the West Indies, and its intro- 

 duction into Florida. Speaking of the island of Jamaica, he says he 

 has never known the working mules there to get grain of any kind, 

 and if oflered them they would not eat it, yet they are as hard-worked 

 as any stock in the world ; Guinea grass being the only feed supplied. 

 Of course, therefore, in those islands this grass is not considered a nox- 

 ious weed, as it is too often regarded by Southern planters. The peo- 

 ple are only too glad to have it, and, where it thrives, abandon every 

 other cultivation to make way for it. Once established, very little 

 cultivation is required. Hired laborers go through the fields cutting out 

 the young trees with machetes, (a kind of cutlass.) at a cost of about 

 25 cents per acre. Mr. Codrington says : 



