142 



sweet potatoes, estimated, by tlie crop gathered from another acre, at 

 live hundred bushels, worth tlieu 81. Several times a man was sent 

 to drive them out and find the holes under the fences and repair 

 them, requiring two hours work, valued at ten cents per hour, sixty 

 cents. 



Whole cost of three small shoats 8500 60 



Sold for 81 50 each 4 50 



Set loss 490 10 



NECESSITY FOR A 3nXED HUSBAXDRY. 



The correspondent for Stewart County, Georgia, after fuggesting 

 further interrogatories tending to show the number of mules and horses, 

 the quantity of bacon, corn, and flour introduced into each county, and 

 the percentage on total consumption, says : " Under a system of mixed 

 husbandry in this county, mules, horses, corn and wheat, can, without 

 doubt, 1)6 profitably raised ; and would not such an exhibition of facts 

 as the above interrogatories would elicit tend to expose the errors of 

 the present system of planting, and lend important aid in enlightening 

 the southern mind, so as to hasten the inauguration of a wiser system 

 of mixed husbandry ? oSTothing but a startling exhibition of the sternest 

 facts and figures will perhaps ever avail to convince the planting mind 

 of the business folly — the suicidal policy — of yielding to cotton an agri- 

 cultural monopoly in the South. Cotton planting is a haint with our 

 people. This, added to the large aggregate income which it yields, 

 tbough fictitious in the main, binds the South to cotton production with 

 fetters strong as steel. An imposing array of aggregated statistical 

 facts may break them. 



"Another fact fundamental to the agricultural interests of this sec- 

 tion of the South is the increasing scarcity of labor. Ever since the 

 date of manumission labor has been steadily diminishing. In conse- 

 quence, thousands of acres of good arable laud in this county have been 

 yielded to sage and brush. As a further consequence the planter is ex- 

 erting himself to the utmost, with his diminished facilities, to bring up 

 his income to the standard of i)revious years, when labor was more 

 abundant. This results in favor of cotton. The scarcity of labor also 

 leads to unhealthy competition in the labor market, with its concomi- 

 tant evils. One of the most obvious is, that unscrupulous men supplant 

 the better class by offering terms to the laborer with which they are 

 unable to comply, and perhaps never intend to; whereas, the honor- 

 able i)lanters, incapable of practicing upon the credulity of the laborer, 

 by making deceptive promises, compete in the market under serious 

 disadvantages. The result is, that the best men fail to obtain labor, in- 

 ferior men deceive the freedman, and he becomes suspicious of the 

 employers as a class, is demoralized as a laborer, and often retires in dis- 

 gTist from regular field labor and seeks a livelihood in the execution of 

 chance jobs. In all this there is much matter for gTave reflection." 



DEPARTSEENT SEEDS. 



Jaclcson Counfjf, Xorih Carolina. — Mr. G. Edwards, living in a mount- 

 ain section near the Blue Kidge, where wheat seldom succeeds, last year 

 produced on a little square in his garden at the rate of sixty bushels per 



