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EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 
AGRICULTURAL FAIRS. 
A Louisiana correspondent, in referring to the benefits of agricultural societies 
and fairs, writes as follows: 
The increased interest taken in our fairs affords a mest satisfactory proof of the benefits 
resulting from the society. A large number of planters and farmers from remote parts of the 
State attended our last exhibition; and a general opinion seemed to exist that our efforts 
were destined to effect important reform in the agricultural interests of our State, the more 
rapid introduction and diffusion of labor-saving machinery, increased incentives to thorough 
tillage by the awards of premiums upon field crops, and the advantage derived from the 
discussion of agricultural subjects, as soils, manures, drainage, ploughing, fruit culture, &c., 
&c. We have endeavored to encourage the cultivation of sugar-cane and corn instead of 
cotton. Sugar-cane, we may say, is an unfailing crop in our State, and with good cultiva- 
tion will produce three hogsheads of sugar of 1,000 pounds each, and six barrels of sirup, 40 
gallons each, per acre. Louisiana sugar commands a high price in market—15 cents to 18° 
cents per pound, and sirup from 85 cents to $1 30 per gallon; and this high price will con- 
tinue for many years. Corn has been selling at from 8 cents to $1 40 per bushel. Since 
our last fair there have been three neighboring farmers’ clubs organized. 
COLORED MEN AS AGRICULTURAL LABORERS. 
wae 
Our correspondent in Greenville district, S. C., in speaking of the condition 
of their lands and the trouble and expense attending their restoration, writes as 
follows: 
The land is filled with a growth of briers and young sprouts, which appear on worn-out 
fields. The farmer has a troublesome job before him ; one-horse teams and narrow ploughs 
willnot do the work; they only mix the soil. Double teaming, getting down to the subsoil, 
and turning the soil upside down, is the only way to get at the root of the evil. Harrowing 
the land, after ploughing in this way, pulls out the roots and exposes them to the sun. 
Taking these facts into consideration, 15 acres of land, free of rent for three years, was 
offered, on condition that it be cleared and fenced. One colored man, with a wife and child 
ren, took this offer up. He contracted in October, 1866, and by the following Christmas 
day had built his house and moved into it. He cleared half the land that winter, in time to 
plant corn, pumpkins, sugar-cane, watermelons, peas, potatoes, and garden vegetables. He 
supports his family by his trade as carpenter. The following October the offer was increased 
to five years. This attracted the attention of four more families, who have located and 
built their houses. They are good axe-men and very fair mechanics. It is surprising 
to see what they can do in the woods with a few tools. They cut the timber for a log house 
in a remarkably short time, split out shingles from the trunks of large oak trees, bark the 
small pines for ribs, place the timbers, nail on the roof, and move in—making a fire on the 
ground floor; then, with rock and clay, lay a hearth, run up a chimney on the outside, split 
timber for a floor, plaster up between the logs with clay, dash on a coat of whitewash; then 
clear land, split rails, and fence in a patch, plant fruit-trees, hire out, or cultivate other 
lands on the shares. These strong-armed, able-bodied men are the very foundation on which 
the clearing-up and preparation of this land for scientific agriculture depends. Without the 
black man the south would turn back into a wilderness, or a sparsely-settled, wretched system 
of small patches. 
GRASSHOPPERS. 
Anderson county, Texas.—In October last the grasshoppers came upon us 
from the northwest in great numbers, but too late to do injury to the 
crops. ‘They burrowed in the ground, and laid their eggs, which hatched in 
February. The young came to maturity, and left May Ist. They did great 
mischief in the interior, causing, at one time, apprehensions of famine; many 
planters being forced to plant their crops four times; but now the prospect is 
fair for a good crop. We are indebted to the prevailing southeasterly winds 
of September and October for their visit, and to the opposite current of April 
and May for their disappearance. ; 
Gillespie county, Texas —The entire crop of wheat and rye destroyed and 
corn badly damaged by grasshoppers, between the 17th and 20th of May. 
