1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



T6T 



crop being inferior. A similar advance has taken 

 place in all southern markets, founded on a beliel' 

 that the crop will prove 200,000 to 300,000 bales 

 Jess than the returns ol" last year exhibit. Fo- 

 reign markets have also improved, but are not yet 

 such as to warrant the prices paid here. 



There has been little variation in wheat and 

 flour. The Ibrmer commands 160 to 170 cents. 

 Flour (canal) ^71- to 8. Petersburg mills ^8^ and 

 Richmond city SJ. Although prices are advancing 

 in England, with a prospect of low duty, little 

 disposition is evinced to venture to so precarious a 

 market, where a slight decline in price subjects the 

 importer to an enormous increase of duty. The 

 product of the last crop in Virginia considerably 

 exceeds the estimates which were ibrmed at the 

 period of harvest. 



Corn is worth about 75 to 80 cts. Pork $8+ to 

 $9. X. 



January 7, 1839. 



CROPS ON THE EASTERN SHORE OF MD. 



Queen Ann's county, Md. Dec. 14, 1838. 



To tlie Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



As you express a desire to know the state of 

 the products of the year, in the different sections 

 of the country, I can say that the crop of wheat, 

 in the few upper counties of the Eastern Shore 

 was good, as far as it was sown, perhaps above 

 the ordinary product. The crop of oats very 

 short — the crop of corn diminished by more than 

 a halfj and the root-crop hardly worth gathering. 



TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS. 



It is unnecessary to repeat here what the editor 

 has so often stated in former volumes, and which, 

 moreover, is manifest to every reflecting reader, 

 that the great and main value of the Farniers' 

 Register has throughout consisted of the original 

 communications of the many and intelligent°con- 

 Iributors to its pages. Whatever the editor has 

 written or done, or whatever any one man can do, 

 even if possessed of (ar greater abilities, but con- 

 fined and oppressed by the like unceasing toil, is 

 comparatively of small account, and utteily in- 

 Bufficient to maintain, for a single year, the proper 

 value and interest of an agricultural journal. All 

 those readers who have so essentially aided this 

 work formerly by their writings, and the very far 

 greater number who ought, but have failed to ren- 

 der such service to the public, are earnestly re- 

 quested to give full and proper consideration to 

 these truths ; and then to glance over the table of 

 contents of this now closing volume, and see how 

 Uttle has been done, compared even to the Ibrmer 

 and always too scant aid of the fellow laborers of 

 the editor in the great work of diffusing agricul- 

 tural instruction, and thereby improving thl con- 

 dition and profits of agriculture. Those'w-ho have 

 formerly so ably, and profitably to the public, of- 

 fered to their brother farmers their lights andexpe- 

 rience in a<jricullure, through the^pages of this 

 work, but who have since relaxed or suspended 

 their exertions, must return to the task ; and also 

 mvite, and bring in, new hands to share with 

 them the labor and the honor. If every subscri- 

 ber to this journal, would freely communi- 



cate wliatever useful facts he knows, and which 

 are not generally known to others, and if such 

 course were pursued regularly, nothiiicr more 

 would be wantmg to raise the Farmers' Register 

 to tiie highest rank of public uliliiy and value; and 

 no greater benefit could possibly be conferred on 

 agriculture, and agricultural interests, by any ac- 

 tion of private individuals. Yet how easy would 

 be the performance of such duty ; and every one 

 vvould be speedily and fully compensated for his 

 own share of the labor, in the new value he 

 would derive from the communications of others. 

 Without such assistance, liberally furnished, no 

 agricultural journal of character can long maintain 

 its usefulness, or even its existence. 



In looking back on the labors of the last year, 

 the editor has not to reproach himself on the score 

 of failure to do his part of that labor which he 

 had hoped vvould have been, but has not been, 

 fully shared in by others. The more that others 

 have relaxed their efforts, the more has necessity 

 required thai he should exercise his pen ; though 

 without the encouragement and cheering aid of 

 companionship in labor, or of any sufficient evi- 

 dence of concurrent interest, or sympathy, on the 

 part of those for whose benefit his efforts were 

 made. 



In addition to the seemingly growing apathy of 

 most of the former contributors to this work, seve- 

 ral among the most valued have been recently 

 removed by death, within the space of a single 

 year — and all fronri the jrenerous south, to the li- 

 berality of which the Farmers' Register owes so 

 much — but for literary or other labor, so Z/<//e. One 

 of these was that warm hearted and public-spirit- 

 ed old man, Nicholas Hcrbemont, whose kindly 

 and benevolent feelings, no less than his intelli- 

 gence, were conspicuous in all his writings. The 

 late of two others to whom this work also owes 

 much, was the more to be lamented on account 

 of the peculiarly distressing and horrible circum- 

 stances of their deaths. Both fell victims to that 

 system of wholesale exposure and sacrifice of life, 

 for private gain, which has been established by 

 the owners of steamers. Hardy B. Croom, with 

 his family, perished at sea by the shipwreck of the 

 Home. Farquhar Macrae met a like deplorable 

 death in the destruction of the Pulaski ; and his 

 life was sacrificed by his generous self-devotion, 

 which made him yield his place of security, on a 

 fi-agment of the wreck, (yet in vain,) for the pur- 

 pose of saving an aged and feeble stranger and 

 fellow-sufferer. 



CONDITIONS OF THE FARMERS' REGISTER FOn 

 VOL. VII. PRICES STILL MORE REDUCED, 

 FOR PUNCTUAL OR ADVANCED PAYBIENTS. 



I. The Farmers' Register is published in month- 

 ly numbers, of 64 large octavo pages each, and 

 neatly covered, at ,f 5 a year, payable in advance. 

 Or, for ,§5 may be purchased two copies of the 

 same current or forthcoming volume, if so order- 

 ed and paid for in advance, (or at the time of 

 making the subscription,) in current money, (as 

 described below,) and without loss or deduction 

 for postage, or any other charge to the publisher. 



II. Subscribers now on the list, who have al- 

 ready paid the regular subscription price of $5 in 

 the manner above required, for a single copy, shall 

 have the privilege, upon sending a post-paid or- 

 der, of having a second copy of the same volume 



