FARMERS' REGISTER 



343^ 



weak and disonkred stomach, is caused by the 

 presence of acidity, Dr. Gibbes would certainly 

 administer lime-water, or magnesia, or some other 

 calcareous or alkaline neutralizer of acids. In 

 precisely the same way let him reason as to the 

 acid soils of South Carolina. Give marl to destroy 

 the existing acid, (which acid forbids improvement 

 and destroys the productive power of the soil,) and 

 to create digestive and assimilatinij; action, and let 

 the land have but a moderate and profitable share 

 of rest, to enable it to produce vegetable manure 

 for itself, and we will venture to assert that the 

 result will be a doubling of permanent productive 

 power, and of net profit on the cultivation, within 

 two years after the commencement of the course 

 of improvement. 



But as unreasonable as is such a deduction, it is 

 generally the case that new marlers expect to de- 

 rive this great profit without paying any thing of 

 the necessary consideration required to secure it. 

 Marl is applied to land that perhaps has been se- 

 verely cropped in corn or cotton for a dozen years 

 before, and without any more rest, or other means 

 to obtain vegetable food, being allowed afterwards. 

 Of course there is so little eliecl seen from marling 

 under such circumstances, that the experimenter 

 considers and so reports it as none, or almost ?jo7jc 

 — and thence he concludes that the manure is 

 worthless, and, perhaps, all that has been pro- 

 mised from it, (under very ditlerent circumstances,) 

 as altogether false. We have known many, very 

 many cases of this kind ; and have been greatly 

 surprised, until the frequent recurrence of the same 

 thing became custom, that intelligent cultivators 

 should overlook and neglect every condition of 

 success required, and distinctly stated as such in 

 the instructions published, and yet expect the de- 

 gree of success which the observance of those 

 conditions would have secured. 



But if the requisite of vegetable or putrescent 

 manuring is enforced on men's minds, then will 

 come another grand objection. "Oh! il' 1 am to 

 manure in some other way all the land 1 marl, I 

 cannot marl much ; and for so much, the land 

 could do very well without marl." Wrong in both 

 of these positions — though we cannot here discuss 

 them in full. We will merely say that while we 

 were barely able to give prepared putrescent ma- 

 nures to 10 acres of land a year, (and sometimes 

 did not to 5 acres,) that rest and natural vege- 

 tation served to manure (however slightly) 100; 

 and that the whole 100 acres were easily marled 

 the same year. And further, if without the medi- 

 cijie, marl, or "bitters" so given, that the " beef- 

 steak," or food alone, both the rich and the poor, 

 would have produced but little visible effect, and 

 certainly no clear profit. 



The writer of the foregoing article certainly im- 

 poses on Dr. Gibbes a great and most unreasona- 

 ble task, and which would require the labor men- 

 tal and physical, of a year, for him to perform fully. 

 Nevertheless, if he will undertake it, to any ex- 

 tent, we are satisfied that the task would be in ex- 

 cellent hands; and we shall be among tho&e who 

 will most heartily rejoice at the means being thus 

 used, in the most palatable and effectual manner, 

 to give to the planters of South Carolina the in- 

 struction which they so greatly need, and which 

 would offer to their acceptance such great indi- 

 vidual profits and general improvement, 



Ed. F. R.] 



EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OTi THE CUL- 

 TURE OF THE MULBERRY, AIVD THE MODE 

 OF REARING SILK WORMS IN THE ENVI- 

 ROIVS OF PARIS, IX 1836. 



Made at the Royal and Central Society of Aiiriciilturp, in the 

 nainfi of a special Committee composed of MM. the Viscount 

 Debonnaire di; Gif, Jauine Saint Hilaire, Audoin, and Loise- 

 leur Deslongchainps, reporter. 



Until now, they were generally in the habit of 

 judging of the product of the rearincj ii'om the yield 

 of'an ounce of seed, but the nundter olpiijis being 

 liable to vary in the quantity liom forty to fifty 

 thousand, M. C. Beauvais thinks it more rational 

 to determine it from the weiirhl of lonves used for 

 so many pounds of cocoons. At the south it is 

 generally supposed that two thousand pounds of 

 leaves, not culled, are required to feed worms of 

 an ounce of egg^i, which produces on an average 

 from fifiy to yixty pounds of cocoons. 



In taking the weight of the leaves for the basis, 

 two thousand pounds of leaves have produced one 

 hundred and eighty pounds; of cocoons in the last 

 rearing made at the Bergeries. M. C. Beauvais 

 did not give us in his various notes, the precise 

 details of the expenses of his rearing; we have 

 merely found that it results from the general ac- 

 counts which niclude the rent of the ground, the 

 ploughing, the trimming of the mulberry plants, 

 the inierest of the capitai of the plantings and of 

 the cocoonery, the expense of the gathering, of 

 manual labor, the heating and lighting, etc.; that 

 the pound of cocoons of sixteen ounces, amounts 

 only to fifteen cents. M. C. Beauvais has under- 

 taken, lor seven years past, on silk worms, a set 

 of experiments which may be usefully put in prac- 

 tice. In the note he gave us upon that subject, 

 he insists principally, upon the means by which one 

 can obtain a pertisct equality among the worms. 

 He thiid<s that ihesuccess of rearing depends upon 

 the worms going regularly through the difi'erent 

 siages of existence. He wishes them to hatch as 

 simultaneously as possible, that their moultings 

 should be accomplished at the same time; and 

 that at last the worms should mature at once, that 

 there may not be any dilatory among them, du- 

 ring the most essential period of their existence, 

 the formation of the cocoons. 



To obtain such advantageous results, imder all 

 circumstances, M. C. Beauvais states that regu- 

 larity in feeding the worms is one of the best 



