'SO MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



tnent. Certainl}', then, too much importance cannot be attached by the planter 

 to a knowledge of the causes wliich produce this decomposition, and the reme- 

 •dies. When beets grow in land too highly manured, or containing soluble salts, 

 their juice is very ditiicult to crystalize, and yields a large quantity of molasses. 

 So canes grown upon lands Avhere timber has been recently burned, take up the 

 •soluble salts by their roots, which must act very injuriously. Common salt will 

 .'form a compound with six times its weight of sugar, which refuses to crystalize, 

 ;and remains in the mother liquor : so likewise alkaline carbonates, and other 

 salts, operate to increase the quantity of molasses, and injure the quality of the 

 sugar." 



The authorities precited are sufricient to establish the fact of the combination 

 ■of salt Vv'ith sugar, and that the compound resulting therefrom is uncrystalizable. 

 itis to be inferred, also, that all the soluble salts are obstructive of saccharine crys- 

 talization, and are molasses-producing agents. JNow the problem to be solved in 

 sugar-making, is to bring the sugar-containing liquid to the state of a pure 

 solution of sugar in Avater — to eliminate all extraneous matters from the mother 

 liquor. The application therefore of common salt to the soil, bv which a sub- 

 stance antagonistic to crystalization is introduced into the mother liquor, is icork- 

 ing backward. It is, indeed, quite apparent that the sugar planter should be 

 •cautious in using any mineral agent as a manure for the cane-lield, since, how- 

 ever, promotive of vegetation such agent may be, it is, at the same time, ob- 

 structive of crystalization. I am, •vvith ^reat respect, &c. H. B. T. 



GROWTH OF THE WEST EFFECT OF STEAM-POWER. 



■{What more striking picture could we present than that which is offered in the enclosed, from 

 3. gallant old soldier, whose heart, while his head grows gray, beats if possible more and more ar- 

 dently ill the cause of his country ; and wiihin whose personal observation such progi-css has been 

 aeiade iu the growth of the great region to which he refers ?] 



New-Okleans, April Sth, 1846. 



My Dear Sir: Notwithstanding your favor of the 2d inst. was handed to me 

 •ai a lime when much occupied with professional duties, indicated by the late 

 •.Hj»ecial message of the President, suggesting the propriety of immediate action — 

 "j're Peace to prepare for War" — I could not deny myself the pleasure of a com- 

 5»iiance with your request that I should give you some of my reminiscences and 

 reflections regarding the vast progress which has been made in the agricultural 

 developments of the country connected with the Mississippi, since the acquisi- 

 tion of this region under the administration of Mr. Jefl'erson. 



When a young subaltern in 1709, I built at the long island of Holstein a sub- 



■Rtanlial flat-boat, adapted to the navigation of the Western rivers, on board of which 



i embarked in April for Natchez — a distance of sixteen hundred miles. The val- 



* ley of the Holstein river to its junction with the Tennessee, and thence to S. W. 



Point, at the mouth of Clinch river, a distance of nearly 200 miles as the rivers 



• racander, was very thinly settled — exhibiting only the incipient stages of Agri- 

 <;ulturo ; half-cleared corn-fields, fat catlle, horses, and hogs, enjoying for the most 



I .part the luxury of wild grass, cane-brakes, and nuts of the forest. From S. W. 



.. ;Peia).t • tiD the mouth of the Tennessee, a distance of near 700 miles, thence to the 



V»r.uui'li of Ohio, 60 miles, and thence to Natchez, 700 miles, was at that time a 

 howling wilderness, of nearly fifteen hundred miles, wiih the exception of four 

 ^nsall military posts— namely, Massac, Ncic-Madrid, Chickasair B/uJf's, and the 

 Waiimt-lli/h — neither of which posts was garrisoned by more than thirty to 

 sixty men; nor had either place more than from five to twenty acres of land ni 

 cultivation. The Chickasaw Blufls, the present site of Memphis, Tennessee, had 

 just been occupied bv a company of U. S. troops (commanded by the Revolution- 

 .'iivy veteran Captain Pike, the venerable father of our late gallant General Z. M. 

 Pike, who fell in the arms of victory in Canada in 1813.) Not a tree of the 

 3hick forest of the IJluff had been disturbed, save only what was needed to cover 

 the company from the pelting of the storm. That beautiful Blull' which now 

 -sustains a fiourishing city, and exports annually 150,000 bales of cotton, worth 

 .-$5,000,000, could not then, nor for nearly twenty years after that period, furnish as 

 anuch cotton or corn as would clothe and feed a single family : and the same, oi 

 aearly the same, may be said of Walnut-Hills, the present site of Vicksburg. 



(Of) 



