^78 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



MADDER. 



N the last number we evinced our desire to have the latest and most authen 

 tic information on the Culture of Madder as a crop adapted to the United States. 



But what is needed in this, as in all similar cases, is the most recent actual 

 experience. A frank, full, honest statement of expenditure, both of labor and 

 money, as well as of the income. If half were true that has been published in favor 

 of the cultivation of madder, one would suppose it should have spread before now, 

 like the cultivation of tobacco, until, like that, as well as some other things, it 

 should have broken down by its own expansion. 



We have no difficulty in learning enough about the commercial and agricul- 

 tural history and uses of madder in other -countries, and even in our own, going 

 back to its culture in South Carolina before the Revolution. It may, indeed, be 

 instanced here as a proof of the abundant materials at our command, for illus- 

 trating topics on which our patrons desire to have information, to state, that in 

 this case we have within arm's reach twenty different works in which the sub- 

 ject of madder is treated in some of its relations to Agriculture and the indus- 

 trial arts, and more than double that number of essays and communications in 

 reference to it in the various annals of industry. But, in turning from one branch 

 of his business to another, so different from his usual routine, the American 

 Farmer wishes to know, if to be had, the actual results of experiments made by 

 one of his own countrymen, working under circumstances analogous to his oAvn. 

 and if these results give reasonable assurance of profit, then, as with our cor- 

 respondents from Arkansas and Virginia, they naturally inquire. Where can we 

 get the materials — the seed or the roots — and the price ? [C?" The price is always 

 wanted. On this point we are promised farther information by Mr. Allen, in a 

 day or two. He says several attempts here to raise madder from the seed have 

 failed, and recommends writing to friend Bateman, of the Ohio Cultivator, Co- 

 lumbus, who will please consider himself, on seeing this, as having been served 

 with notice. 



The quantity of madder imported and entered for consumption, in Great 

 Britain, in 1832, was as follows, the first, we suppose, meaning o-;-o?//u/ madder: 



Madiler 60,340 cwls.— equal to 6,758,752 lbs. 



Maddcrroot 51,76!) " •' _ 5.797,904 " 



Being. 12,55G,656 lbs. 



Supposing one-third of that amount to be used in the United States, we should 

 have 4,000,000 pounds, which at 15 cents, about the average price, would be 

 $600,000, now sent out of the country for an article to which our soil and cli- 

 mate are as well adapted as to the sweet if not the Irish potato. 



But we are left to conjecture as to the amount imported ; for, while many 

 other articles of less importance are given in the Secretary's Report — such as 

 woad, or pastel, barilla, vinegar, statuary, burr stones, nuts, berries, crude anti- 

 mony, fee. &c. — madder is smothered up in the mass of ;!o«-enumerated articles. 

 But being an item in which ai^nculturisls are deeply concerned, who takes the 

 trouble to care about the legislation relating to it? Yet surely this greatest in- 

 terest of tlie nation labors under disadvantages and burde«s enough, without 



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