40 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 1 



country, an interest, in which every individual is 

 more or less, directly or indirectly, concerned; for, 

 if the farmers fail to make good crops, and can 

 spare little or nothing for market, after laying up 

 a sulFiciency for home consun)ption; what is to en- 

 able them to buy goods of the merchant, to pay 

 Ihe doctor's bill, the mechanic, &c.: and Irom 

 whence will the merchant, the lawyer, the doc- 

 tor, the artizan, manufacturer and mechanic, de- 

 rive their supplies; how are they to get their 

 bread-stuffs, beef, pork, bacon, and indeed almost 

 every thing else upon which they subsist, it the 

 farmers fail to make it for market? There is no 

 class of people among us, that are not more or 

 less affected by the prosperity or adversity of the 

 Qoricultural community; and yet how little is 

 thought of legislative aid, to foster and advance 

 the interest ol^this important science and branch 

 of industry. We are expending, and likely to 

 expend, millions in internal improvements, and 

 useless and angry debates, upon subjects of less 

 importance, in my humble opinion, than agricul- 

 ture, whilst that subject is lost sight of, as one ol 

 minor importance. I would not be understood as 

 being opposed to internal improvements; but I 

 woukl say, the greater the agricultural improve- 

 ments and productions of the country are, the 

 greater necessity will there be for internal im- 

 provements, and the better condition will the 

 country be in, to pay lor them. 1 do hope the 

 legislature of our slate, now in session, will look 

 around and reflect upon the unprosperous and ne- 

 o-lected agricultural condition of our country. If a 

 proper regard and due consideration is given to 

 the importance ol the subject, that body cannot 

 adjourn, I ihink, and the members go home, and 

 say they have discharged their duty to themselves 

 and their coiistuuents, without doing something, 

 at least, as an entering-wedge, to encourage and 

 promote the science." Some of our sister stales 

 are aroused to the importance of their agricultu- 

 ral interest, and their legislatures turning their 

 attention to its encouragement and promotion; 

 nothing would be more gratifying to me, than to 

 see our legislature doing its duty in looking to 

 this subject. We have some ft;w good scientific 

 farmers among us, and although the number, 

 comparatively speaking, is small, yet, if their ser- 

 vices were brouiiht fully to bear under proper 

 legislative enactnTents, great good might, and no 

 doiibt would, result to the community at large. 

 You have, upon many occasions, raised your pa- 

 triotic voice in favor 'of legislative aid upon this 

 subject, but it seems your good counsel has only 

 been read and heard. The people must arouse 

 from their lethargy, and speak out upon this sub- 

 ject, let their representatives know their wishes 

 and what they e.x peel at their hands; then, per- 

 haps, they will pause and reflect, and begin to do 

 something. I should like to see an agricultural 

 school established, with able professors, to he lo- 

 cated upon a pattern fiirm, purchased and kept up 

 by slate authority. I think incalculable benefit 

 would accrue from such an institution. The 

 Smiihson bequest to the U. S. ol £100,000, re- 

 r.eived some months past, is subject to be disposed 

 of by the present congress. Can a better dispo- 

 sition of it be made, than to establish a national 

 aoricultural school, provided it can be applied in 

 tluit way, consistently vvith the will of the liberal 



aonor? P- '^ Sl'RATLKY. 



Surry County , Jan'y Vith., 1^39. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



PROGRESS OF DR. PERRINe's SCHEME OP 



INTRODUCING TROPICAL PLANTS. LETTER 



OP CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL,. 



Indian Key, Tropical Florida, Jari'y 1, 1839 .r 

 Dear iSir.-— After the delays and disasters, in- 

 cident to human enterprise, myself and family 

 reached this port, in safety, on the 25th Decem- 

 ber last: a detention of two months in the city of 

 New York, being one of the penalties of seeking 

 a vessel, the brig Lucinda, bound direct to Indian 

 Key. Notwithstanding the ravages of the Sep- 

 tember gale, when the spray of the sea swept 

 over this islet of twelve acres, I found my tropi- 

 cal plants more vigorous and flourishing than 

 could be expected, from the circumstances under 

 which they exist. They were generally planted 

 in small boxes, not averaging more than eighteen 

 inches long, by ten wide, and eight deep; yet 

 some of them now support shrubs, or young trees, 

 from eight to twelve feet high, with trunks of six 

 to ten inches in circumference, which sprang from 

 seeds planted in August, 1837. 



A most beautiful leguminous tree the serbania 

 grandiflora. now covered with its enormously large 

 white papilonaceous flowers, has a stem of ten 

 inches circumlerence and ten feet in height. In 



another box are two plants of the * 



of five and seven inches in circumference, and of 

 seven and eight feet in height. The earth in which 

 they are planted is solely carbonate of lime, color- 

 ed by vegetable mould. By the by, you may be 

 aware oflhe fact that we have no other element 

 [ol soil] than lime along the whole Florida reef, and 

 on all the islands ii-om the Tortugas to Cape Flo- 

 rida. It appears principally in the shape of coral 

 rock and calcareous powder, so that what is term- 

 ed sand, should in reality be called coral powder, 

 shell powder, &c., not a particle of silex or siliceous 

 sand being found south of Cape Florida. 



Avoiding further digression, I proceed to slate, 

 that as the" avages will not permit our proceeding 

 to the main land, the trustees of the Tropical Plant 

 Company have decided to locate the preparatory 

 nursery on the adjacent island of Matacumba, 

 (which is four or five miles long,) and the clearing 

 has already commenced ; and as fast as the worth- 

 less indigenous plants shall be removed, the valu- 

 able vegetables of the tropics shall take their place. 

 I have brought with me all the seeds of useful and 

 ornamental plants which I could collect during the 

 past summer in the green-houses and drug stores 

 of the north; but the great task of transplanting 

 living plants cannot be successfully accomplished 

 until vessels shall run direct from northern ports to 

 Indian Key. We had great expectations of re- 



* A botanical name, totafly illegible. If some of our 

 most intelligent correspondents could but see the itianu - 

 scripts of others, (as no one can judge fairly of his 

 own hand-writing,) they would commiserate the con- 

 dition of those who have to decypher them,or to guess 

 at the writers' meaning, and are held accountable for 

 all errors. Instead of each one of these correspondents 

 complaining of occasional mistakes of undecypherable 

 words of his own letters, he would be surprised at the 

 general accuracy of the interpretations of such hiero- 

 glyphics.— Ed. Fak. Reg. 



