^9 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 4 



transferred to my garden, and cultivated, are sure 

 and abundant bearers, not subject to any disease. 

 I have planted this season a quantity of seeds of 

 the European grape, in the hope that the vines, 

 being actually native, may be better adapted to 

 our climate. Should the experiment succeed, it 

 will be a "consummation devoutly to be wished." 

 I cannot help considering the introduction of 

 the silk-culture as forming a new era in agricul- 

 tural enterprise, and calculated to be attended by 

 the most important benefits to all classes of society. 

 Could it be introduced here, in the elevated and 

 healthy portion of our stale, with the energy and 

 intelligent enterprise with which it is impelled by 

 New England ingenuity, with our many and great 

 advantages of soil and climate, it would be the 

 means of bringing vast tracts of land into cultiva- 

 tion that are now considered unfit for corn or col- 

 ton, from being broken and hilly, and subject to 

 wash. This circumstance would be no objection to 

 the cultivation of the mulberiy, but rather an ad- 

 vantage; and besides, such lands are generally 

 watered by the finf si springs, which is seldom the 

 case with the extensive alluvial plains that are 

 usually selected for large cotton plantalions. Un- 

 fortunately, our best cotton lands lie bordering on 

 the rivers, that are skirted by extensive swamps, 

 the first reclaiming of which is attended by an 

 enormous sacrifice of human life, and none bulthe 

 Ali-ican race can endure the labor of cultivating 

 them. But our elevated lands, produce the mul- 

 berry equally as well as the river lands, and are 

 extremely healthy. And the silk-culture, not be- 

 ing adapted to slave labor, might occupy the hills, 

 while cotton should be confined to the low-lands. 

 They need not interfere with each other, but be a 

 mutual support, for each should employ a dis- 

 tinct class of the population, and occupy different 

 locations. The alluvial plains of the rivers will 

 be laid off in large cotton plantations, with but 

 few white families, while the hills will be cover- 

 ed with a dense free population, of small farms, 

 and family manufiictures of silk. The grape, 

 also, that now luxuriates in native wildness. will 

 be subjected to cultivation, and made to vary, 

 beautify and enrich the scene. 



Respectfully, yours. 



KKMARKS BY THE EDITOR, 



In sundry parts of the former volumes of this 

 journal, we have urged the advantage and ne- 

 cessity of using calcareous soils for grape-culture; 

 and, more recently, have expressed the opinion 

 that the same kind of soil was peculiarly adapted 

 to improve the growth of mulberry trees. But 

 as to both, our views were more theoretical than 

 practical, and were deduced from indirect testimo- 

 ny, rather than positive facts. In the foregoing 

 highly interesting article (to us at least, and on 

 this account,) are presented the first positive 

 proofs, in the greatly superior growth, or product, 

 of both the morus multicaulis and of grape- 

 vines, on soils which would be excessively calca- 

 reous for most other plants. The facts are high- 

 ly important ; and the truths which they sustain, 

 if properly appreciated and applied, would be 



worth millions of dollars annually to this country, 

 even if confined to vine and mulberry culture 

 alone. 



The foundation and origin of our opinions as to 

 these particular adaptations of calcareous (and 

 highly calcareous) soils, will be here concisely 

 stated. Vine-culture, both for the production of 

 grapes and of wine, so far, has been in this coun- 

 try, generally as unsuccessful, as it is generally 

 successful in the wine regions of Europe. In ex- 

 amining for a difference of circumstances, suffi- 

 ciently marked and general to be the cause of this 

 difference in effects, nothing satisfactory was ofiTered 

 to our mind, except the remarkable difference in 

 the constitution of soil, which we had before 

 learned from prior investigations, directed to more 

 general and more important objects. The well 

 cultivated and most productive soils of Europe, 

 are generally calcareous ; and the particular vine- 

 yards which are celebrated for producing the most 

 valuable wines, are known to be on calcareous 

 soils. On the other hand, we had fully establish- 

 ed, to our own satisfaction, ihe novel and astonish- 

 ing fact, that in all the Atlantic slope of these 

 states there was no calcareous soil, proper — and 

 that there was but a very small proportion even 

 of soil altered by shell -beds coming to the sur- 

 face, broken lime-slone, or other such rare and 

 accidental admixtures. Hundreds of miles might 

 be passed over, in travelling through the country, 

 without the traveller coming in sight of an acre, 

 or even a square-yard, of natural calcareous soil, 

 or any containing even so email a proportion as 

 one-thousandlh part of carbonate of lime. And 

 yet, so sure are the marks of calcareous earth in 

 soil, that the traveller who had properly investi- 

 gated the subject, could pronounce as safely and 

 correctly as to ils deficiency, on the most transient 

 obeei'valion, as upon thorough chemical analysis. 

 Upon subsequent investigation and information, 

 we further learned the very different and scarcely 

 less important fact, that most of the great prai- 

 ries of the west were as remarkably constituted, 

 in their great abundance of calcareous parts, as 

 the eastern regions are for the entire deficiency. 

 Indeed, the prairie regions of this country present 

 the only considerable soils known in North Ame- 

 rica, wliich contain any great proportion of car- 

 bonate of lime, or where that ingredient is in 

 hurtful excess, oris so often the case in some parts 

 of Europe. 



But all the trials of grape and wine culture 

 which had been made in this country had been 

 confined to the non-calcareous region ; and so far 

 as we knew and believed, not an acre of vines 

 grew on highly calcareous soil, if even made mo- 

 derately calcareous by compound manures, applied 



