462 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



and by engaging in commerce, and navigation, and 

 manufactures ; and these good men have not de- 

 spaired, but have been diligent in stimulating the 

 agricultural spirit of the people, by organizing ag- 

 ricultural societies, establishing agricultural publica- 

 tions, invoking the aid and patronage of the State, 

 importing the best breeds of cattle, and used every 

 method and endeavor to inaugurate in New Eng- 

 land, the second stage of agricultural development, 

 in which skill and capital make agriculture the 

 fruitful mother of harvests and of men. These 

 men have never been wanting in hope, and faith, 

 and patience ; and others will see, if they do not, 

 the results of their works. M. 



TRAVELING POWERS OF THE CAMEL. 



Prof. Marsh, of Burlington, Vt., has recently 

 issued a work on " The Camel : his Organization, 

 Habits and Uses, considered with reference to his 

 introduction into the United States," a subject 

 made of special interest at this time by the recent 

 importation by our government of a number of 

 these animals for the purpose of testing their capa 

 cities as carriers in this country. From this work 

 we copy the following : 



Mehemet Ali, when hastening to his capital to 

 accomplish the destruction of the Mamelukes, rode 

 without changing his camel, from Suez to Cairo, a 

 distance of eighty-four miles, in twelve hours. A 

 French officer in the service of the Pacha, repeat- 

 ed the same feat in thirteen hours, and two gentle- 

 men of my acquaintance have performed it in less 

 than seventeen. Laborde travelled the distance in 

 the same time, and afterwards rode the same drom- 

 edary from a point opposite Cairo to Alexandria, a 

 distance of about one hundred and fifty miles, in 

 thirty-four hours. But the most extraordinary 

 well-authenticated performance of the dromedary 

 is that recorded by the accurate Burckhardt in his 

 Travels. The owner of a fine dromedary laid a 

 wager that he would ride the animal from Esneh 

 to Keneh, and back, a distance of one hundred and 

 twenty-five miles, between sun and sun. He accom- 

 plished one hundred and fifteen miles, occupying 

 twenty minutes in crossing and re-crossing the Nile 

 by ferry, in eleven hours, and they gave up the wa- 

 ger. Burckhardt thinks this domedary would 

 have travelled one hundred and eighty or two- 

 hundred miles in twenty-four hours without seri- 

 ous injury. The valuable paper extracted from 

 the notes of General Harlan, and printed in the 

 ,U. S. Patent-Office Report of 1853, Agriculture 

 61, states that the ordinary day's journey of the 

 dromedary of Cabul is sixty miles, but that picked 

 animals will travel one hundred miles a day for 

 several days in succession, their greatest speed be- 

 ing about ten miles an hour. Captain Lyon affirms 

 that the mahari of the Sahara will travel many 

 successive hours at the rate of nine miles an hour. 

 The Syrian defoul goes in five days from Bagdad 

 to Sokhne, a distance which the loaded caravans 

 require twenty-one days to perform, or from the 

 same city to Aleppo in seven, the caravans gener- 

 ally taking twenty-five. Couriers have ridden, with- 

 out change of dromedary, from Cairo to Mecca in 

 eighteen days, while the ordinary camels seldom 

 accomplish the journey in less than forty-five. 



Layard gives several instances of apparently re- 

 markable performances, but as the distances are 

 not stated, it is not easy to compare tliem with 

 those recorded by other authors. 



A late and apparently credible writer says : " I 

 knew a camel-driver who had bought a dromedary 

 belonging to a sheriff of Mecca, lately deceased at 

 Cairo. This animal often made the round trip be- 

 tween that city and Suez, going and returning in 

 twenty-four hours, thus travelling a distance of six- 

 ty leagues in a single day." The performance of 

 the dromedary is rather understated by the writer. 

 The actual distance between Cairo and Suez is 

 eighty-four English miles, and the animal must 

 consequently have accomplished one hundred and 

 sixty-eight miles in twenty-four hours. He re- 

 mained four hours at Suez to rest, and therefore 

 travelled at the rate of eight miles and four-tenths 

 per hour. 



Upon longer journeys, the daily rate of the best 

 dromedaries, though not equal to these instances, 

 is still extraordinary. A French officer of high 

 character in the Egyptian service, assured me that 

 he had ridden a favorite dromedary ninety miles in 

 a single day, and five hundred miles in ten. Mails 

 have been carried from Bagdad to Damascus, up- 

 on the same animals, four hundred and eighty- two 

 miles, in seven days; and on one occasion, by 

 means of regular delays, Mehemet Ali sent an ex- 

 ])ress to Ibrahim Pasha, from Cairo to Antioch, five 

 himdred and sixty miles, in five days and a half. 

 But the most remarkable long journey on record 

 is that of Col. Chesney, of the British army, who 

 rode with three companions, and without change 

 of camel, from Basrah to Damascus, a distance of 

 nine hundred and sixty miles, in nineteen days and 

 three or four hours, thus averaging fifty miles per 

 day, the animals having no food but such as they 

 gathered for themselves during the halts of the 

 party. These dromedaries averaged forty-five 

 steps a jninute, with a length of step of six feet 

 five inches, giving a speed of about three and one- 

 third miles the hour. 



GRAVELLING MEADOW LANDS. 



Many persons occupy portions of the autumn in 

 reclaiming or improving their meadow lands, and 

 among other modes resorted to, they apply to them 

 gravel or sand. This has a favorable effect in sev- 

 eral ways. It settles into the mud and makes it 

 porous, attracts heat, and supplies sihca to the 

 grass. A few loads per acre will sometimes effect 

 an astonishing change. 



The operation, however, must be judiciously 

 performed, in order to secure favorable results. 

 The sand or gravel should be spread evenly, and 

 a small quantity only, in a single year. A half 

 inch in depth, at one time, and a similar amount 

 applied each year for several years, would be of 

 much greater service than the whole amount ap- 

 pHed at once. Indeed, some meadows are ruined 

 for all present purposes by the application of too 

 much sand or gravel at once. The sand presses 

 heavily on the mud of the meadows, excludes the 

 sun and air, and makes the whole as cold and inert 



