Vol. X.— No. 4. 



AND HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



29 



tFtOi.i a New York paper. 



VVHE'VT AN EXTRACT. 



'While restinsT on my hammock [in the open 

 air] I could discern the progress of cultivation, 

 which was more contiguous than in the position 

 from which the fields were first descried ; and, 

 upon particular inquiry, I found that every process 

 of agriculture was in operation, at the same time: 

 at the east extremity, the mules were bearing off 

 Vte hrtrvcst. to the depots behind the dwelling; 

 staclcs were on the patch of ten or twenty acres, 

 next adjoining ; another patch displayed the rows 

 of sheaves ; in another, the reapers were at work, 

 and the young people tying them ; farther on the 

 golden harvest tempted the reaper ; and still farther 

 ■west tlie waving grain had yet its tinge of pale 

 ^reeii; and farther still, the tint was more deep, it 

 was the grain in the blade ; another patch appeared 

 to show like green thread upon a cake of choco- 

 late ; and next appeared the paisano, scattering the 

 grain, followed by a range of mules abreast, with 

 that harrow which instinctive reason provides, in 

 the thorny brambles of the thicket : last patch of all, 

 the iiloughman with \ihrude formed plough, though 

 then too distant to be particularly described : this 

 ■was the rotation of crops ; and upon a soil which 

 never had ariy other manure than the rains and dews 

 of Heaven and its otvn natural composition ; the pro- 

 gression unceasing and iininterrupted, unless the 

 hand of man forgot or neglected to do its duty. 

 But the want of roads to transport those rich har- 

 vests renderoil iheir mercantile value small ; wheat 

 could be had here for about a real and a half, or 

 ffleen cents the bushel ; barley for ten ; pease, 

 vetches and beans for a few cents.' Col. Duane's 

 Visit to Colombia, pp. 325-6. 



I ask every advocate of the free trade system, 

 who shall read the foregoing extract, and fully un- 

 derstand the extraordinary faculty of raising 

 wheat, &c above described — where it may be 

 sown on any and every day of the year, and reap- 

 ed also oil any and every day — and that even on 

 tlie same extensive plantation — whether he would 

 be willing to admit wheat, &c, into our ports free 

 of duty from Colombia, when the time shall have 

 arrived, that they, by good roads, canals, and other 

 facilities of transportation, shall l.» enabled to 

 bring it to us, with only a small enhancement be- 

 yond the cost of this commodity on the soil that 

 produces it ? Could our agriculturists meet such a 

 competition and afford flour at the low price at 

 which it would then necessarily come .' Or is it 

 pretended, that wo must raise no wheat, when 

 such an event arrives ? Is it to be a part of our na- 

 tional policy to buy our own bread stuff.' 



So also I might ask if cotton is to be admitted 

 free of duty, from countries which produce it, 

 with facilities as much superior to those which our 

 cotton planters possess, as is shown in the case 

 of wheat above mentioned by Col. Duane. In 

 Colombia, cotton is jiroduced by a tree, like an ap- 

 ple-tree in size, — without planting or cidlivalion — 

 whereas, the cotton of our southern states, grows 

 on a plant oC annua! growth, and requiring cultiva- 

 tion. When the new governments of South Amer- 

 ica, shall have advanced in such improvements in 

 the arts and government as shall enable them to 

 send their cotton to the markets of the world, at a 

 low rate— do our southern cotton planters think 

 they could compete with producers having not 

 only the advantages just mentioned, but another 

 and most extraordinary advantage, one eternal 



and uninterrupted season, adapted to their agricul- 

 tural operations ? Or are we to buy all our raw 

 cotton and raise none ? 



Need more be said to show that our soil and ad- 

 vantages, national and artificial, are inferior to 

 those of other nations. Nevertheless, we must 

 take them as tvefind them, and at the expense of 

 restriction, draw from them our subsistence, com- 

 fort and happiness ; that any other policy would 

 lead to the breaking down of every pursuit or oc- 

 cupation, which by climate or any other natural or 

 factitious disadvantage, shall appear to have less 

 favorable facilities for its prosecution, than may 

 be fduiid in some one foreign country or another. 

 Ill fact, the proverb that he who wants things as 

 cheap as they are in China, must go to China, for 

 them, and then he may find them and use thei;n, 

 seems to have a forcible ap[)lic;.ition here. If the 

 cotton planter, should desire to eat the wheat of 

 Colombia, at 15 cts. per bushel, rather than pay 

 to Ids countryman 80 or 100 cents, our wheat 

 farmer might well advise him to emigrate lo Co- 

 lombia, rather than to reside in one region of the 

 earth, and draw his bread stuffs from another. 

 And the wheat farmer, if he should desire to have 

 cotton at a lower price, than the actual facilities of 

 his own native country can afford, might also re- 

 ceive the same advice from the cotton planter. 



From the Journal of Health. 



THE AMERICAN AQUATIC. 



Wc beg leave, before explaining the origin of 

 the title, and to whom it was applied, to repeat 

 one of the ' Hints to Mechanics and Workmen,' 

 which we gave in our first volume, p. 351. ' Ab- 

 stain from ardent spirits, cordials, and malt li- 

 quors — Let your drink be like that of Franklin, 

 when he was a printer — pure water.' This ad- 

 vice of ours, given with a sincere desire to benefit 

 those to whom it was addressed, and with a full 

 knowledge that its adoption would be productive 

 of jiractically beneficial effects, was carped at by 

 some who could not separate truth from error, nor 

 pernicious from salutary habits. Excusable by 

 their ignorance, we mean not now to censure 

 them, but to show on what foundation, and with 

 what propriety, we appealed to the example of the 

 illustrious Franklin. 



In the sketch of his life written by himself, this 

 great man relates, among other matters respecting 

 his residence in London at the time in which he 

 was a journeyman printer, the following dietetic 

 particulars — 



' On my entrance I worked at first as a press- 

 man, conceiving that I had need of bodily exer- 

 cise, to which I had been accustomed in America, 

 whore the printers worked alternately as composi- 

 tors and at the press. I drank nothing but water. 

 The other workmen, to the number of about fifty, 

 were great drinkers of beer. I carried occasion- 

 ally a large form of letters in each hand, up and 

 down stairs, while the rest employed both hands 

 to carry one. They were surprised to see, by this 

 and many other examples, that the American 

 Aquatic, as they used to call me,' was stronger than 

 those who drank porter. The beer-boy had suf- 

 ficient employment during the whole day in serv- 

 ing that house alone. My fellow pressman drank 

 every day a pint of beer before breakfast, a pint 

 with bread and cheese for breakfast, one between 

 breakfast and dinner, one at dinner, one again 

 i about 6 o'clock in the afternoon, and another after 



he had finished his day's work. This custom ap- 

 peared to me abominable ; but he had need, be 

 said, of all this beer, in order to acquire strength 

 to work. 



' I endeavored to convince him that the bodily 

 strength furnished by the beer, could only be in 

 porportion to the solid part of the barley dissolved 

 in water of which the beer was composed; that 

 there was a larger portion of flour in a penny 

 loaf, and that consequently if he ate this loaf, and 

 drank a pint of water with it, he would derive 

 more strength from it than from a piut of beer. 

 This reasoning, however, did not prevent him 

 from drinking his accustomed quantity of beer, 

 and paying every Saturday night a score of four 

 or five shillings a week for this cursed beverage, 

 an expense from which I was wholly exempt. 

 Thus do these poor fellows continue all their lives 

 in a state of voluntary wretchedness and poverty. 



' My example prevailed with several of them to 

 renounce their abominable practice of bread and 

 cheese with beer; and they procured like me, 

 from a neighboring house, a good basin of warm 

 gruel, in which was a small slice of butter, with 

 t(3asted bread and nutmeg. This was a much bet- 

 ter breakfast, which did not cost more than a pint 

 of beer, natnelj', three halfpence, and at the same 

 time preserved the head clearer. Those who 

 continued to gorge themselves with beer often 

 lost their credit with the publican from neglecting 

 to pay their score. They had then recourse to 

 mi;, to become security for them ; their light, as 

 they used to call it, being out. I attended at the 

 pay-table every Saturday evening, to take up the 

 litt.'e sum which I had made myself answerable 

 for; and which sometimes amounted to nearly 

 thirty shillings a week.' 



Franklin always had a cool head — he was 

 rcaily for every emergency ; he acquired a rep- 

 ute, lion as a philosopher and statesman, which haa 

 given his name currency over the whole civilized 

 world. Surely the example of such a man ic 

 more worthy of imitation than that of the various 

 classtis of boozy songsters — convivial jokers — pre- 

 tenders to social enjoyment at the expense of head 

 and heart — canters of liberality — servile imitators 

 of the vices of genius, and admirers of the degra- 

 dation of their species, which they qualify with 

 the specious epithets of civilization, refinement, 

 taste, and the like. 



On Grass Lands, Clover Sowing, S,-c. — It is ad- 

 mitted on all hands that one of the most ditficult 

 parts of the farmer's duty is ' laying down' regularly 

 and successfully grass lands. Jolin H. Powel, an 

 intelligent and experienced'Farmer of Pennsylvania 

 says that in this country there is not usually more 

 than ha.lf the quantity of seed sown that should be to 

 insure success — that from experience he has fouud 

 that three halfpeeks of cloverseed mixed with two 

 bushels of orchard grass seed is in no instance too 

 iTiuch to sow on an acre of land — that by putting 

 in this quantity, by light harrowing and rolling of 

 the ground, if the weather and soil be in a proper 

 state, immediately after sowing, will secure its 

 vegetating and improve the grass. Autumnal 

 top dressing with long manure, may be profitable 

 applied to protect young clover, particularly if it 

 has been pastured. A double advantage is obtain- 

 ed by using abundant supplies of seed ; the hay is 

 finer, and of course more nutritious, and when the 

 crop is taken off, the soil is leas exhausted from 

 the rays of a hot sun. 



