1836.] 



FARaiERS' REGISTER, 



49 



larger than a common house fly. It produces abun- 

 dance of honey and wax, but has not yet been 

 subjected to cultivation; and fi'om its small size, 

 and building on high trees, probably never will be 

 so." 



A late traveller in Mexico has given an inter- 

 esting account of the native Mexican bee, which 

 like the New Holland one is stingless, but has 

 been completely domesticated, and forms an im- 

 portant addition to the means of subsistence and 

 comlbrt of the inhabitants, Indians as well as 

 Spaniards. The Mexican, in appearance much 

 resembles the wild bee termed the upholsterer or 

 leaf-catter bee, the one that commits such rav'ages 

 on the leaves of the rose bush while making pre- 

 paration for depositing its eggs in the sunmicr, ex- 

 cept that it is rather smaller. The natives in the 

 interior manufacture their hives from clay, in the 

 shape of large earthen jars, and nothing is more 

 common than to see a number of these hives 

 placed on a shelf under the projecting eaves, and 

 over the door of the Indian cottages, where tiiey 

 are half buried under climbing and fragrant blos- 

 soming vines, the bees perfectly harmless, and 

 their rich stores ever ready at command. Wlieth- 

 er the Mexican bee could be brought to endure 

 our northern winters ma\' be doubted, but that it 

 would prosper in any of our southern states can- 

 not reasonably be questioned, and we have often 

 regretted that no atlempf has been made to natu- 

 ralize it in that section of the United States. 

 Once introduced, it would rapidly spread; and like 

 other animals and plants, the natives of a warmer 

 climate may gradually become capable of endur- 

 ing ours, ami thus eventually supersede the use- 

 ful, industrious, but sometimes dangerous domes- 

 tic bee of northern latitudes. 



G. 



S031E OF THE EFECTS OF WEST INDIAN 

 EJIANCIPATION, AS STATED BY THE 

 FRIENDS OF THAT BIEASURE. 



The following extracts form a small portion of a 

 long and interesting article in the last London Quar- 

 terly Review, on the the "Foreign Slave Trade." 

 The reasoning and the admissions are the more wor- 

 thy of notice, as proceeding from a WTiter who (in 

 the essential part,) approves of the recent and impor- 

 tant measure of abolishing slavery in the Britisli 

 West Indies — and also, for being presented in a work 

 of such high authority as the Quarterly Review. Tlie 

 results already found, in the short course of this great 

 experiment, and still more the results anticipated by 

 the reviewer, are such as any intelligent opposer of 

 the abolition of slavery miglit have urged. But views 

 from such a source would have been suspicious — and 

 could not have compared, as authority, with these />rc- 

 cious confessions. We wish to call the attention of 

 our readers — norihern as well as southern — to the fol- 

 lowing opinions, which will be found in other words 

 in the extracts below, and some of which (especially 

 on the probable extension of the African slave trade,) 

 are enforced at length in the omitted parts of the re- 

 view. These opinions are — 



1st. That the abolition of slavery in the British 

 West Indies has served, and still more ivill serve, 



Vol. IV— 7 



greatly to increase the profits, and of course the prices, 

 of slaves elsewhere — and, in consequence, will tend 

 to extend the African slave trade, wherever that trade 

 is permitted to exist. 



2nd. That the payment of wages (though at rates 

 much higher than their former cost of purchase and 

 maintenance) will Jiot induce the emancipated slaves 

 to furnish any thing like the former amount of la- 

 bor. 



3rd. That a large proportion of the sugar (or other) 

 land will be thrown out of cultivation, owing to the 

 increased expense of tillage, and the diminution of la- 

 boring force. 



4th. That the occuri-cnce of insurrections of slaves, 

 and their consequences, where slavery continues, is 

 counted on as one of the compensations to British in- 

 terests, for the disadvantages sustained from emanci- 

 pation in the British colonies. 



The last named argument, though (for good rea- 

 sons) touched but slightly and tenderly by the English 

 vv^riter, deserves the full consideration of the people of 

 this country. It is unquestionably true, that, in this 

 respect, the commercial interest of Britain, (putting 

 aside the groundless but not less operative feelings of 

 commercial and political jealousy,) will henceforth 

 concur in action with the movements of the pretended 

 philanthopists and fanatical abolitionists, of both Eng- 

 land and the United States. If the leading and 

 most active abolitionists in our northern states are not 

 actually hired to work for the gain of British employ- 

 ers, they well deserve to be paid the wages for such 

 service: and there will be no lack of such effoi-ts, 

 prompted and sustained from abroad, so long as the 

 most selfish and base interests, are to be best subserved 

 by words and acts which go forth in the guise of pure 

 morality, religion, and disinterested love for the hu- 

 man race. They who rob and murder, professedly in 

 the name of virtue and religion, and for the glory of 

 God,are an hundred fold more dangerous than ordinary 

 villains who pretend to no better motive than the love 

 of gain; and far more are their powers for mischief 

 increased, when, in addition, they believe (as most 

 of our anti-slavery fanatics do,) in the truth of their 

 pretensions, and the holiness of their purposes and 

 acts. From our slaves, of themselves, and from any 

 political effects of the institution of slavery, as it ex- 

 ists in the South, we have nothing to fear — (the throats 

 and the purses of the property-holders of New York 

 are in much more danger from their mobs office men 

 and the spreading of agrarianism :) but the South, 

 and the Union, have every thing to fear (and dano-er 

 far greater than any from servile insurrections, ) from 

 the restless, mad, and sustained action of the northern 

 abolitionists. 



From the London Quarterly Review. 

 We have already had occasion to observe how 

 largely the slave-market has, of late years, thriv- 

 en, under the expectation of the foreign planters, 

 that the relaxation and discontinuance of slave- 

 labor -n the British colonies must be followed by 

 a diminution of British production, and by a con- 

 sequently increased vent for the produce of the 



