September, 1842. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR 



133 



Indepeiulence, was Benjnmin Franklin, who was 

 tlieu 70. Tlie youngest signer was Edward Riit- 

 ledge, of South Carolina, who was but 27. — 

 Thomas Lynch, from South Carolina, was also 

 but 27 years old. 



The average age of the Signers, leaving out 

 three whose ages are not known, is a fraction 

 short of 44, showing that as a body they were not 

 so young as to be impetuous, and carried away by 

 the ardent feelings of youth ; nor yet so old as to 

 be obstinate and inert : but in that |)rinie and 

 vigorous manhood, wlien the balance of the pliy- 

 sical and mental powers is best sustained, and 

 when the mind is fully matured by experience 

 and disciplined by study- Twenty-one of the 

 ,56 lived a quarter of a century after the 4th of 

 July, 1770. Three of them survived to a full 

 half century from that date. Four were upwards 

 of 90 years old at their death. Burton Gwinett, 

 of Georgia, was the first who died after the Dec 

 laration at the age of 46. Charles Carroll was 

 the last of that illustrious band, and died in 1833, 

 (we believe.) aged 90. 



The fast State Constitutions were adopted by 

 the following Colonies, before the Declaration of 

 Independence. 

 New Hampshire, January 5th, 177C. 

 South Carolina, March 24th, " 

 Virginia, June 29th, " 



New Jersey, July 2d, " 



The remainder of the " Old Thirteen" adopted 

 their Constitutions as follows: — 

 Maryland, August 14, 1776. 

 Pennsylvania, September, 1776, 

 Georgia, February 5, 1777. 

 New York, April, 1777. 

 Massachusetts, March, 1780. 

 Vermont, July 4, 1786. 



The Constitution of the United States was 

 adopted by the Convention, of \\'hich George 

 Washington was President, on the 17th of Sep- 

 tember, 1787. It was ratified by Congress, July 

 14th, 1788, and went into operation on the first 

 Wednesday of March 1789. It was adopted by 

 the several States in the following order and time ; 

 the assent of nine States was required before its 

 adoption by Congress: 



Delaware, December 7tli, 1787, without any 

 omendments. 



Pennsylvania, December 12th, 1787, without 

 amendments. 



New Jei-sey, December 18th, 1787, without 

 amendments. 



Georgia, January 2d, 1788, without amend- 

 ments. 



Connecticut, January 9th, 1788, without any 

 amendments. 



Massachusetts, February Tth, 1788,amendments 

 recommended. 



Maryland, April 28th, 1788, without amend- 

 ments.' 



South Carolina, May 23d, 1788, amendments 

 recommended. 



New Hampshire, June 21st, 1788, amendments 

 recommended. 



Virginia, June 27th, 1778, amendments recom- 

 mended. 



New York, July 26th, 1788, amendments re- 

 commended. 



North Carolina, November 2Ist, J 789, amend 

 meuts recommended. 



Rhode Island, May 29th, 1790, amendments re- 

 commended. 



Vermont, January JOth, 1791, without amend 

 ments. 



SliOidd it be objected to the frequency of our 

 statistical details, that they consume too much 

 time and attention, we would answer, with the 

 excellent Bishop Fleetwood— " That the obser- 

 vation of such little things, as some would call 

 them, may be of good use in the consideration of 

 great affairs." — Savannah Georgian. 



In acts of kindness, it is better to be the giver 

 than the receiver, but in cases of revenge 

 ice, it is better to receive than to give. To tho 

 former proposition however, there is one excep 

 tion — it would be better for others, as well as 

 ourselves, if we would be more ready to receive 

 advice than to give it. 



Fortune's smiles are more to be dreaded than 

 her frowns. The latter may he the stepping stones 

 to Heaven, the former are flowers that may en- 

 tice us from the wav. 



Charcoal. 



This substance is attracting great attention as 

 a fertilizer, and we make the following extracts 

 from a paper published in the Transactions of 

 the New York State Agricultural Society, by Mr. 

 J. H. Hepbm-n : 



"In the neighborhood in which I live, there 

 are a great many hearths of coal pits, as they are 

 called ; places where wood has been piled, and 

 burned into chsreoal, scattered about the coun- 

 try. I have invariably observed, that upon these 

 hearths, in the course of a few years, a luxurious 

 coat of grass made its appearance, when all 

 around in the vicinity scarcely a blade of grass 

 could be found, and what there was found out of 

 the coal hearth was sickly and dwarfish. This 

 was so well known that in the heat of summer, 

 when the pasture in other places was dried and 

 withered by the summer drought, it was a com- 

 mon practice to drive the cattle to the 'coalings,' 

 as they are called, sure that they would there ob- 

 tain food. During the last autumn, business 

 called me into Hartford county, in Maryland. 

 While there, I was surprised at the exceedingly 

 luxuriant growth of a crop of grain but lately 

 seeded into a field, on Deer creek, and also at the 

 very peculiar appearance of the soil. The soil 

 upon which the grain was growing had a remark- 

 ably dark appearance, and appeared to be so 

 mellow and friable as nearly to bury the foot at 

 every step, and although it lay very level did not 

 appear to the touch to be so; not as the Soil in 

 the other fields around it on the same level. My 

 attention was excited by what I saw, and I in- 

 quired if the field had not been covered with 

 charcoal, and was told that it had been. I in- 

 quired when it was done, and was told it had 

 been spread upon it more than twenty years ago. 

 I then asked what was the general quality of the 

 crops raised upon it, and I was told that they 

 were invariably fine, both as to quantity and qual- 

 ity. The person who lived upon the property 

 informed me that he had repeatedly hauled the 

 soil from that field and spread it upon the sur- 

 rounding fields, and he could, for years, or in fact 

 from tho time he spread it there to the present 

 day, always see, by the growth upon these places, 

 exactly where he had put it! 



I had for some time past had my attention di- 

 rected to the subjs'ct, but here 1 found it fully de- 

 veloped to my full satisfaction. 



"When I returned home, I made it the subject 

 of conversation frequently with the farmers in 

 our neighborhood, and from one of them I learn- 

 ed that when he lived in Chester county, Penn- 

 sylvania, with his father, a part of their farm be- 

 came worn out and unproductive. It was aban- 

 doned for several years, and in the mean time 

 many coal pits had been formed upon several 

 of the old fields, by drawing the wood there to 

 burn into coal, that had been cut in the adjoinuig 

 timber lands. After some time they again put 

 those fields under tillage, and he states that 

 wherever a coal hearth had been left, there the 

 crop of grain and the growth of grass was equal, 

 if not superior, to that which grew upon any of 

 their most productive fields. Another case of 

 the application of charcoal I have found in this 

 neisrhborhood was nwde by a gentleman m the 

 iroii business to his meadow, near the coal house. 

 He had a large quantity of the coal that had be- 

 come too fine to be used in the furnace; he did 

 not know exactly what to do with it, it was m 

 the way, and he concluded, as the easiest way to 

 dispose of it, to haul it out and spread it upon the 

 grass land. He spread it late in the fall, and for 

 many years he informed me he observed the most 

 astonishing eftect produced upon his yield of 

 grass. The quantity was nearly double, and the 

 effect continued as long as he owned the proper- 

 ty, which was at least ten years ; so he informs 

 me. 



"From what 1 can see of its effect, where a 

 large quantity is left upon the ground, as for in- 

 stance, in the centre of the hearth, it takes a 

 considerable time for it to acquire asuflScient de- 

 gree of moisture to penetr.^te to the bottom, and 

 until it has acquired that degree of moisture 

 nothing will grow there. Around the outer 

 edges of circle where it is thrown upon the 

 ground it is soon saturated with moisture, and 

 vegetation is soon facilitated, antl goes on rapidly. 

 I shoidd judge, from this, that when about to be 

 applied to land, the coal should be ground fine, 

 and then thoroughly wetted and sown or spread 



with a lime spreader over the surface of the Boil. 

 From the circumstance of its being easily pow- 

 dered or mashed up, 1 should suppose that the 

 process would be very easily effected by making 

 a floor of plank, say circular, and procuring a 

 good sized stone, to be aflixed by a shaft to an 

 upright post, throw the coal into the circular 

 planked way, and attach a horse to the shaft pas- 

 sing through the stone, and drive him round, car- 

 rying the stone, in its passage, over the coals. A 

 very simple and easy process, precisely similar to 

 the old lashioned way of grinding or breaking 

 up bark, practised by the tamiers, previous to 

 the invention of the cast iron mill now in use. 

 The cost of covering an acre would be trifling, 

 and if it produced no other effect than that of 

 forming a permanent vegetable basis in the soil, 

 for liiTve to act upon, it appears to me it would 

 well repay a greater amount of labor and ex- 

 pense tlian would be necessary to try it. 



" I have just been made acquainted with an- 

 other result of the application of charcoal to ar- 

 able land, that if general, from its application, 

 will induce its use by every one who can procure 

 it at a reasonable price : that is, w herever char- 

 coal has been applied rust never affeds the growing 

 crop of wheat '. ! My friend who has communi- 

 cated this fact to me, states, that he has observed 

 it particularly, and when the field generally has 

 been ' struck with rust,' as it is called, those places 

 where he liad applied the charcoal invariably es- 

 caped. J- H. Hepburn. 

 Jersey Sliore, Lycoming Ca~, Pa." 

 Charcoal is supposed to influence vegetation 

 in two ways. By its combination with oxygen it 

 may afford carbonic acid gas, furnishing the sup- 

 ply of carbon for plants. For this purpose, it is 

 probable, that the more minutely itts subdivided, 

 the better. But the property for which it has 

 been chiefly valued in agriculture, is its extraor- 

 dinary ])ower of absorption. Pure, fresh burnt, 

 charcoal possesses the power of absorbing nine- 

 ty times its volume of arnmoniacal gas, and thir- 

 ty-five times its volume of carbon acid gas. This 

 power of absorption is much diminished by re- 

 ducing it to powder; it should, therefore, when 

 used lor agricultural purposes be just broken so 

 as to allow of its equal distribution over the sur- 

 liice of the soil. Its power of absorption is pret- 

 ty much in jjroportion to the density of the wood 

 from wliich it is made. 



Nothing in nature is more immutable than 

 charcoal. Its action, as we have described it, is 

 merely that of a mechanical holder or receiver 

 of tho gases witli which it may be brought in 

 contact, and which would otherwise be dissipa- 

 ted. Upon the fulling of the first rain, they are 

 filtered out for the use of vegetables, and the 

 charcoal remains unaltered, prepared to renew 

 its kindly oflfices for ages.— Southern PlaTtler. 



Plaster of Paris. 



Mr. Allen lays down the following rules and 

 principles with respect to the use and applica- 

 tion of plaster r 



" 1. It geneiially has little or no effect on strong 

 clav lands ; unless applied in large quantities, say 

 fifteen or twenty bushels to the acre, when it has 

 been known to change the character of a stiff 

 clay in a single season, to a loose, friable, mellow 

 and rich soil. 



" 2. It is used with great effect on dry, sandy, 

 (not a ban-en sand,) or loamy soils. 



" 3. One to two bushels per acre, is consider- 

 ed a sufficient quantity to apply at once, though 

 as high as six, have been sowed with marked ad- 

 vantage. 



"4. Its effects last through two seasons, and 

 frequently much longer. 



"5. It should be sown generally in April or 

 May; (and always applied when the ground is 

 dry,) thus affording an opportunity for dissolving 

 it by the rains. Its application to crops as late 

 as June, have frequently been attended with de- 

 cided advantages, though tho large qnantily of 

 water required for dissolving it, being about 500 

 parts of water, at a temperature of 60 degrees to 

 one of gypsum, renders the advantage much 

 more conspicuous when sown earlier. 



" 6. The effects are much more striking when 

 applied with manure, and sometimes with lime. 



"7. It is a stimulant, as well as manure, and 

 has a tendency to exhaust the humus or geine 

 already in the" ground, which renders it necessa- 

 ry to add maiimee occasionally, when the crops 



