No. 149.] 373 



world. We must not expect that our shallow ploughing and 

 neglected culture will answer for madder. Take the margins of 

 our mighty Mississippi, rich in alluvium, dry enough for culti- 

 vation at the proper season ; in this particular our country is 

 peculiarly blessed. He who will grow madder away from these 

 rich regions of soil, must make his land rich, and quit our bad 

 habit of shallow ploughing and plow deep : the one produces 

 with great profit, the other at a cost. We grow rice largely, 

 although its culture is very disagreeable, immersed for a time as 

 the growing crop necessarily is in water. 



Dr. Antisell's specimen, of phosphorite for manure, will, I hope, 

 prove highly advantageous to our country and make it unneces- 

 sary to pound human bones together with those of horses, found 

 on the battle fields, like that of Waterloo, and exported to Eng- 

 land for manure. What, if the enormous sums of England only, 

 wasted to make this ominous manure, had been employed in 

 works of peace ? Why, the whole of England, which is only of 

 the medium size of our separate states, might be covered with a 

 plate of gold. How rich and how beautiful and how perfect 

 might England have been made by the wasted wealth of her wars 

 of ambition 1 Take our own case, equally strong. It is said by 

 the public press, that our recent war with Mexico has cost us 217 

 millions of dollars, the one half of which would make a railroad 

 to California, connect us with the Pacific, by overleaping distance 

 and by a speed keeping up with time, and ending the journey al- 

 most with the setting sun. 



And while we talk of improvements, let us see that libraries 

 fit for all citizens be multiplied in our land, rather than only 

 here and there some piles of Latin books. 



My family has tried the Brazilian black tea, and pronounced 

 it to be as good as the ordinary black tea of China. The leaves 

 do not appear to me to have been so closely rolled up as the 

 Chinese — a pound of which occupied a much less space than this 

 Brazilian. 



Subject for next meeting. — Milk, and the various articles of food 

 obtained from it, such as butter, cheese, cream, &c. 



The club adjourned. 



