1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



93 



understand. Its effects are commonly just the op- 

 posite, for wherever di'ift accumulates, there Ave 

 ■may be nearly sure of finding good land. In New- 

 England, ■".vlierever a ^oii is evidently composed 

 of drift from an oceanic current, it is easy to state 

 its chemical composition, a?' originally dejio sited ; 

 we have only to examine the exposed rocks lying 

 in a direction north-easterly from it ; their nature 

 must of necessity determine the nature of the soil 

 in question. It should be remembered, that, in 

 the examination of soils, this is to be considered 

 but as a general truth, and that there are so many 

 anodif^dng causes that this knowledge alone will 

 not enable -one to determine with any degree of 

 accuracy the present ichemical nature of the soiL 



One of the most important considerations for the 

 New England agriculturists, and one in which al- 

 most every farmer is directly interested, is that of 

 river and lake deposits; these consist of not only 

 large amounts of finely granulated mineral, but 

 also vast quantities of vegetable matter. The ex- 

 treme richness of such deposits must be acknowl- 

 edged by ever}' one who considers the following 

 facts : first, the minerals of which they are com- 

 posed are finely and intimately mixed ; second, 

 the finely divided minerals are not only carbon- 

 ized, but are brought in connection with particles 

 •of carbon and decaying vegetable matter or hu- 

 mus ; and lastly, the entire mass is more or less 

 impregnated with ammonia. Although it is im- 

 possible to conceive of a richer soil than this, yet 

 it is probable tkat there is no class so universally 

 neglected and despised. In scientific classification, 

 soils formed of these deposits are called fluviatilc 

 and lacustrine ; the farmer turns them off with the 

 not very flattering title of swamp or mud hole. 



As an example of the magnitude of these de- 

 posits, the following may be interesting. The area 

 of the delta of the Mississippi is 13,600 square 

 miles ; the average depth of deposit is 528 feet, 

 and it has been estimated that the river annually 

 deposits thirty-seven hundred millions of cubic 

 feet ! This at first tbouglit seems large ; but even 

 •at this rate, the venerable father of rivers must 

 have diligently labored for sixty-seven thousand 

 years. 



In a future number the chemical formation and 

 composition of soils will be considered. 



Boston, Jan. 4, 1860. 



Club Footing. — A writer for the Michigan 

 Farmer, thinks that the club-footing of cabbages 

 results from a deficiency of moisture in the soil to 

 supply the natural exhalation of its foliage, which 

 he says Dr. Hales found to be so great as to equal 

 daily nearly one-half its weight. He remarks 

 that bulbous or tuberous-rooted jjlants will exist 

 in a soil so deficient in moisture as to destroy 

 all fibrous rooted vegetables. When, therefore, 

 the moisture at the root of a cabbage plant does 

 not equal the exhalation of its foliage, it endeav- 

 ors to supply the deficiency by forming a kind of 

 spurious bulbous root. 



A Battalion of Children. — In the town of 

 Scandiano, situate near the Eegiiim Lepidi of 

 Cicero, a battalion of four huudi-ed boys has been 



organized under the direction of General Garibal- 

 di, who having noticed, in the course of his war- 

 like experience, that boys of thirteen and fifteen 

 years of age had proved useful in daring military 

 operations, made up his mind in the late campaign 

 to enrol a battalion of such youthful troops. An 

 intelligent young officer undertook the task of 

 forming the legion, which at first did not number 

 more than one hundred and fifty. Austrian per- 

 secution and patriotism soon increased their ranks, 

 so that the battalion has now completed its nu- 

 merical strengtli. An eye witness of their manoeu- 

 vering was recently astonished to see their stead- 

 iness and precision. Their commanding officer, 

 Count John Arrivabene, is a young nobleman of 

 three-and-twenty. 



THE USE OP TOBACCO. 

 The Dean of Carlisle, in a recent lecture on to- 

 bacco, at Carlisle, England, gave the following 

 statistics : 



In 1856, thirty-three millions of pounds of to- 

 bacco were consumed here at an expense of eight 

 millions of money ; five million two hundred and 

 twenty thousand pounds of which went in duty to 

 government, to say nothing of vast quantities 

 smuggled into the country. There is a steady in- 

 crease upon tliis consumption far exceeding the 

 contemporaneous increase of population. In 1821, 

 the average was 11.70 ounces per head per an- 

 num ; in 1851, it had risen to 16.39 ; and in 1853 

 to 19 ounces, or at least at the rate of one-fourtli 

 increase in ten years. We hear of 20,000 hogs- 

 heads of tobacco in the bonding-houses in London 

 at one time. There are twelve city brokers in 

 London expressly devoted to tobacco sales ; nine- 

 ty mauufiicturers ; 1509 tobacco shops in London ; 

 82 clay pipe makers ; 7380 workmen engaged in 

 the different branches of the business ; and no 

 less than 250,048 tobacco shops in the Uniti-<i 

 Kingdom. And if we turn to the (Continent, the 

 consumption and expenditure assume proportions 

 perfectly gigantic. 



In France, much more is consumed in propor- 

 tion to the population than in England. The Em- 

 peror clears 100,000,000 francs annually by the 

 government monopoly. At St. Omer, 11,000 tons 

 of clay are used in making 45,000,000 tobacco 

 pipes. In the city of Hamburg, 40,000 cigars are 

 consumed daily, although the population is not 

 much over 150,000 ; 10,000 persons, many of them 

 women and children, are engaged in their manu- 

 facture. One hundred and fifty million cigars are 

 supplied annually ; a ju'inting press is entirely oc- 

 cupied in printing labels for the boxes of cigars, 

 &c., and the business represents 4,000,000 francs. 

 In Denmark, the annual consumption reaches the 

 enormous average of seventy ounces per head of 

 the whole population ; and in Belgium even more 

 — to seventy- three ounces, or four pounds and 

 three-fifths of a pound 2)er head. In America the 

 average is vastly higher. 



It is calculated that the entire world of smokers, 

 snuffers and chewers consume 2,000,000 tons of 

 tobacco annually, or 4,480,000,000 pounds weight 

 — as much in tonnage as the corn consumed by 

 ten millions of Englishmen, and actually at a cost 

 sufficient to pay for all the bread-corn eaten in 

 Great Britain. Five millions and a half of acres 



