86 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



or no. " R." speaks in very flattering terms of 

 the consideration due to this claim from the 

 weight of our testimony, &c, and he is not sin- 

 gular in thus confounding the mere expression 

 of an opinion with an authoritative recommen- 

 dation. We have borne no testimony at all to 

 the value of this process ; we have endeavored 

 fairly and impartially to lay before our readers 

 both sides of a controversy in which they were 

 deeply interested, and with a love of fair play, 

 for which no Virginian will reproach us, we 

 have endeavored to shield an individual from 

 what we considered a covert and unjust impu- 

 tation upon his veracity. For every opinion we 

 expressed we gave our reasons, leaving our 

 readers to judge of the justness of our conclu- 

 sions. In these conclusions a large majority of 

 our friends, we have reason to believe, did not 

 concur. With the facts and our reasoning before 



him, the reader either comes to our conclusion 

 or he does not: in either case, he exercises his 

 own judgment, and has no right to hold us in 

 the slightest degree responsible for the result. — j 

 With respect to this Bommer process, since the 

 publication of our February number, public opi- 1 

 nion is decidedly against it : it is for the present 

 as dead as a door nail. 



" R." speaks of the farmers as a class pecu- 

 liarly liable to be humbugged, and this liability 

 to be imposed on by knavish and designing in- 

 ventors, is a general cause of complaint amongst 

 them. Can " R." tell from whence it arises? 

 If he cannot, we think we can : it proceeds from ! 

 the fact, that farmers are, in the first place, more j 

 ignorant of their business than anjr other class of j 

 workmen in the world, and secondly, that they j 

 possess less energy, and are entirely wanting! 

 in that esprit de corps, which induces the mem- j 

 bers of other professions to guard their fellows 

 from impositions to which they themselves have 

 been subjected. Is a carpenter humbugged with 

 a saw or plane? But what is easier than to J 

 impose a worthless plough, or a good-for-nothing 

 straw cutter, or a useless threshing machine, 

 upon a farmer? Again, suppose a farmer has 

 tested the value of a new invention, where can 

 you find one with the energy and independence | 

 to step forward and expose its worthlessness ? 

 This very Bommer process is a case in point: 

 in the last twelve months we have sold thirty 

 or forty of these rights; in every case, we have 

 respectfully requested, in many earnestly en- 

 treated, the purchasers to send us the result of 



their experiments; notwithstanding the repeated 

 promises we have obtained to that effect, Gen. 

 Cocke and Mr. Wood fin are the only persons 

 who have ever written a line in the Planter upon 

 the subject. There must be twenty persons at 

 least in Virginia qualified by experience to set 

 this question at rest ; and yet no entreaties can 

 drag out of them that, which a due regard for 

 the interest of their professional brethren so im- 

 peratively demands. It is these circumstances 

 that render the agricultural community favorite 

 game for humbugging inventors, and instead of 

 seeking to remove the cause, they content them- 

 selves with whining over the result. 



Notwithstanding its present unpopularity, we 

 are unshaken in the faith, at least in the hope, 

 that this improvement in collecting and con- 

 structing manure heaps, is destined, mediately 

 or immediately, to exercise a happy influence 

 on American agriculture. 



With respect to Mr. Bommer himself, as we 

 volunteered to screen hirn from what we consi- 

 dered an unfair aspersion upon his veracity, we 

 feel bound to advert to a circumstance, to which 

 our attention was called by a friend and which 

 had entirely escaped our observation. What- 

 ever right Mr. Bommer may have to advertise 

 noia that he has a patent for this process, (hold- 

 ing as he does an assignment from Messrs. Baer 

 & Gouliart) he unquestionably, in May last, was 

 imposing on the public by publishing through 

 us and others an account of his patent process, 

 at the very lime, according to Mr. Ellsworth's 

 statement, that his claim w T as rejected. Mr. 

 Bommer must clear his skirts from this imputa- 

 tion, before we can proceed any further in de- 

 fending his claims to the title of a gentleman. 



With respect to the French method, we know 

 nothing about it but what we gather from the 

 specification of Messrs. Baer & Gouliart's claim, 

 which we give at length. For aught we know, 

 the French method may be fully equal to the 

 patent one; we only inferred the superiority of 

 the latter from the increased impetus that it un* 

 doubtedly gave to the popularity of the old 

 method. 



Copy of Baer & Gouliart's Patent. — To 

 all whom it may concern : Be it known, that 

 we, Charles Baer and John Gouliart, of the city 

 of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, have 

 invented certain new and useful improvements 

 in the manner of making manure, which has 

 been for many years practised in France, and 

 has been there secured by letters patent under 



