136 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



rich roan, intermingled with a few patches of 

 red and white. He is an animal of great pre- 

 sence and finished action, and npon the whole, 

 the choicest bull we ever looked at. He has 

 been repeatedly exhibited with his dam, Duchess 

 34th, at the great Agricultural Shows in Eng- 

 land, and was never beaten. — Am. Agriculturist. 



For a splendid portrait of the "Duke of 

 Northumberland," now considered the finest bull 

 in England, we are indebted to the kindness of 

 the Hon. Andrew Stevenson, Esq. The picture, 

 which was presented to Mr. S. by Mr. Bates, 

 the owner of the " Duke,' 1 graces our office 

 walls, where our visiters, for whose benefit it 

 was intended, can have an opportunity of seeing 

 for themselves to what matchless perfection this 

 noble animal can be brought — on paper, at least. 

 We are assured, however, by Mr. Stevenson, ! 

 that superb as the picture is, it is by no means a 

 flattered representation of the original. 



Our ex-minister, who has been an importer of 

 some of the finest stock in America, talks of 

 agriculture with a gusto, that leads us to think, 

 that his capabilities as a farmer, are only second 

 to those he has exhibited to the world as a di- 

 plomatist. 



TO HOUSEWIVES. 



Recent experiments in more than one family 

 in this city, says the Delaware Gazette, have 

 established that the plant known to botanists as 

 the Pologonum punctatum, commonly called wa- 

 ter pepper, or smart weed, and which may be 

 found in great abundance along ditches, roads, 

 lanes and barn-yards, is an effectual and certain 

 destroyer of bed-bugs. It is said to exercise 

 the same poisonous effect on the flea. A strong 

 decoction is made of the herb, and the places 

 infested with the insect are carefully washed 

 therewith. The plant may also, with much ad- 

 vantage, be strewn about the room. Elderberry 

 leaves, laid upon the shelves of a cupboard, will 

 also drive away roaches and ants in a very short 

 time. 



PLOUGHING. 

 We make the following extract from a letter 

 to the Editor of the "Agriculturist," on the sub- 

 ject of ploughing : 



" Plough from the middle of the land out. — 

 The usual mode is to plough from the out edge 

 of the land to the middle. In ploughing from 

 the middle, out, the team must at each end be 

 turned to the right. In following this course 

 two things are gained: 1. The team has firm 

 ground on which to turn, and is not fatigued by 



having ploughed land to turn on. 2. The 

 ploughed land is not trampled by the team be- 

 ing turned on it. In ploughing from the out 

 edge of the land to the middle, the team is un- 

 necessarily fatigued by turning on ploughed 

 land, and the ploughed land is so much trampled 

 as to require a second ploughing. Try this; if 

 you have not heretofore practised it, it will be 

 awkward at first, perhaps, but when you adopt 

 it once, you will not be apt to abandon it. These 

 remarks have reference to stubble land, not to 

 sod, — though to some extent they are applicable 

 to sod land. George W. Williams." 



IT HAS COME AT LAST. 



We have it now. The latest and most inter- 

 esting information we have to impart to our 

 readers, is, that Mr. T. H. Bickes, of Frankfort, 

 G rmany, has discovered a method of growing 

 the most luxuriant plants in the poorest soil 

 without manure, and without cultivation ; we 

 are not sure whether he finds it necessary even 

 to use seed or not ; at any rate, they will un- 

 doubtedly be dispensed with as soon as the pro- 

 cess arrives at a higher degree of perfection — 

 This wonderful process, strange to tell, has been 

 in use in Germany for the last twelve years, al- 

 though, of course, it remains a profound secret ; 

 extremely profound, we haven't a doubt. 



At one of the late agricultural meetings in 

 London Dr. Jackson guessed that seeds might 

 be coated with some gummy substance, and 

 then rolled in guano, whereby all the wonders 

 of this extraordinary "secret" might be pro- 

 duced. 



HOW TO PRESERVE HEALTH. 



It is stated in a foreign paper that M. Four- 

 cault, a French physician, has recently made 

 some important discoveries and experiments, 

 which go to show that an important means of 

 preserving or of restoring health is a due atten- 

 tion to the access of air to every part of the body. 

 He succeeded in producing, at pleasure, in ani- 

 mals, before healthy, suppressions of perspira- 

 tion, congestions of the blood, the derangement 

 of the internal organs, affections of the heart, 

 and the foundation of aggregation of matter in 

 the lungs analogous to the tubercles in pulmo- 

 nary consumption, and even death itself as the 

 consequence. 



The means by which he arrived at these re- 

 sults was the simple prevention of the access of 

 air to the skin, which, by checking the functions 

 of perspiration, caused the matters usually car- 

 ried off through their agency to be thrown back 

 upon the internal organ. — Boston Journal. 



