208 



THE S OUT HE 



and at an expense not exceeding ten dollars of 

 my own labor, I have succeeded in stocking my 

 pond with roaches, cats, sun perch, pike, and 

 southern chub, to an extent sufficient to satisfy 

 the expectations of the most sanguine tempera- 

 ment. The roaches have been very numerous 

 indeed, and are now quite so ; but they have 

 been lessened of late in consequence of the pike 

 and chub increasing very rapidly, who I have 

 no doubt devour them by hundreds every day. 

 The chub, however, I think is to become the 

 master fish, as they are rapidly growing to a 

 size which will well compare with the saltwater 

 fish. They may be now caught in the pond 

 from which I took mine, weighing five or six 

 pounds, and I have no doubt I have some in my 

 pond weighing three pounds ; though I have 

 caught none yetweighing over one and a quarter. 

 As yet, however, I make no business of catch- 

 ing these fish, except to let them loose again, 

 for fear of destroying the stock. In this amuse- 

 ment I think I have discovered what may not 

 have been brought to the notice of every fish- 

 erman. It is the custom of most persons to 

 throw crumbs of bread into the water when 

 they are fishing, in order to draw the minnows, 

 that they may attract the large fish. Instead 

 of throwing in bread that will sink, they should 

 throw in such as will swim. The crumb and 

 crust of lightened wheat bread and the crust of 

 corn bread will swim and show themselves to 

 fish at a much greater distance than the bread 

 that will immediately sink ; consequently it will 

 bring a great many more large fish to contend 

 for your bait. In this way I think I have fre- 

 quently brought half the fish in my small pond 

 to one point. My pond, however, is quite small, 

 not covering more than one-fourth of an acre. 

 It is upon a marshy bog, not more than fifty 

 yards from my dwelling house, and has tended, 

 1 think, to increase, rather than diminish, the 

 health of my family, substituting pure spring 

 water for the marsh mud. 



In making a pond, all the heavy floods of 

 rain water that are likely to come down from 

 the valleys above the spring that is to feed it, 

 should be turned off by side ditches ; then the 

 dam may be made with nothing but simple 

 earth, without the least danger of breaking from 

 the heaviest rains. 



My fish pond is only one of my hobbies ; I 

 have another to trouble you with, if you please. 

 I have long desired to bring into use in this part 

 of the country, — the double horse left hand 

 mouldboard plough, as used by our trans mon- 

 tane brethren ; but I have tried in vain to do it, 

 by constructing several ploughs of this descrip- 

 tion and offering them for sale at very low 

 prices. The advantage of this plough over 

 one with a right hand mouldboard, is principally 

 this ; it permits the lead or left hand horse to 

 walk in the last furrow run, and thereby exactly 



measures each furrow slice, and enables the 

 ploughman more easily to guide his team and 

 more thoroughly to break up his ground, which 

 are certainly great advantages. At a muster, 

 on Saturday last, at our Courthouse, I set one 

 of these ploughs to work in the presence of a 

 large crowd, when every man present, save one, 

 acknowledged its great superiority over the 

 right hand plough in the particulars above men- 

 tioned. Charles S. Jones. 

 Near Louisa C. H., Aug. 14, 1843. 



EMIGRATION TO VIRGINIA. 



It is stated in the papers, that the Hon. A. L. 

 Foster, M. C, from Madison, in this State, has 

 purchased 1,000 acres of land in Virginia, at 

 $3 50 per acre, and that Mr. Townsend, of 

 Buffalo, now Sergeant-at-arms at Washington, 

 has also purchased a farm in Virginia, and that 

 both intend to settle there. — Cultivator. 



Virginia "stock" is undoubtedly rising, and 

 the Migration is rapidly overbalancing the em- 

 igration, of which we used to complain. Such 

 is the effect of " the sober second thought of 

 the people." 



THE "ECONOMY OF FARMING." 

 We are indebted to the author for a copy of 

 an agricultural work under this title. The text 

 is a translation, by the Rev. E. G. Smith, of 

 New York, from the German of Professor Bur- 

 ger, very copiously illustrated with notes from 

 the most celebrated of the German and English 

 writers upon the subject of agriculture. Al- 

 though the terms cultivation and husbandry are 

 frequently used as synonymous, they have, 

 strictly speaking, very different meanings. The 

 first has relation to the art of producing ; the 

 second, as its name implies, to the subject of 

 taking care, as well of the product, as of the 

 means by which the product is obtained. In 

 this sense, it corresponds with our word manage- 

 ment. By the " economy of farming," then, is 

 meant the art of husbandry or management. — 

 Much as we may be behind our European bre- 

 thren in our systems of cultivation, it is in the 

 other branch, and not the least important of the 

 two, that we are most completely distanced. — 

 The science of cultivation is, to a certain ex- 

 tent, involved, as yet, in the clouds of theory 

 and hypothesis, but the subject of husbandry is 

 a tangible practical question, upon which the 

 experience of every sensible man must be of 

 utility; we, therefore, consider the community 



