52 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



would hand it over to the daily papers of the 

 city, that it might be published before the pe- 

 riod for our next issue. We accordingly com- 

 plied with this request, and, much to our regret, 

 the paper was misplaced, and we never regained 

 it until just as our February number was going 

 to press. 



Our limits will not admit a circumstantial 

 detail of the proceedings of agricultural meet- 

 ings, but we are always happy to receive their 

 reports in full, because from them we are fre- 

 quently able to extract matters of great interest 

 to our readers. This meeting seems to have 

 been one of peculiar interest, and it is not even 

 yet too late to note some of its most prominent 

 proceedings. For instance, we observe that the 

 premium for the best cultivated farm was award- 

 ed to Mr. Tarlton Fleming. 



We have seen Mr. Fleming's farm more than 

 once, and we think all that have had an oppor- 

 tunity of judging, will bear us out in saying, 

 that the committee would probably have made 

 the same award, if the whole Union, instead of 

 the county of Goochland, had entered the lists. 

 At any rate, we have never seen a farmer, at 

 the North or the South, who excelled Mr. Fle- 

 ming in the cleanness, neatness, and closeness 

 of his cultivation. The second premium was 

 awarded to Mr. John M. Vaughan, and the 

 third, to Mr. Henry Shelburn, "a poor man, 

 who in early life had the misfortune to lose both 

 his feet, and, with no other aid than a small boy, 

 performed all the labor on his farm, which exhi- 

 bited remarkable neatness and good manage- 

 ment." 



To Dr. William L. Wight was awarded the 

 premium £: for the best piece of cloth for men's 

 winter wear." With this premium we were 

 particularly pleased, because we go very far for 

 the protection of domestic industry, and we be- 

 lieve the very best mode of encouraging home 

 products, is the substitution of them, by indivi- 

 duals, for articles of foreign growth. We have 

 said we carried the doctrine of " protection" very 

 far ; with farmers, especially, we would carry it 

 to their own farms and their own firesides. If 

 there is an exception on earth to the general 

 rule of the value of a divison of labor, whereby 

 one man devotes all his labor to one production, 

 it is afforded by the peculiar nature and circum- 

 stances of the farmer's occupation. The changes 

 of the seasons, the complicated nature of his 

 pursuit, the isolated character of his situation; 



the necessary redundancy of labor, at the 

 South, compel him to combine many divisions 

 of labor, and no matter how tempting the cheap- 

 ness of " manufactured" products may appear, 

 we believe as a general rule, with very few ex- 

 ceptions, it is true, that he that makes most 

 " within himself" and purchases least, is best off. 



We were very happy to see that the ladies 

 came in, not only for a large share of the pre- 

 miums, but also of the compliments of the So- 

 ciety. To the latter, from what, we ourselves 

 once saw at a fair in Goochland, we know they 

 were pre-eminently entitled. 



We will now proceed to review 



DR. WIGHT'S ADDRESS. 



This is a very ingenious, scientific, and well 

 written document. The Doctor after explaining 

 the received theory of the parts performed by 

 the soil, the atmosphere, and solar light, in the 

 production of plants, lays great stress upon the 

 value of the green ray, which is reflected. That 

 plants are generally flourishing, when they look 

 green, is what we all know, but to say that 

 their vigor is owing to the reflection of the 

 green ray, is no more reasonable, it seems to us, 

 than to say that the reflection of the green ray 

 is owing to the healthiness of the plant, which 

 would be nothing more than to say, what has 

 been familiar to every body for ages, that when 

 a plant is healthy, it looks green. Again, why 

 not say, that the vigor of the plant is owing to 

 the absorption of the other six rays, rather than 

 to the reflection of the green ray, which it rejects. 



Lime, the Doctor urges, is beneficial to plants 

 by enabling them to reflect the green ray to 

 greater perfection ; this he tested by growing 

 plants in cotton, watered with rain water, hold- 

 ing more or less of carbonate of lime in solu- 

 tion. Those plants receiving the dissolved car- 

 bonate of lime, gave off, through their leaves, 

 more oxygen, and reflected more strongly the 

 green ray. That carbon is necessary to the 

 growth of plants, analysis has proved long ago, 

 that carbonic acid gas is absorbed by plants un- 

 der certain circumstances, and that the carbon 

 is appropriated and the oxygen given off, is 

 well known, and that carbonate of lime, which 

 is composed of carbon, oxygen, and lime, in- 

 creases the vigor of plants, has been satisfacto- 

 rily ascertained, and that the increased vigor 

 will be attested by increased greenness, is pro- 

 verbial, and was, we should say, confirmed by 



