THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 269 



deteriorate the soil. There are scores of 

 writers on agriculture who teach this false 

 theory, and call it science. How much an acre 

 of land can spare ol grain, cotton, or other 

 crops, every year, without detriment, depends 

 mostly on its chemical and geological charac- 

 ter, but partly on its mechanical texture. Not 

 before farmers are willing to foster the study 

 of agriculture as a learned and useful profes- 

 sion, will they ever understand the true capa- 

 city of the soil to feed and cloihe the human 

 family. It is not far from ihe precise truth to 

 say that they waste as much hard work, need- 

 lessly and heedlessly, every year, as all the 

 mechanics, merchants, doctors, lawyers, and 

 others, perform. There are in the State of 

 New York alone, five hundred thousand tillers 

 of the soil, who in the main work very hard 

 to make large crops out of small materials; 

 acting on tne principle that a little yeast 

 should give an ovenful of bread, without flour 

 or meal! The nightsoil annually wasted in 

 the State of New York, would make thirty 

 million bushels of wheat, if saved, properly 

 deodorized, and drilled in with the seed. This 

 fertilizer is the bone and muscle of the land, 

 drawn from its surface and thrown away, to 

 compel the next generation to give more ho- 

 nest sweat for their iood and raiment, or emi- 

 grate to the virgin soils somewhere this side 

 of snu-down. 



THE NEW CENSUS LAW. 



The new census bill is published. It au- 

 thorizes the Secretary of the Interior, as soon 

 as the census is complete, to ascertain the 

 aggregate representative population of the 

 several States, and divide the aggregate by the 

 numbertwo hundred and thirty-three; and the 

 product of such division, rejecting any fraction 

 of a unit, is declared to be the ratio or rule of 

 apportionment of representatives in Congress. 

 The feature in the last apportionment act 

 which, provided where a fraction in any State 

 exceeds one-half of the ratio, an additional 

 member should be allowed is stricken out from 

 the new law. 



The compensation allowed the U. S. Mar- 

 shals for their service in executing the act, is, 

 in states where the population exceeds one 

 million, one dollar for each thousand persons, 

 and where the population is less than a million 

 a dollar and a quarter per thousand is allowed. 

 The deputies are allowed two cents for each 

 person enumerated, and ten cents a mile for 

 necessary travel, "to be ascertained by multi- 

 plying the square root of the number of dwel- 

 ling houses in the division by the square root 

 of the number of square miles in each divi- 

 sion." They are also allowed, in addition, 

 "for each farm fully returned ten cents; for 

 each etsablishment of productive industry ta- 

 ken and returned fifty cents; for the social 

 statistics two per cent, on the amount allowed 



for the enumeration of population; and for the 

 name of a diseased person returned two cents. 1 ' 

 The returns are to be made to the Secretary 

 of the Interior on or before the first of Novem- 

 ber next. 



VIRTUES OF MILK. 



It is a most perfect diet. Nothing like it- 

 it contains curd casein, which is necessary for 

 the development and formation of muscle — 

 butter for ihe production of an adequate sup- 

 ply of fat — sugar to feed the respiration, and 

 thereby add warmth to the body — the phos- 

 phates of lime and magnesia, the peroxyde of 

 iron, the chlorides of potassium and soda, with 

 the free sodi, required to give solidity and 

 strength to the bone— together with the saline 

 particles so essentially necessary for other 

 parts of the body. It contains lactic acid, or 

 the acid of milk, which chemists inform us is 

 the acid of the gastric juice, so requisite for 

 the proper dissolving our food in the stomach. 

 It is therefore obvious that milk should be che- 

 mically correct in all its constituents, and that 

 its beneficial effects on the constitution should 

 not be neutralized by adulteration; it is, Dr. 

 Prout properly states, " the true type of all 

 food." How necessary, therefore, is it that it 

 should be pure; otherwise this wonderful and 

 wise provision of Providence will be a curse 

 rather than a blessing.— Sugg's Observations on, 

 Milk. 



From the American Farmer. 

 DRILLING IN WHEAT. 



Mr. Editor, — As the time will soon arrive 

 for farmers to decide on the mode of seeding 

 their fall grain, and, if to be drilled, to supply 

 themselves with a good drill, I hasten to give 

 the notice I promised you on the experiment 

 I made last fall, with " Pierson's drill," which 

 I obtained of Ezia Whitman, Jr. and as your 

 columns may be crowded, I will be very orief 

 at present, and give you a more extended no- 

 tice after I have finished threshing my grain. 



I seeded fifty-five acres in wheat, in St. 

 Mary's county, Maryland, with the drill, un- 

 der the direction of a good practical farmer, 

 from the 15th of September to the last of Oc- 

 tober, (the early seeding was best,) the most 

 of which was seeded on wheat stubble, fal- 

 lowed and ploughed with a one-horse plough 

 the same way; some drilled across the plough- 

 ing and some lengthwise. It was not found 

 necessary to harrow before drilling. 



Three acres were not fallowed until late in 

 September, when a growth of weeds was 

 turned in which was three feet high, and 

 drilled after a shallow ploughing. The rest 

 was drilled corn land; the corn was cut off, 

 and the land ploughed with a one-horse plough, 



