50 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



circumstances of ease, comfort, and exemption 

 from domestic care. We have combated this 

 notion with them, have represented to them 

 their superiority in the very particulars which 

 formed the topics of their disparagement, and 

 have exhorted them to patience and thankful- 

 ness. Of late we have been aided in these 

 views by the two novels of a very charming 

 writer, and have shown them how, both in 

 GLueechy and The Wide, Wide World, the 

 authoress, having by her pictures of New 

 England Rural Manners, shown its unfitness 

 for the abode of the highest female refinement 

 has, in each case, translated her heroines to 

 England in order that they might continue to 

 maintain the highest graces of country life. 

 Still our friends have been incredulous. These 

 were but novels, they said, and the lady that 

 wrote them, charming as she was, and no 

 doubt sincere, filled too with the most beautiful 

 sense of propriety, and refined to the utmost 

 tension of female delicacy, was yet rather 

 high strung, and may have pushed her fasti- 

 dious imagination into matters of fact. But 

 what can be said, when, (as in the following 

 extracts from the address of Mr. French, as- 

 sociate editor of the New England Farmer, 

 from which paper we have taken it, an address 

 accredited to us by the regular editor as one 

 of the three best that he had ever seen,) "the 

 peculiar station which woman occupies in 

 New England society" is made the subject of 

 stringent comment in a public speech. We 

 shall not attempt to add one touch to this pic- 

 ture by a native limner, familiar with the scene 

 he paints, and endorsed for accuracy by one 

 of the leading agricultural journals of his sec- 

 tion. We offer this picture to the contempla- 

 tion of our lady readers. It is not of our 

 drawing. Let them ponder it— let them con- 

 sider that " a majority of the wives of respectable 

 New England farmers, aye, and of men of all 

 other classes" in the country, are expected by 

 their husbands "to be at the same time cook and 

 chambermaid, lady and serving girl, nurse and 

 sempstress and governess, laundress and dairy- 

 maid;" and then let them ask themselves, first, 

 if they would change places with the New 

 England matron'? and second, if their hus- 

 bands would impose as much labor on four 

 slaves as the men of New England require of 

 one wife 1 



COMPARATIVE MERITS OF FRENCH 

 AND ENGLISH HORSES. 



BY THE HON. WM. C. RIVES. 



The following letter from Mr. Rives proves 

 that he has not been idle whilst in Europe, nor 

 unobservant of agricultural matters. As in 

 his letter on the French Merino sheep, which 

 we published a short time since, he goes fully 

 into the subject he treats of, and shows that 

 he does not take up the pen to conciliate the 

 agriculturist, but to please himself and to con- 

 tribute, as far as he may, to the advancement 

 of a pursuit in which he has always taken 

 the liveliest personal interest. 



We had written to Mr. Rives on the pro- 

 priety of importing the Norman horse to Vir- 

 ginia rather than the Cleveland Bay, of which 

 latter breed he has, as he states, and as we 

 know from actual inspection, introduced a 

 very fine specimen. The answer to that letter 

 we publish for the benefit of the readers of 

 the Planter. 



We had not, as Mr. Rives supposes, derived 

 our ideas of the Norman horse altogether 

 from Youatt; but partly from the observation 

 of two gentlemen from Albemarle who had 

 travelled behind them in France, and some- 

 what from accounts we had elsewhere seen of 

 their speed, strength, hardiness and docility. 

 Mr. Rives, it will be seen, gives the palm to 

 the Cleveland Bay in these particulars, and 

 in some other very important ones; such, for 

 instance as their being, what the Devons are 

 among cattle, of "a type" so "thoroughly defined 

 and long established" as to enable them, with a 

 good deal of certainty, to transmit their pecu- 

 liar qualities to their offspring — a matter of 

 the first importance in any breed. 



Mr. Rives is a horse fancier, we know, and, 

 being born and bred in the Ancient Dominion, 

 must be taken for a judge, if not a jockey, 

 and be allowed, not only with respect to the 

 individual, but the race also, 



"Betwixt two horses which doth bear him bravest, 

 % * * * * * * * * 

 To claim indeed some shallow spirit of judgment;" 



and though we ourselves are of like tastes and 

 origin, and do not count ourselves altogether 

 "stupid" "in these nice, sharp quillets of the 

 law" of steeds, we yet yield to his superior 



