18600 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



467 



ler States, 

 and the 



influence with the o-overnments there. He 

 was glad, true representative of a great na- 

 tion as he is, to assist in such a good work, 

 and has already obtained from the govern- 

 ment of Bolivia a permit for me to ex- 

 port fifty of each kind. These are at the 

 service, in whole or in part, of any gentle- 

 men, not speculators, who will send for 

 them and bring them into the country. I 

 think they may do well in the mountains 

 of Tennessee, Virginia, and oth 

 bordering both on the Atlantic 

 Pacific. But that is opinion. Had I been 

 permitted to extend our meteorological sys- 

 to the land, my opinion upon the subject, 

 whatever it be, Woilld then have been 

 based on certain and positive knowledge. 



A couple of gentlemen from Tennessee 

 propose to send for at least a portion of 

 these noble herds, with the view of trying 

 the experiment in that State. 



Pray excuse me for writing so long a 

 J-eply. You haVe asked questions that I 

 cannot answer. If you would have an- 

 swers, not only you, but our friends in 

 every State must assist in enabling me to 

 procure the data by extending my researches 

 landward. 



Respectfully, &c., 



M. F. MAURY. 



To Messrs. Monroe HardePtIan, et aL. 



Prmrie Lea>, Caldwell Co., Texas-. 

 And to Messrs. A. P. Swisher and 



JotiN Spence, Bastrop, Texas. 



Nature the best Economist. 



The Paris journals announce that the 

 Government has decreed that the sea-weed 

 Washed upon the coast of Normandy and 

 Brittany shall be gathered as wadding for 

 artillery. It keeps the gUns cool and is not 

 liable to ignition. Cotton and wool have 

 hitherto T3een used. Here we have another 

 instance eiven to the world of tho value of 



things too often 



deemed worthless. 



In the 



great laboratory of nature there is nothing 

 that exists that will not perlbnn uses, could 

 the ministry of man, with cunning arts fa- 

 miliar, adapt it to the offices for which it is 

 fitted. Science in our day is only on the 

 threshold of the great arena of nature, 

 which yet will reveal, through common and 

 discarded things, means of adding a thou- 

 sand benefits to mankind. Nothing is so 

 worthless to a people that it ought to be 

 thrown away. 



Fertilizers. 



BY HON. THOMAS G. 



[Abridged from Patent Office Report of 

 1859, and divided into three parts.-— l^D. 

 So. Planter. 



PART L 



From the day when the fiat went forth, 

 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 

 bread," agriculture took its place among the 

 arts of the world. It is true, while popu- 

 lation was sparse, and man depended first 

 on gatae and then on flocks and herds, this 

 art made little or no progress. The tropical 

 climate, where the infancy of man seems to 

 have been cradled, would appear also to 

 have led him to defer the necessity of much 

 attention to it. Very soon, however, the 

 increasing density of population must have 

 necessitated its development, since we find 

 that the Egyptians, at the earliest period to 

 which history reaches, were already skilful 

 agriculturists, and had carried the art to 

 such a point of perfection as not only to 

 have sustained their own dense population, 

 but to have made Egypt the granary of the 

 World. That it was not entirely the fertili- 

 ty of that favored region to which this was 

 due. We have evidence in the present state 

 of that country. The Nile still overflows 

 the land with fatness, and the sun still sheds 

 its vivifying influence ; yet, there, agricul- 

 ture has sunk to its lowest ebb, and the 

 country scoLf ce supports its miserable tribes ; 

 its immense world-renowned monuments 

 alone remain to show what the land once 

 was. Egypt is the most striking: proof 

 which history presents of the inseparable 

 connection between the high state of civili- 

 zation and a high development of agricuU- 

 tural resources. They rise and fall together, 

 and the prosperity and, indeed, existence of 

 the one is identical with the other. Let 

 that nation beware, whose exhausted fields 

 are forcing her population to emigrate. Civ- 

 ilization;^ its highest degree, cannot exist 

 without dense population; nor dense popu- 

 lation, without callinj^ 

 resources of agriculture. 



Egypt stands a living, or rather, a dead 

 type of the intimate connection between 

 population and agriculture. China is one 

 equally striking, on the opposite side. For 

 how many thousand years has her pains- 

 taking care for every foot of her soil main- 

 tained her prosperous and' dense legions, in^ 

 a region comparatively but little favored by 



to its aids the highest 



