THE SOUTHERN 



judge of the best time to sell. We have a 'case in 

 point in our own experience, -which we hope it will 

 not be egotism to quote in illustration. There was 

 no more able or sagacious merchant than the late 

 General Bernard Peyton, who was our commission 

 merchant. The fall before the great Irish famine 

 he had on consignment some three hundred barrels 

 of flour for us. At that time flour was low, and 

 he was anxious to sell as fast as the flour came to 

 hand. Generally and habitually we deferred to his 

 opinion, which we knew to be better than ours ; 

 but it so happened that at that time we read regu- 

 larly the money articles of the Union newspaper, 

 which were written by Thos. P. Kettell, the present 

 editor of the New York Economist, a valuable com- 

 mercial journal. In these articles he predicted the 

 famine so clearly, and the rise of prices so confi- 

 dently, that we chose him for our guide, and re- 

 sisted repeated advice from our friend to sell, as 

 prices rose from $4, $4 50 to $5, and upwards, 

 until at last we closed doubtfully at $6 25, and 

 made enough on the consignment to pay many 

 times over all the subscriptions Ave ever expect to 

 pay for newspapers. 



We do not mean that the farmer should under- 

 take to speculate on his crops; that is a risk for 

 any one ; but that he should be guided by more 

 rules than the single one of getting out his crops 

 with all haste, and to the neglect of other things 

 of possibly more importance at the time. 



Nor do we pretend to that scope of vision which 

 shall enable us to scan the commercial future with 

 prophetic ken, and predict to the farmer the best 

 time to run his crops into market. But, like any 

 one else with equal opportunities, we can* collect 

 the views of men who study such things and lay 

 them before him, leaving him free to form his own 

 opinions upon the data given. 



Another and an equal advantage of an enlarged 

 paper would be, that we would have greater room 

 for selections, and space for more lengthy and ela- 

 borate articles on questions of agricultural theory 

 or farming practice, which arc now excluded by 

 their length from our columns, though in many cases 

 of the greatest interest and utility. Such commu- 

 nications as are now offered to the State Society 

 are generally of that character, and we mean to 

 put them in the paper, but then that, on the other 

 hand, involves, pro tanto, the exclusion of other 

 articles of more interest to the desultory reader. 



Still another advantage would be in the creation 

 of a horticultural department and the conveying 

 instruction on what is now one of the greatest 

 wants of the Southern farmer. Independent of the 

 cultivation of the national taste, which needs all 

 the nurture it can have, and is intimately dependent 

 on horticultural pursuits, and independent of all 

 hygienic considerations, the profits of this depart- 



ment are wortli attention. It has recently been 

 shown by our friend, Mr. Hubbard, of Bucking- 

 ham, that the South, which is natural to all the 

 best fruits of the country, surrenders to the North 

 nearly all the revenue derivable from' the supply 

 of horticultural products. 



Rural architecture, too, should form a part of 

 every well conducted agricultural journal ; yet it 

 is necessarily excluded in its larger features from 

 so cramped a publication as the Southern Planter. 



But we have said enough on this head, and the 

 reader, who has not anticipated our remarks, can 

 follow up the above suggestions with his own re- 

 flections. We shall be glad to hear from such of 

 our friends as take interest enough in the subject 

 to consider it. 



HORTICULTURAL. 



We have been frequently asked by our friends, 

 why we do not give more frequent essays and ex- 

 tracts on horticultural and kindred subjects. 



Heretofore there have been two reasons for it. 

 The first is, that cramped as we are for room, we 

 find it generally difficult to get in all the original 

 articles that are sent to us. The second reason lies 

 in a defect of ours, (which we are ashamed to con- 

 fess in the face of that public which expects every 

 editor to be a universal genius and will not tolerate 

 at the head of a farming paper anything but a- liv- 

 ing encyclopaedia of agriculture,) but which candor 

 nevertheless compels us to admit. It is that 

 there cannot be found probably in Virginia any far- 

 mer of our station who knows less about such 

 things than we do. In all the niceties of hotbeds 

 and forcing frames, of egg-plants and lettuce, male 

 and female strawberries, and in that still nicer dis- 

 crimination of fruits and fruit trees which detects 

 the hundreds of varieties of apples, peaches, pears, 

 apricots, nectarines, cherries and figs, in all these 

 things we are a dunce, and have a very well grounded 

 doubt of our ability to instruct. This has made it 

 a matter of delicacy to enter upon these grosser 

 subjects, and a matter of conscience to touch 

 roses of any hue or perfume. We might, to be 

 sure, like Mr. Alexander Pope, who, De Quincey 

 tells us, studied Greek, (and never became a Gre- 

 cian,) after he had contracted to deliver the Iliad 

 to subscribers, cram for the occasion and fill our- 

 selves to repletion with horticultural lore, but, lik^e 

 Pope, we should be offering a translation of whose 

 merits we could not judge, and, in many instances, 

 run the risk of misleading our readers. 



Still we admit the wants of the farming public 

 in these matters, and have accordingly made an 

 effort to supply them in a more satisfactory manner 

 than we ourselves could do. We have engaged the 

 services of a professional gardener, residing near 



