THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



the autumn, (which they should do for a winter 

 dairy,) will give a rich supply of milk all win- 

 ter, and the cream, under the management of a 

 skilful dairywoman, will produce butter of fine 

 appearance and flavor. Fresh made butter, of 

 this character, will always secure a quick sale, 

 and a higher price than the best quality laid 

 down in June or September. — Stone's Address. 



MANAGEMENT OF HOGS. 

 A correspondent says : 



" On my compost bed, which was composed 

 of salt marsh turf, creek mud and lime, I made 

 my hog pen the first of November. Before I 

 put them up to fatten I covered the pen over, 

 say two feet thick with wheat chaff ; from time 

 to time I put in chaff and straw. As they 

 would root in, I continued to cover, until they 

 were killed. Thus you may imagine the quan- 

 tity and quality of this pen of manure. The 

 hogs never touched the ground — always high, 

 dry, and warm. I fed them, as usual, on pota- 

 toes, pumpkins, rutabagas, boiled and thickened ; 

 and never had I hogs to do so well, and on much 

 less food. 



Very truly, your friend, &c. 



William D. M'Carty. 



Richmond Co., Feb. 8, 1846." 



POSTAGE. 



In our September number for 1845, we pub- 

 lished the following : 



" On our cover we state the postage on the 

 Planter, under the new law, to be the same as 

 on other newspapers. Finding that several of 

 our post masters differed with us in our construc- 

 tion of the law, we wrote to the Post Master 

 General upon the subject early in July, and re- 

 ceived for answer, that Mr. Johnson considered 

 the question so doubtful a one, that he had sub- 

 mitted it to the Attorney General, and that we 

 should hear from the Department as soon as his 

 opinion could be obtained. For our own part, 

 we cannot see how either the Post Master Gen- 

 eral or the Sub Post Masters can doubt about 

 the matter. In the 'Regulations prescribed by 

 the Post Master General to exhibit and enforce 

 the provisions of the act of Congress, March 3, 

 1845,' Regulation, No. 534, reads as follows: 



" '534. A newspaper is defined to be any 

 printed publication issued in numbers, and pub- 

 lished at stated intervals of not more than a 

 month, convejang intelligence of passing events. 

 It generally consists of a sheet, but may be 

 composed of two sheets, of paper. In such 

 case it is chargeable with only single newspaper 

 postage ; provided the two sheets, in the aggre- 



gate, do not exceed nineteen hundred square 

 inches. If it exceed that superficial extent, it 

 is to be rated as a pamphlet.' 



" This is an exact transcript of the sixteenth 

 section of the law, and we certainly fill all the 

 requirements of the section. The ' Cultivator,' 

 £ Cabinet,' &c, have long been determined to 

 be newspapers, because they conveyed intelli- 

 gence of passing events in agriculture. Our 

 paper, although of a similar character, was de- 

 nied the privilege of newspaper rate, because of 

 the stitched and covered form in which we ap- 

 peared ; but the last Congress, with a wisdom 

 which does them honor, abolished this absurd 

 distinction, and declared that any printed publi- 

 cation issued in numbers consisting of not more 

 than two sheets, published at intervals of not 

 more than one month, should be rated as a news- 

 paper. We do not occupy quite two sheets, — 

 the whole size of the paper does not exceed 

 sixteen hundred square inches, and our paper 

 is published at intervals not greater than a 

 month. Where is the peg upon which to hang 

 a doubt ?" 



Since that time we have had an opportunity 

 of calling upon the Post Master General, in per- 

 son, and informing him, that notwithstanding 

 the plain declaration of the law, our subscribers 

 were frequently charged more than newspaper 

 postage. Mr. Johnson replied, that there was 

 an ambiguity and inconsistency in the law that 

 rendered it incomprehensible, and that it was 

 impossible to say what was a pamphlet and 

 what a newspaper ; but he added that he in- 

 tended to bring the difficulty to the notice of the 

 present Congress, and he doubted not that they 

 would settle the question definite^, at once. — 

 Until then, he seemed inclined to decide that 

 nothing could be considered a newspaper that 

 was stitched. We were so dissatisfied with this 

 senseless and obsolete distinction which seems 

 to suppose that the framers of the law were ac- 

 tuated by the most inveterate prejudice against 

 needle and thread, that we applied to the Attor- 

 ney General, and he decidedly concurred with 

 us in the opinion, that there was nothing in the 

 stitching of a paper either criminal, or contra 

 bonos mores, and that it could not have been the 

 policy of the law to discountenance any such 

 proceeding. He thought that the sixteenth sec- 

 tion in the law of 1845 was enacted expressly 

 to repeal this ridiculous construction of the De- 

 partment, and to declare the policy of the law 

 to be to favor the periodical dissemination of a 

 knowledge of passing events, whether in Litera- 



