250 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



large, as any one may' do now under this law af- 

 ter a second conviction. It is absurd to think 

 of it. 



Let the offence be made a misdemeanor, pre- 

 sentable by a grand jury, and let the penalty be 

 graded to the proportion of the damage done, 

 and if, as in the case of overseer of roads, and 

 other minor offences, let it go to the literary 

 fund. Then there will be less difficulty in hav- 

 ing the law enforced. 



As in the case above we append the form of 

 petition. 



To the Honourable, the General Assembly of 

 Virginia. 



The undersigned, farmers of the county of 

 , respectfully represent that the prac- 

 tice of permitting Bulls, Boars and Rams to go 

 at large is very injurious to the agriculture of 

 the State, in discouraging the improvement of 

 cattle, hogs and sheep in this State ; that many 

 persons would purchase superior animals of 

 each of the above kinds, but for the knowledge 

 that they would be contaminated by the worth- 

 less brutes that are now turned loose to roam 

 over the country. The undersigned, therefore, 

 most respectfully petition your honourable body 

 to pass a law which shall make it a misdemeanor 

 to permit any one of the above described ani- 

 mals to go at large out of the enclosed grounds 

 of the owner," and that on conviction thereof, 

 before a court of record, the offending party 

 shall pay a certain penalty for each offence, set : 

 in the case of a bull, fifteen dollars for the first, 

 and every subsequent offence: In the case of a 

 boar, five dollars for the first and each subse- 

 quent offence : In the case of a ram, seven dol- 

 lars and fifty cents for the first and each subse- 

 quent offence. 



If such a law is adopted, the community will 

 then have a means of protecting itself. 



If this petition, and the one we have suggest- 

 ed about taxing bitches, can be actively circula- 

 ted, we are sure they will obtain the signatures 

 of a great many, and may be the means of ob- 

 taining something at the hands of the Legisla- 

 ture, which has heretofore seemed to look with 

 a cold and indifferent, if not jealous eye, upon 

 various petitions which have been proffered to it 

 in regard to the agricultural wants of the 

 State. 



As we feel very certain that there will be a 

 called, and, we earnestly hope, a lengthy session 



* 



of the Legislature next winter, we invoke our 

 friends, if they mean to do anything in either 

 or both of the above measures, to do it at once. 

 We engage to see all petitions presented that are 

 sent to us. 



CROSSKILL'S CLOD-CRUSHER. 



We have had this important English imple- 

 ment in use for nearly two years, and can testify 

 experimentally to its great utility, and, economi- 

 cally considered, to its necessity to many far- 

 mers in Virginia, But we fear its cost will be 

 a bar to its general introduction. This ought 

 not to be the case. The practice, too common 

 with most of our farmers, of judging of the ap- 

 propriateness of particular implements rather 

 by their prime cost than by their capacity for 

 executing given processes, is the falsest econo- 

 my. If the principle were universal, agricul- 

 ture would have made scarcely a stride in the 

 last hundred years — the period of its greatest 

 improvements. For instance, a good hand with 

 a flail can thresh out, on an average, about 

 seven bushels of wheat per day, and the flail 

 costs nothing. But a wheat machine, of modern 

 construction, can thresh out and chaff from 300 

 to 850 bushels in the same time, and will cost 

 from say $225 to $400, according to capacity. 

 Not counting the delivery of the wheat at the 

 barn or stack yard, as that has to be done both 

 for flail and wheat machine, nor, for a like 

 reason, the removal of the straw, and estimating 

 the power of the machine at from four to eight 

 horses — equal to from twenty to forty hands, 

 with from five to eight hands to tend it, we 

 have from 12 to 18 bushels as the average work 

 of the hands, or an excess of work by machinery 

 of from 70 to upwards of 170 per cent., to say 

 nothing of the saving in wear and tear of 

 laborers, of the substitution of a cheaper kind 

 of labor, of the advantage in time gained for 

 working other crops, of the diminished risk from 

 weather, and numerous other incidental ad- 

 vantages. These items of calculation are never 

 considered, but are assumed as true, their accu- 

 racy having been tested by long and established 

 usage, and being acquiesced in rather than 

 understood. A farmer would now as soon think 

 of grinding his corn with "two women at the 

 mill" as of threshing his wheat without a 

 machine. But it was not always so ; the wheat 

 machine fought its way to general acceptance 



