THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



181 



special benefit of the farming class. We have al- 

 ready extended this article too far, and must 

 pass by a branch of the subject which has too 

 little force to make it worthy of refutation. We 

 may at some other time, and in some other con- 

 nection, attempt to shew that this policy of class 

 legislation finds its best development and ripest 

 fruit among the barbarous people of India ; and 

 that wherever else it has had even a partial ex- 

 istence and recognition it has been the teeming 

 mother of factions and discords. 



How desirable it may be to get Peruvian guano 

 at lower rates, and in greater quantity than we 

 now have it, is a complex question, and cannot 

 yet be stated with confidence. On the whole we 

 incline to the affirmative side of it. But the 

 plan which we should advise to accomplish the 

 object would be very different from angry re- 

 monstrance or petulant petition. It would be 

 one whereby the above question would be solved 

 by the experience of those most interested. We 

 would ask the Government to send an able man, 

 as minister or commissioner to Peru to make a 

 commercial treaty with that country. As we get 

 coffee from Rio in return for the flour we send 

 her, so we could send to Peru the very product 

 her guano makes. The country is barren, and 

 means of subsistence are imported from Chili. 

 Equally destitute is it of manufactures ; and 

 these we could supply in profusion. Here lies 

 the foundation of a new trade, which would 

 grow as the wants of the people expanded, and 

 impel the government to terms of liberality. Once 

 let the people see that their subsistence and de- 

 velopment depended on those three little islands 

 at Pisco, and that by the time they were exhaus- 

 ted, if ever that time shall be, they will have 

 strengthened themselves again for the wrestle 

 with Potosi, and there be no fear of a failure 

 to get guano on fair terms. 



The true policy of Peru is to sell guano until 

 she is rich enough to resume her natural busi- 

 ness of mining. And it should be our work, 

 our contribution towards her recovery, to con- 

 vince her of that fact; to give her government 

 some great object for the employment of intel- 

 lect which is now frittered away in intrigues, 

 and of energies which are now wssted in Revo- 

 lutions. This is an enterprize worthy of farmers, 

 broad, generous, national, philanthropic, and far 

 more glorious than railing at a foreign govern- 

 ment. If we thought the convention would give 



that turn to its deliberations we should hail its 

 meeting with pleasure. 



USE OF KELP AS MANURE. 

 The Boston Cultivator contains a very inter- ' 

 esting account of the farm of Mr. Ephraim 

 Brown of Marblehead, Massachusetts, the great 

 fertility of which is chiefly referable to the use 

 of Kelp. The farm contains 240 acres with over 

 a mile of sea beach. The sales of 1854 amount 

 to $7000; the sales of 1855 are expected to 

 reach $10,000, at an outlay in production of 

 $3000. The leading crop is onions. But there 

 are only about 8 acres in this vegetable, avera- 

 ging about 625 bushels, and running up as high 

 as at the rate of 1000 bushels. The manure 

 chiefly decomposed kelp at the rate of 8-10, 12 

 cords per acre with % small quantity of compost 

 manure. Five acres are in squashes, one mea- 

 sured acre of which produced ten tons. Be- 

 sides these crops are cranberries, hay, potatoes, 

 and some minor productions, 35 acres only are 

 under hoe and plough. Labour ten to twelve 

 men in summer, fewer in winter, boarded on the 

 farm, and paid at the rate of $90 to $130 per. 

 annum. 



Have none of our sea-shore farmers availed 

 themselves of sea weed ? We should be pleased 

 to hear from some of our subscribers in Accomac 

 and North Hampton on this matter. 



THE NEW ESCULENT ROOT. 



THE CHINESE OR JAPAN POTATOES. 



Sometime ago one of our friends sent us a 

 long article in praise of the above root, which 

 was published in the New York Tribune by Wm > 

 R. Prince of Flushing, Long Island. 



Before publishing it, we applied to our friend 

 Dr. D. S. Green, of Culpeper, now stationed at 

 Portsmouth, who was surgeon in the Japan ex- 

 pedition, to know the value of the thing. He is 

 an enthusiastic farmer, and we were sure would 

 not let anything of Agricultural value escape 

 him. It is unnecessary to publish his letter in re- 

 ply: its substance was condemnatory of the value 

 of the root to the extent stated by Mr. Prince. He 

 thought it might prove valuable as a root for 

 stock, but if it supplanted the Irish Potato, it 

 would do more here than it had done in China, 

 where he had seen two measures of it offered to 

 purchasers in lieu of one of potatoes, and re- 

 fused. 



Other and independent testimony of competent 



