THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 177 



For the Southern Planter. 



QUERE ABOUT THE ROOF OF TOBACCO HOUSES 



Mr. Editor. — Many tobacco planters in this and 

 other States have built commodious and costly 

 barns for curing and preparing the crop for mar- 

 ket. 



Both economy and taste teaches that these barns, 

 particularly the roof, should be covered with some 

 cheap substance that will protect them from de- 

 cay. 



We are in the habit, in this section, of coating 

 the roofs of coarse buildings with tar, but hesitate 

 to put this substance on our barns, for fear it 

 might impart its peculiar flavor to the tobacco. 



May we courteously ask, that through the medi- 

 um of your valuable paper, we may have the ex- 

 perience and advice of yourself and others on this 

 subject. 



Henry J. B. Clark. 

 Pleasant Hill, N. C, April 16, 1854. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



RICHMOND, JUNE, 1854. 



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THE PROSPECTS OF STOCK 



Were never, in our recollection, as good as at present. 

 In Cincinnati, which, (as we learn from an extract from 

 the Commercial, which we find in the Ohio Cultivator,) 

 has come to be the most important and largest horse mar- 

 ket in the United States, the number of horses sold last 

 year at the auction stables, was nine thousand three hun- 

 dred and sixty. It is estimated that an equal number are 

 annually sold at the drovers' stables, and at private sales 

 elsewhere in the city, which is an aggregate of nearly 

 nineteen thousand horses sold in that city. Horses are 

 brought there from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wis- 

 consin and Iowa, and they are sold all over the United 

 States and even to Mexico, whither a large number of styl- 

 ish matched horses are sent. 



We have lately seen a lot of animals, brought to Rich- 

 mond from that point, and their owner has gone back for 

 more. 



They bring fine prices, and probably average the dealers 

 $200. 



The cattle markets everywhere offer fine prices for good 

 stock. We have just seen in the same paper an extract 

 from the New York Tribune's article on the cattle market 

 of that city. 



On the 9th of May there were 2,716 cattle in the yards, 

 against 1,548 the week before, without any reduction in 

 price. 



The average weight of the cattle was estimated at 7h 

 cwt., and the average price lufc, or 1,901,200 lbs. of beef 

 for $232,740, calculating the cattle at $80 per head, we have 

 $217,280 total value. 



Mules sold at Paris, Bourbon county, Kentucky, (their 

 last court day, May 1, which is a great fair-day always, 

 as at some of the largest English market towns,) as fol- 

 lows : 2 year olds at $138, $110, and $80; yearlings, $100, 

 $70 ; sucklings, privately at $80, $60, and $40. 



These facts are encouraging not only to the Western 

 farmers, but to the farmers of Western Virginia, whom we 

 congratulate on their prospects. 



When will our cismontane farmers learn that it is bad 

 management to spend so much wheat, corn and tobacco, in 

 the purchase of these articles, when they might easily sup- 

 ply themselves with as good articles of home growth, and 

 help stock the market. If they speak of want of grass, 

 we point to the difference in the price of lands and contigu- 

 ity to market; as a full balance for that. 



As we have once before said, when, during the last war 

 with England, the Cumberland County Troop was muster- 

 ed into service, the horses were valued at an average of 

 $250 — now, we question if there is a horse, certainly not a 

 native, in the county, worth that sum, unless it is some 

 garron of a racer that is expected to run his four miles in 

 7:37, and doomed to disappoint his owner. And as to 

 mules, the farmers greatly prefer enriching Green & Walk- 

 er and Lee and Overby, by giving $150 to $200 for them, 

 to saving their money and their credit too, by raising their 

 own stock. 



Will it stimulate them to tell them that these animals will 

 be higher and higher in the market, and will they turn tp 

 one of the back numbers of the Planter, and read a pithy 

 and sensible article, entitled " Horse against Mule," and . 

 ponder its contents. 



