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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



RICHMOND, OCTOBER, 1855. 



TERMS. 



One Dollar and Twenty-five Cents per annum, 

 which may be discharged by the payment of One Dollar 

 only, if paid in office or sent free of postage witlfin six 

 months from the date of subscription. Six copies for Five 

 Dollars; thirteen copies for Ten Dollars, to be paid 

 invariably in advance. 



§2^"* No subscription received for a less time than one 

 year. 



§2f^" Subscriptions may begin with any number. 



|3f** No paper will be discontinued until all arrearages 

 are paid, except at the option of the Editor. 



§rgp Office corner Main and Twelfth steets. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 



A limited number will be inserted at the following rates : 

 For each square of ten lines, first insertion, One Dollar; 

 each continuance, Seventy-five Cents. Advertisements 

 out of the City must be accompanied with the money, to 

 insure their insertion. 



f^P ^ is indispensably necessary that subscribers or- 

 dering a change should say from what to what post office 

 they wish the alteration made. It will save time to us and 

 Lese none to them. 



Postage on the Southern Planter, (when paid in 

 advance,) to any part of the United States one cent and 

 half per qnarter, or six cents per annum. 



" WHAT THEY THINK OF US." 

 It is a custom of some papers, better honored 

 in the breach than in the observance, to publish 

 the commendations bestowed on them by other pa- 

 pers. We do not admire this plan, and if we had 

 praises enough from our cotemporaries to make it 

 worth while to collect them — which we have not, 

 and from our own fault, no doubt— we would hard- 

 ly venture, even for money, into that kind of ego- 

 tism. 



But what our subscribers think of us is a matter 

 of more moment. From one circumstance we fear 

 we are not held in very high estimation by them, 

 and that circumstance is the failure to pay their 

 subscriptions. There are tiro ways in which 

 subscribers may shew their appreciation of an edi- 

 tor's labors : the first is to read him ; the second 

 to pay him. We fear we are not read, because so 

 few people have responded to the invitation we 

 lately gave them to pay their dues. And from this 

 and other reasons, we know we are not paid. One 

 of the strongest of these other reasons is that we 

 did not get money enough last month and the 

 month before to pay the clerk hire and printing bill 

 •of the paper, and had to advance three hundred 

 I 



dollars out of our private funds. This is not 

 right. If gentlemen think the Planter an indif- 

 ferent paper, we do not ask them to take it, nor 

 complain of an opinion, which is perhaps correct. 

 But we do say that we would much rather they 

 would pay up and "stop the thing," than take it 

 and continue in our debt. The want of $9000 

 makes a vacuum in any man's pocket : it creates a 

 great gulf in ours. 



MEETING OF THE STATE AGRICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



We presume that every body knows that the Fair 

 and Exhibition of the Virginia State Agricultural 

 Society is to take place on Tuesday, the 30th of 

 October, and to last four days, as usual. We pre- 

 sume, too, that every body will be at it, as usual. 

 We have been asked occasionally by some of its 

 friends, why we have not made a fuss about it- 

 We have two answers to give : First, that we do 

 not exactly know how to puff; second, that if we 

 did the Virginia State Agricultural Society is not 

 supposed to be in need of it. We would as soon 

 think of puffing Congress in order to convene the 

 politicians, big and little, that compose that re- 

 spectable body ; or of " praising up" the Virginia 

 Legislature to make sure of a quorum. No. no, 

 the Society now numbers, men. women and children, 

 upwards of twelve thousand : it is a settled and 

 powerful institution, beyond all compare the 

 largest and most imposing of its kind in the U. 

 States ; it lias held the two most brilliant exhibi- 

 tions that have ever been held, and on the best ap- 

 pointed fair grounds in the Union, except perhaps 

 in Kentucky. Its members have manifested more 

 enthusiasm and more of " simple, solid, hard mo- 

 ney" liberality, than any other two or three socie- 

 ties of other States put together; it has twice 

 assembled more of " her beauty and her chivalry" 

 than Virginia ever before saw brought together, 

 and has on those two occasions introduced to 

 friendly converse the pick of every part of the State 

 except the distant and almost detached Northwest. 

 It is the grand festival of agriculture, the great 

 entertainment annually given by Richmond. And 

 when it is known, as we presume it is, every where, 

 that the same invitation has been long ago ex- 

 tended to every citizen of Virginia, and on the same 

 terms, we do not see the use of beginning to beat 

 the drum some months before the muster. 



What will be the character of the Fair, we have 

 no means of ascertaining. As little had we before. 

 Exhibitors as a general thing say nothing of their 

 purposes before hand, and at each previous Fair 

 they have taken us completely by surprise. But 

 we have heard that our friend Col. Kent, means to 

 have 'something fat on hand, that Mr. Cloyd is 

 aiming at something fatter than he had last year, 

 and that McGavock has the fattest bullock he evei 



