316 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
hardly grudges the eggs and chickens that he 
loses for gratitude for the great favors they do 
him. Field mice in immense numbers, and 
also small birds are destroyed by them. In 
their hunts they exercise no little cunning, 
which is very like reason sometimes. A friend 
narrates to us the following as a fact, of which 
he was cognizant. A pair of tame weasels were 
kept at the house, and used to hunt the rats 
with great pertinacity. One rat was too much 
for the weasel in a fair fight, and would turn 
and chase it, the weasel running frequently 
through a certain hole. At once the weasel 
seemed to be at work filling up the hole ; then 
he dug through, leaving a hole just big enough 
for himself to pass. Here, the next time the 
rat chased the weasel, he was brought up all 
standing, while his little enemy, executing a 
rapid flank movement, attacked and dispatched 
him m the rear. 
Tim Bunker on the Cotton Fever and 
Emigration Down South. 
Mk. Editor, — I was a good deal taken aback 
by my talk with John, about which I wrote 
you in my last. .You see Mrs. Bunker and I 
had never thought of any thing else for him 
than our own home in Hookertowu, and that 
he would want to live aud die in the house in 
which he was born. We had not considered 
what a change three years was to make in him. 
He went away a boy, he came back a man with 
notions of his own, and the reasons to back 
'cm. There was no disguising the f;ict that it 
was something more than a boyish freak that 
he had taken, to carve out for himself a new 
iiome in the sunny South. I turned the tiling 
over in my mind, and I could not get round 
the argument. I liad had my chance in Hooker- 
town, and made my own home and fortune 
without any boosting. Why shouldn't he have 
his chance in a spot of his own choosing ? He 
has seen the land and tried its climate, and was 
capable of judging for himself If he could 
not stay at home without a feeling of constraint, 
why the sooner he was off the better. A content- 
ed mind is a continual feast, and without that a 
man must be a drudge anywhere. 
So we give up arguing, and conclude that 
John had quite as good a right to dispose of 
himself as we liad. If he felt he had a mission 
down South it might be as sacred as any other, 
and it didn't become us to stand in the Lord's 
w.ay. Perhaps he had something better in store 
for John than Hookertown. They say old peo- 
ple, and some that are not quite so old, come to 
think that they live exactly in the center of 
creation, and that there is no spot quite equal 
to their town and their part of it. Even Mr. 
Spooner preached his new-year's sermon on 
being " Content with such things as you have," 
and undertook to show that the western hem- 
isphere was the best part of the world, that the 
North American Continent was greatly superior 
to the South, that the United States was the 
best part of the Continent, that Connecticut 
stood head and shoulders above all the other 
States, aud Hookertown was the cream of the 
laud of Steady Habits. I don't want to stir up 
the jealousy of Boston, or any other respectable 
village, but I endorse Mr. Spooner's opinion — I 
thought all the while he was a preaching that 
he had a squint toward the folks who were so 
fast for going down South — and he owned as 
much afterwards. But preaching won't save a 
man who has got the cotton fever. You might 
as well undertake to preach total depravity out 
of him. It will work out. 
" D'ye 'spose. Squire, there's any chance to 
make monej' in this cotton business ?" asked 
Jake Frink this morning. 
" Certainly," said I. "Growing cotton is just 
like any other business. Some men who have 
capital and skill will go into it and prosper, and 
others will fail for the same reasons that they 
would fail in any thing. It does not require 
any more intelligence to manage a cotton plan- 
tation than it does to work a northern farm, and 
hardly so much. It has always been done by 
the rudest kind of labor. There is no doubt 
that the skill acquired in growing the dozen or 
more crops we raise here in Hookertown, will 
come to a good market m the South." 
"How much capital is required to raise cotton." 
" Just as much as to raise corn or potatoes, 
and the more one has the better he can 
make it pay, up to the point where he can com- 
mand all the labor he can see too. There is no 
difficulty in growing cotton in a small way, if 
you are where you can use another's gin and 
press. But the better way is to have a large 
plantation and use j'our own gin aud press." 
" I like the notion of using your own gin, 
Squire, for I don't think I should stand much of 
a chance of borrowing unless folks down there 
arc different from the Hookertown people." 
" Very likely. But the gin you have in miud 
won't help the cotton harvest any more than it 
does the hay." 
" Well I don't see," said Jake despondingly, 
" as there's going to be any chance for me 
down there. Kier is going, and pretty much 
all the folks in the White Oaks, and I thought 
I might as well go along, but if it takes such a 
heap of money I shall have to give it up." 
I could not encourage neighbor Frink to join 
the expedition, for he and the class of men to 
which he belongs will not succeed either North 
or South. They are a good way past their 
prime, and their habits are bad. 
But young men of good habits need not hesi- 
tate to go, even though they have small capital. 
Skillful labor will for a loug time command a 
good price there, if labor is all that one has to 
put in to the market. The unfriendliness of 
the climate to the white laborer is greatly over- 
estimated. This story has been industriously 
circulated by interested parties, as an apology 
for slave labor. When I took Mrs. Bunker 
down to New Orleans seven years ago, I found 
the most of the labor about the wharves and 
cotton presses was performed by men of Euro- 
pean birth. Irishmen and C-remians were plent}^ 
as laborers and mechanics, and they suffered as 
little inconvenience from the he.at as Africans. 
When I went up on to the cotton plantations, I 
found the planters employing Irishmen to ditch 
and drain where they would not put their ne- 
groes. I found Scotchmen and New Englanders 
settled there, ancf enduring the climate perfect- 
ly well. It is well known that multitudes of 
Germans and Hungarians have gone into Texas, 
still further South, and there raise cotton quite 
as safely and more economically than it could 
be done by slave labor. Our soldiers have stood 
the climate well, and it is my private opinion 
that labor in a cotton field isn't any harder or 
more dangerous than fighting. That's the opin- 
ion of the boys who have spent two and three 
years there in places where they couldn't al- 
ways take care of themselves. I guess it will do 
to risk them when they can build houses of 
their own, and have the comforts of northern 
homes aroimd them. The fact is, climate has 
the credit of a good deal of mortality that real- 
ly belongs to whiskej'. Of course in clearing 
up a new countr3' there will be exposure to 
malaria and sickness. But when the forests are 
cleared and the swamps arc drained, as they 
will be by northern skill, the risk of health and 
life will deter no one from going South. 
Capital will be the great want of the emi- 
grant to the South. There is plentj' of cheap 
land to be bought, and plantations enough to 
be cheaplj' leased. Money must be had for this, 
and for stock aud labor. According to Jolin's 
figuring, a man wants forty-four dollars for 
every acre in cotton. If he was going in for 
500 acres of cotton the outlay would be 
For stock, seed and implements, $6,305 
Supplies for 60 hands— Siiy 1,200 bushels of corn, 
120 barrels corn meal, 84 barrels pork, 15 
bushels of sail, 10 months wages at 15 dol- 
lars a month, and incidentals 14,875 
For rent of land at 10 dollars per acre 5,000 
S'26,180 
The stock and implements would be worth 
three-fourths their first cost or more at the close 
of the year, and this amount may be deducted 
for the second year's operations. Sometimes the 
cotton can be sold by Oct. 1st, and the money 
realized go to pay the expenses of the year. 
The returns for such an investment will of 
course vary with the yield and the market price. 
Tlie average crop, as planters estimated it under 
the old system, was — one bale upon alluvian, 
two-thirds of a bale upon "hard bottom lands," 
and half a bale upon upland. With free labor 
this yield would probably be exceeded. The 
bale is rated at 400 pounds. At a bale per acre, 
and cotton at 30 cents, the crop on 500 acres 
would be worth $60,000. At a Iialf bale per 
acre it would be worth $30,000. The lowest es- 
timate gives near fifty per cent, profit. The 
highest near three hundred. 
Here is great temptation for uorthern skill 
and capital. With any thing like a fair chance, 
money must be made at it. It isn't strange that 
the cotton fever rages aud carries off our people. 
The boys have all started, and I suspect the 
girls will — be sent for. 
Hookertown, ) Yours to command, 
AuS' IGthj 1866. \ Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
»-• ■■■ — ►-« . 
The Sorghum Sjrrup Crop. 
We know of no other crop ever having been 
introduced among agriculturists which grew so 
rapidly in popularity as has the SorghUm. Many 
circumstances have conspired to render the pro- 
duct more valuable than could have been ex- 
pected when it was first introduced, and now, 
after 10 years experience, we have seen it grow 
constantly in favor and its culture so e.vtend, 
that in many districts, in widely different parts 
of the country, it is regarded as one of the 
staple crops, ranking with corn, potatoes, 
wheat, etc., in importance. The profits per 
acre, at the present prices of sugar, are larger 
than those yielded by any of the staple crops, 
except perhaps tobacco aud hops. We have 
never known any one who began to raise it and 
who possessed a mill and evaporator, or could 
easily get his cane to them, who gave it up. 
The syrup — gained by simpl)' boiling the ex- 
pressed juice, skimming off the feculent matters 
which rise as scum to the top — is often of very 
good quality; and under other circumstances of 
soil, manuring, maturity of the cane, etc., it is 
very poor, acid, aud colored; still the poorest 
qualities may be purified and refined, so it all 
has a market value, especially in those parts 
of the country where it has been most grown. 
The improved evaporating pans, of which sev- 
