270 
ROADS IN LOWEE VIRGINIA. 
ROADS IN LOWER VIRGINIA. 
No improvement in the appearance of a coun- 
try has more effect upon the mind of a traveller 
than good roads. Not having yet travelled all 
over the United Stales, I cannot speak of my own 
certain knowledge, but I believe that no section, 
whether east, west, north, or south, can beat 
Lower Virginia in roads. As a general rule, I 
think it may be set down as an incontrovert- 
ible fact, that they are the most neglected part 
of creation. Worn down by long use and wash- 
ingrains into channels, it has become such a task 
to change the shape of them from concave to 
convex, that it is never attempted ; and what 
little work is done upon them seems to have 
called forth all the native energies of negro in- 
genuity to make bad worse. 
The most common method of stopping a gully 
or filling a mud hole is, to put a little green pine 
brush in it, which has a durability fully equal 
to fresh fish in August. The dirt from the 
ditches upon each side, instead of being rounded 
up in the middle, to shed off the water, is almost 
invariably piled along the edge of the ditch, so 
that the water is dammed in the travelled track. 
As far as a plow and road scraper are concerned, 
upon the public highway, who ever saw such 
a wonder in that part of the state 1 "I pause 
for a reply. 
A Traveller. 
THE GREYHOUND. 
The modern smooth-haired greyhound is a 
very elegant dog; remarkable for its extreme 
velocity, in which it is, we believe, superior to 
the rough-haired dogs of the olden time, though 
not to some of the modern rough greyhounds, in 
which a cross of the old rough breed, or Scot- 
tish deerhound prevails. No greyhounds used 
for the hare, equal in speed and endurance those 
of our island; and none, so improved of late 
years is the breed, equal them in symmetry ; 
every action is light, easy, and elegant, yet firm 
and vigorous. 
The greyhound is highly sensitive, and very 
good tempered ; like the Irish wolf dog, it is 
peaceable and affectionate, and fierce only in 
the chase of its quarry, or when excited to com- 
bat. On one occasion only, have we ever seen 
a greyhound fight with another dog ; and in that 
instance, the animal, a roughish brindle dog, 
was set upon a large dog of a mongrel mastiff 
breed, and forced to self-defence. Short, indeed, 
was the combat ; in a few seconds, the aggressor 
sunk severely torn, and was taken away. Slim 
as those dogs are, their muscular powers are 
very great ; like the race horse, they are com- 
pact, of iron muscle, and ivory bone, with no 
superfluous fat nor loose cellular tissue, and are 
consequently deceptive to the eye, which is, 
in general, accustomed to see strength conjoined 
with massiveness. Yet we have but to consider 
the chest, loins, and limbs of a greyhound, and 
regard the "tori" of the arms and thighs, to feel 
assured of the possession of great power. The 
smooth greyhound, or glaze hound of the older 
writers, follows exclusively by the eye — whereas 
all the old, rough breeds, could recover the track 
of the game by the powers of smell ; but in the 
modern dt_g, every quality is sacrificed to fleet- 
ness, and certainly for sudden and violent bursts 
of exertion the present breed has never been 
equalled. 
Many trials for ascertaining the speed of the 
greyhound have been undertaken, and Daniel's 
opinion seems to be on the whole, correct, viz., 
that on flat ground, a first-rate race horse would 
be superior to the greyhound ; but, that in a 
hilly country, the greyhound would have the 
advantage. Much, however, in the latter case 
would depend upon the dog being habituated to 
hilly districts ; for a greyhound, accustomed 
only to flat plains, though swifter on them than 
a Yorkshire greyhound, would yield to the lat- 
ter in a hilly country. The hare and the grey- 
hound seem to be well matched ; the swiftness 
of both animals is astonishing, and a well-con- 
tested run is an animating sight. Daniel re- 
cords the circumstance of a brace of grey- 
hounds, in Lincolnshire, running a hare from her 
seat to where she was killed, a distance meas- 
uring in a straight line, upwards of four miles, 
in twelve minutes ; but as there were a great 
many turns during the course, the actual dis- 
tance was considerably more. The hare ran 
herself to death before the greyhounds touched 
her. — Knights History of the Dog. 
IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE EARTH CAN PRO- 
DUCE ANY VEGETABLE SPONTANEOUSLY? 
This is a question often suggested to the 
mind of cultivators from the fact that, under 
certain circumstances, new growths spring up 
almost miraculously. For instance, in cutting 
down a primeval forest and burning the tim- 
ber, the " fire weed " grows at once, far remote 
from any other. An old field that has grown 
nothing but broom sedge for many years, on be- 
ing dressed with lime, produces white clover, 
where it never grew before since the forest 
trees were cleared off'. In dense forests of 
long-leaved pines, if that timber is cut off, it is 
succeeded by oak and hickory ; but if that 
growth is then cut off, neither long-leaved pines 
nor oaks follow, but another kind of pine called 
" loblolly." But cultivate the land and " turn 
it out." and then comes the " old-field pine." 
Grasses and weeds, unlike any in the vicinity, 
have often been known to grow from earth 
thrown out of ditches and wells. 
Fire is often produced spontaneously. Now 
is it any more remarkable that the same " Crea- 
tive Power" should produce vegetation spon- 
taneously, notwithstanding the assertions of sci- 
ence that no plant can ever grow except from a 
seed of the same sort ? May not all the elements, 
necessary to form the germ of a plant, be 
brought together by the operation of nature and 
thus begin to grow and become capable of re- 
production by seed ? To deny this, is to say 
that the same Power that first bade the plants 
grow, is no longer powerful nor able to pro- 
duce anything that has not had a previous exis- 
tence and produced seed and that which has laid 
dormant for unknown ages, without decay ; and 
yet, it is equally as miraculous that such seeds 
