SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
83 
and Indian Corn. Considerable attention has been de- 
voted to the native Grapes for the manufacture of wine. 
Within the United States there are forty well defined bo- 
tanical species, including upward uf one hundred varie- 
ties of grapes, perhaps half of which are suscepuble of 
being converted into wholesome wine. 1 he cuttings of 
Sugar Cane imported from Demerara promise to largely 
compensate for the trouble. More than one hundred 
bushels of Sugar Cane seed from France have been dis- 
tributed for cultivation, and sufficient returns have been 
made to piove that it will be valuable for feeding stock 
and other economical uses. The cultivation of the Chinese 
Yam has been quite successful, so also has Barley from 
Tuscany, and Wheat from the Mediterranean. The Com- 
missioner is of opinion that, the success which has attend- 
ed the experiment of disseminating new and useful seeds, 
cuttings, &c., and the collection and promulgation of facts 
connected with the history, progress and economy of the 
principal Agricultural staples, fully warrant the expendi- 
ture which has been made for those purposes. 
The report may be obtained from your Representatives 
in Congress. 
DOWNING’.S “FRUITS” &C, — CORRECTION. 
A pomological friend at the North writes us : 
“In your notice of a little work work styled ‘ The 
Garden' (August, number, 1858, p. 249,) you sey, 'we are 
glad to find that Southern fruits are not overlooked &c., 
and this is the first instance of the kind we recollect to 
have noticed in any Northern publication, etc. You cer- 
tainly must have forgotten, or else not read the revised 
edition of Downing’s ‘ Friiils and Fruit trees,' where 
twice or three times the number of Southern fruits are 
described that there is in ‘ the Garden.’ 
[We are obliged to our friend for correcting us in this 
matter, and cheerfully make the amend.e. A portion of 
the notice alluded to was copied from one of our Mobile 
exchanges, and adopted without sufficient reflection. We 
have always held the labors of the Downing brothers in 
the highest respect, and w'ould not willingly do their ad- 
mirable work the slightest injustice. We are glad to no- 
tice the great amount of information on Southern Fruits 
which the revised edition contains, and commend it to all 
American fruit growers, as the standard authority — Eds.] 
RE-OPENING THE .SLAVE TRADE. 
The writer has no wish to enter upon the discussion of 
the re-opening of the slave trade in the South with foreign 
countries; but as two correspondents have referred to it, 
and as it deeply concerns Southern agriculture, we think 
it not amiss to answer Mr. Miller’s questions in the 
December number of the Cultivator. He says: “If I 
understand Dr. Lee aright, he is in favor of re-opening 
the African Slave Trade, that additional labor may be ob- 
tained in the Southern States for the purpose of reclaim- 
ing ouc exhausted lands. I beg respectfully to ask Dr. 
Lee if we have any warrant that the labor so obtained 
would be devoted to that purpose? Would it not rather 
be employed in cutting down and wearing out more land ? 
If I was convinced that the labor obtained by re-opening 
the slave trade would be employed to improve our worn-] 
out old fields, I would go heart and hand with its advo- 
cates ” 
In answer to the above, we remark that we are not in 
favor of re-opening the slive trade as it has ever existed 
betw'een Africa and America : and at the same time we 
are free to say that we do not know any tource better 
able to supply a part of the labor required at the South 
than Africa. The French government not long since ap- 
pointed an able commission to investigate the matter of 
supplying laliorers to Algeria, and other colonies belong- 
ing to France. After a thorough examination of all the 
facts, it was decided best to continue the slave trade in its 
modified form. The latest accounts from Paris inform us 
that a contract has been signed between the Marine De- 
partment and a firm at Marseilles to supply Guadaloupe 
and Martinique with 20,000 free Africans suited for agri- 
cultural labor before the 1st of January, 1863, and that 
similar contracts have been entered into with other houses, 
which Prince Napoleon, as Minister of the Colonies, is 
resolved to avail himself of 
Dr. L1VING.STON, Mr. Bowen and others who have 
been in the interior of Africa have thrown much light on 
the State of society in different parts of that immense con- 
tinent, The natural and normal state ot the inhabitants 
is that of servitude of the many to few masters of their 
own color, language and tribes. The extensive valley of 
of the Niger is so well adapted to cotton by climate and 
soil, that the plant is ii'.digenous, and over 1200 bales of 
lint were collected, pressed, and sent to Manchester in 
1857. It is the policy of the English government to en- 
courage the cultivation of this staple everywhere in Afri- 
ca, and especially in the populous and fertile valley of 
the Niger. The w'riter has seen a letter from one of the 
party sent to explore the country who says that slaves 
are bought and sold there at from one to ten pounds a 
head; or in our money from at five to fifty dollars. 
Emigrants from Great Britain and the United States go- 
ing there to raise cotton will have the protection of a 
British consul, and, if need be, of British guns, and can 
obtain any amount of rich land for nothing, and healthy, 
able-bodied negroes to work it at ten, or tw’enty dollars a 
head. There must be some unknown cause of failure, 
or cotton culture will soon be carried on v -ry largely and 
profitably in a region quite as well adapted to the business 
as the lower valley of the Mississippi. 
Let us suppose that good mules three, four, five and six 
years old, could be bought in Africa for five dollars a head, 
and delivered in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and 
Mississippi to planters at fifty dollars each. Would our 
friend in the last named State require any “ wmrrant,” or 
bond that these mules should not be used to wear out the 
soil of the States named before he would permit one to be 
purchased or sold ? A mule does quite as much damage 
to the soil while pulling at one end of the plow, as the 
negro does v/hile holding the other end. Both are proper- 
ty — both are wealth-creating powers in the hands of own- 
ers having common sense. Why, then, permit free trade 
in one and notin both? Only one truthful answer can 
be given to this question; and that is this: Public Opin- 
