SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
207 
States. Oh 1 for the peaches that we saw when we were 
boys, forty years ago, beautiful to the eye, and good for 
food, the product of long lived trees, and that, even in old 
age were fat and flourishing. 
THE NURSERY BUSINESS. 
The nursery business now receives a large share of 
Col. Hebron’s attention. The principal trees sent out are 
apples, pears, and peaches. The sales have gradually in- 
creased from two thousand to fifteen thousand dollars 
worth of trees in a season. A taste for fine fruits is rapid- 
ly spreading, and the planters of the State are beginning 
to appreciate the advantages of their position. The state 
and county agricultural societies, recently formed, will 
help forward this excellent work. 
THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS. 
The Queen of Flowers has a prominent place in the 
gardens here. Roses can only be seen in their perfection 
at the South. They have not only our favorite varieties 
in open culture, but the tender and half hardy sorts stand- 
ing out all winter. They grow luxuriantly, and bloom 
early and late,' and are of all charming colors that Nature 
ever suffers upon a rose petal. Thus far I have seen no 
disease upon them, and none of the insects that so torment 
the rose cultivator at the North. It is worth a journey 
hither, to see the queen of flowers in her own paradise. 
STRAWBERRIES. 
Strawberries are not yet grown at all for market. They 
begin to ripen in April, and the season lasts two or three 
months. From what I have seen of this plant, and its 
fruit, I doubt whether it is as much at home here as with 
us. It is not as generally grown, either in private or 
market gardens. The great objection urged to its cultiva- 
tion here is that there was nobody to attend to the pick- 
ing, and marketing. The business seemed to be regard- 
ed as rather above the grasp of African intellect, and the 
Anglo Saxon in these parts is shockingly afraid of work. 
Some cute Yankee, just out of his teens, and accustomed 
to the strawberry trade, and not afraid of soiling his fin- 
gers, would find a profitable field for his enterprise on this 
plantation. W e shall charge him nothing for advertising 
the place. 
THE PYRACANTHA. 
The Pyracantha is cultivated here as a hedge plant. It 
is an evergreen shrub of glossy leaf, and very stocky 
habit. It is armed with sharp thorns, and makes an im- 
penetrable fence. The plant is from the South of Italy, 
but is said to be hardy in England, and it is quite possible 
it might prove valuable for some parts of the Northern 
States. It seems to be everything desirable in a hedge 
plant. I have been surprised at the number of trees and 
shrubs used for hedges in the South. It is, doubtless, 
owing, in part, to their circumstances. In most parts 
there is no stone for fences, and the wood used for rails 
rots with astonishing rapidity. I have seen the Arbor 
Vitae, the Cherokee Rose, the Osage Orange, the Privet, 
the Viburnum, the Ligustrum, the Cape Jessamine, and 
the Japonica, under training, and all making good fences. 
Agricola. 
Warren County, Miss., March 30, 1859. 
1^" A correspondent of the Brovmsville (Ark.) Echo 
makes the following cheerful exhortations to his brother 
farmers of the West ; 
IS THE EARTH WEARING OUT? 
Mr. Editor :—Ro'fr often are agricultural improvers told 
that mother earth is in her decline 1 The earth is wearing 
out. Some unthinking farmers will say there is no use of 
improving the soil, for it will not pay for the trouble. 
True, some hills are bare, naked and desolate in their 
sterility, valleys are impoverished and refuse to put on 
nature’s green livery, with which richer spots so exuber- 
ently array themselves. Trees and herbage have disap- 
peared, but still the earth is young— young in the mea- 
sure of years— young in her capacity for increased pro- 
duction on every acre of her wide domain. Every atom 
which the Creator cast from his plastic hands at the dawn 
of time, still has its visible existence some where on this 
globe, and is doing its part of the reproduction which na- 
ture is so constantly employed in. Nothing is wasted in 
nature’s laboratory. The dead leaves from the trees, the 
withered grass of the prairies, all go to make up for those 
drains which vegetation calls forth from the earth. 
What if the mould of our new lands is washed down 
the brooks and rivers to the oceans which encircle conti- 
nents 1 The sea, in return, gives back its rich treasures 
to the land which has been robbed ; and though it comes 
from the islands of the far south, it nevertheless contains 
all the elements which are requisite to restore the fields 
which have been exhausted by tillage. 
There is an inscrutable wisdom in Providence which is 
beyond mortal comprehension. Wherever nature has a 
want there will be an agent of supply ready at hand. 
Whenever it becomes the practice of rural minds to apply 
the intellectual force with which they are gifted, to de- 
vising the proper remedies for natural defects of soil, or 
wasted fertility — then may we expect to see the earth, 
yea, even those vast prairies, bloom like a bride amongst 
youth, and we will hear no more the unwelcome voice 
which bids her sons despair as they stand in the furrows 
of life. 
Yes, the earth is still young-^glad and joyous in coming 
years will be the march of time along her teeming valleys. 
Fields of golden grain and snowy fleece from her increas- 
ed production, will cause the countless millions yet to 
enter life to bless those who have not stood idle upon the 
sod. Let us be up and doing. The bog, the marsh, and 
pools of stagnant wa*ter, sending forth the arrows of pes- 
tilence and death, can be made to smile with health and 
beauty by a very trifling outlay by the State with her sur- 
feited swamp land funds in her coffers. Then, my 
countrymen, we must do our part in the work of local 
preservation. It is a mandate written by Deity amongst 
the laws of nature, and he who disobeys, instead of plente- 
ous harvests reaps only disappointments and vexation of 
spirit. Then let each and every one come up to the Fair 
at Des Arc and other places next fall with something of 
his own production. Let us not be so far surpassed by 
our fair and lovely countrywomen as we have heretofore 
been. Let us, at least, attend the Fairs next fall and see 
their fine productions ; to surpass them we cannot, as they 
are and have been foremost in all great and patriotic en- 
terprises. B. 
Tme Digging or Spading Fork. — We fully agree with 
a correspondent of the Boston Cultivator ^ in his estimate 
of the Spading Fork. It is an indispensable tool in the 
garden, orchard or vineyard. “P. B.” says : 
“I am in the full tide of experiment, ‘the Fork vs. the 
Spade,’ and want words to express the satisfaction on 
exchanging the one for the other ; in fact, the half has not 
and cannot be told in its favor ; the saving of time and la- 
bor being, when compared with its pulverizing quality, 
as three to one, and particularly on wet or stony soils, the 
land being thoroughly broken up from bottom to-top, and 
requiring not th e use of the rake.” 
Test of Guano. — An exchange paper says : “A bushel 
of guano, if pure, weights almost exactly seventy pounds ; 
if adulterated with light substances (which is rarely the 
case,) it will, of course, weight less. If clay, marl, sand, 
&c., have been used, they will be materially increased, 
and so far as this test applies, gross adulterations will be 
easily detected.” 
