vSOTTTHEEN CULTIVATOR. 
The value offish ponds iu the inienor of our Southern 
Bouiitry does not seem to be duly appreciated. They are, 
Vi) conceive, attended, not only with pleasure, but with 
j'iofii. It is true the angler, who runs about the country 
and wastes his time in catching a few diminutive fishes 
and returns home fatigued, wet and huntrary, has wasted | 
his time and chosen an unprofitable occupation. It is not ! 
so, however, where you rear your own fish and can take j 
them at pleasure. It is a pleasant recreation even for | 
ladies and gives exercise, health and amusement. The ! 
shrieking at a worm and falling into hysterics at the idea 
of taking a fish from the hook is a morbid kind of sensi- 
bility of v./hich a women of sense and character would be 
ashamed. Our canine teeth present a stronger argument 
sTi favor of man’s adaptation to animal food than all the 
essays in favor of a vegetable diet that ever were written. 
Providence intended the fishes as well as other animals 
for the use of man. Where man does not lessen the 
species, other animals are left to do the work. A single 
Jack Fish will destroy more fish in a week than all the j 
ladies in the land will catch in a month. We are obliged j 
ID admit that, from a want of tiraeand, perhaps, a^deficien- | 
zy io another requisite— that of patience — we Iiave rarely 
indulged in angling. A few hours with each species, in i 
studying their habits — their manner of taking the hook, j 
iiheir m^e of breeding, the food they relished, &c. — was j 
all the time we could afford to give to this diversion. Had | 
wo been a member of the Isaac Walton Club we fear we 
wo'ald long since have been black-balled as an incompe- 
tent member, deficient both in patience and dexterity. 
The fish pond, however, offers much more substantial 
benefits to its proprietor. In a large portion of our interi- 
or country there are thousands of families that are deprived 
D/The pleasure of sitting down to a meal of fish during the 
whole year. The mill ponds raise the fish until they 
haTegrowxt to a certain size, when, in a freshet they pitch 
over the darns and stray down to the waters of the Savan- 
nah, the Edisto, Cooperand the Santee rivers, where they 
become food for the Otter, the Alligator and the Gar 
fish. The fishing in a pond, thus periodically drained, 
ccinnot be very profitable. We have seen, both in Bavaria 
and Bohemia, the outlets or race ways in the dams of 
thbir common grist mills so secured by wires, that the fish 
were retained, and thus their ponds were rendered doubly 
profitable. 
We were recently led to a train of thought on seeing, at I 
Atlanta, Ga., many strings of fish carried about the streets 
‘for sale, which proved to be Cat Fish, brought all the way 
from the Tenessee River to find a market during the Fair 
ai Atlanta. It occurred to us that, with a little labor, they 
aright have been supplied with cheaper and better fish 
neufer home. 
jf we can learn that cur present effort at inducing some 
fcfour planters to construct fisli ponds has been attended 
vvifn succes.s in only a single instance, we will feel fully 
lernunevated for the time occupied in preparing thisj 
FBEIILrrf IfCT A QUALITY OF SOIL. 
Sc ME of our careful readers may be surprised to see it 
sl ated bv one of the Editors of this jouimal that fertility is 
of soil, but a quantiiy In the same. Right 
wojds and notions on the point under consideration are 
important to secure the wise practice of agriculture. Be- 
*Joie the light of analytical chemistry had illuminated the 
vecijlt development of plants from the often exceedingly 
Eiim’ite germs in their seeds, the fruitfulness of the earth 
was Jiot unusually regarded and spoken of as a qvedUy—e. 
S 1 SS 8 matter, and nothing more. This 
opinion, and the language suggested by it still prevail 
among the masses, to the serious detriment of agricultural 
progress. No clear headed person should ever confound 
quantity and quality ; although they often sustain an in- 
timate relation to each other. All crops are quantities, 
measured in pounds and bushels, or barrels. These pon- 
derable barrels of corn, bushels of wheat, and pounds of 
cotton arc nol qnalilies taken out of the surface of the 
ground ; and no mere quality of sand, clay, loam or mould, 
can possibly give them existence. Soils have qualities, 
us hard, soft, tenacious, friable, compact, pervious, and 
impervious ; but nothing of this character is fcrtilUi/, how. 
ever friendly or unfriendly to it. As fertility makes a 
crop, and is pro lanto, consumed thereby, the word is le- 
gitimately applicable to the elements of plants, and not to 
the mere condition of said elements. In learning the 
fundamental principles of agriculture, one had better ac- 
quire a clear perception of /Amgs first, and of the con- 
dition of things immediately thereafter, so far as they are 
concerned in rural affairs. 
Regarding fertility as aquantlty, we are prepared to in- 
quire how many ounces or pounds of it are contained in 
one hundred of common land, under cultivation I In the 
aggregate, as compared with the wants of vegetables, 
the amount is large ; but as compared with the whole 
mass of earth in which fertilizing substances exist, the 
quantity is small. By comparison only are things large 
or small. When a planter sends to market 100 lbs. of 
dry corn, or a like weight of cotton, he sells only one 
pound of the imcombustible part of his land, extracted, it 
may be from a million pounds of soil. The latter may 
not be sensibly injured by the, apparently, trifling loss of 
fruitfulness. But as the multiplication and running to- 
gether of single drops of rain produce a mighty flood, so 
the steady removal of crops from year to year, greatly- 
aided, in many situations, by the mechanical processes of 
tillage, inevitably consumes fertility if it be not replen- 
ished. Restitution of atoms, similar to those taken out of 
arated and depastured fields, may be made by a river, 
smaller stream that periodically overflows its banks, oc 
by open springs which bring fertility up to the surface 
I of the groundfrom the deepest sources of the elements of 
plants, or by wliat is more common, but far less noticed 
the widely diffused invisible fountains and veins of circu- 
lating water near and in the upper stratum of the earth's 
crust. By capillary attraction, and other ways not now 
named, water rises from the lower strata to the upper, and 
ascends to its temporary home in tiie clouds. All are 
aware that it drops in fatness from the heavens upon 
needy crops; while comparativey few appreciate the vast 
quantity of fertility brought to the surface by the oozing 
out of blind springs, and the almost universal uprising of 
moisture in protracted dry weather. 
From these views, it i.s plain that fertility, although a 
qiuuUy, is any'ihir.g rather than a con.stant quantify in 
the soil. Clay, however, has peculiarly conservative 
powcr.s ; while sand, iron, lime raid vegatable mould are 
not devoid of natural affinities which admirably adapt 
each and all to the grand necessities of the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms. The harmonious, and often wonder- 
ful adaption of the physical forces, gaseous, and earthy 
resources of tha planet we inhabit, to the constant wants 
of vegetable and animal life, renders the study of agri- 
cultural improvement as interesting as it is useful. Dis- 
coveries in chemistry and other sciences which impart to 
our race a daeper knowledge of things, their properties 
and fitness, constantly increase the power of Mind over 
Mutter. The owneis and cultivators of the soil need, foi 
