SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
91 
from the colony and State of Georgia. In view of the 
severity of some of our winters, stock-growers should not 
rely on the natural resources of cane-bottoms, corn fields, 
nor forest ranges, but provide plenty of fodder, pea-hay, 
crab-grass and other forage. Stock of all kinds demand 
good shelter and regular feeding to yield the maximum 
profit. Instead of importing hay from New York, bacon 
from Ohio, and mules from Kentucky, we ought to have a 
surplus of each of these for exportation. In short, our 
meadows and pastures should be on our own plantations; 
and not a thousand miles off in distant States. Fat cattle 
are now sent by railway from Missouri and Iowa to New 
York, Philadelphia and Boston ; and we can ship them at 
a less cost from' Savannah to the same cities. For all 
practical purposes, we are at least five hundred miles 
nearer the great markets of the world than the valley of 
the Mississippi. Give to Georgia agriculture a fuU allow- 
ance of fine stock, of choice meadows and pastures, and 
you will at once double the value of all farming lands in 
the State, and double the annual income from the soils. 
We speak advisedly when we say that a pair of mules 
and a driver can cut twenty thousand pounds of hay in 
ten hours with a good mowing machine. A hand with 
a single mule and rake will bring the new made hay into 
winrows for loading and hauling into barns or stacks. If 
it is to be sent to marltet, cotton presses are adapted to 
pressing it into bales. At present, grass seeds of all kinds 
are exceedingly high ; the writer having paid fifty cents 
a pound for blue-grass seed. It is all-important to South- 
ern husbandry that we raise our own grass-seed, and 
have pure and acclimated seed for general use. It will 
give the writer great pleasure to assist in an enterprise of 
this kind in any way in his power. We fertilize the land 
seeded in grass, with from ten to twenty bushels of good 
house ashes, before they are leached, to the acre, and 
should apply lime if it were attainable. In New York, 
we put from 1*2 to IG quarts of clean timothy seed upon 
one acre; in Georgia our first tiials will be with 8 quarts 
only. Having sown in December, we now fear that the 
very freezing weather in January has killed the young 
and very tender plants. It is no easy matter to sow one’s 
w’heat, barley, oats and grass-seed at the right time. 
Nothing can be well more variable and uncertain than 
our climate — its temperature and fall of rain and snow. 
All germs and young plants are tender before their cells 
are fully matured. Hence, wheat and all other cereal 
grasses, and proper forage plants, may be killed by freezing 
them soon after the seed has germinated. After the tissues 
of these plants are matured, with many, frost is harm- 
less. Drain all wet places before seeding, and subdue the 
wild, coarse turf by tillage. Low grounds are best adopt- 
ed to pasturage and meadows, when properly treated ; and 
from these a vast quantity of rich manure may be taken 
to enrich the upland of a well managed farm. L. 
SUGAS FROM THE CHINESE CANE. 
Our friend. Dr. Robert Battey, of Rome, Ga, who is 
now diligently pursuing the study of chemistry in Phila- j 
delphia, sends us the subjoined note, accompanied by j 
■very beautiful samples of cryslalized sugar and syrup, ex- 
tracted from stalks of Chinese Sugar Cane, {Holcus Saccha- 
ratus.) This very valuable new plant was described in 
our December number, (1855) page 378, and again in our 
last (February) issue, page 4G. We have a very high 
opinion of it, after one year’s trial, and hope Dr. B. and 
others will continue thHr investigations. Should it 
prove of any commercial value, as a sugar-producing 
plant, there cannot be any doubt that it will be found vast- 
ly superior to all other plants of the same genus as a green 
forage crop for stock, owing to the great amount of 
saccharine juice which it contains: 
Booth's Laboratory , Philadelphia, Pa., ) 
January ,>2iiil, 185G. j 
. Editors Southern Cultivator — I send you sample of 
products obtained from the S'wg'A'UWi, alias, Holcus Sacch- 
arotus. The two samples of sugar are both rav). The 
best, from the first granulation, is, I think, a promising 
article. The dark one was injured by the long delay in 
the manipulation. They are genuine Cane Sugars. 
I regret that I am not prepared to report on them, and 
will not be until another crop can be made; by which 
time I hope to have another interesting matter to bring, tcv 
your notice in the Cotton plant. 
Truly yours, Robert Battey. 
Inrtitultttral Stpaitintnt. 
FRUITS FOR THE SOUTH- 
PEACHES. 
“ Noio you have covie to the land of Peaches ; now you 
will see peaches, such as you never saw before T \v3.s fre- 
quently said to me, when I, eight years ago, located my- 
self as a nurseryman, here at Macon. And it was true; 
for never had I seen such an abundance of mean, dry, hog- 
peaches as those that abounded here; Peaches which fre- 
quently sold at twenty-five cents (not worth a dime) per 
bushel. The season for such common Peaches is confined 
to about 6 weeks, or from the middle of July to the latter 
part of the month of August, while our soil and climate is 
so congenial to the cultivation of this fruit, that we can 
have Peaches of the wery best quality, ripening in succes- 
ion for 5 months, viz : from May till November. 
When formerly the distillation of peach-brandy was a 
profitable business, and large orchards were planted for 
that purpose, as well as for feeding of hogs, no attention 
was bestowed on the proper selection and promulgation 
of the fine varieties; the planters were of the opinion 
that any Peach, no matter how “sorry,” would yield a good 
brandy, as well as fatten hogs ; they did not calculate how 
much more profitable it would be to them to raise the- 
finest Peaches, ripening during the whole season, of five 
months, for their hogs ; or such as would give an abun- 
dance of juice for their brandy ; or ripen just at such a 
time when it was most convenient for them to attend to 
that business, without taking their hands from the work 
in the field, to say nothing of the supply for family use. 
I The idea of budding or grafting a peach was ridiculed; 
and even now it is the opinion of most persons that Peaches 
will always reproduce themselves from the stone equally 
as fine as the mother tree. 
It is true, some Peaches, as for instance, all that belong 
to the “Melocoton” family, will reproduce themselves 
more or less genuine, but it is not to be relied on, and 
af'er several generations they will oftew degenerate. It is 
a fact, also, that some very superior varieties are now and 
then met with in our orchards, though a very small per- 
centage (the greatest part being mean ones) ; and even 
