260 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
which energy and intelligent enterprise cannot overcome. 
To show how far this has already been done, I will only 
say that a few days ago I saw in the Agricultural and 
Horticultural Rooms at Mobile, fine May Duke and Ox 
Heart Cherries and Cauliflowers, equal in size and per- 
fect maturity to any grown in Maryland or Pennsylvania. 
I will conclude by saying, on a stiff sandy soil, or hav- 
ing a stiff subsoil, with the necessary trouble and expense, 
clover may be successfully grown, and, further, that it 
will liberally remunerate for all trouble and expense, how- 
ever large such may be. 
As regards hay-making, which escaped me until this 
moment, I would remark, that not having had a demand 
for it, I have not made it. My clover, not grazed, is al- 
lowed to fall and rot. I believe our crab grass to be per- 
haps the best for hay. Plow and harrow a piece of land 
about the middle of April, and devote it tohhis grass ; cut 
when it gets in the best, and it will make a ton per acre, 
and may be grazed afterwards. I have endeavored, I 
fear imperfectly, to comply with your wishes. If my 
letter should give a nev/ idea, or kindle a new zeal, or 
wake up a dormant energy m behalf of Southern stock 
and pasturage, to me it will furnish more than a compen- 
:sation for the small trouble it has cost me. 
Very respectfully, yours, 
Isaac Croom. 
CAST lEOJ^ GOTTOH SCREWS. 
D. H. Coombs, Esq — Dear Sir : — Your letter of inquiry 
about my Cast Iron Cotton Screws is now before me. 
The cost of either one I cannot give you, as 1 bought both 
of mine from gentlemen that had no knowledge of their 
value, for a mere trifle. I say in confidence that either of 
my screws will last 40 years, and pack 500 bales of cot- 
ton a year, without repair, and that neither cost over ^80. 
In packing, I use a pair of mules, a boy to drive them, 
and about four men in handling and baling up the cotton; 
and they will put up about 20 bales a day of over 500 
pounds weight each. 
My lint room is the same size of my gin house, built in 
the same way, and of the same material — both being log 
walls, built up on lightwood posts. 
For the cost of screv/ and fixtures I refer you to Robert 
FiNDLEY, Esq , of Macon ; and if you wish a capable, 
faithful and honest workmen to put up the screw, I refer 
you to John Cunningham, Oglethorpe, Macon county, 
Georgia. 
I am confident that I pack cotton faster, with more ease 
and less loss than any other planter in Georgia. I would 
not to-day take five hundred dollars for either of my 
screws. Most respectfully. 
Your obedient servant, 
John S. Thomas. 
Montezuma, S. W. Rail Road, July, 1856. 
HORSES IN A1JSTRIA--THE IIIPERIAL STUD. 
A LETTER from Vienna to the Springfield (Mass.) Re- 
publican gives the annexed description of the Imperial 
stables : 
“I have visited some picture galleries, twenty or thirty 
churches, a great many cabinets of natural history, a few 
palaces, and most interesting of all, the imperial stables, 
where six hundred noble steeds are lodged most royally, 
and fare sumptuously every day, dutifully attended by 
three hundred, servants. The apartments of their equine 
highnesses are at once splendid and comfortable, free from 
the scent of the stable, and clean as a lady’s parlor. Their 
blankets are embroidered with the imperial crest ; their 
harness, saddles, and all their equipments, are of the most 
mostly kind, and generally in excellent taste. In one large 
hall are some two hundred carriages, of which the cheap- 
est cost two or three thousand dollars, and the coronation 
carriage, adorned with paintings by Rubens, and covered 
with diamonds, and gold, wheels and all, cost about two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Another hath filled 
with state saddles and trappings of various descriptions, k 
still more magnificent. 
“But the animals themselves, unlike most occupants of 
palaces, far outshine all their exterior adornments. The 
bright, fiery, intelligent eye; the proudly arching neck, 
(the horse is the only animal whom pride really becomes); 
the form of perfect symmetry ; the delicate but powerful 
limbs, the grace of every movement, the gentleness and 
courtesy with which they receive every little attention 
bestowed upon them, the high-bred nobleness and dignity 
of their whole deportment, filled me with admiration. 1 
would rather have my choice from those six hundred 
horses than the Imperial crown of their owner. The 
carriage horses are ail white, but those for riding are of all 
colors, some magnificent black.” 
SLAVE PROPERTY IN THE ' UNITED STATES. 
According to the United States Census for 18.50, there 
were then in the slave States 5,1 95,951 slaves. Taking 
t$6U0 as the average and allowing for the material increase 
since 1850, the total value of slaves in the United States 
at this time, is estimated at two thousand millions of dol- 
lars, the annual interest of which, at 6 per cent, will 
amount to 120,000,000. 
The estimated value of the slaves emancipated in the 
British West Indies was only S-50,000,000, not half the 
amount of the annual interest of the slave property of the ; 
United States. Yet it is estimated by an able v/riter in 
Blackxeovd' & Magazine that the loss of productive proper- 
ty in land, houses, machinery and implements of various 
kinds which were rendered valueless by emancipation, 
was not less than four times the amount of the whole 
value of the slaves. Calculate, then, the enormous finan- 
cial ruin that would follow the triumph of Abolitionism in 
the United States i 
Is it wonderful that the South should be sensitive in- 
view of the fact that a formidable party, strong enough to 
elect a speaker of the House of Representatives, and a 
President of the United States, (if the election should be 
thrown, as is not improbable, upon the Plouse.) exists in 
the non-slaveholding States, whose avowed object is to | 
abolish slavery, to rob six millions of Southerners of two | 
thousand millions of property, and the incalculable \ 
amount of other property which would be rendered value- 
less by emancipation ; to say nothing of all the horrors of 
civil and servile war which would necessarily accompany 
the attempt to accomplish this stupendous and unparal- 
leled wrong ? — Richmond Dispatch. 
“HAVE THINGS HANDY.” 
This is an old-fashioned expression ; nevertheless, it is ' 
one full of meaning — and this is the character of most old- 
fashioned things. We love them for their paternity’s sake, i 
and for the sacred associations they carry with them of 
our old-fashioned home, with its old-lash ioned fire-place 
and ample stone hearth — of our old-fashioned mother, 
with a heart which is old-fashioned, we suppose, for it is a 
good one, and “beats” in truest time yet; for a thousand 
old memories which ■ they keep alive on the heart’s altar, 
and which, in our tilting and twittering after the new 
things of the day, we are likely, alas too soon to forget. 
Have things handy:' Not you alone. Farmers ! Not 
you only, mechanics! — but to every reader, of whatever 
grade, business, or profession, we say, “have things handy ’ 
about you. Save time and accomplish more. In the first 
place, the dwelling should be arranged in the most con- 
