168 the southern CULTIVATOR. 
®1)C Sout!)£vn ^ulttuatcrr. 
AUGUSTA, GA. 
VOL. HI., i^O. 1 l...W©VJEitIKER, 1845. 
Oiir Fourth Volume. 
The publishers avail themselves of the pre- 
sent number to announce to the Patrons and 
Friends of the “ Southern Cultivator,” that 
they will in a few days issue a Prospectus lor 
the Fourth Volume, which will be extensively 
circulated, and they can but indulge the hope 
that every friend of the work will make some 
effort to extend its circulation. 
The Peach and Apple Trade. j 
The leader will notice two articles in this num- 
ber of the Cultivator, which will perhaps oc- 
casion some wonder — we allude to the articles 
on the peach and apple trade. 
In addition to the information contained in Mr. 
Peddeh’s article, we have learnt that from the 
orchard of the Reybolds there were sold, up to 
29th August, 63,234 baskets of peaches ; and up 
to 8th September, the number had reached to 
75,000. The basket contains about half a bushel . 
and at the first of the season sells for something 
like three dollars; when the crop is fully ripe, 
the price falls to about 75 cents. The orchards of 
the Reybolds are said to contain 1080 acres, and 
117,720 trees. 
Ridgeway’s orchard in the same neighborhood 
Isa very productive one. It comprisesonly about 
200 acres. In 1939, from 170 acres there were 
gathered as much as 18,000 bushels of ripe fruit; 
and about 25 acres had not come into full bearing. 
The TVitune estimates the whole number of 
baskets of peaches sold in the city of New York 
last summer, during the 40 days of the peach sea- 
son, at 12,000 baskets per day, making 480,000 
baskets in all; which, at the average price, would 
make about three-fourths of a million of dollars 
paid by the people of New York for peaches in a 
single year. Mr. Downing may say with perfect 
safety, as he does in the preface to his “ Fruits 
and Fruit Trees of America,” that there are more 
peaches offered for sale in the markets of New 
York annually, than are raised in all Prance. 
And such peaches — so beautiful and so luscious; 
The best orange is hardly superior to some of the 
best sorts of Jersey Peaches. We have neglected 
the peach, as we have nearly every thing else but 
cotton, in the South, until our best sorts have be- 
come so poor, as to be a little worse even than 
Jeremiah’s figs: — for though, according to Peter 
Pindar’s account of these said figs, the bad were 
not fit for pigs, yet the good were very good. 
Peter couldn’t say as much for our Southern 
peaches, if he had ever tasted some of the best 
Jersey varieties, such as the Grosse Mignonne, 
Rid Cheek Malacoton, Early Admirable, or Early 
Crawford. The business in New Orleans last 
summer, shows how very inferior our peaches 
have been allowed to become, through sheer 
neglect; for there is no tree that repays so gene- 
rously the care bestowed upon it. Even in that 
city the sales were only about 1,100 bbls. and 
1000 boxes of peaches, nectarines, pears and 
quinces, amounting to about $4,200. This is 
mainly attributable, Mr. Rurr says, to the bad 
quality of the fruit ; but the demand, he is confi- 
dent, will keep pace with the production of good 
fruit. 
Why can’t the people along the lines of Rail- 
road leading to Charleston, Columbia, Savannah, 
Augusta, Macon and Montgomery, use some of 
fheirpoor sandy land that is good for nothing else, 
in raising good peaches for the supply of the mar- 
kets of those cities.?- They have every thing to 
encourage them, as the facts we have stated 
clearly show. But unless they get the improved 
sorts, and then lake care to cultivate them pro- 
perly, they had better let it alone. 
The other article is about the Apple Trade. 
Though it relates chiefly to the state of Horticul- 
ture in Indiana, we have copied the whole of it, 
because, coming from the pen of the Rev. Mr. 
Beecher, Editor of the Indiana Farmer, it is, Of 
necessity, very interesting. But our principal 
object is, to introduce to our readers the specula- 
tions of Mr. B., on the figure the apple is destined 
to make hereafter in the world, both as an article 
of food and of commerce. Do you think the es- 
timate of Mr. B.,an extravagant one? Remem- 
ber there is a strong array of facts against you, 
some of which we will mention. The crop in the 
West is a short one this year, owing to late spring 
frosts. To supply the deficiences, there had been 
shipped, up to the first of October, from Oswego 
alone, 5000 barrels of apples for Ohio and Michi- 
gan. Prom other lake ports we have not heard. 
Mr. Downing says, nearly a quarter of a million 
of fruit trees have been planted in one year, in 
one of the newest Western States. You see 
these people believe in Mr. Beecher. Mr. Pell, 
of VVestchester, New York, has an apple orcha'd 
of twenty thousand trees. He sells his apples in 
New York at six dollars per barrel. The best, 
however, he sends to Eng'and, where they com- 
mand twenty-one dollars per barrel. The nobility, 
at;d the wealthy people, bought them last year at 
a guinea a dozen, or about 45 cents a piece. Last 
year he sold 9000 barrels. This year he has al- 
ready sold between 3000 and 4000 barrels. 
Scotch physicians prescribe American apples for 
dyspepsia. It is no unusual thing for an Enolish 
lady to have on her table at a party, fruit whi< h 
cost from j£400 to £500. A dinner was given by 
an English nobleman some years ago, for which 
the fruit alone cost £6000. Invariably, where 
English and American apples are exposed for 
sale together in the London fruit shops, the 
American are preferred at double the price of the 
English. 
With such a demand for fruit, both at home and 
abroad — with the means of supplying it afforded 
by American soil and climate and induscry and 
energy and love of gain, Mr. Beecher can’t be far 
wrong in his anticipations. 
What is all this to us of the South ? — you ask. 
Is it not something to know that cotton and rice 
and sugar are not the only things whereby the 
pocket may be relieved from collapse — that riches 
may come of raising even peaches and apples? 
Moreover, if for want of direct and regular steam- 
ships between Savannah and Charleston and 
Europe, we may not furnish apples for English 
noblemen to eat, at 45 cents a piece, ought we not 
at least, to supply our own Southern cities, in- 
stead of alio wing them to depend on supplies from 
abroad? The world may be defied to show better 
apples than the mountain region of the Southern 
States produces, with projier care. Some say 
the apple with which Eve was tempted grew here. 
About that we say nothing, because we don’t 
know how it was. But we do know that the peo- 
ple of our mountain region love money just about 
as much as most other people; that they have 
about as much need of it; and that their apples 
will bring money about as surely as any thing 
they raise for market. It will be their own fault, 
if in a few years, a Yankee apple shall be seen in 
any of our Southern cities. 
Lime. 
We are not quite sure that Mr. Brown intended 
his letter for publication. Not seeing how we 
could so well forward his ends as by publishing it, 
we have, Jackson-like, taken the responsibility of 
doing so. His purposes are now known to our 
planters, as well as to those who have the man- 
agement of cur railroads. We wish him all the 
success he can desire ; and beg leave to add, that 
on the subject of transporting lime on railroads, 
to be used for agricultural pui poses, we have 
never had but one opinion ; anJ that is, that it 
ought to be transported at the very lowest possi- 
ble rates. We are pretty sure there will be 
scarcely any demand for it at the prices stated in 
Mr. B’s postscript. And even at such rales as it 
might be afforded at, were the freight reduced, it 
will take a great deal ot persuasion to bring it into 
use. But we don’t despair. As the waters wear 
the stones, so will the frequent repetiiion of our 
advice, and the example of others, we hope, wear 
away in time, the prejudice that exists against 
every thing that proposes to change the old sys- 
tem of husbandry in the South. 
Sugar Cane. 
The fact stated by “ QuUque” in this number 
of the Cultivator, if thc'e be no mistake about 
it, is a very curious one. We can find nothing in 
the writings of vegetable physiologists, or in the 
recorded experience of practical gardeners, to 
throw any light on the subject. Lindley, 
Knight, Herbert, indeed every one, refers to the 
simple process of dusting the stigma of one plant 
with the pollen of another, as the only way in 
whicheither cross breeds or hybrids a. e produced : 
and that the act of fertilization consists in the 
emission, by the pollen, of certain tubes of mi- 
croscopical tenuity, which pass dawn the style^ 
and eventually reach the young seed, with which 
they come in contact ; and, unless this contact 
takes place, fertilization misses. 
Now the sugar cane does not blossam and bear 
seed, we believe, anywhere but in tropical cli- 
mates. It is quite certain, therefore, that none of 
the established piinciples, of either muling or 
crossing, can be applied to explain the production 
of the new variety of cane mentioned by our cor- 
respondent. The case is, however, not without 
parallel. Something of the same kind came un- 
der our own observation a few years ago, occur- 
ring in our own grounds. The sweet potato does 
not bear seed, and but seldom produces even blos- 
soms in temperate climates. On one occasion, 
we had the varieties known as the yam, and the 
Red Bermuda, growing in contiguous rows. In 
gathering the crop, we found one of the vams 
