THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
123 
thinks in this waj" the territory can be increas 
ed to a considerable extent, without extending it 
one inch. There is one kind of annexation, he 
thinks, perfectly practicable — that of applying 
manures in abundance to their exhausted lands; 
which will advance the farmer’s interest, and af- 
ford the best protection that could be desired. 
Try it, farmers, and the happy effects will be the 
result. A. A. B. 
SELECTIONS, EXTRACTS, &c. 
From the Columbia South Carolinian. 
OVERSEERS— No. 11. 
We often hear planters boasting of having 
made six, eight, and sometimes ten bags of cot- 
ton to the hand, and when one speaks of mak- 
ing a “ fine crop,” it is understood that he has 
turned out five or six bags or more per hand. 
Occasionally an old planter will take the liber- 
ty of inquiring of one of these fine croppers how 
much corn he has made, but seldom venture 
further. Now it is this very erroneous idea, 
that a large number of cotton bags constitute of 
itself a “fine crop,” that is so fatal to all im- 
provement in planting, and so ruinous to over- 
seers. What does it avail a planter to make 
ten bags of cotton to the hand, if he has to buy 
corn and meat — it his mutes break down —his 
negroes decrease, and his lands go to nothing? 
My idea of a “ fine crop” is, first, an increase 
of negroes; second, enough made on the planta- 
tion, of meat, corn, &c., to feed every thing 
abundantly ; third, an improvement, rather than 
a deterioration, in the productive quality of the 
lands; fourth, the mules, horses, farming uten- 
sils and fences all in first rate order by Christ- 
mas ; and then, as much cotton as can be made 
and gathered, under these circumstances. And 
I will venture to assert, that no planter will 
thrive, in the long run, who does not make fine 
crops of this sort. Nor will agriculture steadi- 
ly improve, until all planters are of this opinion, 
and act upon it ; and not only planters, but over- 
seers. In the vocabulary of overseers, “ a fine 
crop” refers wholly to a fine co'ton crop. They 
boast of nothing else at the muster-ground, and 
road- working, wheie they carry, with perhaps a 
commendable vanity, the first form, first bloom, 
and first grown boll. When they seek a place, 
they rest their claims entirely on the number of 
bags they have heretofore made to the hand, and 
generally the employer unfortunately recognizes 
the justice of such claims. 
No wonder, then, that the overseer desires to 
have entire control of the plantation. No won- 
der he opposes all experiments, or, if they are 
persisted in, neglects them ; presses everything 
at the end of the lash; pays no attention to the 
sick, excepi to keep them in the field as long as 
possible, and drives them out again at the first 
moment, and forces sucklers and breeders to the 
utmost. He has no other interest than to make 
a big cotton crop. And if this dues not please 
you and induce you to increase his wages, he 
knows men it will please, and secure him a 
situation with. 
Until planters, therefore, generally come to 
the opinion, that it is necessary to attend tooth- 
er things besides making cotton, to get rich by 
agriculture, it will be impossible to reform over- 
seers, or increase either the individual or ag- 
gregate wealth of the country. And that this 
conclusion is a just one, I appeal to the expe- 
rience of all planters. During the I'ecent hard 
times, has any single planter been brought to 
the block, unless for security debis, who made 
all, or nearly all his articles of consumption 
within himself, though he made ever so small 
crops of cotton? On the other hand, how many 
of the ten-bag planters have been swept away ? 
In fact, does it not somehow happen, that al- 
most all such planters are, sooner or later, in a 
very ticklish condition ? And generally, they 
leave to children reared on the ten-bag scale, 
wornoul lands, and broken down negroes. Cot- 
ton is the great crop, but not the only crop. En- 
ergy is a great thing in planting, and doubtless 
the fundamental principle ol success, but some" 
thing else is also requisite — juc:gment, care and 
foresight. 
But I am writing about overseers. I wish to 
see them reformed. Planters must, I fear, first 
reform themselves. But if they could only be 
induced, when overseers apply to them for pla- 
ces, to ask the following questions, in the lol- 
lowing order, and engage or not engage accord- 
ing to their answers, I believe it would, if the 
plan was universally adopted and kept up lor 
five years, do more to improve our agriculture 
than five hundred cattle shows, as serviceable as 
I think them to be. 
1. Will you obey orders, implicitly, prompt- 
ly, and fully ? 
2. How many negroes were under your 
charge last year ? 
3. How many births had you ? 
4. How many deaths ? 
5. How many hogs did you raise ? 
6. How much corn did you make ? 
7. How much manure ? 
8. W hat experiments did you try ? 
9. How many of your mules died? 
10. Did you leave every thing in good repair? 
11. What was your crop of cotton ? 
12. Vfhat is your price? 
Prankuin. 
Prom the Amen'can Agriculturist. 
AGRICULTURAL ERRORS. 
So many glaring scientific ei rors find their 
way into our agricultural works, that 1 am 
afraid, unless rectified at home, they will make 
us the laughing-stock of Europeans. II these 
works had only a limited local circulation, such 
errors might be amusing, yet would scarcely be 
deserving of notice; but as many copies of our 
works on agriculture find their way to other 
countries, and are there perused by scientific 
readers, we must either criticise them among 
ourselves, or we shall be considered totally ig- 
norant of the science w e so glibly write about. 
I am sorry to undertake so disagreeable a task, 
and can assure the writers of the articles lam 
about to review, that I am totally unacquainted 
with either of them, and that my only object is 
to save the credit of our common country. 
The first article 1 shall notice, is one written 
by Mr. Noyes Darling, of four columns, insert- 
ed in the Albany Cultivator lor March, on lime 
as a destroyer ol sorrel. Mr. Dai ling is correct 
in supposing that oxalic acid is formed from the 
elements of the plants in which it is found ; but 
in error when he gives hydrogen as one ol the 
elements of oxalic acid, this acid being compos- 
ed ct only two elements, carbon and oxygen. It 
is still more strange that Mr. Dana shoald pre- 
scribe lime as a cure for the growth ol sorrel, 
when it exists in this place as an oxalate of lime, 
and could not grow in any soil unless lime was 
present. 
The juice of sorrel changed, by a process well 
known by the operative chemist, to oxalate ol 
potash, has been much used in the arts, and sells 
at a high price. I have sold it at^S per pound, 
and it is now selling at $1. There are about 
four species of plants which contain oxalate of 
lime; four species that contain binoxalate of 
potash, and only one known species (the cicer 
faiietium^ that contains uncombined oxalic 
acid. If this cicer could be cultivated in any 
part of our country, it would afford a valuable 
acquisition to the useful arts, in supplyi' g us 
with oxalic acid, which is now imported at a 
cost of nearly 56 cents per pound. 
A few drachms of oxalic acid will operate as 
a violent poison ; but a small quantity with su- 
gar and water forms a pleasant cooling beve- 
rage, and is considered a line antiseptic. I have 
drank many gallons of oialade, and punch 
made sour with oxalic acid, 
I had written thus far, when a friend handed 
me a work called the Muck Manual, by Mr. 
Dana, requesting me to review it. I had not 
read many pages before a suspicion flashed on 
my mind, that this work had been perused and 
taken for authority by Mr. Pell, and hence seve- 
ral errors in his article on “Charcoal and its 
Uses,” in the April number of the Agriculturist. 
This shows the importance of prolessiunal wri- 
ters being correct, and no excuse can be made 
for Messrs. Dana and Darling. They are my 
superiors in literature, and the scientific errors 
they have fallen into, particularly Mr. Dana, 
who I am inlormed is an analytical chemist, 
must arise from a want of due investigation. 
I believe Mr. Dana is considered a good ana- 
lyser of mordants and coloring-matter, and is of 
course a valuable citizen in such pursuits; yet 
it struck me with no little surprise, that a prac- 
tical chemist should have adopted so wild and 
unsupported a theory. Chemistry is altogether 
a practical science, and the first lesson I learned, 
forty years ago, was never to give credence to 
any theory that was not supported by direct and 
well-ascertained experiments. This axiom was 
established by the chemical savants of France 
in the early period of the science, and when de- 
parted from, the chemical world will produce 
theories as wild and unstable as were those of 
the old alchemists. 
There appears to be a natural tendency in the 
human mind to sketch imaginary pictures, in- 
stead of troubling itself in tracing realities. If 
we enter a steamboat or hotel, it is murh if we 
dcf not see some head hung up, phrenologically 
mapped; we cannot look at a paper, but we ob- 
serve advertisements of a lecturer who talks 
about some epileptic, or cat-aleptic ladies, to 
prove mesmeric phenomena ; and what is worse, 
a large audience looks on and sucks in all as 
established truths. Several attempts have lately 
been made by chemists, ol more or less celebri- 
ty, to run into unsupported theories, which re- 
quire to be kept in check by the more sober 
portion of its followers. 
Boullay, un European chemist, observed some 
few years since, a black or dark-brown sub- 
stance which exuded from the bark of the elm, 
to which he gave the name of ulmln. It is ve- 
ry sparingly soluble in water, but readily solu- 
ble in solutions of the alkaline carbonates. He 
found its constituents to be carbon, hydrogen, 
and oxygen, and termed it ulmic acid. He con- 
sidered it identical with the brown matter of ve- 
getable mould, and as contributing materially 
to the nutriment of growing plants. Sev^eral 
chemists of the day pursued the subject, and 
made rather a plausible theory from Boullay’s 
discovery. It will surprise no one that Liebig 
should take it up, and pursue it with his usual 
transcendental energy; for even the acute and 
accurate Berzelius gave it credence for a tiinej 
but soon acknowledged his error. 
There is no mi-take in supposing that carbon, 
hydrogen and oxygen, contribute very material- 
ly to the nutriment of growing plants, lor we 
know that the greater portion of all plants are 
composed ol said elements. Nor is th®re any 
difficulty in supposing theexuded substance con- 
tained an acid, as almost all the known acids 
found in the vegetable world are binary, or ter- 
tiary compounds of those three elements. 
Solar as I have read Mr, Dana’s Muck Ma- 
nual, he has founded the chemical portion of 
his work entirely on the now exploded theory 
growing out of Boullay’s discovery. 
I shall renew this subject in a future essay, 
and review Mr. Dana’s work more in detail. 
Wj4, Partridge. 
From the Albany Cultivator. 
“KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.” 
Never was this motto more signally illustrat- 
ed than in the advantages derived by intelligent 
farmers ironi the aid of science. Even a slight 
acquaintance with chemistry and geology, is 
p oductive of profit to the pocket, as well as 
pleasure to the mind. 
“ You may be somewhat surprised to find me 
farming on the hard soil of Connecticut, instead 
of teaching mathematics in a ship of war/’ said 
a worthy friend to me lately; “I am somewhat 
surprised at the transition myself/’ he conti- 
nued; “but the truth is, that upon leaving the 
ship on a visit homeward, I bought a copy of 
Liebig’s newly published book about Agricultu- 
ral Cheruislry, for the purpose ol reading on nay 
journey ; and s« mfich wgs I instructed and en- 
