REPLY TO THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE.—SOUTHERN CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER. 
347 
corporated itself with the manure, without vexing: 
the husbandman or gardener as long green manure 
so frequently does. The floor behind the cows, 
between the trough to catch the liquid and the wall, 
is six feet wide, with strong plank platforms or ta¬ 
bles on which to set the vessels containing the 
milk. There is an open space directly over the 
vat for steaming, where all the feed is cut and 
assed down through a hopper into the vat; also, 
oppers or spouts leading from the meal room 
over head directly into the vats, which contain the 
steamed feed for cooking. The mangers in which 
the cows are fed are broad, so that the food may 
be thrown into them with scoop shovels without 
waste, of which I found nothing of the kind about 
the whole premises. If a little too much feed is 
given to one animal, and consequently left, it is 
carefully scraped out and fed to one having a bet¬ 
ter appetite; thus the mangers were kept clean 
and sweet. Mr. Charley feeds roots, but to what 
extent I did not learn. I hope he may be induced 
to write you a letter, giving a description of his 
cutting machine, which does its work better than 
any one I have ever seen; having two blades 
coming together like shears, cutting corn-stalks 
through their joints with as much apparent ease 
as a pair of tailor’s shears would cut a thread. 
There is a stable for dried cows which were 
feeding for the butcher. Box stalls are provided 
for cows about to calve; the young cattle are kept 
by themselves, as are also the calves. Mr. Char¬ 
ley was not at home when I visited his dairy; but 
this disappointment to me was made up by the 
kind Mrs. C., who, with justifiable pride, showed 
me her spring house with its large copper caldron 
for scalding her milk tubs, pans, pails, churns, &c. 
&c., in the best of order, all of which she person¬ 
ally superintends and looks after; and whenever 
there is an overstock of milk for city customers, it 
is here converted into butter of the choicest qual¬ 
ity, and each market-day finds her at her stand 
with her butter and lots of garden vegetables, the 
raising of which she also superintends and takes in¬ 
to the city at the dawn of day. That some families 
are sick and others miserably poor, is not strange, to 
one who looks behind the curtain and sees what 
can never otherwise be described. S. A. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
REPLY TO THE GARDENER’S CHRONICLE. 
New-YorJc, 14 th November , 1843. 
The Gardeners’ Chronicle, published in Eng¬ 
land, has the following criticism on my essay of 
dock-mud, inserted in your April number of this 
year, page 13 :— 
“We trust the editor is more correct in his 
other statements than in this, concerning the per¬ 
centage of sea-salt in guano, which contains little 
more than a trace of it.” 
I have never analysed the guano, but depended 
on one or two analyses given by Professor Johnston, 
reader of chemistry in the University of Durham, 
England, in the appendix to his Lectures on Agri¬ 
cultural Chemistry. He gives tables of contents 
of two parcels, the first containing 30.3 per cent., 
the second rather more than 11 per cent, of sea- 
salt. I took the larger quantity, to prove that if 
dock-mud contained sea-salt, it could be no objec¬ 
tion to it as a fertilizer. 
It is highly important that the tables of analysis 
of celebrated manures should be correctly given, 
and if the editor of the Chronicle can furnish cor¬ 
rect tables, he will be conferring an important boon 
on the agricultural community of the whole world. 
Wm. Partridge. 
From the American Agriculturist Almanac. 
SOUTHERN CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER. 
The closing month of the year is one in which ev¬ 
ery agriculturist should take an interest, and for many 
useful hints we will refer the reader to the Northern 
Calendar for this month. 
Cotton-picking will probably occupy this month un¬ 
til Christmas, when this business will have been com¬ 
pleted, if the culture has been well managed, and the 
season favorable. It would be well to start your 
plows and break up ground for corn; let nothing but 
cotton prevent—not even cleaning; for plowing is 
only one job ; yet, if done soon, it is generally advan¬ 
tageous, and if bad weather should set in when it must 
be done, time will be lost, and a drawback ensue, 
whereas by plowing in time, cleaning can be done later. 
In weather not employed about other labor more im¬ 
portant, manure and trim all kinds of vines and fruit- 
trees, except the orange tribe. Transplant evergreens 
and other trees, sweet briers, honeysuckles, jasmines, 
&c.; sow late peas and beans, and set out onions for 
seed ; set all hands at work in cleaning up for other 
crops, picking up limbs, grubbing, cleaning up hollows, 
sides of bayous, cutting down corn-stalks with hoes, 
gathering materials for making manure* &c., &c. 
If you do not live in the immediate vicinity, say 
five or six miles, from a sugar-plantation, by all means 
keep bees. This can be rendered one of the most pro¬ 
ductive branches of business of the day. Procure a 
few swarms at first, and they will soon multiply to any 
extent required. Use sections of hollow logs, four or 
five feet long, for hives, if you have no other more 
convenient materials to make them of, and allow the 
bees to work over the honey a second time, that you 
may avoid the injurious effects in eating honey which 
may have been gathered from poisonous flowers. If 
the above-named class of hives be used, there will be 
no necessity for killing the bees ; for when the hives 
are filled with honey, they can be removed without 
harm from the end opposite to that in which the bees 
are at work, and they will immediately go to work and 
fill the vacancy. In most parts of the Southern States 
bees may be kept at work during the winter. If there 
are not flowers for them, they can be made to work 
over the bad honey collected the season before. 
This is also a busy month for the sugar-planter. 
He will be active in cutting and carting his cane with 
all possible despatch; and he should employ one or 
more practical and intelligent men to conduct the op¬ 
erations of the mill. In the manufacture of sugar, we 
know of no better method than that given by Professor 
Mapes in a letter to Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, from which 
we make the following extract:— 
1. To cut the cane as ripe as possible, but before 
any acetic acid is formed; litmus paper, touched to 
the fresh-cut cane, will turn red if acid. 
2. Express the juice without loss of time, as every 
moment after cutting will deteriorate its quality. 
3. A small quantity of clear lime-water, say one 
I quart to a hundred gallons of juice, should be added 
