editor’s table. 
189 
muov’3 
Annual Report for 1843, of Hon. H. L. Ells¬ 
worth, Commissioner of Patents, being Doc. No. 177; 
Ho. of Reps., 28th Congress, 1st session. This report 
occupies 335 pages octavo, and is not only the fullest 
and most complete document yet issued from the Com¬ 
missioner’s bureau, but we will add also, the most use¬ 
ful and varied. If leisure permit, we intend making for 
our next number, an abstract of the most essential parts 
of it relating to agriculture; and in the mean while, to 
give the reader an idea of the valuable matter embodied 
in it, we subjoin the table of contents. 
Commissioner’s report—Statement of receipts and ex¬ 
penditures—Tabular estimate of the crops—Remarks on 
the tabular estimate—The season—Wheat-crop, varieties 
of, depth of sowing, product, &c,, amount and selection of 
seed, time of sowing; experiments, diseases in, and pre¬ 
vention, &c., use of in manufactures—Barley-crop, varie¬ 
ties of, &c.—Oat-crop, varieties of—Rye-crop, varieties of, 
multicole, &c., use in manufactures—Buckwheat crop— 
Maize or Indian corn crop, calico variety—Potato-crop, 
failure and diseases, &c., J Stirrat’s letter, use in manufac¬ 
tures, &c.; modes of planting, &c,—Hay-crop, gama, tus- 
sac, and arundo-grass, &c.—Flax and hemp, varieties, man¬ 
ufacture and use—Tobacco-crop, varieties—^Cotton-crop, 
exportation and consumption of, &c., experiments in rais¬ 
ing, &c.—Rice-crop, varieties—Silk-crop, varieties of mul¬ 
berry-tree, kind of worms, causes of failure and mode of 
feeding, method of preparing, manufacture, profit, &c.—Su¬ 
gar-crop, Rieulleux’s improvements, maple, cornstalk, ex¬ 
periments in—Wine-crop,grapes,&c.'—Comparison of prod¬ 
ucts of other countries—Other agricultural products, ar¬ 
tichoke, spurry, Bokhara-clover, Anjou-cabbage, madder, 
olives, indigo, tea, oil-plants, mustard, &c., cranberries, 
apples, eggs, &c.—Products of the dairy, milk and cream, 
&c., butter ; Dutch, Goshen, modes of working and pre¬ 
serving, cheese, modes of making, &c.—Lard and lard-oil, 
experiments, &c.—Kiln-dried meal and flour, experiments, 
&c.—Feeding cattle, Experiments, &c.—Manures, urine, 
soot, charcoal, salt, nitrate of soda, guano, experiments, 
artificial, &c., blood, green manuring, experiments, Jauf- 
fret’s mode and experiments—Home market—Foreign mar¬ 
ket—Provision trade with England—Conclusion—Letter 
of S. Scott on the acclimation of seeds—Comparative ta¬ 
riffs on agricultural products—Canada tariff—Bills of sales 
of American produce in England—Table of imports of prod¬ 
uce—Preparation of provisions for British markets—The 
new tariff—Letter of W. Milford on freight—Mode of pre¬ 
paring hams—On plank roads in Canada—Letter of R. L. 
Robertson on Ericsson’s propellers on Lake Erie—On the 
culture of pumpkins on grass-land—Unburnt brick houses 
—Boucherie’s process of hardening wood—Morse’s elec¬ 
tro-magnetic telegraph—Mode of laying pipe—Report of 
examiners on the arts : metallurgy, of the manufacture of 
fibrous and textile substances, steam of gas engines, boil¬ 
ers, generators, &c., navigation and marine implements, 
civil engineering and architecture, of land conveyance, 
comprising carriages and other vehicles, of grinding-mills 
and horse-powers, &c., of lumber; machines for sawing, 
planing, mortising, &c., of fire-arms and implements of 
war, including the manufacture of gun-powder and shot, 
miscellaneous, agriculture, chemistry, fine arts, hydrau¬ 
lics, calorific, &c. 
The Southern Agriculturist, Horticulturist, 
and Register of Rural Affairs, (Phoebus, what a 
long name;) adapted to the southern section of the 
United States : New Series, Volume IV., published by 
A. E. Miller, No. 4 Broad street, Charleston, S. C., 40 
pages octavo, monthly—price $3 year.—Judging from 
numbers 4 and 5 at hand, this is a well-sustained and 
excellent work, and calculated to greatly benefit the 
planting interest—we heartily wish it a large subscrip¬ 
tion list. It is singular that we did not know of the 
existence of our southern namesake till about a month 
since. Will it please forward us numbers 1, 2, and 3, 
for current volume ? 
As we have set our face against the outrageous and 
exorbitant post office taxes levelled upon the many for 
the benefit of the few— an odious aristocratic measure— 
and are determined not to pay one mill of them when 
we can help it, till fairly and justly cut down and re¬ 
formed, we shall be obliged if the Agriculturist, the 
Planter, Farmer and Gardener, and all journals with 
covers to them, would send us their exchange as the 
Prairie Farmer does, namely, with the leaves unstitch¬ 
ed and uncut, and the cover folded over them loose. 
When stitched, they are classed with pamphlets, and 
we are charged full postage; the stupid, odious law, 
not allowing them to come free like other exchanges. 
It is not the amount of postage that we care for, but the 
principle of the thing; and as we are not strong enough 
to resist the arbitrary and unjustly capricious pamphlet, 
regulation, we desire our contemporaries to enable us 
to evade it. According to present appearances, we 
may look in vain for any measure of reform from the 
dishonorable, pugilistic, and never-ending gabbling 
Congress now in session ; it has no idea of sacrificing 
its agreeable franking privilege, and with this privilege 
it is known there can be no substantial reduction of the 
rates of postage. We have been informed that seven 
eighths of the weight of the mails is made up of politi¬ 
cal documents, franked for selfish, partisan purposes; 
and dull, sleepy reports sent over the country, which 
are searce ever read or cared for by those to whom 
they are addressed. Reform this gross abuse and letters 
and pamphlet publications may be carried for one third 
the rates they now cost the people. 
European Agriculture and Rural Economy, 
from Personal Observation, by Henry Colman, Vol. I., 
Part I. The late hour at which we received the first 
number of this long-expected European Agricultural 
Tour of Mr. Colman, prevents our giving it that notice 
now that we should otherwise have done, and which 
its intrinsic merits deserve. It must be premised that 
Part I., just received, is merely preliminary to the more 
important subject, viz: Practical Agriculture. The 
contents of this at hand are : 
I. General Facts and Considerations. 
II. Particular Objects of Inquiry. 
III. Science of Agriculture. 
IV. English Agriculture. 
V. English Capital. 
VI. General Appearance of the Country. 
VII. Hedges and Enclosures. 
VIII. Iron and Sunken Fences. 
IX. The English Parks. 
X. Ornamental Shrubs and Flowers. 
XI. Climate of England. 
XII. Agricultural Population, including under this head, 
1. Landlords, Rents, and Taxes. 2. The Farmers. 3. 
The Agricultural Laborers. 
XIII. Allotment System. 
Article XII. occupies just half of Part I., and the 
greater share of it is devoted to division 3, “ The Agri¬ 
cultural Laborers,” which is treated with fulness and 
in the proper spirit. We do not hesitate to say, that 
the <£ Gang System” of labor which prevails on large 
farms in some districts of England and Scotland, is one 
of the most atrocious systems of suffering and slavery, 
that the cupidity and tyranny of man has ever put in 
practice; and we wonder that any one calling himself a 
Briton, does not blush with shame, when he opens his 
mouth, and presumes to speak of the horrors of southern 
America or West India servitude. The kind-hearted 
Howitt, in his Rural Life in England, treats with be¬ 
coming feeling and indignation the “ Bondage System” 
prevailing in Northumberland; but that is freedom, 
ease, and affluence , in comparison with the accursed 
j« Gangs.” We did not visit any of those large farms 
