PTGS SUCKING A COW. 
213 
of this country pretty thoroughly, and I think your 
own experience gathered from long and distant 
travel, will bear me out in what I assert. The 
results of the crops throughout the country for the 
next five or six years will I am confident, sustain 
my position. 
I assume, then, that an over-production does at 
present exist, and will continue in an increasing 
ratio. Is there then any remedy, and if so, what 
is it ? It seems to me that the true and sufficient 
remedy is to be found in extending our articles of 
cultivation, and extending them too, until we raise 
in this country everything which our climate and 
our soil will permit us to raise at a reasonable profit ; 
and.it becomes the duty of every good citizen to lend 
his aid in accomplishing this very desirable object. 
But for this purpose individual effort is not suf¬ 
ficient. The people in their collective capacity 
should assist. The legislatures of the different 
states should do something and do it carefully, en¬ 
ergetically, and thoroughly. If the legislature of 
the nation could be induced to extend its powerful 
aid, it would be no more than a duty it owes to 
the people. But I fear that it is too much to ex¬ 
pect from that degenerate body. At any rate, the 
state legislatures mhjht and could be induced to 
act, and their mode of action should be this. Take 
for instance the olive-tree, the indigo, and tea- 
plants. I have no doubt that there are very exten¬ 
sive regions of the south exceedingly well adapted 
to their successful and profitable cultivation. The 
olive has been grown in Alabama ; the indigo 
plant was at one time extensively cultivated in va¬ 
rious districts of the South; and I flm credibly in¬ 
formed that the tea-plant has been successfully 
cultivated to a small extent in two instances, the 
one in North Carolina, and the other on an island 
on the coast of Georgia. Nor is there any reason 
why either and all of these should not become 
great staples at the south ; for the climate is well 
suited to their production, and if the cultivation 
should become extensive and profitable, it would 
not only relieve the south of the pressure of that 
great evil, an over crop of cotton, by dividing the 
direction of the energies of the planter, but would 
also prove a source of increased and increasing 
wealth to that region. 
Their legislatures then should act in this way. 
Intelligent and capable agents should be sent out 
to obtain information on the subject of the cultiva¬ 
tion and preparation for market of these articles, 
(if such information can not be obtained at home, 
and in the case of the tea-plant it can not,) and on 
the return of these agents, the information they 
bung with them, should be extensively circulated 
among the people; and the plants themselves 
should be widely distributed, and if necessary, ex¬ 
periments should be conducted at the public ex- 
pense, and above all, liberal bounties should be of¬ 
fered for the encouragement of the cultivation. In 
this way, the cultivation of indigo, olives, and tea, 
would in a few years obtain a firm foothold at the 
south, and her people would not onlv find them¬ 
selves supplying our own country, but exporting 
to other countries. By such encouragement the 
silk culture has grown up and already taken firm 
root, and will, I may venture to predict, in a few 
years produce results very different from those an¬ 
ticipated shortly after 
“ The days when we went mulbervying, 
A long time ago.” 
The present, moreover, is a most favorable time 
to take active measures for commencing the culti¬ 
vation of the tea-plant especially, for our own coun¬ 
try is just entering on better times, and we are 
about forming new and interesting relations with 
the Chinese. But these remarks do not apply 
merely to the cultivation of the olive-tree, and the 
indigo and tea-plants, worthy as they are of the at¬ 
tention of the south. Numerous other articles of 
agricultural production might be pointed out, and 
will doubtless occur to yourself and your readers, 
to which my observations might be with equal 
truth applied. Let some or all of your numerous 
intelligent subscribers at the south investigate this 
subject with the attention it so well deserves, and 
strongly petition their legislatures to consider and 
act upon it; and the result, if the matter be per¬ 
sisted in, can hardly fail to be most important and 
beneficial to our southern agricultural brethren. 
I have not by any means exhausted this subject, 
either in its bearing on the south, the west, or even 
our own more rugged and inclement north; and 
should you permit me again to occupy a space in 
your columns, I shall endeavor to point out some 
other and equally important considerations as con¬ 
nected with this most interesting topic. In con¬ 
cluding, I would fain hope that you and your nu¬ 
merous intelligent correspondents, will go on point¬ 
ing out to us other new and valuable objects of 
cultivation, adapted to the different sections of our 
wide-spread but common country, and I trust that 
you will arouse the attention of the agricultural 
public in every way in your power, and by so do¬ 
ing you will oblige and interest more than one 
Northern Farmer. 
PIGS SUCKING A COW. 
In an Illinois journal for the present month, I 
see a notice of a cow, when lying down, deprived 
of her milk by a porker. It reminds me of a mat¬ 
ter occurring under my own observation, which I 
will mention, and when you see Col. Bomford of 
the Ordnance Department, mention it to him, as 
from the short acquaintance I had the gratification 
to form with him in 1840, when on a visit to his 
house with mv much-lamented uncle, the late Hon. 
Henry Baldwin, I was happy to see, and make 
improvement of his knowledge of the habits and 
instincts, sports arid pastimes, of domestic animals. 
For several weeks in succession, our dairy-maid 
complained that our best cow was deprived of her 
milk by some foul means. That when she came 
from pasture she had just been milked, and that 
the udder was still wet. I could accuse no one 
but a tenant who lived near the lane through 
which they passed, and which was generally open 
from the cow-yard to the pasture. The accusation 
was denied with evident surprise. At length I de¬ 
termined to watch the cattle on their evening walk 
from their pasture, and you may judge my sur¬ 
prise, when I observed that on the cow mooing as 
if in search of her calf, about fifty yards distant 
