AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
59 
from the surface, more water pregnant with 
soluble materials from below, rises up to 
supply its place; as this evaporation goes on, 
it leaves the fixed materials behind in the 
surface soil at the several points of evopora- 
tion. 
This explains why we often find during 
the months of July, August and September, 
a crest of soluble salts covering the surface 
of clay deposites which are highly impreg¬ 
nated with the alkalies or any of the soluble 
compounds of the metals, earth, or alkaline 
earths. Also, the reason,in many instances, 
of the incrustations upon rocks that are 
porous and contain soluble materials. It also 
helps to explain the reason why manures 
when applied for a short or longer time upon 
the surface of soils, penetrate to so slight a 
depth. Every agriculturist is acquainted 
with the fact that the soil directly under his 
barn-yard, two feet below the surface, (that 
is any soil of any ordinary fineness,) is quite 
as poor as that covered with boards or other¬ 
wise, two feet below the surface, in his 
meadow ; the former having been for years 
directly under a manure heap, while the lat¬ 
ter perhaps has never had barnyard manure 
within many rods of it. 
The former has really been sending its 
soluble materials to the surface soil, the lat¬ 
ter to the surface soil and the vegetation 
grown near ; or upon it, if uncovered. 
The capillary attraction must vary very 
much in different soils; that is, some have 
the power of elevating soluble materials to 
the surface from much deeper sources than 
others. The pores or interstices in the soil 
correspond to capillary tubes. The less the 
diameter of the pores or tubes, the higher 
the materials are elevated. Hence one very 
important consideration to the agriculturist, 
when he wishes nature to aid him in keeping 
his soil fertile—is to secure soil in a fine 
state of mechanical division and of a high 
retentive nature. Nothing is more common 
than to see certain soils retain their fertility 
with the annual addition of much less ma¬ 
nure than certain ethers. In fact, a given 
quantity of manure on the former, will seem 
to maintain their fertility for several years, 
while a similar addition to the latter quite 
loses its good effects in a single season. The 
former soils have invariably the rocks, min¬ 
erals, &c., which compose them, in a fine 
state of division ; while the latter have their 
particles more or less sandy and coarse.—S. 
M. Salisbury., M. D.,in Prairie Farmer. 
Light Suppers. —One of the great secrets 
of health is a light supper, and yet it is a 
great self denial, when one is hungry and 
tired at the close of the day, to eat little or 
nothing. Let such a one take leisurely a 
single cup of tea and a piece of cold bread 
with butter, and he will leave the table as 
fully pleased with himself and all the world, 
as if he had eaten a heavy meal, and be ten¬ 
fold the better for it the next morning. Take 
any two men under similar circumstances, 
strong hard-working men, of twenty-five 
years; let one take his bread and butter 
with a cup of tea, and the other a hearty 
meal of meat, bread, potatoes, and the ordi¬ 
nary et ceteras, as the last meal of the day, 
and I will venture to affirm, that the tea- 
drinker will out-live the other by thirty 
years .—Maine Farmer. 
The Queen’s bad English has not escaped 
ridicule in England. An advertisement ap¬ 
pears in the London Times to the following 
effect : 
“Wanted—an instructor. —A middle-aged 
married lady, whose educatien has been 
somewhat neglected during her youth, es¬ 
pecially in the department of English com¬ 
position, desires to obtain the services of a 
lady properly qualified to give instruction in 
the particular branch alluded to. Address 
Victoria Regina, Buckingham Palace, care 
of Col. Phipps, stating terms and references.” 
WHEAT IN CALIFORNIA. 
A correspondent, writing from San Fran¬ 
cisco, in the Tribune of the 24th ult., furnish¬ 
es the following information : 
Flour and grain are cheaper here than in 
New-York, and we can now better afford to 
send it to you than you can to us. Califor¬ 
nia has a soil and climate unequaled, and 
needs nothing but an intelligent, working, 
permanent population to make it the most 
prosperous country in the world. The fol¬ 
lowing table, from the Surveyor-General’s 
Annual Report, just published, shows the 
amount of wheat raised the last, year : 
Countios. 
Acres planted. 
Average. 
Busli.Wheat. 
Marin. 
. 335 
30 
10,050 
Sonoma. 
. 16,363 
23i 
380,207 
Napa. 
.17,000 
20 
340,000 
Solano. 
. 6,414 
25 
155,350 
Yolo.. 
25 
249,500 
Yuba. 
221 
82,237 
Butte. 
. 3,725 
221 
83,812 
Placer. 
20 
30,900 
Sacramento. 
. 3.415 
25 
85,375 
Calaveras. 
221 
48,195 
San Joaquin .. 
. 11,310 
28i 
350,355 
Stanislaus. 
. 4,295 
141 
63,350 
Mariposa. 
. 2,365 
15 
35,475 
Tulare. 
. 2,920 
10 
29,200 
Contra Costa. 
. 3,786 
211 
81,377 
Alameda. 
.15,490 
40 
619,600 
Santa Clara. 
.22,745 
20 
254,900 
Santa Cruz. 
. 6,530 
50 
326,500 
Monterey. 
. 745 
40 
29,800 
San Francisco_ 
. 445 
30 
13,350 
Total . 
.135,024 
25 8-15 
3,439,533 
A much larger crop of grain will be raised 
this year than last. The price of wheat here 
during the season has ranged from $1 to $1 
50 per bushel. The price of barley, from 60 
to 90 cents ; oats the same. Plowing and 
sowing has been going on here for the past 
two months. Grass is now green, and the 
flowers are in bloom. Think of this, in com¬ 
parison with the ice, snow and mud which 
the people of New-York must paddle through 
five months of the year. 
Tastes Differ. —In a lecture on what he 
has seen abroad, Wendell Phillips observes : 
In Italy you will see a man breaking up 
his land with two cows, and the root of a 
tree for a plow, while he is dressed in skins 
with the hair on. In Rome, Vienna and 
Dresden, if you hire a man to saw wood, he 
does not bring a horse along. He never had 
one, or his father before him. He puts one 
end on the ground, and the other on his 
breast, and taking the wood in his hand, rubs 
it against the saw. It is a solemn fact, that 
in Florence, a city filled with the triumph of 
art, there is not a single augur, and if a car¬ 
penter would bore a hole he does it with a 
red hot poker. This results not from the 
want of industry, but of sagacity of thought. 
The people are by no means idle. They toil 
early and late, men, women, and children, 
with an industry that shames labor-saving 
Yankees. Thus he makes labor, and the 
poor must live. In Rome charcoal is prin¬ 
cipally used for fuel, and you will see a 
string of twenty mules bringing little sacks 
of it upon their backs, when one mule could 
bring all of it in a cart. But the charcoal 
vender never had a cart, and so he keeps his 
mules and feeds them. This is from no want 
of industry, but there is no competition. 
A Yankee always looks haggard and nerv¬ 
ous as if he were chasing a dollar. With 
us money is everything; and when we go 
abroad we are surprised to find that the dol¬ 
lar has ceased to be almighty. If a Yankee 
refuse to do a job for fifty cents, he will 
probably do it for a dollar, and will certainly 
do it for five. But one of the lazaroni of 
Naples, when he has earned two cents and 
eaten them, will work no more that day if 
you offer him ever so large a sum. He has 
earned enough for the day, and wants no 
more. So there is no eagerness for making 
money, no motive for it, and everybody 
moves slowly. 
“A little humor now and then, 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
A Doctor as is a Doctor. —A self-suffi¬ 
cient humbug, who took up the business of a 
physician, had a deep knowledge of the heal¬ 
ing art, was once called to visit a young man 
afflicted with apoplexy. Bolus gazed long 
and hard, felt his pulse and pocket, looked 
at his tongue, and his wife, and finally 
gave vent to the following sublime opinion : 
“ I think he’s a gone fellow.” 
“ No, no!” exclaimed the sorrowful wife, 
“ do not say that.” 
“.Yes,” returned Bolus, lifting up his hat 
and eyes heavenward at the same time, “yes, 
I do say so ; there arn’t no hope, not the 
leastest might; he’s got an attack of nihil- 
fit in his lost frontis—” 
“ Where ?” cried the startled wife. 
“ In his lost frontis, and he can’t be cured 
without some trouble and a great deal of 
pains. You see his whole planetory system 
is deranged : fustly, his vox populi is press- 
in’ on his advalorum ; secondly, his catacar- 
pial cutaneous has swelled considerably, if 
not more ; thirdly and lastly, his solar ribs 
are in a concussed state, and he ain’t got any 
money, consequently he’s bound to die.” 
Thereby Hangs a Tail. —Two darkeys in 
the west went out to hunt possums,etc., and 
by accident found a large cave with a small 
entrance. Peeping in they observed three 
young whelps. 
“ Look heah,Sam,” said one, “ while I go 
dar and get the young bars, you jis watch 
heah for de ole bar.” 
Sam soon got to dozing in the sun, when, 
hearing a rustling and opening his eyes, he 
saw the old bear scouring her way into the 
cave. Quick as thought, he caught her by 
the tail, and held on for life. 
“ Hallo, dar, Sam, what dark de hole dar 1” 
yelled Jumbo, from the interior. 
“ Lor’ bless you, Jumby, save ycrself, 
honey—efdis tail come out, you’ll know wat. 
dark de hole !” 
A Retort. —At a masculine supper party 
the other evening, an inveterate quiz was 
making a butt of a modest but bright youth 
seated opposite. At length something the 
former said caused the latter to blush visibly, 
to which fact, with great glee, he directed 
the company’s attention. 
“Ah!” exclaimed the sufferer, “Young 
says— 
‘ The man who blushes is not quite a brute.’” 
“ No !” rejoined the tormenter, “but very 
near one!” 
“ Probably,” admitted the other, “ for the 
table is but four feet wide!" 
This retort, while it flung an avalanche of 
ridicule upon him, completely silenced the 
joker for the evening. 
Effect of Calico. —The editor of the Rut¬ 
land Herald, just married to a Boston girl, 
says that a pair of sweet lips, a pink waist- 
ribbon, and a pressure or two of delicate 
hands, will do as much to unhinge a man as 
three fevers, the measles, a large-sized 
whooping-cough, a pair of lock-jaws, several 
hydrophobias, and the doctor’s bill.” 
