THE CULTIVATOR. 185 
it, in different proportions, from 60 to 100 bushels the 
acre, to eleven acres of very poor land, without any 
manure, and sowed with oats. The crop was unu¬ 
sually heavy; and best where the most lime was ap¬ 
plied. 
Tropical Plant Company. 
Dr. H. Perririe, who was formerly American Con¬ 
sul at Campeachy, has been for some years assiduous¬ 
ly engaged, and has spent much time and money, in 
forming an establishment near Cape Florida, for the 
introduction and propagation of tropical plants, the 
culture of which promises important national, as well 
as individual, advantages. The government of Flo¬ 
rida, has passed an act to incorporate the Tropical 
Plant Company; and Congress has made an appro¬ 
priation of a township of land to Doctor Perrine and 
his associates, on certain conditions, to aid in promot¬ 
ing the object of the association. The Doctor has 
already a large collection of plants at Indian Key, 
contiguous to the coast, is about removing thither 
with his family, and now invites emigrants to join 
him, and capitalists to embark in the enterprise.— 
We subjoin Dr. Perrine’s note, 
“to the friends of the enterprise. 
“ The principal objects of the company, are to form a 
nursery of supply and a model of cultivation of the va¬ 
luable plants of the tropics. 
“As however, while Indian hostilities continue, it 
will be impossible to pursue with safety their intended 
labors on the mainland, of tropical Florida, the trustees 
will delay the organization of the company, and will ap¬ 
ply their personal resources to the formation of a pre¬ 
paratory nursery at Indian Key, and the adjacent inlets. 
The superintendant Dr. Perrine, will hence reside with 
liis family at Indian Key, until the cessation of the Se¬ 
minole war, where he will continue to accumulate all 
the seeds, plants, and other elements for the permanent 
nursery, to be then established on the southern coast of 
the Peninsula. During this important interval, the 
most essential aid to these preparatory labors may be 
immediately afforded by very easy means in the power 
of many philanthropic friends of this patriotic enter¬ 
prise, 
“ 1st. By transmitting to Indian Key, at least two 
seeds or cuttings, &c. of every superior variety of every 
valuable vegetable which the possessor may consider 
adapted to the climate and soils of tropical Florida. 
“2. By transmitting a detailed list of all books which 
the owner may deem necessary to enter into a Botanical 
and Yegecultural Library, especially adapted to the 
tropical climate and productions of south Florida. 
“3. By transmitting a letter containing the desires of 
the writer in respect to the purchase of one or more 
shares of stock, in the Tropical Plant Company. 
“The trustees do not expect to receive any articles or 
services without returning an ample equivalent. All 
letters should be addressed to Charles Howe, postmaster, 
at Indian Key, south Florida, the financial trustee. All 
packages of seeds, &e. not exceeding two ounces, should 
be directed to the Patent office at Washington, whence 
they will be forwarded to Indian Key. The proprie¬ 
tors of greenhouses, &c. willrender themselves especial 
services by sending their respective mites during the 
ensuing six months. 
“ Even the druggists may contribute the valuable 
seeds, occasionally found among their tropical medi¬ 
cines. The trustees are James Webb, Judge of the 
district at Key West; Charles Howe, Inspector of the 
port at Indian Key; and Doctor H. Perrine, late Ame¬ 
rican Consul at Campeachy. 
“ New-York, October 15th, 1838.” 
The Robinson Fund. 
We are happy of the opportunity of being autho¬ 
rized to add $20 to this fund, designed to be awarded 
in premiums for certain agricultural books—by Prof. 
F. H. Gordon, of Clinton College, Ten.—for whose 
communication, inserted in another column, we be¬ 
speak an attentive perusal. Whose name shall we 
add next 1 
The American Institute, 
Held its eleventh anniversary in October. The 
articles exhibited exceeded in number, variety and 
excellence, those shown at any former exhibition.— 
The receipts for admission were greater, by $2000, 
than those taken at the last fair. Two hundred me¬ 
dals were awarded as prizes, exclusive of several hun¬ 
dred honorary diplomas—a list of the prize articles, 
and the names of their owners, together with the very 
able address of Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, deliver¬ 
ed during the fair, are given at large in the Journal of 
the Institute, a monthly publication which we again 
recommend to the patronage of the American public, 
and particularly to the mechanic and manufacturer. 
The permanency of the Institute is now put beyond 
doubt, and the benefits which it is conferring on the 
country are palpable and wonderful. 
We subjoin two extracts from the excellent address 
of Mr. Davis—one giving a happy illustration of the 
dependance of agriculture, manufactures and com¬ 
merce upon each other ; and the other pointing to 
the advantages which result from the diffusion of use¬ 
ful knowledge—of moral and intellectual culture. 
The address does great credit to Mr. Davis and to his 
country—and evinces in him talents of a high or¬ 
der, and sound American principles. It cannot be 
read without interest and profit by any one who has 
the good of his country—of his ivhole country—at 
heart. 
EXTRACTS. 
“We have lived in vain, if we have not discovered 
that the arts and commerce must unite with agricul¬ 
ture to supply the necessary demands of civilized socie¬ 
ty. It is but the natural division into which labor ar¬ 
ranges itself, to feed and clothe us. 
“The agriculturist produces from the earth—the ma¬ 
nufacturer converts productions into forms fit for use, 
and the commercial class distribute the commodities of 
producers where they are required for consumption. 
“ If Divine Providence had supplied necessities in 
such a manner as not to require labor, we might dis¬ 
pense with it; or if the earth produced in a form suited 
to our use, we should only be under the necessity of 
cultivating, and might abandon manufacturing; and if 
it yielded the same productions at all places, we might 
abandon commerce. But we must till the earth or 
starve; convert the cotton, the wool and the flax into 
cloth, or go naked; dig the ore from the mountains, and 
convert it into iron, or cease to have tools, and what¬ 
ever is made with them; and must interchange the pro¬ 
ducts of different climates, or cease to enjoy them. 
“This division of labor is so essential to civilized 
man, that whenever we abandon it we must return to 
barbarism. For converting wheat into flour, and wool 
into cloth, is quite as important as growing them.” 
“ A knowledge of the properties of bodies, saves the 
slow and tedious process of experiment, which often, 
for the want of such knowledge, leads to disappoint¬ 
ment. If the agriculturist understands the element's of 
plants and soils, he readily discovers their adaptation, 
and can supply in soils those deficiencies which often de 
feat the labor of the unconscious husbandman, or he can 
give such direction to it as to render it successful. The 
arts rest upon principles very often but imperfectly un¬ 
derstood by the workman; but the better he compre¬ 
hends them, the more easily he detects and avoids obsta¬ 
cles, and attains to successful results. As a knowledge 
of the chemical affinities and union of bodies is of the ut¬ 
most importance to the dyer, the painter, the tanner, 
the printer, &c. who thereby understands the rationale 
of his process, so is a knowledge of the mechanical 
powers no less important to those engaged in the use or 
construction of works where those powers are employed. 
“Our country has been much distinguished for the 
invention of useful compositions and labor saving machi¬ 
nery; and may it not be chiefly imputed to the fact, that 
useful knowledge is not only largely diffused among all 
people, but the avenues to it are open, and most men, 
who have a taste for it, find no difficulty in indulging in 
it? 
“Moral and intellectual culture is an essential ele¬ 
ment of free government; and it is difficult to compre¬ 
hend how its character can be understood, or it can be 
maintained by the elective franchise, without it. 
“In private life it opens new resources, gives a 
stronger and better directed impulse to our efforts, and 
fills the mind with higher, more just, and confident 
hopes of success. 
“ But above all, it brings us out of darkness into light 
—elevates us from slavery to freedom—transfers our 
tastes and pursuits from the arts of violence to those of 
peace—and creates that vigorous prosperity, that ani¬ 
mated zeal and happiness, which have spread over this 
broad country, and which have allured from their homes, 
from the tender ties of blood, and the graves of their 
fathers, emigrants from all parts of Europe.” 
Moral Culture, 
It is now urged, by a hundred pens, is indispensa¬ 
ble to the formation of good citizens; and it is a 
branch of education, that ail agree, has been greatly 
neglected in training up the youth of our country.— 
There is not a better antidote to vicious habits, and 
immoral conduct, in youth or manhood, than steady 
attention to useful business. Indolence is the parent 
of vice, all the world say, even, in many cases where 
the mind has been trained to moral culture. It is 
easier to prevent, than to cure, moral, as it is physi¬ 
cal diseases. If these propositions be correct, then 
industrial schools would tend greatly to aid moral in¬ 
struction, if it did notin fact inculcate it. Idleness 
being the parent of mischief, we should seek to pre¬ 
vent it, by extending to labor those aids which would 
enlighten and elevate it in the scale of society—which 
would render it independent and desirable. Young 
men, carefully educated in the practice of husbandry, 
or any other useful employment, and so instructed, at 
the same time, in the philosophical principles of their 
business, as to feel a reasonable hope of becoming re¬ 
spectable and useful in its pursuit, would be the last 
to indulge in immoral habits, or to eat the bread of 
idleness; they would feel animated by the strongest 
inducements to become examples of industry and vir¬ 
tue—they would love their business in proportion as 
they became acquainted with its principles, and as it 
promised, the certain means of rendering them intel¬ 
ligent, independent and useful. Many persons are 
idie, and often consequently vicious, because they 
were never taught to labor, and know not the proud 
glow of independence which one feels who can say* 
on scanning his means and the enjoyments they yield 
him—“All these are the fruits of my industry.— 
Thanks be to God, that I have been thus enabled to 
provide for myself and to help others.” We become 
attached to good habits, as well as to bad ones, if we 
put them on in youth. Thus we see men who have 
been inured to industry, clinging to it, as to a compa¬ 
nion of youth, after the inducement to practise it, and 
not unfrequently the ability to perform, have ceased. 
And we see many, very many, as strongly attached 
to habits of idleness, with its concomitant evils, be¬ 
cause they were wedded to it in early life, though 
want and dishonor stare them in the face. 
We all know the happy influence of houses of re¬ 
fuge, in reforming juvenile offenders by moral discipline, 
and instruction in a business by which they can earn an 
honest livelihood, and render themselves respectable in 
society — considerations which perhaps never entered 
their minds till they became inmates of these moral 
and industrial schools. If then habits of industry will 
reform and reclaim those who have been vicious, we 
have the strongest reason to believe, that they will be 
equally efficacious in preventing the formation of bad 
habits. We therefore say, if you would raise the mo¬ 
ral tone of society, teach your youth to labor and to 
think—teach them to provide honestly and abundantly 
for themselves, by giving them early habits of indus¬ 
try, and few of them will ever become tenants of a 
jail or a poor-house. 
44 What can the Legislature do to improve Agri¬ 
culture ?” 
This question was propounded by a commercial 
convention lately convened at Richmond, Ya. to a 
committee, who were directed to answer it by report. 
A report was made by Mr. Ruffin, editor of the Far¬ 
mers’ Register, from which we make the following ex¬ 
tract. 
“In reply to the inquiry, ‘what can the legislature 
do to improve agriculture?’ your committee will mere¬ 
ly state, in general terms, that every means will be 
useful and profitable by whichlight and knowledge will 
be diffused, and no other action, no other aid or boon is 
desirable, or would be beneficial. There are so many 
valuable modes of diffusing agricultural knowledge, that 
the difficulty is not to find, but to choose among them. 
Boards of agriculture, agricultural societies, and premi¬ 
ums upon a judicious plan, agricultural schools and ex¬ 
perimental farms, and agricultural publications, each 
and all, elsewhere, have worked admirably to forward 
the great end in view. Butif no more were done at first, 
by legislation, than the institution of a board of agri¬ 
culture, as merely an investigating, consulting, and ad¬ 
vising body, incalculable benefit might be expected to 
grow out of one and a cheap mode. Such a board (if 
the system of furnishing aid should go no further) might 
be limited in annual expense to $1500, or barely more 
than the general assembly has spent, year after year, 
merely in the time used for electing an individual to ex¬ 
ecute the mechanical business of printing the journals 
and documents—less than the expense in time and mo¬ 
ney caused by each single elaborate speech dilivered in 
that body upon federal relations—not one fourth part of 
the annual expense of the geological survey, and per¬ 
haps not one hundreth part of the money wasted in 
every session in useless, or worse than useless, debate.” 
The report closes with a resolution, “ that the com¬ 
mercial and general interests of Virginia and North 
Carolina, as well as the peculiar interest of the agri¬ 
cultural class, require that legislative aid should 
be given, promptly and effectually, to the diffusion of 
agricultural instruction and knowledge, and to the 
promotion of agricultural improvement.” 
The Mulberry. 
We stood alone, among our cotemporaries of the 
press, for a long time, in maintaining, that the morus 
multicaulis was too tender to withstand our northern 
winters. We see our opinion now confirmed by 
some of the longest established growers, who, if we 
remember right, once maintained a contrary opinion. 
And we notice in a late Farmer and Gardener, print¬ 
ed at Baltimore, Md. “ directions for preserving- the 
multicaulis through the winter,”—which consists in 
taking them from the ground, and covering them with 
earth in the cellar. At a late farmers’ meeting in 
Northampton, Dr. Stebbins and Mr. Whitmarsh, who 
have both, we believe, for a number of years, been 
actively engaged in propagating and vending the 
mulberry, pronounced the multicaulis not suitable for 
our climate. We subjoin quotations from the re¬ 
marks of each. 
“Experience has taught us,” says Dr. Stebbins, 
“ that our climate is not congenial to the habits of the 
morus multicaulis plant; many thousands have been 
lost every year in consequence of not providing a shel¬ 
ter and protection for them against the frosts of autumn, 
and the severe cold of our winters. It has been demon¬ 
strated to us by expensive experiment, that the tree is 
not suited to our borean seasons.” 
“ The principal objections to this tree is,” remarks 
Mr. Whitmarsh, “ that the leaves contain a great pro¬ 
portion of watery matter, which causes the worms that 
