148 THE CULTIVATOR. April, 
by years of practice, which are the keenest of all 
sharpeners of intellect. Pay our judges good sala¬ 
ries, render them independent and at ease in a pe¬ 
cuniary point of view, and we can command the best 
intellect of the country to act as arbiters and um¬ 
pires between man and man. 
“ When we reflect that at every circuit of our Su¬ 
preme Court the most intricate questions come up 
for decision, differing in the different causes, and 
originating generally in kinds of business, or phases 
of circumstances with which “the gentlemen of the 
jury ” are in no wise familiar,—is it at all wonder¬ 
ful that juries so often disagree? or if they agree, 
that their verdicts are so frequently set aside? The 
puzzling of witnesses, and the laborious efforts of 
counsel “ to make the worse appear the better rea¬ 
son,” leaves nine jurors out ©f ten in a sea of 
doubt, from which they cannot emerge, except by 
the aid of the judge. He recapitulates the facts, 
explains the law, and declares the application of 
the law to the particular facts in the case, and then 
the jury may come to a lucid conclusion. But why 
not leave all to the judge at once? 
11 It is a great error to suppose that it is an easy 
matter to act as a juror in an average of litigated 
causes. If the facts are perfectly plain, and the 
law equally so, it is true that juries can act with¬ 
out difficulty; but it so happens that when these 
things are so, there is little or no litigation. Men 
do not often go to law where their mutual rights 
or remedies are clear; none but a dunce would do 
so; or now and then a man in a passion to revenge 
himself of an enemy, might venture a small sum in 
costs, to give his opponent as much trouble as he 
makes for himself,—but such cases are rare. 
“ As a general thing, it is only in cases of doubt 
that men get entangled in law suits; and then is the 
time they need the aid of learned judges, and not 
the opinions of their neighbors who are as ignorant 
as themselves. Give us juries in criminal cases; 
but in all civil matters, I for one, prefer to run the 
risk of corruption on the bench, rather than abide 
the decision of stupidity and prejudice in the jury 
box.” 
Plantation Railroads. 
Eds. Cultivator —About two years since, we 
eonstructed a railroad of Red Cedar, extending 
from the Mississippi river about midway of the 
plantation to the sugar house,—a distance of two 
miles—for the double purpose of transporting our 
sugars and molasses to the river for shipment, and 
carrying our sugar to the sugar house. It answers 
many other valuable purposes, to wit:—The labor¬ 
ers are conveyed to and from their work in less time 
and without fatigue. No mud or broiling sun im¬ 
pedes their way. The various supplies for the place, 
and articles of transportation, are carried on the 
road. Though last, not least, a higher considera¬ 
tion has been kept in view. Every sabbath morn¬ 
ing, all the people, white and black, are provided 
with cars to convey them to the church at the end 
of the road, to hear the word of God preached; the 
value of which no one can estimate. 
The cost of the road did not exceed one thousand 
dollars per mile. 
The greater portion of the road, (the rails being 
about six or seven inches square) is laid without 
cross ties; and seems to answer as well as that laid 
with ties—the ends of the rails being doweled to¬ 
gether, and a short plank at the ends laid under. 
The rails are bedded about half in the ground. 
The car wheels are without flanges, and are kept on 
the track by small horizontal wheels on a vertical 
axle, running inside the rails, and are not liable to 
run off. We feared flanges would cut the rails, as 
no iron is used. From present appearances the 
road may last twenty years. In our opinion the 
stock pays fifty per cent, per annum. Two horses 
are equal to twenty in the usual way. The heavi¬ 
est load we have carried on it, was a steam sugar 
boiler, (a locomotive boiler) weighing 14,000 lbs., 
and without apparently affecting the road. 
We believe railroads, both private and public are 
not yet fully appreciated. 
Let us have a railroad all the way from New- 
York to New-Orleans—then where could the Union 
be divided? S. St R. Tillotson. New-River, La., 
Dec. 30, 1849. __ 
Progress in Knowledge. 
Eds. Cultivator —Your able correspondent, 
Mr. Holbrook, in the February number of The Cul¬ 
tivator, very graphically portrays the controversy 
that has been going on for some years past, between 
the old and new school classes of farmers; I have, 
for a long time been an interested 11 looker on ” in 
this matter, and if I am any judge in human pro¬ 
gress, the old school or plow-jogger class are fast 
losing ground. The great number of agricultural 
papers that are distributed through the various sec¬ 
tions of our Union, are fast doing away the pre¬ 
judices that once so generally existed in the minds 
of practical farmers, against what used to be sneer- 
ingly termed “ book farming.” 
There seems to be a general belief springing up 
among a large proportion of the tillers of the soil, 
that there are special and unerring laws which go¬ 
vern the vegetable, as well as the astronomical 
world; and reading, thinking farmers are beginning 
to understand the workings of some of these laws. 
Ten years ago, how few farmers knew even the name 
of silex, or silica, and much less of the part it played 
in the composition of their grains and grasses. But 
now, thousands upon thousands of our common far¬ 
mers know all about silica. They know it is the 
material that gives stiffness to the straw; and they 
know the use of spreading sand or gravel upon their 
reclaimed peat meadows and drained swamps, the 
soil of which consists mostly of decaying vegetable 
matter. They know too, what is meant by phos¬ 
phate of lime, and that it enters largely into the 
composition of the bones of animals; and they have 
learned too, that old bones can, by the efficient agen¬ 
cy of vegetable chemistry, be prepared to be again 
worked up into new bones, as well as old gold and 
silver coin, can, by the agency of the mint, be 
again wrought into new eagles and dollars. And 
they further know, that ammonia is not the name of 
some heroine of a novel, or love-tale, but an import¬ 
ant constituent of animal manure; finally, they 
have learned a great many other important things 
about book-farming. And with such instructors as 
Profs. Johnston and Norton, they are in a fair way 
of learning much more that will be of intrinsic va¬ 
lue to them. “ Science made easy,” seems to be 
the object of Prof. Norton’s letters, and that’s what 
we working farmers want—must have, to be inter¬ 
ested and benefitted by the labors of scientific men. 
Technical terms and formulas, are legal tender 
among the scientific, but they are at rather a dis¬ 
count among farmers at present, though we hope the 
day is not far distant, when the technical terms of 
chemistry will be as familiar among the intelligent 
part of the farming community as “ household 
words.” B. Warner , N. H., Feb. 19, 1850. 
