54 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
equal weights. The price of those sold under my ob¬ 
servation, would range, I should think, at from 36 to 50s. 
a cwt. ($7 to $9.50.) There were no poor cattle, and 
few very fat ones; indeed it is not the season for fat 
beef yet. On the conclusion of a bargain for any parti¬ 
cular drove, the cattle were driven into the road, where 
they were taken in charge by boys and dogs—admirably 
trained (the dogs 1 mean) for the purpose, selecting, by 
direction of the owner, an individual from a herd of 
cattle, and keeping a single one or more to tne beaten 
track. They sell readily at from £2 to -£10. 
The sheep are wholly Scotch and Irish. The Scotch, 
small; most of them a black-faced, shaggy, long wooled 
animal, selling from 15s. to 25s. ($3 to $5.) The large 
Irish sheep—elegant mutton they were too, as our dinner 
to-day testifies—sold for 20s. to 36s. The Southdowns 
are not appreciated in this market. There were on the 
ground about 2,000 cattle and 7 to 8,000 sheep. A large 
part is bought by butchers, in small droves, from Bir¬ 
mingham and Manchester, this being the great receiving 
port of cattle from every part of Ireland. Still there are 
large butchers here who never attend the market, sup¬ 
plying themselves by regular engagements with their 
own drovers. No veal and but few milch cows come to 
this market. A good new milch cow sells at from 14 to 
.£20. Veal is plenty in the town market at about 7 d. the 
pound. Some I noticed beautifully dressed, a day or two 
since, weighing some 45 lbs. to the quarter. But I must 
leave the town markets, their number, their size, their! 
display, their throngs, &c., for another letter. 
Notwithstanding the increased importation of live 
stock from Ireland, not only to Liverpool, but also 
through Bristol to London, there have been, beside ship¬ 
ments of salted beef this year, thus far, to amount cf 
3,000 tierces and 600 barrels to this port, and 5,000 
tierces and 282 brls. to London; beside 13,000 tierces and 
20,000 brls. of pork to London, and as much more here. 
No wonder England cherishes her close relationship 
with Ireland! Who can sneer at her bogs and fens, with 
such evidence of her agricultural products? 
The market prices for the past week, which it may 
perhaps interest you to know, have been: For po¬ 
tatoes (of which considerable quantities are being ship¬ 
ped,) 2s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. a cwt. Beef, 2s. 4 d. to 3s. 6d. 
per 8 lbs. Pork, 2s. 10 d. to 4s. Mutton, 2s. 8d. to 3s. 
8d. Hay, coarse meadow, 31. 15s. to 4 l. 16s; fine up¬ 
land, 51. 5s. to 51. 10s. 
Hay has been imported in one or two instances from 
America, but for some reason, has not done well. The 
duty is 16s. per load. I will give you in my next a full 
schedule of duties and port charges on all American ag¬ 
ricultural products. 
Apples have of late come in, in considerable quanti¬ 
ties—selling with duties paid (6d. per bush.) at from 12s. 
to 22s. per brl. All depends upon the packing. A brand 
known to open well, will fetch from 3 to 5 shillings more 
than a new brand. Some are packed in sawdust, some 
in straw. Fuller details on this subject in future. Salted 
beef has sold the past week, American mess, from 11. 
3s. to XI. 18s. per brl. Pork, mess, 21. 4s. to 21. 10. 
Lard, American, sells quick at XI. 15s. to 21. Is. 
Imports of flour past week, from America, 3,515 brls. 
You may expect in future a running comment on the 
weekly markets, so far as they relate to American pro¬ 
duce. Also any thing that may come in my way of in¬ 
terest to an American farmer. 
I will endeavor to send you by next steamer a sketch 
of an English farm house and out-buildings, to afford 
some presentment to the eye of the air of a British far¬ 
mer’s home. I send with this some letters of Mr. 
Mechi, and drawings of his buildings, on which he has 
expended great sums. He is a practical man, and I think 
you will find matter of much interest in the letters. 
I should not omit to mention that the potatoe crop 
here, as well as with us, has been latterly subject to dis¬ 
ease, called the “ dry rot,” attributable by many to the 
heating of potatoes in the heap, but vulgarly, and I 
think erroneously, attributed to the use of guano. 
Respectfully yours, 
D. G. Mitchell. 
LETTER FROM MR. HORSFORD—No. I. 
By the last arrival from Havre, we received the fol¬ 
lowing letter from our friend Prof. Horseord, whose 
departure for the University of Giessen, we noticed in 
our November number. Though dated at London, the 
letter was finished at Giessen, where Mr. H. arrived on 
the 25th Nov. 
London , Nov. 13, 1844. 
Mr. L. Tucker —The Packet Ship Switzerland reach¬ 
ed the Bill of Portland, Wednesday evening, the 6th inst. 
after an unusually long eastward passage of twenty seven 
days. The gale, which proved so destructive to vessels 
in the British Channel, and along the coast, came upon 
us, the Saturday and Sunday previous; but having abun¬ 
dant sea-room and a staunch ship, it was the occasion on¬ 
ly of a fine display of seamanship among the officers and 
crew. 
The passengers were landed in a pilot boat at Wey¬ 
mouth, one of the favorite watering places of the nobili¬ 
ty ; and early the succeeding morning we were greeted 
with English scenery and English life. I shall attempt 
no expression of the feelings with which I looked upon 
every thing, so unlike what I had been accustomed to; 
for I should fail, as others have, in writing what I have 
read—to give a just idea fully appreciable by an Ameri¬ 
can, and besides, at the best, it would be a more than 
j thrice told tale. Every thing seems constructed with the 
!motto cc to last;” every thing seems so ohhand establish¬ 
ed; and every body seems so happy and contented, that 
one from the young, enterprising, progressing, anxious 
New World, feels bewildered in the contemplation of 
objects about him. 
The “ Bill” of Portland is a promontory of rock jut¬ 
ting two or three miles, I should judge, into the channel. 
It is so called from its resemblance to the bill of a duck, 
when seen from some distance at sea. Weymouth rests 
upon the outcrop of rocks which underlie the chalk ba¬ 
sin; and the inhabitants have taken advantage of their lo¬ 
cation to erect a great number of fine blocks of buildings 
overlooking the bay and harbor. In front of some of these 
edifices are garden and court-yard walls of irregularly 
shaped sandstone blocks, to which a very fine effect is im¬ 
parted by laying them up in a striped mortar; or perhaps 
I should say grooved mortar. After looking some time 
at the structure, I came to the conclusion that in the cre¬ 
ation of the wall, two pots of mortar were employed, one 
of which was readily decomposable, or suffered ready 
disintegration from atmospheric exposure, while the oth¬ 
er did not. Between each two layers of stone there were 
three layers of mortar, the middle one of them being of 
the first kind. Upon this supposition I could see, how in 
the progress of a few months after the erection of the 
wall, the fine grooved effect might have been produced. 
From Weymouth we proceeded by “ The Magnet,” an 
English coach, over the undulations of the chalk basin to 
Salisbury, five and forty miles. The road was of flint 
and graded with such care, that the gallop or trot of the 
horses was uninterrupted through each stage. As we 
drove from Weymouth, there was nothing in English ag¬ 
riculture or husbandry of any description particularly 
commending itself to my attention. The soil upon the 
chalk was so shallow, as long since to have been quite 
exhausted. Extensive grass plains, mottled here and 
there with patches of furze, and flocks of South Downs, 
were frequently in view. 
No fences, and very indifferent hedges, except in the 
immediate vicilnity of villages, were seen, separating 
larger or smaller tracts of land. Somewhere on our way 
we passed the county line of Wilkshire, altogether 
unique in character—a ridge of earth succeeded by a 
ditch. The height of the ridge must originally have been 
some twelve or fifteen feet. 
In the vicinity of this ridge, and scattered all along the 
road from Weymouth to Salisbury, and abounding espe¬ 
cially in the vicinity of Stone Henge, are circular mounds 
and amphitheatres like those attributed to an unknown 
race, before the Indians, in America. I learned one fact 
here, which, taken in connection with the correspondence 
form, may serve to aid antiquarian investigations. It is, 
that the same kind of flint arrow-heads or arrow-points 
