Cane requires a higher cultivation than corn or cotton; in fact, to do it justice, it should be worked once in ten days, and very thoroughly each time. Ploughing cane should cease by the 20th of June, as it has, by that time, generally attained a sufficient size to shade the ground completely, and thus smother the grass, etc. It should, however, be gone over occasionally, to cut out the tie vine, which is troublesome on our plantations. Rolling commences about the 15th of October, and continues until Christmas, generally. The average yield per aere is about sixteen hundred pounds; ten thousand pounds of sugar; and eighty gallons of molasses to each thousand pounds, is usually made to each hand, with fair management. 3.-NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. THIS body held its Seventh Annual Meeting, on January last, at Washington City, and we regret that a necessary presence at the South forbade us from being there. It is our earnest hope that the Society will continue its labors, and that the union of the several State and County Associations in it, may be more intimate and extended every year. Most of the active members are earnest and enthusiastic, and the President, Gen. Tench Tilghman, of Maryland, devotes a great deal of time to the interests of the Society. The total disbursements during last year, for premiums and other expenses, reached $5,969 80. The following account of the history of the Society, is extracted from the report of Gen. Tilghman: On the 14th of June, 1851, a National Agricultural Convention was held at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, under a call issued by the following Agricultural Societies, at the nistance of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture: The Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture; Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society; New-York State Agricultural Society; Southern Central Agricultural Society; Ohio State Board of Agriculture; American Institute, NewYork; Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture; Indiana State Board of Agriculture; New-Hampshire Agricultural Society; Vermont Agricultural Society; and the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of American Industry. The convention was composed of 153 delegates, representing 23 States and Territories. Among those who were present during its sessions, were the Hon. Millard Fillmore, President of the United States, and Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. The following gentlemen composed the committee who drafted its constitution; Messrs. Holcomb, of Delaware; Dawson, of Georgia; French, of Massachusetts; Steele, of New-IIampshire; Thurston, of Rhode Island; Hubbard, of Connecticut; Stevens, of Vermont; Elwyn, of Pennsylvania; Calvert, of Maryland; Campbell, of Ohio; Hancock, of New-Jersey; Callan of the District of Columbia; G. W. P. Custis, of Virginia; Burgwyn, of North Carolina; Taylor, of Alabama; De Bow, of Louisiana; Spencer, of Indiana; Mallory, of Kentucky; Bell, of Tennessee; Weston, of Wisconsin; McLane, of California; Pickhard, of Maine; and Seaman, of Michigan. On the lists of its members was to be found the names of many of the most distinguished men in the nation, and it would compare favorably, in this respect, with any institution in the country. The objects of the Society, as declared by the preamble to its constitution, were to improve the agriculture of the country by attracting attention, eliciting the views, and confirming the efforts of the great class composing the agricultural community, and to secure the advantages of a better organization, and more extended usefulness among all State, county, and other agricultural societies. The first annual meeting was held on the 2d of February, 1853, since which they have been regularly continued. The first number of the transactions was issued in August, 1853, and was continued quarterly for the first year, since which time its issue has been annual. The first fair was held on the 17th of October, 1853, at Springfield, Mass. Annual exhibitions had also been held in Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Virginia, at which there had been expended upward of $100,000. In 1857, it held a national trial of reapers and mowers at Syracuse, N. Y., unequaled by any similar exhibition that had ever been held-the illustrated report of which, together with the other operations of the Society, had given it à high position among the national agricultural societies of the world. It had already been stated that the first extended experiments in the culture of sugar-cane, in this country, were made at the expense, and under the direction of the Society, for which purpose seed was imported from France sufficient to plant one hundred acres, and results obtained from ninety locations, extending from the province of New-Brunswick to Mexico, and from Florida to Washington Territory. It would thus be seen that the Society has its distinct sphere of operations, within which its proceedings had been steadily conducted, and that it afforded a common ground on which those of every shade of opinion could meet as brethren in the prosecution of a common interest. 4.-AGRICULTURE AS A PROFESSION. Ar the present time, when we have so many among us who are engaged in agricultural pursuits, a few reflections upon Agriculture as a profession will not be considered inappropriate or out of place. Poets have sung of the beauties, advantages and pleasures of this glorious life. Statesmen, after the turmoil and labor of political life, and the contentions of the Legislative Hall, have gladly sought repose and retirement on the farm. Merchants, when the vexations and toils and uncertainties of their calling have worn out their health and energy, longingly hope to spend the remnant of their days in the tillage of the soil. Professional men, harassed with their cares and responsibilities, and their rough contests with their fellow-men, fondly indulge in the same expectationand those who have tried it have found their fullest expectations realized. Agriculture, of course, has its cares and annoyances. Every profession has these to encounter. It is fore-ordained that man must live by the sweat of his brow-and industry and care and labor are requisite for success in every employment. We speak by comparison when we say, that the culture of the soil combines more positive pleasures, with fewer disagreeable incidents, than any other calling. In the first place, it is the most independent life which any man can follow. While the politician, and the merchant, and the professional man, and the editor, must have daily intercourse with men, and must exercise prudence and forbearance, and must humor this one, and consult the prejudices of the other, and must bear with ill-temper, and ignorance, and unreasonable requirements of those with whom they have dealings, the farmer, on the contrary, is independent of them all. When his crop is ready for the market, he has only to sell at the highest price he can get, and here his necessary intercourse with all others ends. He may pursue the even tenor of his way, regardless of the opinions of the world. In the next place, it is the most healthful of all pursuits. The statistics of mortality prove the farmer to be longer-lived, in the general, than any other class. While he has principally physical labor to perform, other professions have mental labors in addition, which harass the mind and wear down the constitution. Farming, it is true, is a laborious life; but this very labor strengthens the frame, conduces to health, promotes longevity, and gives zest to the planter's life. Take it all in all, farming is about as remunerative as any other profession. Ten merchants fail in business where one farmer does. Professional men rarely grow rich from their professions alone, and politicians notoriously die poor, unless they accumulate wealth by stealing. If the farmer, at the end of the year, has been able only to "make both ends meet," he has done well-for his property is increasing and accumulating all the time. In fact, it is a much more profitable business than many of those engaged in it are themselves aware of. True, the farmer has to encounter occa sionally bad seasons and short crops, and low prices; but, in the long run, the general average is favorable to him. And what he falls short in one year, he is very apt to make up in another. The farmers and planters of the South, in a political point of view, constitute the great conservative class of the country. They are not so subject to violent excitement, and are not so easily carried away by passion, as the commercial and manufacturing classes of the large cities. Where they are educated and intelligent, as most of them are, they are averse to everything like mob-law, and insubordination. 66 O, fortunatos Agricolas, si sua bona norint," was the exclamation of the Latin poet nearly two thousand years ago, and the remark may be made with still greater truth at the present day.-Lynchburg Virginian. 5.-AGRICULTURE OF VIRGINIA AND OF ENGLAND. THE Hon. Charles J. Faulkner, of Virginia, in a recent agricultural address, gives some interesting facts in relation to the wheat capacities and growth of his own State, as compared with that of England. Less than a century ago the entire production of wheat in England fell short of sixteen millions of bushels. By the returns of 1853-the latest authentic returns which I have seen-her production was ninety millions of bushels, averaging a yield of thirty bushels upon every acre cultivated in wheat, and yielding from three millions of acres a product nearly equal to that grown in the thirty-one States and Territories of this vast Confederacy, covering three millions of square miles. If any fact could more strongly illustrate the capacity of the soil to remunerate the labor of man, it would be that this increase in every other product and in the number and quality of their live stock has been in the same proportion. England is unquestionably the greatest commercial and manufacturing power on the globe; her navies ride in every sea, and the evidences of her mechanical skill are scattered over every land, and yet it appears from the returns of her income tax that the net revenue of all her manufactures and commerce, and of all her immense personal capital, does not exceed two thirds of the net income from the agricultural productions of that small island. __England, including Wales, is in territorial extent less than Virginia, and yet the entire product of wheat in this State from the harvest of 1849, as appears by the census, was but 11,212,616, exhibiting an average of seven bushels to the acre for the land in cultivation in that grain; an average, by-the-by, for the State greater than can be justified upon any principle of calculation that can be made to apply from the materials furnished by the census. To what, then, are we to ascribe this vast superiority of England over this State and over this valley in the production of wheat? Is it to her soil and climate? Far from it. Nearly three millions of acres of her lands remain entirely unproductive, having hitherto resisted all attempts at cultivation, and of her remaining surface two thirds, at least, are ungrateful and stubborn lands, which human industry alone has subdued. The southern part of the island is composed of granite soils, similar to those of the New-England States. In the north, the mountains which separate England from Scotland cover with their ramifications the larger part of seven counties; wherever the ground is not hilly it is in general naturally marshy. The counties of Lincoln and Cambridge, now reckoned among the most productive, were formerly but one vast marsh, partially covered by the sea, like the polders of Holland opposite them, on the other side of the channel. Numerous peat-mosses still show the primitive state of the country. In other portions are extensive sands abandoned by the sea, such as the county of Norfolk, where that system of agriculture arose which has made the fortune of England. Several of the counties consist of stiff clay land, which is found exceedingly troublesome to cultivate. Left to itself, this clay never dries in England, and when not transformed by manure and improved by draining, farmers despair of making anything of it. In a portion of the island chalky lands of an indifferent quality prevail, the chalk showing itself almost in a pure state on the surface. Less than one third of its area is composed of sandy clay soils, and the loams of the lower valleys. The rivers being short and the valleys narrow, alluvial lands are rather scarce. THE TOBACCO INTEREST. A considerable portion of the soil of this valley is argillaceous-a soft loam upon a substratum of clay. Limestone, with its associated slaty and silicious lands, varying in color from the deepest blue to a light gray, and presenting every modification of texture, occupy all the intervening space from the yellow sandstone of the Blue Ridge to the lighter colored sandstone of the North Mountain. Notwithstanding the general diffusion of limestone rock in this valley, it is stated by Prof. Rodgers, upon analysis, our soil is found to contain little or no calcareous matter even where taken from the immediate vicinity of the limestone rock, and the same phenomenon was observed by his brother and himself in the corresponding regions of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. If this be so, still nature has bountifully diffused throughout this section of the State limestone rock yielding 80, 90, and even 96 per cent. of carbonate of lime, which may readily be applied to the soil for all the purposes for which it may be found beneficial. Without going further into a detail of the distinctive characteristics of the two regions, it may be very safely asserted that the soil of this valley, and especially in the counties of Clarke, Jefferson, and Berkley, are, in all their natural constituents, superior to the lands in England. 6. INTRODUCTION OF COTTON AT THE SOUTH. In our last issue, Judge Clayton, speaking of the agricultural advancement of the South, makes a statement in regard to the introduction of cotton which calls forth the following in the Southern Rural Gentleman: That General Clark was the first to introduce cotton seed into some portion of the South, Judge Clayton's assertion is sufficient evidence, but that he introduced the first cotton seed into the Southern country, as the Judge's unremitting language certainly leads us to understand, and which is probably attributable to the haste to which he alludes in which his address was prepared, is not, I think, borne out by the history of the plant, If my recollection of what I have seen on the subject be correct, Judge Clayton must be in error as to the date of the introduction of cotton. It is not necessary, however, to establish the certainty of the date of the shipment of cotton in order to show the Judge to have been led into error on this subject. History speaks plainly on this point: "The first culture of cotton in the United States deserves commemoration. This year (1621) the seeds were planted as an experiment; and their plentiful coming up was, at that early day, a subject of interest in America and England."-(Bancroft's United States, 1st vol., p. 179, twelfth edition.) By reference to the author just quoted, it may be seen that a rather remarkable series of events occurred about the same time. The events are these: In August, 1620, negroes as slaves, were first introduced into Virginia; in 1621 the first crop of cotton, of which we have record, was grown in Virginia; in July, 1621, the first written constitution was ordained and established in Virginia, for "the greatest comfort and benefit of the people, and the prevention of injustice, grievances, and oppression." Although I have, apparently, taken issue with the Judge as to a matter of fact, permit me to express my sympathy in his feelings and coincidence in his opinions on the subject of slavery. 7. THE TOBACCO INTEREST. THE following joint resolutions in relation to the tobacco trade of the United Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the trade in tobacco with Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Brazil, and all other foreign nations, is clogged with restrictions and limitations wholly inconsistent with a fair reciprocal condition of commerce which ought to exist between the United States and those nations respectively, and is, therefore, unsatisfactory to the States of Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, and Connecticut, in which the article of tobacco is an important if not the chief staple of agricultural product. SEC. 2. Be it further resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal Government to use its utmost power by negotiation or other constitutional means to obtain a modification or reduction on the part of said foreign nations of the duties and restrictions imposed by them on the importation of American tobacco, and to this end to employ all the diplomatic and commercial powers which the Constitution has confided in it, in producing a more just and equal reciprocity in a trade so deeply involving the value of that portion of the Agricultural labor of the country in which at least one fourth of the confederacy is concerned. SEC. 3. Be it further resolved, That the treaties of the United States with China and Japan present a fair and fitting occasion for the enlargement and extension of the tobacco trade of the United States, and it is the duty of the Government of the United States to use all their exertions within the limits of constitutional power, to foster and encourage the introduction of American tobacco as an article of use among the people of those nations. SEC. 4. Be it further resolved, That diplomatic negotiations with England, France, Spain, and Austria, as well as with China and Japan, ought to be commenced as soon as practicable by the Government of the United States, with the view of obtaining a modification of the existing systems of revenue and taxation of those nations, in respect to American tobacco; and for this purpose instructions ought to be given to our foreign ministers, consuls, and commercial agents, in those nations, by the Executive of the United States, to use all their constitutional and legitimate functions in producing so desirable a result. DEPARTMENT OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. 1.-GOLD REGIONS OF GEORGIA. In the South Countryman, a new agricultural magazine, published at Marietta, Georgia, we find an able paper, by M. S. Stephens, on the gold mines of Georgia. The area covered by them is about 150 miles in length, and extends from Columbia county to the State line on the north. The aggregate yield has been from twelve to fifteen millions of dollars. We extract as follows: Its whole extent is over 700 miles in length, and 200 in breadth. In Georgia, it extends from Columbia county, on the S. E., to the State line on the north. The predominating rocks are mica slate, granite, gneiss, talcose slate, and hornblende. The quantity of gold obtained since 1829, when first discovered, can never be ascertained with any approach to accuracy; as it was carried off and sold to merchants and adventurers for eight years previous to the establishment of the Mint at this place. During that period, there were twice as many hands employed in washing; and most of the rich branch and river deposits were exhausted before any correct data were furnished for determining the amount made; but taking the six millions coined at the Mint since, and comparing the number of hands engaged with the former period, we cannot be far from the truth in estimating the yield at fifteen millions of dollars. Since the discovery of gold in California, the most of our miners have left for that country, under the impression that they would suddenly make fortunes; which, it is to be regretted, has proved to be fallacious. After enduring unheard-of hardships and privations, thousands of them have perished from the effects of climate, or still remain there, believing that something may turn up, and they may yet realize their fond hopes. While some few have succeeded, the majority are doomed to live and die without success. In the last few months a new spirit of enterprise has been infused into the people here, partly by the accidental discovery of very rich vein mines, and partly by the introduction of the new California |