not yet passed since the last remnant of the aborigines were removed from her limits, and since she had complete jurisdiction over her entire domain. Of course the comparison would be with great odds against her if matched against Massachusetts, New York or Virginia, which were wealthy and powerful communities before the infant colony of Georgia was planted in the wilderness. Boston, New York and Richmond, were nearly as old as Georgia now is when Oglethorpe first landed at Savannah. But not withstanding all this, I will not shrink from the comparison, let it be instituted when and where it may.

Georgia, too, we tell that gentleman, has her beds of coal and iron; her lime, gypsum and marl; her quarries of granite and marble. She has inexhaustible treasures of minerals, including gold, the most precious of metals. She has a soil and a climate suitable for the growth and culture of almost every product known to husbandry and agriculture. A better country for wheat and corn and all the cereal plants, to say nothing of cotton and tobacco, is not to be found in an equal space on this continent. There, too, grows the orange, the olive, the vine and the fig with forests of oak and pine sufficient to build and mast the navies of the world. She has mountains for grazing, rivers for commerce, and waterfalls for machinery, of all kinds, without number. Nor have these great natural advantages and resources been neglected. Young as she is, she is now the first cotton-growing State in the Union. Her last year's crop will not fall short of six hundred thousand bales, if it does not exceed it. She has, I believe, thirty-six cotton factories in operation, and a great many more hastening to completion-one of them has, or soon will have, ten thousand spindles, with two hundred looms capable of turning out eight thousand yards of cloth per day. Her yarns are already finding their way to the markets of the North and foreign countries; and the day is not distant when she will take the lead in the manufacture, as well as the production, of this great staple. She has also her flour mills and paper mills-her forges, founderies and furnaces, not with their fires extinguished, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania said of some in his State, but in full blast. Her exports, last year, were not less than thirty millions of dollars-equal to, if not greater than those of all New England together. She has six hundred and fifty miles of railroad in operation, at a cost of fifte millions of dollars, and two hundred more in the process of construction. By her energy and enterprises, she has scaled the mountain barriers and opened the way for the steam car, from the Southern Atlantic ports to the waters of the great valley of the West. But this is not all. She has four chartered universities-nay five, for she has one devoted exclusively to the education of her daughters. She was the first State, I believe, to establish a female college which is now in a flourishing condition, and one of the brightest ornaments of her character. She has four hundred young men pursuing a collegiate course; a greater number, I believe, than any State in the Union in proportion to her white population. Go then and take your statistics, if you wish-you will find not only all these things to be so, but I tell you also what you will not find. You will not find any body in that State begging bread or asking alms. You will find but few paupers. You will not find forty thousand beings, pinched with cold and hunger, demanding the right to labor, as I saw it stated to be the case, not long since, in the city of New York. And when you have got all the information you want, come and institute the comparison, if you wish, with any State you please; make your own selection, I shall not shrink from it, nor will the people of that State shrink from it. Other gentlemen from the South can speak for their own States; I speak only for mine, and in her name and in her behalf, as one of her representatives upon this floor, I accept the gauntlet in advance, and I have no fears of the result of a comparison of her statistics, socially, morally, politically, with any other State of equal population in this confederacy. I know gentlemen of the North are in the habit of laying great stress upon the amount of their population, as if numbers was an index of national prosperity. If this principle were correct, Ireland should be considered one of the most prosperous countries in the world, notwithstanding thousands of her inhabitants die annually for the want of food. The whole idea is wrong. That country has the greatest elements of prosperity, where the same amount of human labor or exertion will procure the greatest amount of human comforts; and that people are the most prosperous, whether few or many, who, possessing these elements, control them, by their energy and industry and economy, for the accumulation of wealth. In these particulars, the people of Georgia are in

ferior to none in this or any other country. They have abundant reason to be content with their lot-at least not to look to you to better it. Nor have they any disposition to interfere with the affairs of their neighbors. If the people of Massachusetts, New York or Ohio, like their condition better, they are at perfect liberty to do so. Georgia has no desire to interfere with their local institutions, tastes or sentiments, nor will she allow them to interfere with hers. All she desires is to let others alone and to be let alone by others, and to go on in her own way in the progress she has commenced, prosperous and to prosper.

"The six hundred and fifty miles of railroad now in operation, to which I have alluded, were built by Georgia capital. One hundred and thirty-six miles, from Atlanta to Chatanooga, on the Tennessee river, which is one of the greatest monuments of the enterprise of the age, was built by the State. But her public debt is only a little over eight en hundred thousand dollars, while that of the State of New York is over twenty millions, besides the fourteen millions owed by the city alone; and the debt of Pennsylvania is forty millions of dollars. The bonds of the State of Georgia are held mostly by her own people. You do not see them hawked about in northern or foreign markets at a depreciation. But they, as well as the stocks and securities of the private companies, are held mostly by her own citizens, and are commanding premiums at home."

10. FLORIDA-ITS AGRICULTURAL FACILITIES.

In

We notice, in the newspapers, extended accounts of the growing cotton crop, and they are all quite as unpromising as last year. In Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, the complaint is cold rains. The plant is very backward and has the "sore shin," and is, moreover, afflicted with lice and grasshoppers. Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, a large portion of the cotton lands has been inundated. So on the river lands of Alabama. All the papers conclude, that the crop cannot, under the most favorable circumstances, exceed that of last year. It is too early to arrive at positive conclusions, but it appears probable that the crop will again be short everywhere, except in Florida. Here the prospect is fair. There can be no question that cotton is a much more certain crop here, than in any other portion of the world. Rich, heavy lands, may be very important, but good seasons are more so-and here we have them.

Our crop, here, is endangered only by the insects-for there is no climate in the world, probably, governed by laws more fixed and unvarying than the climate of Florida; and these laws are precisely adapted to the growth and saving of cotton. Occasional light showers from the middle of February to June; heavy rains in the month of June and early in July; light showers to September; dry, fair weather, to January; heavy rains in January and early in February. This is the almost invariable experience in Florida; and when visited by extremes, the porus character of our soil enables the cotton plant better to sustain them. Our land is neither a slough in wet weather nor a sun brick in dry. It will produce as much cotton as can be saved, and the season for saving it is unequaledand in a business which depends so much upon seasons, it is surprising to us that planters suffer their eyes to be dazzled and judgment blinded, by the rich river bottom lands of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, where an entire or partial failure is at least as common as a crop We hold it to be demonstrable and demonstrated, that cotton is a more certain crop in Florida than in any other State of the Union; and, of course, that cotton growing is more profitable here than any where else.-Tallahassee Sentinel, June 4.

11. THE OLD NORTH STATE.

While North Carolina has embarked, to a limited extend, in manufactories, we have been somewhat surprised that she has not gone more fully into it. She possesses as many, or more, natural advantages for it than any other State in the Union. She has water-power sufficient, in her borders, to propel any amount of machinery, and that, too, disposed in such a manner, that it could be applied readily and profitably. She has exhaustless beds of coal and iron, which are as easily worked as those of any section of the world. Then, she has quantities of copper, silver, gold, lime aud other minerals, which might be worked to advantage and manufactured into those various forms which would adapt them to the wants and necessities of mankind. She raises large quantities of cotton,

and can produce as much wool as she might desire; and yet, with the exception of a few cotton factories, she has paid no attention to this important branch of industry. Her surplus labor, now without employment would be amply suficient to raise up a manufacturing interest in our borders, which would go far to redeem our State from its dependence upon other States for manufactured articles, and would give life and activity to all branches of industry.

We know the backward state of this branch of industry, in our borders, has been owing, in a great measure, to the want of proper facilities for throwing manufactured us well as agricultural products into the market of the world. But, even if we had none, the erection of various kinds of manufactories could not fail to be of vast benefit to all other interests. While it would employ much of the labor which is now idle, it would create a demand for all agricultural products, thus benefiting the farmer and furnishing to our people the means to embark more largely and extensively into all enterprises of this kind.

Much of the capital of our State has been sent off to other States, because its owners could not find any thing in which they could profitably invest it. Much remains idle and useless in our midst. But we trust that a new spirit of enterprise will be infused into the minds of our people; that, as they are determined to overcome the difficulties which lie in their way to a free and rapid communication with the markets of the world, they will employ those means they have to make North Carolina one of the first States in the Union in wealth and in enterprise.

We have a good soil, a pleasant and varied climate-aud why may not our citizens expend their means and put forth their energies to improve the advantages we have, and to develop the latent resources with which we have been so richly blessed?

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

1. PRODUCTION OF RICE IN SOUTHERN STATES.

IN our first volume was published the invaluable memoir upon the rice plant, prepared by Col. Allston, of South Carolina, which is one of the most complete treatises extant upon any branch of agricultural industry. We followed, in our seventh volume, with a paper upon the culture of rice in India, and, in the eighth, with one upon the culture in Louisiana. To these we refer Sumter, the correspondent of the "Alabama Planter," in extracting from his remarks. COL. WARD, of South Carolina, says, that, in 1845, he planted a field of sixteen acres in rice of two different kinds, known as long and small grain. The long grain produced rough rice, 376 bushels, making clean rice 10,754 lbs. worth $404 67, and a residuum of 519 32, or 16 bushels and 7 quarts of small or broken rice, and 31 bushels of flour. There was then, per acre of merchantable rice, 1,34414 lbs., worth $50 58 per acre. The small grain produced 348 bushels rough rice, making 10,767 lbs., worth $404 56. There was, then, per acre, 1,315 lbs. of merchantable rice, worth $50 87, and a residuum of 16 bushels and 23 quarts of broken rice and 33 bushels of flour.

In 1846, Dr. E. T. Hewitt planted a field of 25 acres in alternate beds, as in the foregoing case. His results were, long grain, 392 bushels rough rice, making 12,099 lbs. clean rice, or 968 lbs. nearly, per acre, worth $43 81 to the acre, and a residuum of 434 bushels of small rice and 401, bushels of flour. The small grain produced 381 bushels, making 11,065 lbs. clean rice, being 885.2 lbs. to the acre, and worth $39 512% to the acre, with a residuum of 54 bushels of small rice and 37 bushels of flour. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that these small residuary portions of the unmerchantable product are used on the plantations, either as food for the hands or the stock upon it.

It is also of value to note the rate, per pound, at which the rice appears to have been sold:

Rate per pound. 334 cts. nearly.

33

4

4.44 cts.
4.46"

66

This will give an average price of 4 09 cents, nearly, for the varieties, as stated, per pound, in the two years 1845 and 1846, and an average money product to the acre of $45 14 nearly, an average product in bushels of rough rice of 361⁄2 nearly, and an average product of merchantable rice of 1,090 lbs.

The highest price per pound is 4.46 cents, the lowest 334 cents; the largest product per acre of clean rice is 1,342 tbs., the smallest is 885.2 lbs.-making the product of the first 50 per cent. larger than that of the second, per acre of clean rice; and, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose, that the latter was no more than a common crop, even if the former were an extraordinary one, and hence, making it a safe basis to make calculations upon.

Are there not, among your readers, some Carolinians and Georgians, who would be able to enlighten the public on the mode of culture, cost of it, and the probable results? I am persuaded that the southern part of the United States, by a proper direction of labor and capital, could monopolize the supply of rice as it now does of cotton, and thus add another strong item to the strong influences she now possesses on the commerce and destiny of the world, and render her institutions more safe and her property more profitable. Could the vast quantities of rich marsh lands that exist on our Atlantic and Gulf coasts, be converted into rice fields, a very extensive opening would be made for an additional application of slave labor, and consequent security and advantage to our section of the country. But the cultivation of the low-land rice need not be confined to the coasts and marshes of the Atlantic, the Gulf and the Mississippi. Throughout the South there are tens of thousands of acres susceptible of being flooded by springs and perennial streams, far in the interior and capable of producing the most heavy crops of rice at the smallest cost, either for land preparation or culture, and in portions of the country the most healthful and inviting.

The mode of cultivating rice in China, noticed in the Patent Office Report for 1847, page 173, is peculiarly applicable to the interior of a great part of the southern country. The large flats along small streams, capable of being dammed and thrown over large tracts of lands, and the springs that so generally issue from the hills that border these flats that may so easily be turned upon them, render flooding, in many places, a work of the smallest possible cost and of the utmost safety and security.

2. GOVERNOR AIKEN'S EXTENSIVE RICE ESTATE.

While upon the subject of rice, we cannot refrain from introducing, from the American Agriculturist, the sketch of a visit, by Solon Robinson, Esq., to Jehossee island, the magnificent rice estate of Ex-Governor Aiken, of South Carolina. We have ourselves frequently passed this plantation, between Savannah and Charleston, and know that it is one of the most perfect in the world.

This island contains about 3,300 acres, no part of which is over ten or fifteen feet above tide, and not more than 200 to 300 acres but what was subject to overflow, until dyked out by an amount of labor almost inconceivable to be performed by individual enterprise, when we also take into account the many miles of navigable canals and smaller ditches. There are 1,500 acres of rice lands, divided into convenient compartments for flooding, by substantial banks, and all laid off in beds, between ditches three feet deep and only 35 feet apart. Part of the land was tide-water marsh, and part of it timber swamp. Besides this, Gov. Aiken cultivates 500 acres in corn, oats and potatoes; the balance is gardens, yards, lawns, and in woods, pasture and unreclaimed swamp. Wood is becoming scarce on the island-so much so that he drives the steam engine, to thresh the crop, by burning straw, which answers a good purpose, but is of doubtful economy; though he intends carefully to save and apply the ashes, which are very abundant, and note the difference, in value, between that application and the manure made from the decomposed straw. It is generally calculated that two-thirds of the straw will be sufficient fuel to thresh the crop, but Gov. Aiken has not found it so. He says there is no more danger of fire in the use of straw than in any other fuel. The flue is carried off fifty or sixty feet along the ground, and there rises in a tall stack that ne er emits any sparks. Sugar planters, and all farmers who use steam, may do well to notice this. I recollect Mr. Burgwyn carries his off from his barn in the same way, with the same effect. Governor Aikin, however, has one improvement that I recollect mentioning to

Mr. B. he would require; that is, a "man hole" into this flue, to enable him to clean out the great accumulation of cinders at the bottom of the stack. In Gov. Aiken's there are two, which are closed by iron covers.

The threshing apparatus is a most convenient one. The sheaves are brought from the stacks in the great smooth yard to a large shed where all the sheltered grain can be saved, and are there opened and laid on carriers, similar to cane carriers, which carries them up to these machines in the second story, where the grain is separated from the straw, and falls down into winnowing machines, from whence it is removed by hand (it might be carried by machinery) to another part of the building, over a canal, and is let down into boats to carry it about half a mile to the hulling mill, which is exactly like Col. Carson's, and driven by tide. It is carried from the boats to the mill by hand, or rather head, where a little head work of another kind would take it up out of the boat by elevators. The straw is consumed almost as fast as threshed. And here the saving of labor in getting wood, as well as the saving of labor in stacking the straw and hauling manure, must be taken into account, as an offset to the loss of manure in burning the straw.

The rice, for seed, is always threshed by hand, as experience has taught that the vitality of a considerable portion is injured in the threshing machines. It is just sw th wheat. [An experienced farmer thinks about one grain in 500 is injured by threshing with machines, and, as about six per cent. by the last process, there is still a great pecuniary advantage in favor of threshing with a machine-EDs.]

The quantity of seed to the acre is two to three bushels, planted in drills 15 inches apart, opened by trenching plows; and, singular as it may sound to some other rice planters, Governor Aiken plows all of the land that will bear a mule or horse, of which he works about forty and twenty oxen.

Corn is generally planted in hills, upon the upland part of the island, which is sandy, four by five feet, two stalks in a place, and yields an average of 15 bushels per acre. Corn, upon the low or rice land, does not yield well, though it makes very large stalks. With sweet potatoes, on the contrary, the low land produces nearly double, and of better quality, averaging 200 bushels to the acre, and frequently 400 bushels. The average yield of rice is 45 bushels to the acre, and upon one eighty-acre lot the average yield is 64 bushels. The crop upon that lot, last year, was 5,100 bushels, weighing 234,600 lbs.; that is, 46 lbs. to the bushel. This made 229 barrels of whole rice, two barrels of middling, and two and a half barrels of small rice, which, at 600 lbs each (probably about 20 lbs. below the average), would make 140,100 lbs. This, at three cents, will give the very snug sum of $4,203 for the crop of 80 acres.

The average annual sales of the place do not vary materially from $25,000, and the average annual expenses not far from $10,000, of which sum $2,000 is paid the overseer, who is the only white man upon the place, besides the owner, who is always absent during the sickly months of summer. All the engineers, millers, smiths, carpenters and sailors, are black. A vessel, belonging to the island, goes twice a week to Charleston and carries a cargo of one hundred casks. The last crop was 1,500 casks; the year before, 1,800, and all provisions and grain required, made upon the place. Last year, there was not more than half a supply of provisions.

Like nearly all the lower-country plantations, the diet of the people is principally vegetable. Those who work" task work" receive, as rations, half a bushel of sweet potatoes a week, or six quarts of corn meal or rice, with beef or pork, or mutton occasionally, say two or three meals a week. As all the tasks are very light, affording them nearly one-fourth of the time to raise a crop for themselves, they always have an abundance, and sell a good deal for cash. They also raise pigs and poultry, though seldom for their own eating. They catch a great many fish, oysters, crabs, &c.

The carpenters, millers, &c., who do not have an opportunity of raising a crop for themselves, draw large rations, I think a bushel of corn a week, which gives them a surplus for sale. The children and non-workers are fed on corn bread, hominy, molasses, rice, potatoes, soup, &c.

The number of negroes upon the place is just about 700, occupying 84 double frame houses, each containing two tenements of three rooms to a family, besides the cockloft. Each tenement has its separate door and window, and a good brick fireplace, and nearly all have a garden paled in. There are two common