twelve hours, to deposit the whole of the defecated matter, and nothing but bright, clear liquor used for evaporation. To the planter on Red River the Melsens process must be peculiarly valuable, for by it the juice of green cane can be granulated, and all the disadvantages be obviated that attended premature grinding in that quarter. And in Texas also, the planter, from being enabled to re-boil his molasses into sugar, will have a marketable article for home use of all he produces. Another great benefit will be found in the crystallization of the sugar. From the size of the grain there will be no difficulty in using the syruping process, even with sugar made in the ordinary kettles; and we really think planters will find it to their interest to pay attention to this, as we are satisfied that by the use of good bisulphite of lime in the proper quantity, a good clarification, with two decantations, one after the clarification and the other previous to the syrup being put into the battery, and this followed by the process of syruping in oppropriate vessels, the sugar-maker will obtain, at a small cost, a sugar superior in grain, and little, if any, inferior in brilliancy of color to the best now made in the vacuum-pan by the aid of bone black; and in quantity, 20 per cent. at least more than what is now obtained by the common kettle-process. This will be fully tested, we understand, during the coming season, at Mr. Jno. Hagan, jr.'s, plantation, near Bayou Goule.

We will conclude by remarking, that inasmuch as the agent of Melsens, in his advertisement, offers to supply each planter with a barrel of bisulphite at a cheap rate, with permission to test the merit of the improvement, we strenuously advise all parties interested in sugar-planting to adopt the suggestion and give the new process a fair and proper trial; the cost is little or nothing-say $10,50 for a barrel-and the benefit, if the process possess one-half the merit attributed to it, enormous. Those who tried it in Louisiana last winter estimated the improvement as worth in quality and increased product $10 to $15 a hogshead, according to the apparatus used.

2. NEW SUGAR PROCESS IN ENGLAND.

N. O. Bee.

MARK-LANE EXPRESS, London, June 10, 1850. SUGAR. Several samples of sugar, of a very superior quality as respects granular texture and brightness of color, have recently attracted considerable attention in the Bristol sugar market, which has led to much inquiry as to the process of manufacture among the merchants and proprietors of West India estates. It appears, from inquiries we have made, that by a combination of several patents-among others, the cleansing and drying of sugar by centrifugal force-sugar which formerly took three or four weeks to refine, is now done in as many minutes. Sugars heretofore unsaleable in the English market are, by the new process, converted as if by magic into an article realizing 36s. ($8,64) per cwt. The machine by which the process is carried on is very cheap, portable, and easily worked, and the raw produce shipped in a state which prevents the waste of some 12 or 15 per cent. in shape of leakage from molasses. Next to the discovery of the vacuum-pan, the improvement of Messrs. Fingal & Son, of Bristol, ranks first in the scale of importance; and they have happily succeeded in combining the interests of various patents held by Messrs. Seyrig, Hardman, Rotch and others.—Plough, Loom and Ånvil.

3. SUGAR-MAKING.-THE HIGHLANDS.

The question," Are the highlands adapted to the growth and culture of the cane?" has been answered. It is no longer an experiment. Instead of going to the lowlands to open a plantation, the former are now selected, as combining several very important advantages; security from overflow, without the expense of building levees, is the first and most obvious. The cane does not grow so large as on the coast, but makes equally as good sugar; the juice requires less boiling, and a less quantity is required to make the same quantity of sugar; so that, all things considered, the balance is in favor of the highlands. The last two years have brought a vast quantity of this land into cultivation-more, perhaps, than for any previous ten years. In this section the sugar-mill is rapidly taking the place of the cotton-gin-the unoccupied lands are coming into cultivation-and even the worn-out and abandoned cotton-fields are found well adapted to the raising of this crop.

We are informed that there are now being erected, in this immediate vicinity, no less than fifteen sugar-mills, at probably an average cost of $10,000 each. This will

bring into cultivation not less than 5000 acres of land; throwing into market 140,000 hogsheads of sugar, which will find its natural transit through Baton Rouge, contributing to her prosperity, and proving that she possesses the most substantial element of a great city: a rich back country.

4. PROSPECT FOR COTTON GROWERS.

The Hon. William Elliott, of South Carolina, in a late address before the Agricultural Society of that State, has put forward some views in regard to the Cotton interest of the South, which are deserving of the widest attention. This gentleman, in addition to being an experienced and successful planter, combines the merit of a liberal understanding of the principles of political economy. He says to the Cotton growers:

"I beg you to observe, that as the proprietors of the greatest and most productive cotton region in the world, we can produce in excess, or forbear to do so; and in this way have our destinies, for good or evil, measurably in our own hands. Is it not strange that there are some who question the fact of over-production, or its influence in depressing prices? Even so; there are planters even, who decide in this against their own interests, and against the abundant and conclusive proofs that may be adduced in support of these positions. Instead of bewildering ourselves with elaborate statistics-skilfully put together by those whose policy it is to encourage us to produce in excess, by persuading us that the consumption is always equal to the supply-let us confine our attention to a period of time which is recent, of which the facts are distinctly within our reach, and where there is consequently the less chance of error and mystification. Take the three last years, for example, and what are the facts? In 1847 we had a moderate crop of some 2,400,000 bales, and a moderate price to match it eight cents, or thereabouts, was the rate for short cottons. We went on increasing the culture beyond the corresponding means of manufacture, and in 1848 produced the unprecedented crop of 2,728,000 bales. Before this great production was known, as soon as it was suspected, the price fell beyond all precedent, so that good cottons sold in our interior towns at 44 cents the pound: nor did the price rally, or reach a remunerating point, until the spring of 1849, when it was known that the growing crop would be short. In that year we had an inclement spring; hundreds of thousands of acres of growing cotton were nipped or destroyed by the frosts and snow of April: alarm was felt for the sufficiency of the supply, and the price began to lift. Then came the army-worm and the cholera, the tempest and the inundation; and with every cause which threatened the adequacy of the supply came increase of demand and price, till the staple reached its present profitable point, at which could it be maintained-our prosperity would be established and secured. We perceive, then, referring to the last three years, and to the facts and indications which they offer us, that the prices of cotton have fallen as the supply has increased; and risen as the supply has fallen short.

"I fear that we are not warranted in ascribing to our own forecast, the improved condition in which we now find ourselves. If the excess of production has been reduced, and our profits have thereby been sensibly enhanced, it is because Providence has cared for us better than we have cared for ourselves. True, we have diverted a portion of our labor and capital from the production of cotton. True, there are some of us, who, observant of events, have taken counsel from their understanding, and have applied themselves to the production of turpentine and rosin, of sugar and rice, and have even invested their money in machinery, and in the manufacture of cotton, instead of stimulating the already redundant growth-still it must be confessed that we continued to cultivate an extent of country sufficient to have yielded, with ordinary seasons, a crop of 2,500,000 bales. Had the crop approached that figure, should we ever had seen short cottons reach 13 and 14 cents? I apprehend not. I think it is evident, from the facts already stated, that a high price for a short supply, and a low price for a large supply, follows naturally, in the relation of effect to its cause. Where, then, does interest, duty, patriotism, lead us? Why, unquestionably not to such an excessive production, as will surfeit, and nauseate our customers, but to such a moderate production as will sustain a remunerating price, and thus perpetuate our prosperity."

ADVICE TO THE PLANTERS.

"If I have succeeded in establishing my positions, it will follow, gentlemen, that there is a clear line of policy laid down for us, from which we cannot depart without disappointment and loss. It devolves on us in particular, to divert from cotton to rice, as much of our labor and capital as the lands we may own, adapted to such change, will admit of. To others, a still wider range is permitted, in the transferring of labor to the production of tobacco, or sugar, or turpentine. To all of us, it is expedient to divert capital, by every available mode, from the superabundant production of cotton to other pursuits. This is the interest of us all; the only certain and effectual mode by which we can prevent our relapsing into that deplorable condition from which we have so recently, and unexpectedly escaped. For if we all act on the deceptive supposition that the present prices will continue, when a full crop has been thrown on the market, and the apprehensions of scarcity shall thus have been quieted-if we aid in producing this result, by stretching to its utmost limit the capacity of our lands for the production of cotton-the prosperity that now gladdens the South will be shortlived, and we shall again be painfully familiar with glutted markets, forced sales, unremunerating prices, and all the other evils that wait upon excess. It may be said that what we do, is of little moment: that our contribution is too insignificant to be felt in the general result, on so extensive a field. This reasoning will not do; it is by reasoning thus that the very mischief is produced. It is by contributions of single drops that the Mississippi rolls her thousand miles of current to the Gulf, beats back the opposing wave, and quells the saltness of the sea, by the volume of her descending waters. Let us do our part in the confidence that others, equally interested with ourselves, will, when they see their way as clearly, equally do theirs."

INFLUENCES OF SHORT CROP AND OUR MONOPOLY.

"I wish that what I have elsewhere said, exposing the suicidal policy heretofore pursued by the cotton growers, could reach the ear, and touch the understanding of every planter throughout the wide South, who is interested in that staple. It is undeniable-it is a familiar and unquestionable truth-that two millions of bales of cotton, at the present prices, will yield to the cultivators many millions of dollars more than the 2,728,000 bales of 1848, at the prices of 1848. It is evident, therefore, that the supply beyond the 2,000,000 is to the planter superfluous; nay, worse, for it has served to diminish or destroy the value of the 2,000,000 bales, while the labor thus destructively applied, might, if turned into some other channel, have been productive and remunerating. By this excess, then, you lose the natural commercial value of a moderate and sufficient crop, and the further contingent value which your labor, unless thus misdirected, might have produced. In speaking to intelligent and practical men like yourselves, I address myself, as you perceive, to your understandings; these satisfied, no further powers of persuasion will be needed. Yet there are some who would induce you (I am sure without satisfying your understanding) to continue this ruinous course of over-production. They tell you, that if you do not monopolize the cotton trade it will be wrested from you. Interlopers will step in and eject you. This is the argument of those who neither know our country, nor understand our character, nor appreciate our energy; an argument addressed to our presumed ignorance, or to our fears, by those who would induce us to push a production, for their profit, beyond the point at which it would be profitable to us. Why it requires but a glance to detect its fallacy, and to convince us that with our climate, so admirably suited to the cotton plant; our soil, the richest, freshet, best adapted to the culture; our labor, the cheapest, the most reliable, the most manageable, we defy competi tion, much less ejectment! and will command the cotton trade in spite of England, and the world, as long as the profits of the culture make it an object of desire or emulation to us. If we could have been dislodged from the vantage ground we hold, England would have already done it. She cares not to be thus dependent on us for a prime necessary of her commercial, nay, her political life. She has made experiment after experiment in India, to relieve herself of this dependence; followed in every case by deplorable failure. She has flattered, and cajoled, and bribed Egypt, with but small success; Egyptians need remunerating prices for their products, as well as we, and Egypt has not land to spare from the subsistence of her crowded population. Where can the raw material be found to keep employed the thousand work

shops of Europe and America, if we decline the culture? Who shall supply our place, if we withdraw? There are signs of agitation in the public mind of England, in regard to this vital interest. There are schemes for encouraging the culture of cotton in other lands, and making themselves independent of our supplies. They even turn an eye of uncertain hope to Jamaica, to their West Indian colonies,-so long tortured by empyrical legislators, so long trampled by fanaticism; and after having starved them into such helpless imbecility, such utter exhaustion, that all effort is revolting to them-now vainly expect to galvanize them into the production of cotton! The expectation will never be fulfilled. There is but one possible way to effect their purpose. It is by giving higher prices for the product than are now paid. It is by tempting others to cultivate, by the promise of higher profits than are now realized on the capital engaged in the production, Will the cupidity of commerce do that? It does, and is doing, just the reverse. It is engaged in working short time, to drive down the price; in withholding bank accommodations to cotton dealers, lest by entering the market, they should compete with the manufacturers, and thus sustain the price. They are now engaged, I say, in beating down the price of our cotton, and would succeed, were they not met and foiled by the shortness of the crop! Gentlemen, we cannot be rivalled in this branch of industry-the production of cotton-while we possess along with our other advantages, the valley of the Mississippi; nor impoverished, except by our own act, by over-production."

5. CULTURE OF RICE.

The millions of acres of land adapted to this most lucrative crop in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc., give the subject an interest much wider than in South Carolina and Georgia, which have hitherto for the most part monopolized it. Many enquiries are made of us from time to time relating to the culture and preparation of this crop, and we have answered them by publishing Col. Allston's elaborate Memoir of the Rice Plant in our first volume, a Report on the Culture in India in our 3d vol., and some papers on the same in Alabama and Louisiana in our 5th and 8th volumes. To this we add the following, from the pen of Edmund Ruffin, one of the ablest agricultural writers in this nation, and the State Geologist of South Carolina, Virginia, &c. We shall resume the subject again:

"Rice is an aquatic plant, and naturally, it may be inferred, its growth was on lands always under water, or saturated with it whenever not altogether covered. And under culture, and even when in other than in its native region, doubtless rice would prefer the continuance of water. But other needs than the mere supply of food for the plants have to be provided for, which require a dry condition of the soil, at some periods. And fortunately, rice is so hardy that it will grow either under water or on dry land, and with violent alternations of these opposite conditions. It is necessary that the land should be dry to prepare for and plant the crop-also for the purpose of removing weeds, which being native to the soil and climate, are therefore more hardy than the cultivated crop-and again to reap and remove the matured crop. But it would seem to be the general principle of the culture, that the growing rice should be kept covered with water as much as is consistent with effecting the foregoing objects; and with another important exception, to indulging its aquatic nature and preference, which exception is, to avoid too sudden and thorough changes from the wet to the dry condition, or rather from the effects of those conditions."

PREPARATION OF LAND AND PLOUGHING.

"The flooding and drying of the rice land, when new, is conducted much in the same manner as in after time; but the preparation for, and tillage must vary, according to the state of the land and its wants, while the stumps, roots, and other superabundant and fine vegetable matters are gradually rotting away, and the soil consolidating and becoming lower and closer. Passing over the less regular operations of earlier years, let us suppose the latter condition reached; and the proper and usual course of culture, suitable to this permanent condition, will be now stated.

"We suppose the field to have been in rice the preceding year, and it is never other

wise on new and good land, and very rarely on any,-if the land be still new, or the soil loose enough, and sometimes also on old land, many persons, just before planting time, open new trenches for planting between the rows of the last year, the stubble having been burned off previously. But usually, and especially on old land, the whole surface is broken up flush, either by the hoe or the plough. The plough is far from being in general use; nor indeed is it admissable except on well drained land, and also firm land, such as the Peedee swamps. Even in these cases, some object to its being used every spring, but prefer it in every other spring, alternating with breaking by hoeing. This is because fearing to make the sub-soil too close by pressure. The breaking, whether by hoe or plough, rarely exceeds 3 inches deep; the deepest hoeing, done by sinking in the ordinary hoes up to the eye,' cannot be more than 4 inches, owing to the oblique direction of the cut. It is aimed to subvert the earth by the hoe; but this is always but imperfectly done, as is shown in the first flow by the quantity of floating stubble and roots, which had been left on the surface. I should have stated that the stubble of the preceding crop is most generally burnt off before the breaking up of the ground, or otherwise is turned in by the plough or hoe. If the birds had not been early enough in coming, and numerous enough to eat up all the shattered grains of the last year's crop of rice, the turning the stubble in, by planting all remaining grains, tends to increase the growth of volunteer rice-which evil, in such case, the other plan of burning to stubble would lessen.

"After the land is dug up, the next process is to 'slush' or clean out all the drains. When planting time draws near, part of the land, say about one third, is 'mashed,' that is, the clods chopped and the surface levelled by hoes. This is sometimes expedited by previous harrowing, but it is not a general practice. The balance of the land is mashed as wanted for planting, and just before the planting.

"The time to begin planting is from March 20th to April 1st. For this, the land, having been prepared and made fine enough by the 'mashing' process, just before, the rows are marked off, 13 inches apart, as follows: having determined on the direetion of the rows, which is sometimes with the drains, but by most good planters is preferred across the direction of the drains, a number of rows, say 30 or more, are laid off 4 feet 4 inches apart, by 3 stakes stuck up in each row, the end stakes or 'trenching stakes' not reaching near to the extremity of the field designed to be planted at one time. Guided by these stakes, expert hands' trench' rows with trenching hoes, about 2 inches deep. These hoes are narrowed to 3 or 4 inches at the edge, and of course open trenches of that width. Next, another hand follows, and by similar trenches splits the intervals, and then splits the halves, thus completing the rows at 13 inches. The expertness of the hands, and the accuracy of their work in these operations, are admirable. The seed is then strewed along the trenches, and scattered as wide as their width, by women. Two and a quarter bushels of good rice (rough, or in its close envelope of chaff,) are by many deemed enough for an acre. The seeds are covered immediately, either by rakes, hoes or covering boards, which are fixed with handles like rakes, and struck on the edge of the row, so as to throw a little earth upon the seeds.

"The sprout flow.' The planting of each field should be completed the day it is begun, and on the next rise of tide, the trunk's outer door is lifted, and the water admitted to overflow the field. It should cover every part; and the depth is not deemed very material, though the shallowest complete covering by water is enough, and perhaps the best for the seed. A deep flow may injure the banks by washing them when the wind blows. Or it may even break an interior bank, if weak, by inward pressure. If the land be very light and loose vegetable soil, the water should be admitted slowly, for fear of washing, or even of floating some of the soil. As soon as a field is completely flowed, and the remains of stubble and other floated trash is wafted by the wind against a bank, it is drawn out by long handled rakes, and burnt as soon as it becomes dry. The inner valve is closed, when there is enough water on. This first watering is called the sprout flow,' and is continued until the seeds 'pip,' or the sprouts burst the envelope of chaff, when the water is drawn off. The time of this flow depends on the warmth of the weather. Sometimes only 4 or 5 days. In this most remarkably cold and backward season, (1843,) some plantings have been under the sprout flow for 14 days, and the seeds have not yet (on April 7th) sprouted. "The point flow.' After the water has been drawn off, it is necessary to guard the fields from birds. The land remains uncovered and drained until the plants have risen above ground enough for their fine spires to show like small needles, when viewed before sunrise, while tipped with dew, and when the rows can thus be seen