for about 50 yards in length from the banks. Then the water is admitted again to cover the field. This is called the 'point flow.' It serves to protect the seeds from birds, to soften the hard lumps of earth, and to kill the grass, while it does not injure the rice plants. This flow continues from 3 to 7 days, and until the plants are 3 or 4 inches high. If the water be continued longer, the plants grow too slender and long, and will fall on the ground, when the support of the water is taken awaythough they will rise again; and even were they to rot off, in that case new leaves will spring out. It is preferable to see the plants thus fall, rather than expose the rice too soon to the depredations of birds.

"As the different fields, or separately embanked portions, are successively planted (and the planting is usually continued from 4 to 5 weeks,) of course the flowing should follow in like order. Thus while water is going upon one piece, it may be passing off from another; and the separate but adjacent fields present all the various states of flooding and drying.

"Planting in open trench.' The foregoing description applies only when the plan of covering the seeds by earth is adopted. There is also in general use, and latterly a more extensively pursued plan, of not covering the seeds, and which will be now described.* For this mode, before planting, the seeds are 'clayed.' This consists in pouring water in which clay has been mixed and is suspended over a pile of seed rice, which is kept stirred and worked up until every grain is wetted. If this claying were not done, the small and short fibres on the grain would prevent the immediate access of the flow water, and the grains would float, which they cannot do. With this treatment, after being 'clayed,' (the effect of which is so slight as scarcely to alter the appearance of the grains,) the rice is dried enough to be distributed easily, and strewed in the trenches as before described. But no covering of earth is given; and as fast as each separate piece of land is thus planted, (or even before the last of it is finished,) the outer trunk door is lifted, and the tide admitted, slowly and gradually at first, to flow the land. The land remains undisturbed under this flow until the sprouts, which are at first white, become green, or the plants rise high enough to 'fork,' or for the first two leaves to separate, which will be when the plants are one and a half or two inches high, and at from 10 to 30 days, according to the weather. After this, the water is passed off, and the land dried. Floating trash should previously be removed, as before stated. If the surface should afterwards become too dry, the water is admitted to flow in for a single flood tide, to barely wet the soil, be kept shut in during the next ebb, and passed out and again excluded with the first lowering of tide there

after.

"By this method (of 'planting in open trench') the longer duration of the first flowing unites and brings into one the 'sprout' and the 'point flow' of the covered planting. At the stages now reached by both, it may be considered that the plantings on the two methods cease to differ, and thereafter the crops on both are treated alike, and will be described as one.

"The advantages of the 'Open Trench' plan are the following:

"First: The whole labor of covering is saved, which requires twice as much labor as the strewing the seeds.

"Second: The depredations of birds and other vermin are prevented.

"Third: Most of the seeds of volunteer rice' and other weeds and grass seeds, may be presumed to have been drawn outside of the trenches in opening them; and instead of being again drawn back into the drills of rice in the earth, as must be done when the rice is covered, these seeds remain and grow outside of the drills, and may afterwards be more easily destroyed by hoeing or pulling out.

"Fourth: If a freshet of the river compels the water of the 'Sprout Flow' to be kept up much longer than the prescribed termination, the covered rice is apt to rot; of which there is no danger on the 'Open Trench' plan. The cause of this important difference is not understood-though it is supposed to be the beneficial influence of light in the one case, and its exclusion in the other.

"There are also countervailing objections to the 'Open Trench' plan, which will be named:

"First: The long continuation of the water (which sometimes, in early plantings or backward seasons, may extend to 25 or 30 days) promotes the growth of water grasses.

• From a communication to the State Agricultural Society by the Hon. R. F. W. Allston, which has been published since this report was written, I learned that the honor of having first used and introduced this important improvement in rice culture is due to John H. Allston, Esq.

"Second: In light soil, the loose mould may be so moved by the agitation of the water by high winds, as to cover much of the seed unequally and too deep.*

"Third: The same operation is injurious to ditches and drains, by carrying soft earth into them.

"And fourth: By the dashing of the waves washing the sides of the banks, which last is the greatest defect in the plan.

"The balancing of the advantages and disadvantages of the 'Open Trench' plan prevents either that or the other mode being generally adopted exclusively. It is deemed best to choose between them according to circumstances; and usually, to plant and cover in part of the fields, say for about one-third of the crop, and to leave the balance in open trench."

FIRST AND SECOND HOEINGS, AND THE LONG FLOW.'

"The rice (on both the foregoing plans of planting) from the removal of the water, as already stated, remains dry until the plants have acquired enough size and strength to resist the pressure of the light earth as falling from the hoes. Then the intervals between the rows are hoed, by chopping short and shallow, suited to the then low state of the plants, and care should be taken not to cover the plants by clods; and all clods left previously on the plants should be cleared off at this hoeing.

"The rice land is left dry from the first hoeing until after the second, which is to be given from 14 to 18 days thereafter. The second hoeing is given a little deeper than the first; and any large weeds or grass then distinguishable in the rows are pulled up. The rice then has 3 leaves, and is 6 or 8 inches high. If in dry weather the land is left dry a day or two after this second hoeing, for the uprooted weeds to die, before the next water is turned on; but if wet weather, the land is flowed immediately. This is the 'long flow.' The water is raised at first above the tops of the plants, so as to float off trash, bugs, &c., which floating stuff will be driven by the wind into corners of the fields, and should be gathered up and removed. Then the water is lowered, so that, if the surface of the field be as level as usual, (and as it ought to be,) the tips of the plants are then seen above on the highest parts of the field. Then the water is lowered very gradually, and during several days, until the tips of about two-thirds of the plants of the entire field, or division of land, are above the surface of the water. The flow is then kept stationary at this precise height (which is fixed by making and observing marks on the trunk posts) for a duration of from 10 days on the lightest land to 20 on the stiffest, when the water is again entirely drawn off, which closes the 'long flow.' This is the most important flow, and its execution requires judgment and careful attention. At this critical period, a field of rice may be much injured either by too deep flowing, or by suddenly lowering and taking off the water. If the flow be continued too long, or the water be drawn off when the roots of the rice are in an exhausted condition, the plants will 'fox,' or take a reddish-brown tint.

"Some planters change the water during this flow, preserving the same level, but others object to it. If the same water is continued, it ferments, and a frothy scum rises, which being collected by the wind in particular spots, will adhere to and kill the plants. To prevent this, in such places the water is beaten or agitated, which causes the scum to break and sink to the bottom."

THIRD AND FOURTH HOEINGS, AND THE LAY-BY FLOW.'

"When the earth has become dry, the third hoeing is given, still deeper than the preceding, and afterwards each hand passes over his task, and pulls the grass out of the rows. The field then remains untouched and kept well drained until the plants are about to joint, when the fourth hoeing is given, light, and pulverizing all large masses left by the preceding deeper digging. The water is then again put on, and kept at about the same height as during the preceding long flow;' and this is maintained until the rice is fully headed and the blossoms dropped. The water is then raised as high as may be done without danger to the banks. It serves to support the plants, and prevent their being laid or tangled by high winds. This entire flowing is termed the lay-by water,' it being the last. It should have been mentioned that

This objection may be easily obviated by letting the loose pulverized mould settle before sowing the seed. A rain will effect this purpose; and without rain, it may be done by turning in water for a single tide, and drying just before sowing the rice.

during the early and low stage of it, there is a distinct operation of the hands passing over the ground with baskets, and pulling out as much as possible of the volunteer rice, tick-grass, and other weeds, which would, if left, by admixture, injure the quality of the grain. The volunteer rice is carried off; and all other weeds are knotted together in handfuls and trodden in the wet earth under water, so as to be certainly killed. These two operations are performed at different and the most convenient times during the flow." VERSITY

HARVESTING.

"The rice ripens usually from the 1st to the 10th of September When all the grains are hard, except the lower two or three at the bottom of each lead though the stem and leaves are quite green) the crop is ready for reaping And when the time for the commencement of reaping is determined upon, the water is drawn off of the field just the day before, or it may be best the preceding ebb tide; and the reaping may be begun when the flow has not yet entirely passed off. The reaping is performed by the sickle. Each hand usually carries a breadth of 3 rice rows. Some planters have 4 rows carried. The stubble is left about 12 inches high-or higher if of rank growth. The reaped rice is laid in handfuls as cut, in rows, on the stubble, to cure. The stubble is abundantly thick to thus support the rice, unless the growth is very thin, or has partially failed.

"All the rice reaped from morning until noon of one day is usually enough cured to be sheaved by noon the next day, and removed to the barn-yard before night. The test of its being dry enough, is when no juice can be made to exude from the joints, when twisted together by strong pressure. The rice is then bound or tied up in sheaves, as large as single lengths of the reaped rice will serve to tie around. The sheaves are generally made smaller than this. The sheaved rice is immediately carried to the barn-yard on the heads of the laborers, if near enough, or by water in large flats, if far from the barn. It is there put up in small cocks or ricks, to remain until dry enough to be put into larger long ricks or larger round stacks, to remain until taken down for thrashing. The mode of putting up the rice in the ricks or stacks cannot be well made clear by mere description. The execution, however, is excellent, and of the round stacks is admirable. The latter is the best mode, when well performed. The loss or injury of the grain by the exposure before thrashing is not usually considerable, when the ricking or stacking has been well executed."

VOLUNTEER RICE.

"What is called 'Volunteer Rice' is the product of grains scattered at the previous harvest, and which remain on or under the surface of the ground through winter, and come up with the next planted crop. By this long exposure to cold, wet and overflow, as would occur in a state of nature, it seems that the plant is disposed to revert from its artificial character and qualities, as before improved by culture, to its previous natural character and habits. At least this is the only reason that I can conceive for the singular production and qualities of volunteer rice. The plants thus produced, and also the product of their seeds, as generally believed, if saved with the crop and planted, become intermixed with the good seed, have grains with a red interior skin or pellicle instead of white, as of ordinary and good rice. There are 4 different and common kinds of volunteer rice, and even different varieties among each of these, in the lighter or deeper tint of redness, or less or greater thickness of the red pellicle. These 4 kinds of red or volunteer rice, all agreeing in havng a red pellicle, are distinguished as follows:

First. White chaffed samples.

Second. With white chaff, having a black point, and spike to one end of the chaff. This is the ordinary and general kind.

Third. With yellow chaff, and having a long point.

The seeds of all these three fall off so easily, as rarely to be harvested and brought to the barn yard; and especially the last, which drops its seed before they seem ripe.

Fourth. With yellow chaff, and like the last, except that the seeds do not fall off in the field, and the grains cannot readily be distinguished from good rice, while the chaff remains unbroken.

"All these, except the last kind, may be distinguished in the field before maturing the seeds, and by using care and labor enough, the plants pulled out and destroyed. But the last kind cannot be known either on the stalk or in the chaff. But with all

the care used to keep land clear of red rice, it continues more or less infested with all the kinds. And though the grain is not the worse in any thing but some slight remains of red tint, so despotic is Fashion in the market, that a crop of rice loses greatly in appreciation if thus showing many grains of volunteer rice. I have been informed that in Italy the admixture is not regarded by the buyers for home consumption. The plants of volunteer rice are usually the most hardy, thrifty and luxuriant of the crop-which helps to confirm the opinion that it is rice approaching more nearly to its natural and hardy character.

"As there are different varieties of cultivated rice, it is probable that to this difference of origin may be owing the different kinds of volunteer rice. A white chaffed rice was formerly generally cultivated, which has been universally substituted by the 'gold seed' or yellow chaffed rice.

"The circumstances stated, require great care to prevent as much as possible the growth, and still more the increase of volunteer rice, which is indeed a very injurious weed to the crop; both because its own product (if it were worth anything,) is mostly lost to the crop, and moreover that what of it is saved serves to contaminate the seed, and lower the quality and market price of the crop for sale."

RESTING AND MANURING RICE LAND.

"The cultivation of rice on embanked marsh lands is generally continued year after year, for a long time, without cessation or rest to the land. But rich and deep as is the alluvial soil, it becomes tired and gradually less productive under this unceasing and unchanged production of rice, and it is found profitable to give rest, and also manure, to the lands when long cultivated. Most planters, who have land enough, give a year's rest at distant intervals, and always find a profit from it, in the increase of the next year's cultivation. It may be doubted whether this increase may not be truly ascribed in part to the alternation or change of growth, as well as to the improvement of fertility. Mr. John H. Allston rests his land (which is clay soil on the Pee Dee) for two years together, keeping it dry during the time; and he finds that this, if done once in 10 or 12 years, will add 50 per cent. to the next crop, or raise it from a previous product of 40 bushels to 60 per acre. Manuring with the ricestraw is also practised with advantage by those planters who have no high-land or other culture, or not enough to require the straw as manure. Dr. Heriot is one of these, and has lately applied his rice-straw to fields thrown out of rice culture for that year, and cultivated (dry, of course,) in cow-peas. This change and manuring he has found to double the next crop of rice. Colonel Belie has, by manuring and rest, made upwards of 90 bushels of (rough) rice to the acre. Both he and Dr. Heriot own and raise on Sandy Island, of which barren sandy soil is their only highland, and on which their manure was before entirely thrown away, or left to rot in waste, without producing the most transient productive power."

6. AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN TEXAS.

The correspondent of the New-York Herald, writing from Brazoria county, Texas, has lately given the following interesting particulars of the agriculture of that State :

"It is true, several are abandoning cotton for sugar, which is a surer and far more profitable crop; but this does not decrease the production of cotton, as many persons with numbers of hands are daily settling here and opening new places. These persons are generally from the old states, (Louisiana excepted.) The people of that state generally are connected with sugar. They go to Matagorda county and Brazoria county, the latter producing three fourths of the sugar made in Texas. But I will state where the sugar estates are situated: there are three or four on the Guadaloupe; these ship their sugar down that river into Matagorda or Lavaca bay. About the same number are on the Colorado; the sugar made on these estates finds a good inland market for home consumption. There are seven or eight on Coney Creek; they pass by Matagorda with an expensive land carriage, and at a ruinous cost and loss. Some of them have much sugar; yet in their purgeries and large quantities of molasses, the latter scarcely averages sufficient to defray expenses from such an out-of-the-way place, on such shocking bad roads. I must be understood not to mean all of Coney Creek, as the lower part is better situated; but the upper es

tates, together with their owners, are in a bad fix. The next estates are in Brazoria county, on the Bernard, or near enough to convey their produce to the river by February, from whence it is taken in vessels of light draught to Galveston. The majority of the estates, however, lie near the Brazos, and on Oyster Creek. Those planters can ship at any time during the season, in large schooners, brigs or steamers, so as to command an early market. There is a bar at the entrance of this river covered with shallow water; but I am told, vessels of seven feet pass over with safety during the time of year when sugar and other staples are being shipped. There is some talk of a company starting a mechanical camel, such as are used on the Neva in Prussia, and on the Zuyder Zee, to convey ships over shoals; and as this bar is but about one hundred yards long, there is little doubt of their answering a good purpose. Those in Europe will take a ship of 1,000 tons, drawing 20 feet water, over a flat, bar or shoal, where there is not more than five or six feet water, at any time in a few hours.

"Some sugar is made on the Trinity; this is easily conveyed to Galveston. Some planters sold their crops in the sugar-house last year, and many would, no doubt, be happy to do so this coming season. I saw one crop sold upon the following terms: Sugar, fair, 4 cents; molasses, superior, $6 50 per barrel of 45 gallons; syrup, $8 per barrel. This was, barrels included and put on board the vessel by the planter. I assure you, there is a great opening for Northern merchants to come here and speculate, in the fall.

"Another profitable business might be carried on by sending out vessels with empty barrels to purchase molasses, as barrels are worth $1 75 to $2, here, and molasses might be bought cheap where you find your own casks. If things are looked at in a proper light, there is a better opening here for your traders than many would suppose, as the sugars of Texas are equal in quality to the best made in Louisiana. The last year's crop was about 7,500 tons, and molasses, with syrup, 800,000 gallons. We may safely estimate the coming crop, which promises well, at 12,000 tons of sugar and upwards of 1,000,000 gallons of molasses.

"I must explain why the quantity of molasses does not increase in a like ratio with the sugar. As the lands, which are rather too rich for cane, become worn, the canes produce more sugar and less molasses; another reason is, some of the planters are erecting apparatus to convert their molasses into sugar and sugar-house molasses. This is an improvement of vast importance.

"There are seven or eight steam mills and other machinery going up, to be used for the coming crop. One of the largest refineries in the United States is also in the course of erection on the Brazos-it will be completed by October. At Velasco, at the mouth of the same river, is also a large beef-curing establishment, nearly completed. Its apparatus is very costly. It is an improvement upon Dr. Lardner's vacuum process, and it is anticipated they will cure one hundred beeves daily.

"No state would be better intersected than this, if all the plank-roads, railways and canals were in active operation, which their projectors have laid down on paper; but the capital is wanting to build them. As regards climate and soil, past years have proved the former to suit sugar culture to a T. As to the latter, analysis proves it to be equal to the Delta of the Nile.

66

Although the planters here have more expenses in shipping their crops, and are little further from the market than the Louisianians, nevertheless, they are enabled to cope with them, as the amount of capital required to start a sugar plantation here is not half what it requires in Louisiana. The Texas planter can produce more to the acre and to the hand. The feeding of his negroes does not cost half as much, and his team is procured and maintained at one-third the expense."

7. HOGS KILLED IN THE WEST.

FROM the best information he could obtain, by personal inspection and otherwise, Mr. L. Caldwell has published in the Lafayette, Indiana, Courier of February 28th, a statement of the number of hogs slaughtered in the west during the past season. His aggregates are as follows: Ohio, 523,755; Kentucky, 198,000; Indiana, 428,575; Illinois, 268,100; Mississippi River, 252,900; Missouri river, es't, 75,000; Cumberland river, es't, 100,000. Other small points overlooked, 25,000. Grand total, 1,871,330.