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Fruits in the North State.
RALEIGH, N. C., June 29, 1867.

Messrs. Worthington & Lewis:

-their situation completely excluding them from gaining the assistance of any one-even to the milking of their cows twice a day. The husband, at the beginning of the war, was one of our staunch Union men, and by his efforts, mainly, the vote at his precinct was carried against secession in February, 1861, and Union candidates elected to the convention in the following May. Does Mercy see their situation or hear their daily cries? These are not exceptional cases, sirs, for I could take you up this road and down that, and show you neighbour Jones, or Smith, or Dick, or Harry, and tell you of their wants and misfortunes, of their sleepless nights of anxiety and solicitude for their toiling families. I could show you neighbour C's estimable widow, with her interesting family, dependent on powerless charity for their support, while their brave father's body lies on the soil of your own native State. I could tell you of D., who was hurried to a premature grave, while eager expectants grasped the remaining mite of his hard earnings-and of many others, but I know your hearts are already sick at these tales of suffering and woe, still you can join me in the prayer: God help the poor and suffering thousands of our brothers in the South !

GENTLEMEN: The promise made you some time since to furnish you an occasional article for the "Farmer," has not been as fully complied with as I desired, on account of the general situation of our still beloved land. You who live in your wonted circumstances and know nothing of want and misery, of poverty and wide-spread desolation, cannot possibly form an idea of the state of matters away off here; and even we, situated at some distance from the main track of the late armies, are as little able, I think, to conceive of the still worse condition of those whose situation rendered their lot so much the worse. Ours is bad enough! God help the worse!! Can you imagine yourself with a wife and children dependent on your unaccustomed hands for a living, with taxes at their top notch, articles of necessity high, a feeling of insecurity rampant in the land, suspicion lurking in the bosom of those who were once counted as friends, the sight of blood still divested of its once terrible horrors, your real estate cumbrous and labor scarce and almost entirely irresponsible and independent, your bank stock gone, your State bonds below par and repudiation in favor, the labor of yourself and fathers scattered to the four winds, and in debt, with the cries of clamorous debtors ringing in your ears? If you can, you can imagine the situation of tens of thousands of our best citizens. Let me give you a few instances:-heavy beating rains-for the last three weeks. Neighbour A., once a subscriber to your magazine, one of our best farmers, and, a few years ago, worth $200,000, was hurried to his grave by the sad misfortunes of the late contest, leav ing behind a family possessed of property to the value of about $20,000, about half of which is alone available. Could you guess the situation of that household? Then there is neighbour B., also a farmer by profession, and an intimate friend of your contributor, at the beginning of the war was wealthy. He was young, and had been in active life only some ten or twelve years, with a most estimable lady for his wife (and of one of our best families), and a family of five or six children. That household was once happy. Plenty and peace once smiled in their midst. Charity extended her hands from his door, and the poor were fed, clothed and well cared for from the abundance God had lent. Now see the change! His lands are not cultivated, and, I am confident, he has not twenty dollars in the world with which to hire labor. His wife cooks, washes, irons, cleans up the house and minds the children

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We are in the midst of the wheat harvest, and the heavy rains, that look as if they would never cease, are ruining hundreds of bushels. With flour at its present prices, what will the pressing demand hereafter carry it to! We have had rains

Corn crops are sorry, grassy and almost "drowned to death." No one is ploughing, for it is useless when you sink shoe-deep in mire all over the fields. I don't know what we will all do if our wet spell continues much longer. Famine looks as if she would be satisfied with nothing less than adding her miseries to our already heavy misfortunes.

Our crop of fruit is very fine; many trees breaking under their heavy loads. But I believe this is confined to a limited section, or rather what the physicians would term "endemical.” For eighteen or twenty days we have been luxuriating in May and June apples. (I wish I could set a basket full of them in your sanctum, with "our compliments." The Foust, Smith's Cider, Hunger, Winter Horse, Greenskin, Yellow Horse, Early Harvest, Magnum Bonum, Matamuskeet, Romanite, and many other kinds seem to be trying to show what they can do. So with the Catawba, Diana, Yellow Provence, Concord, Weller's Halifax, and Scuppernong grapes. (Did you ever eat any of the latter? How can I send

you some when ripe?) My plums are yet too young to bear, save the Magnum Bonum, Columbia, Imperial Gage and Foster's Prolific-the latter a native seedling, very large, of a rich perfumed flavor, and immensely productive. Turn from them and see our pears! There is the Bartlett, Duchess d'Angouleme, Belle Lucrative, Sickel, Beurre Brown, Summer Butter, and a dozen other, showing you their redening fruit at every breath of the wind, while around stand fifty other varieties, forming their bloom buds all thick along their limbs and giving promise of early fruitfulness. These are the relic of former years, and while they remind you of times gone by, they certainly give a pleasure which none can appreciate but the true lover of fruit. Could you be with us when they repay the "weary hand of toil" with their luscious fruit, you would certainly please

PHIL WOODLEY, Esq.

and developing them, mankind soon became better dressed, particular in the warmest climates where it chiefly grows.

Not long since, in commenting upon the rapid improvement of manufactured tissues and the better style and material of clothing, as one of the accompaniments of advancing civilization, we referred to the great increase of silk production, and argued therefrom the possibility of its one day replacing the stuffs that are now worn in common, as fine cotton goods replaced the inferior textures that preceded them. A discovery has just been made in Peru which may serve to make our theory a real matter of every day business much earlier than we had imagined. It seems that news has been received by the department of State at Washington, through the American Consul at Lambayaque, in Peru, of the existence of the silk plant in that country and its adaptation to the finest uses. The Indian natives, by whom the discovery is claimed, have woven specimens of its fibre, the texture and brilliancy Novelties in Silk Culture. of the fabric surpassing expectation. Parties Just as our advices from the East bring us word have already made arrangements to cultivate and that the native silk merchants at Shanghai, grow-manufacture it on an important scale. ing gradually distrustful of their barbarian customers, have requested the foreign Consuls to notify their countrymen that in future silk purchases will be effected for cash only, a memorial has appeared with the Emperor's favor and sanction, advocating the general instruction of Chinese youth in European arts and languages. The first item of news would indicate greater difficulty and higher expense in procuring raw silk than heretofore, while the second promises the coming at a time within the lifetime of a generation, when the introduction of more diversified knowledge and taste into the Chinese Empire would vastly augment the production of all the articles of luxury raised there, and silk prominently among them.

It has been frequently alleged that if the methods practiced in Southern France and in Italy could be introduced on a large scale into China, the peculiar kinds of silk there manufactured could be brought out in quantities sufficient to admit of its introduction as an almost universal article of apparel. Without stopping, at this time to inquire whether such extensive results could be attained, we may remind the reader that it is within a comparatively brief period only that the Einer textures of cotton even, not to mention wool and linen, have been worn by the bulk of the human race. The discovery and abundant culture of the cotten plant, date back for only a fraction of the centuries covered by our authentic historical records. After finding out its virtues

The description given of the plant, makes it a shrub some three or four feet in height and bearing a great number of pods enclosing the raw silk, which is declared to be finer and better than

the cocoon of the silk worm. But to this advantage the plant adds another precious quality. Its stems produce a long and shining fibre that, in

strength and beauty, exceeds the handsomest linen thread. The plant is a perennial, growing wild with a small sized seed easily separated from the fibre.

Such is the substance of the brief statement

thus far made public by the State Department, but there is enough in it to open the way to a new branch of culture, which, from a comparisou of soil and climate, might evidently be introduced to advantage in many parts of this country.

The silk worm was not a native of the countries that now produce it in the greatest abundance and are celebrated for their silk manufacture. There are portions of our southwestern territories that possess a temperature, exposure and other requisites very analogous to those of the Peruvian district where the plant is found,

and it might well repay the cost of experiment to try it there.-Mer. Journal.

The currycomb should not be neglected; its use on all kinds of neat stock and horses is a great preventive of disease and vermin, and is productive of health.

For the "American Farmer."

Grape Growing and Wine Making. There is at present a very proper and laudable spirit manifested throughout the country, on the subject of growing grapes and making wine; and, as a stimulus to increase and accelerate this spirit amongst our people, numerous statements are published, showing the enormous profits arising therefrom; and also urging it upon the owners of land and farmers generally, to go extensively into the business, as a sure investment of money and labor, and which will return larger profits than the cultivation of any other crops. That this is all true, there is now no cause to doubt. But there are thousands of farmers, who from their isolated locations, remoteness from a ready market, and want of facilities for transportation, are unable to avail themselves of it, or go into the business upon a scale that would be necessary to success. They are thus unable to grow grapes and make wine as an article of commerce; and, therefore, after reading these glowing accounts of the success of others, which, from their authenticity, they have no reason to doubt, they lay them aside as inapplicable to themselves, and take no further heed of grapes. Let us, therefore, consider the matter in another, and, perhaps to them, a more important than commercial light. Let us put the matter of growing grapes and making wine upon a different footing, and urge upon every farmer in the land the propriety of making wine for family use, which can be done independent of railroad facilities, and irrespective of location, and with- | out in any way interfering with other farming operations. What farmer but would relish his glass of good wine at dinner, or who more than he would experience greater pleasure in offering to a visiting friend a glass of his own make in social intercourse. In order to secure this, he has only to plant from fifty to a hundred vines, which will in a short time afford him the above luxury. They will take up but a small space; and, after becoming once established, will require but little of his attention. From this number of vines he will be enabled to make a sufficient quantity of wine to serve his own family a whole year at least. The manufacture of wine is so simple that any farmers' wife can make it who knows how to make a barrel of sauer-kraut, or boil a kettle of apple-butter; all he has to do is to furnish her with the requisite number of vessels (barrels), and with the aid of her family wash-tubs, and a hand to pick the grapes and do the heavy work, she will get him up a wine that an epicure would smack his

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From different parts of the country we receive reports of farmers being swindled by dealers in patent rights or in patented machines. The most extensive operations have been in the New England States and New York, although many farmers have been victimized in Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and other Western States. It seems strange that such a scheme as the following should succeed, yet it is said that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been made by it:

A party shows the model of an implement. It has happened that a hay-rake or bay-fork has generally been the one used-and proposes to make the farmer to whom it is shown an agent, selling him the right for $100. As a security, he is assured that he will not be required to pay anything until he has realized $200 profits, and is also told that the retail price of the implement will be more than twice the wholesale price. A certificate of the receipt of $100, with printed signatare, with an unsigned agreement that no money is to be collected until $200 profits has been realized is then given, and the farmer is asked to sign what is really a promissory note to pay the $100 in one year. It is stated, however, that this is simply to show that the party is an agent; and if objection still be made, a condition is written on the margin of the note, similar to the other agreement. The condition is afterward torn off and the note sold at a discount to an innocent purchaser, in whose hands it can be collected.

In other localities machines of different kinds have been sold to be delivered at a future time, and notes taken. These notes would be sold to innocent purchasers, and be good against the giver, although the machines would never be delivered.

These are only samples of various means used to secure money without giving a fair equivalent. It is certainly surprising that schemes so utterly at a variance with the ordinary rules of business should have proved so largely successful.- Western Rural.

animal was quite different from the other Cashmere goat, which is identical with the Angora, whose fleece is long and silky, but without any

was mixed the fine fibre.

The So-Called Cashmere Goat. The beautiful and costly fabrics known as Cashmere shawls have long had a world-wide fame. They are wrought in the valley of Cash-appreciable quantity of the short cotton-like fibre produced by the other variety. The latter, mere, and perhaps in other parts of Northern India. The material of which they are comhe said, was covered outwardly with rather posed is said to be the hair or pile of a goat. coarse, stiff hair, with which, next to the skin, Europeans and Americans have endeavored to ascertain precisely the kind of animal which yields this valuable staple. For a long time this object was beset with various difficulties. It was said that the people who make these articles desired to keep the process of manufacture a secret. Goats were from time to time purchased and taken- to France, England and America, under the expectation that they produced the coveted material; but such expectations were not realized. No thousand dollar shawls were made

from their hair, nor did the hair seem capable of producing such fabrics.

In 1849, Dr. J. B. Davis, of South Carolina, returned from an extensive tour in Asia, and brought with him from that country a collection of animals, among which was what he called the Cashmere goat. They soon increased considerably, and being widely advertised under the above name, with the accompanying statement that their fleece or hair was worth eight dollars per pound in France, some of them were sold at very high prices. Dr. Davis finally sold his entire stock of these animals to Richard Peters, then residing at Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Davis stated to the writer of this article in 1854 that he procured these animals in the district of Cashmere, and that he thought he was thus justified in calling them Cashmere goats, although he admitted that they were identical with what had long been known in Europe as the Angora Goat, and also admitted that the celebrated Cashmere shawls were not, probably, made from the fleece of this goat, but from another variety inhabiting the same region in Asia. Dr. D. had with him a piece of what he said was a genuine Cashmere shawl. By unraveling it, the material of which it was composed was found to be quite different from the hair of the goat which he called Cashmere; but was a more cotton-like substance, of short fibre, very fine and soft. Dr. D. exhibited a sample of the fleece of another kind of goat which he found in Cashmere, the samples having a close resemblance to the material of which the piece of shawl alluded to was composed; and he said he regarded this latter variety of goat as that from which the material for the genuine Cashmere shawls was obtained. He stated that the

Nothing is more certain than that the longhaired goat introduced by Dr. Davis and generally advertised over the country as the Cashmere, is really the Angora. After Mr. Peters bought Dr. Davis's stock, he (Mr. P.) made an importation of Angora goats, which were shipped at Smyrna for Boston, where they were landed just at the breaking out of the late rebellion. All intercourse with the South was cut off and the animals never reached their destination. They were

precisely like the so-called Cashmere goats which Dr. Davis introduced, as the writer can testify from personal observation.

The Angora goat was introduced into France many years ago, and is now well acclimated, and is bred there to a considerable extent. After the failure of various attempts to manufacture its fleece, success has been attained. Under the

name of "mohair" it is combined with silk and also with cotton in the production of light, thin fabrics for ladies' wear.

The speculators in these so-called Cashmere goats, in this country, have led some of their dupes in the "rural districts" to believe that they could sell their goats' hair at a very high price-seven dollars per pound in New York. A person who had a quantity of the article on hand, a year or two ago, requested a friend in New York to ascertain what it was worth, and received for an answer "there is no sale for it."

Probably it might be sold in France, but at no such price as that above mentioned, and unless a late demand has sprung up for it, very little if any has ever been sold in this country.

These remarks have been prompted by an article lately going the rounds that is calculated to mislead the credulous and unwary.-S. H. in Lansing Republican.

RENOVATING WORN-OUT LAND.-At a recent agricultural meeting in Boston, one of the speak ers remarked that "on a tract of land which was overrun with wood-box, briars and other shrubs, he turned 150 sheep. At that time a cow could not have lived on the whole tract. The sheep were kept there several years, and so killed out the wild growth that the tract now affords good pasture for 15 cows."

Value of Different Kinds of Vegetable Food.

An extensive series of experiments, which had for their object the determination of the relative values of the different kinds of vegetable food, based upon their amount of nitrogen, bave been made under the direction of Professor Liebig, in the Geissen Laboratory. The method of Varrentrap and Nill for determining nitrogen has been followed, being considered to afford more

accurate results than that of Dumas' employed by Boussingault. By comparing the results with each other, and with those previously known, Dumas' and Couhor's, Boussingault's, &c., the following conclusions have been arrived at: That the same species of cereal grain on different soils may yield unequal percentage of nitrogen; that one-seventh of fresh ripe cereal grain is moisture, which may be expelled at the temperature of 100° C. (212° F.); that wheat and rye flour, which, to the eye and sense of feeling, are undistinguishable from each other, may differ by from one to three-tenths of their whole quantity of nitrogen; that root crops grown on different soils may yield unequal percentages of nitrogen; that the percentage of moisture in edible roots of the same species is, in the fresh condition, a constant quantity; that beets, carrots and turnips have a larger percentage of moisture than potatoes; that the nutritive values of peas, beans or lentils correspond with each other; that more aliment is contained in a given weight of peas, beans or lentils than in an equal weight of any other kind of vegetable feed analyzed; that in several of the grains and roots analyzed there are organic bodies beside those identical in composition, and gluten, and starch; that the ashes of carrots, beets, turnips and potatoes, as Professor Von Liebig has already remarked, contain carbonates; that iron is present in the ashes of all the grains and roots analyzed; that the difference between the theoretical equivalents, as estimated from the percentage of nitrogen, and those ascertained by the experiments of stock growers, and particularly the differences between the results of the different stock growers, may be attributed to the following reasons: Because the percentages of nitrogen and carbon in fodder grown on different soils are unequal; because the prominent test has been the increase or diminution in weight of the animal fed.

Increase in weight may arise from secretion of fat, derived from the sugar and starch of the plants. Diminution in weight may follow unusual activity, increasing the consumption of fat | already present; because the experiments, in but few instances, were undertaken with substances

whose percentage of water and nitrogen had been ascertained; because theoretical equivalents have been employed in conditions equally suited to digestion. The same food, coarse or fine, fresh or prepared for easy digestion, yields unequal measures of nitrogen; because the conditions, whether exposed to the open air or protected in stalls, whether subjected to labor of uniform severity, or allowed the free range of

pastures, have not been made alike. Finally

because some animals differ greatly from others in the facility with which their fat and muscles are developed even when circumstances are precisely the same.

About Dogs.

Few persons are aware of the value and variety of dogs, varying, as they do, in weight from one hundred and eighty pounds to less than one pound, and in value from about five hundred dollars to less than nothing. A description of the different varieties may not be uninteresting: The Siberian bloodhound weighs about one hundred and sixty pounds, measures forty inches in girth, and is worth nearly five hundred dollars. The St. Bernard dog, which is of a buff or light red color, is very large and valuable. The Newfoundland dog, when pure, is entirely black, and its pups are worth from ten to twenty dollars. The shepherd dog, or Scotch colly, is wonderful for its patience, fidelity and bravery. It is worth from fifty to one hundred dollars. The English mastiff, a good watch dog, is worth from fifteen to twenty-five dollars. Of terriers, the black and tan is most admired. It varies in weight from one pound to twenty-five pounds, increasing in value as it decreases in weight A member of the bar in a neighboring city has one which weighs less than a pound, and is the smallest we have ever seen. It could not be bought for $150. Terriers are often crossed with the Italian grayhound, producing a very delicate, but extremely useless dog. The Scotch terrier is the hardiest of dogs, and is very courageous, and is worth from ten to thirty dollars. The Scotch deerhound is the rarest and most valuable of hunting dogs. They are very rare, and are owned principally by the nobility of England. They are worth one hundred dollars each. The beagle is the smallest of the hound kind of superior scent and endurance, and is the best sort of rabbit hunter. English grayhounds, the fleetest of dogs, are worth from twenty-five to one hundred dollars. The Italian grayhound is merely a parlour dog. The pure breed is rare and valuable, a fine one being worth one hundred and fifty dollars.

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