"We have so long been dependant on the east for money capital, that it is difficult for us to look for it in any other direction. We have now sufficient strength to stand erect, but have scarcely learned the use of our feet.

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"But, perhaps, we are to look to the south for capital, either in money or its equivalent, cotton. The cotton planter for years has been chagrined that he has made less in producing than the New Englander has in manufacturing the cotton; and he will gladly avail himself of the opportunity, now perhaps first presented to him in a practical shape, of making the manufacturers' profit. He could not mannfacture in Glasgow or Manchester; and Lowell was too far distant for him to invest in her mills. At home he has not the labor, power, conveniences or skill. The lower Ohio is within his reach, (I refer to the planters on the Mississippi and its tributaries.) Here he can, while overlooking the management of the mill, mingle business with pleasure during the summer. Many may smile at the idea of getting surplus capital from a cotton planter, and may exclaim, mortgages, execution, advances, &c., yet let me assure such that the southwest is in quite a different condition now from what it was ten years since. Let them remember that not only has the cotton crop vastly increased in that period, but that the facilities for obtaining credits in New Orleans have been greatly diminished, while at home there are now comparatively no such facilities. Many of the planters now consign their crop to Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, the eastern cities and even to Liverpool, and neither ask nor wish for an advance. Let it also be remembered that the cotton planter has nothing at home to invest his surplus in, save more land and slaves. He has no canals or railroads, houses, or ships to build; he has no banks to deposit his money in even; he does not wish to take mercantile risks or to leave his money long in the hands of those who do take such risks; would he not gladly invest in mills near him, where his own cotton would be spun and woven, and on its way to market and on his way to the springs or his summer residence? Indeed he might find a healthy summer residence within sight of the mill. He would realize the value of his cotton (indeed trebled in value) from the goods before he could get his returns from that consigned to the Liverpool factor.

"This direct consignment is, of course, the most favorable for the planter. When the New Orleans or New York speculator buys the cotton and consigns it, the planter, of course pays, or rather loses, the intermediate profits.

"On this reliance on the south I have not only to state its reasonableness, but the positive assurances of very many planters who have surplus capital, that they and their friends are ready to take stock in cotton mills just as soon as they who practically understand the details of putting up and managing mills, will obtain the charters and superintendents and contractors.

"But we cannot expect cotton mills to leap into existence at once. Several years will be required to erect buildings, obtain machinery, &c. Then the first that are started will make profits to build others; besides, the moment we show

the east that we have systematically and energetically undertaken to manufacture our cotton and hemp, and to eat our corn and pork at home, the building of new mills there will be checked, and the men of capital and enterprise there, who wish to engage in the business, will bring their capital, skill and labor here. "It will be seen under the next head what of these requisites we may expect from abroad."

ART. III-THE CHEROKEE ROSE.

The following article, from the pen of THOMAS AFFLECK, of Mississippi, and published in the "Commercial Review," is highly entitled to the consideration of the western farmer. Of the Cherokee Rose, we can say nothing of our own knowledge; nor do we know whether its adaptation to this climate has ever been tested. But from the fact as stated by the writer that it "was not affected" by the severe cold which happened in February, 1835-that being a season of the year when tender plants are most liable to injury from severe frosts-we conclude that it would survive the winters of Missouri. Again, the writer inclines to the opinion that the Cherokee Rose is a native of East Tennessee; if this should be true, it would seem to remove all doubt as to its adaptation at least to the southern part of Missouri and Illinois. If this plant should be found to thrive in the prairies of the west, and should answer the valuable purposes ascribed to it by Mr. Affleck, it is calculated to become a source of incalculable convenience, especially to those of the prairie districts.

Although not intimately connected with the cultivation of this plant, the letter of Mr. Affleck to the Editor of the Commercial Review, contains so many judicious remarks, that we have given it entire, as a proper introduction to the subject.

J. D. B. DE Bow, Esq.:

Treatise after treatise has been written and published upon the waste of timber in the common rail fence, where timber is yet to be had for such a purpose; elaborate estimates made of the yearly cost of such fences, in time, labor and material; and endless suggestions as to the best substitute to be employed in different parts of the country. Some propose dry stone walls-than which there can be no better fence, where the materials exist. Others, descanting upon the beauties of an English landscape, in which the neatly kept hedges of hawthorn occupy so prominent and ornamental a place, propose its introduction here for that purpose, and quote the directions of English authors for propagating and planting it. Some again, aware of this having been repeatedly tried, and without success proportioned to the cost, point out the adaptation of different native hawthorns, the crabapple, honey-locust, osage orange, &c., to different portions of our extensive and varied country. Then we have ditches and sod walls, and patent wooden fences

of many kinds, for the prairie regions, and, last of all, we have it proposed and earnestly and ably advocated by the editor of the American Agriculturist and his correspondents, to do away with fences entirely, every farmer housing and feeding his stock, or herding them on his pastures.

We have seen the substantial stone dykes of Scotland, and others after the same model in the Eastern and Middle States, and in Kentucky; the beautiful hedges of hawthorn, crab-apple, holly, beech, &c., in England and elsewhere; and close copies of these in different parts of this country, reared, planted and kept in order by a great expenditure of labor; excellent hedges of the osage orange in Ohio and in Pennsylvania; the utter failures at fencing in the prairies of the West, with sod walls and ditches; and we have tried our hand at almost all of these, in turn, and at every variety of wooden fence, from the last patent Yankee invention, to the substantial post and rail of cypress. But in no country have we seen a fence of any kind so admirably adapted to the climate and existing state of things-so cheaply obtained and easily kept in order-so permanent, efficient and substantial, or more thoroughly tested, than the Cherokee Rose hedge. Many years have elapsed since this plant was first employed for the purpose of fencing in South Carolina and Georgia, and in Adams and Wilkinson counties, Mississippi. Excellent fences of it have there existed for a sufficient length of time to have led to its universal use in the Southern States; yet in many parts of those very districts, though timber has become extremely scarce, hedging is but little thought of—and elsewhere it is almost unknown.

This is by no means a rare instance in the history of Southern Agriculture, and, indeed, of the agriculture of the world. Farmers are proverbially slow in adopting improvements—some from indifference, others from a contempt for theoretical and book-farming-terms freely used when any thing out of the old track is proposed--and not a few from ignorance. It has been truly said, that the apothegm got up in the days of ignorance and maintained by her children ever since—“ to plant well is better than to theorize well"-has been "an instrument of more mischief than any two-edged sword," and of incalculable disadvantage to the agriculture of the south. "Modest merit too often shrinks before it. Let it be asserted, and asserted without the fear of contradiction," (says the same writer-J. E. Jenkins, in the Southern Agriculturist, vol. 7, p. 174,) “that theory is the incipiency of all acts; that the first clod of earth that was ever designedly broken for the introduction of seed with the intention of reaping its production, was the effect of speculation and of mental arrangement. To be able to speculate, proves a scrutinizing faculty; and to theorize to success, the highest mental endowment." He remarks, further: "It is easy for the most ignorant clod-hopper to call himself a planter, and no theorist-as if he thereby conferred upon himself some honorable distinction, whilst he heaped upon the head of his neighbor-whose mind elucidated his practice, and who is not unwilling that the world should share with him whatsoever good he can impart-coals of fire and molten lead."

Strong language this, yet how true! No improvement is proposed, no new thing introduced to the planting world, without meeting with severe checks from self-sufficient ignorance. It is on record that the cultivation of cotton as a staple crop, and those who sought to introduce it, were included in the same sneering remark" a fit crop for a petty farmer, but not for a planter." Horizontal plowing and the side-hill ditch or guard-drain, are most valuable instances of "theorizing to success," and require a mind of but very moderate calibre to comprehend their advantages. Yet the first was adopted slowly, and not until whole States had been almost ruined by the old method of plowing up-and-down hill, and is even now unknown in many districts. The latter- the guard-drain, or side-hill ditch is as yet a thing unheard of by ninety-nine in a hundred of the hill-planters of the South; or, if attempted, without a correct knowledge of those principles without which incalculable harm, instead of good, is done. Yet this most perfect preventive to the washing away of the surface soil and the formation of gullies, has been known and practised with complete success; and full explanations of the principles upon which they should be laid out, and directions for the work, have been published many years ago. And even plantations nearest to others completely protected in this way from washing, are being washed into gullies, and losing what little soil is left to them, without a judicious effort on the part of the owners to prevent it. And thus it is with many other improvements of equal, or even greater, value.

Much of this might be remedied by means of an ably conducted Southern Journal of Agriculture, through which those farmers willing to impart the benefits of their experience of their "theorizing to success"-may be induced to do so, sustained by the countenance and support of a well-informed, judicious Editor, against the sneers of folly, or detractions of envy and ignorance.

To you, my dear Sir, we must look for a South-western Journal of Agriculture. You have established the Commercial Review upon a permanent footing, and under disadvantages and trials of which no one can form a conception who has not gone through the like—and stand forth the able advocate of the commerce, and incidentally, of the Agriculture of the South. You are giving, each month, increased interest and value, with increased size, to the Review. You already include, as remarked, the subject of Agriculture and Agricultural improvement; so it is doubtful whether another and distinct periodical, devoted solely to that interest, great though it be, could be sustained. Nor would it be good policy to attempt it. Would it not, then, be advisable to appropriate a separate and sufficient space in each month's Review, to Agriculture and the Sciences, and interests immediately connected therewith-thus offering additional inducements to the planting community to sustain the Review, not only by their subscriptions, but by their pens? Be assured it would. Think of it. We have heard the plan suggested, more than once, by the friends of the Review.

The following essay is offered you for the proposed department—or as you may

please with the hope that it may prove acceptable to you and to your readers. I am, &c., yours,

THOMAS AFFLECK.

"THE CHEROKEE ROSE.”

Ar page 461, of vol. 1, of Terry & Gray's Flora of North America, will be found the following description of the plant named as the subject of this article. It is classed amongst the "naturalized species."

Rosa lævegata (Michx.): very glabrous; branches armed with very strong, often geminate curved prickles; leaves three-(sometimes five-) foliate; leaflets cariaceous, shiring, sharply serrate; stipules setaceous, deciduous; flower, solitary, terminal; tube of the calyx ovoid, muricate with long, prickly bristles. Stem with long flexible branches, capable of being trained to a great length. Flowers very large, white.

Thus far for the Botanist. To the Farmer we will offer a more easily understood description.

But first as to the FOREIGN ORIGIN of this valuable plant. Messrs. Torrey & Gray, who are high authority, speak positively on this point. Prince, in his Catalogue of Roses, states it to be a native of Persia, but does not give his authority. Its appearance and habits are foreign; yet we would gladly identify it as a native, and think it quite probable that it is so - and offer the following statements in support of that opinion:

The December (1831) number of the 4th volume of the Southern Agriculturist, (Charleston, S. C.,- a most valuable journal, now, alas! no more) contains one of the (previously) unpublished manuscripts of the late Stephen Elliott, "upon the culture of the Cherokee or nondescript Rose as a hedging plant," in which occurs the following passage:

"The history of this plant is obscure. It was cultivated before the Revolution by the late Nathaniel Hall, Esq., at his plantation, near Savannah river, and having been obtained from thence and propagated as an ornamental plant, in the garden of Mr. Telfair, and the Messrs. Gibbons' of Sharon of Beach Hill, under the name of the "Cherokee Rose." It is probable that it was originally brought down from our mountains by some of the Indian traders. Mr. Kin, a most indefatigable collector of the plants of the United States, and I believe a very worthy and honest man, assured me that he had found this rose on or near the Cumberland mountains, in Tennessee. Michaux met with it in the gardens in Georgia, and perceiving it was an undescribed plant, he introduced it into the gardens near Charleston, as a nondescript Rose. Hence it has obtained in that neighborhood the popular, but absurd name of "the Nondescript." In Georgia, it has always retained the name of the "Cherokee Rose."

In the second volume of the American Farmer-that pioneer journal, to which with its veteran editor, J. S. Skinner, we are indebted for more than the non