Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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VOL. III. MANNING, CLARENDON COUNTY, S. C., WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 1888. NO, 28. TALMAGE ON HEREDITY. WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR YOUR FIFTY THOUSAND DESCENDANTS? Every Mother's Influence Likely to Extend for Ages-How to Make Children Liars, and How They May be Made Truthful, Benevolent and Good. In the eighth of his sermons to the women of America, which was delivered at the Brooklyn Tabernacle Sunday morning, the Rev. Dr. Talmage preached on "Prolonged Influence of Mothers." He said: "Everybody talks about the dissipa tions of modern society and how woman ly health goes down under it, but it was worse a hundre years ago, for the chap lain of a French regiment in our Revo lutionary War wrote in 1782, in his book of American women, saying: 'They are tall and well proportioned, their features are generally regular, their complexions are generally fair and without color. At twenty years of age the women have no longer the freshness of youth. At thirty or forty they are decrepit.' In 1812 a foreign consul wrote a book entitled 'A Sketch of the United States at the Com mencement of the Present Century,' and he says of the women of those times: 'At the age of thirty all their charms have disappeared.' One glance at the portraits of the women a hundred years ago and their style of dress makes us wonder how they ever got their breath. All this makes me think that the express rail train is no more an improvement on the old canal boat, or the telegraph no more an improvement on the old-time saddlebags, than the women of our day are an improvement on the women of the last century. "I never knew the joy of having a grandmother; that is, the disadvantage of being the youngest child of the fami ly. The elder members only have that benediction. But though she went up out of this life before I began it, I have heard of her faith in God, that brought all her children into the kingdom and two of them into the ministry, and then brought all her grandchildren into the kingdom, myself the last and the least worthy. TOUR FTT THOUSAND DESCENDANTS. "Here we have an untried, undiscussed and unexplored subject. You often hear about your influence upon your own children-I am not talking about that. What about your influence upon the twentieth century, upon the thirtieth century, upon the fortieth century, upon the year 2000, upon the year 4000, if the world lasts so long! The world stood 4,000 years before Christ came; it is not unreasonable to suppose that it may stand 4,000 years after His arrival. Four thousand years the world swung off in sin, 4,000 years it may be swinging back into righteousness. By the ordinary rate of multiplication of the world's population, in a century your descend ants will be over 200, and by two cen turies at least over 50,000, and upon every one of them you, the mother of to-day, will have an influence for good or evil. And if in four centuries your descendants shall have with their names filled a scroll of hundreds of thousands, will some angel from heaven to whom is given the capacity to calculate the num ber of the stars of heaven and the sands of the seashores, step-down and tell us how many descendants you will have in the four thousandth year of the world's possible continuance? "Do not let the grandmothers any longer think that they are .retired, and sit clear back out of sight from the world, feeling that they have no rela tions to it. The mothers of the last cen tury are to-day in the Senates, the Par liaments, the palaces, the pulpits, the banking houses, the professional chairs, the prisons, the almahouses, the compa ny of midnight brigands, the cellars, the ditches of this century. You have been thinking about the importance of having the right influence upon one nursery.; You have been thinking of the import-' ance of getting those two little feet on the right path. You have been thinking of your child's destinv for the next eighty years, ifit should pass on to be an octogenarian. That is well, but my subject sweeps a thousand years, a mil lion years, a quadrillion of years. I can not stop at one cradle; I- am looking at the cradles that reach all round the world and across all time. "Had not mothers better be intensify ing their prayers? Had they not better be elevating their example? Had they not better be rousing themselves with the consideration that by their faithfulness or neglect they arc starting an infinence which will be stupendous after the last mountain of earth is flat and the last sea has been dried up, and the last flake of the ashes of a consumed world shall have been blown away, and all the tele scopes of other worlds directed to the track around which our world once swung shall discover not so much as a cinder of the burned-down and swept-off planet' HOW TO MAR CHILDREN LIARS. "iaimother tell achild that if hie is not good, some bugaboo will come and catch him, the fear excited may make the child a coward, and the fact that he finds that there is no buga boo may make him a liar, and the echo of that false alarm may be heard after fifteen genera tions have been born and have expired. If a mother promise a child a reward for good behavior, and after the good be havior forgets to give the reward, the cheat may crop out in some faithlessness .half a thousand years further on. If a mother culture a child's vanity and eulo gize his curls and extol the night-black or sky-blue or nut-brown of the child's eyes, and call out in his presence the admiration of spectators, pride and arro gance may be prolonged after half a dozen family records have been obliter ated. If a mother express doubt about some statement of the Holy Bible in a child's presence, long after the gates of this historical era have closed and the gates of another era opened, the result may be seen in a champion blasphemer. "iBut, on the other hand, if a mother walking with a child see a suffering one by the wayside, and says: 'My child, give that ten cent piece to that lame boy,' the result may be seen on the other aide of the following century in some (3onge M[ull hnilaino a whole village of orphanages. If a mother sit almost every evening by the trundle bed of a child, and teach it lessons of a Saviour's love and a Saviour's example, of the importance of truth and the horror of a lie, and the virtues of industry and kind ness and sympathy and self-sacrifice, long after the mother has gone and the child has gone, and the lettering on both the tombstones shall have been washed out by the storms of innumerable win ters, there may be standing, as a result of those trundle-bed lessons, fIlaming evangels, world-moving reformers, sera phic summer fields, weeping Paysons, thundering Whitefields, emancipating Washingtons. "Parental influence, right and wrong, may jump over a generation, but it will come down further on as sure as you sit there and I stand here. This explains what we often see-some man or woman distinguished for benevolence when the father and mother were distinguished for penuriousness, or you see some young man or woman with a bad father and a hard mother come out gloriously for Christ and make the church sob and shout and sing under their exhortations. We stand in corners of the vestry and whisper over the matter and say: 'How is this, such great piety in sons and daughters of such parental worldliness and sin?' I will explain it to you if you will fetch me the old family Bible con taining the full record. IT IS A HARD WOULD FOR WOMEN. "Mothers of America, consecrate your selves to God and you will help to con secrate all the ages following. Do not dwell so much on your hardships that you miss your chance of wielding an in iluence that shall look down upon you from the towers of an endless future. I know Martin Luther was right when he consoled his wife over the death of their daughter by saying: 'Don't take on so, wife; remember that this is a hard world for girls.' Yes I go further and say: It is a hard world for women. Aye, I go further and say: It is a hard world for men. But for all women and men who trust their bodies and souls in the hands of Christ, the shining gatos will soon swing open. Don't you see the sickly pallor on the sky? That is the pallor on the cold cheek of the dying night, Don't you see the brightening of the clouds? That is the flush on the warm forehead of the morning. Cheer up; you are coming within sight of the Celestial City. Cotton and Corn. Under this heading, we find the fol lowing in the New Orleans Times-Dem ocrat: The Southern press seems to have finally persuaded the farmers to aban don the all cotton idea, and to grow more grain. It has been calling their atten tion to this matter for some years, with little effect, but the farmers appear to have finally waked up to the fact that there is more money to be made by cul tivating cotton and food products to gether' than by devoting themselves to the great Southern staple alone. Diver sified crops prevented an over-produc tion of cotton and low prices; and it freed the farmers from too great a de pendence on the West. Formerly, near ly all the profit from the cotton crops went for food products. Now that the latter are being raised on the place, the. cotton becomes a surplus crop, with which the farmer can buy his clothing, sugar, coffee and such other articles as he cannot raise. The change in agricultural methods in the South is shown in the fact that last season's corn crop was of nearly the same value as the cotton produced, the two standing, cotton $264,852,000, corn 213,662,920. Adding the oats, wheat, etc., it is probable that the cereals raised in 1887 were equal, if they did not excel in value, "King Cotton." We are not among those who are al ways crying out against "the great Southern staple," as if it was actually an enemy of this section, but it does not require much consideration of the sub ject to see that there is far more profit in growing cotton as our farmers did last year, than in raising it as the South has generaily done in the past, selling at a low figure and buying all our supplies from the West. The profit of the cot ton crop formerly found its way to Illi nois, Iowa and Ohio; under the changed system the South will keep most of it. The newspapers have made a great outcry against the all-cotton theory, and they have done some good in this direc tion, but the fact remains, and will con tinue to remain, that cotton is the cash crop of the South, and the farmers will continue to grow it because every pound represents so much money. As to corn, that is another matter.4 It can be grown to greater advantage in the West than in the South, even under the most favorable conditions. As food for stock oats and rye are infinitely superior, and these can be raised mnuch more cheaply. This is a matter that every farmer ought to consider. Corn is not the best feed for stock. It il never used in Europe, and it is not necessary in the West and South. In our opinion, wheat, oats and rye are much more profitable in the South than corn, and the wonder is that our farmers do not sow a 'larger acreage of these cereals.-Atlanta Constitution. The Dlscoverer of Binl Nye. Bill Nye's real name, strange to re late, is William Nye. That may not seem surprising, and yet it is, for the adoption of a false name is a trait that literary men and burglars bear in com mon. The man who is responsible for this discovery is E. D. Cowan, who is now in Europe in the interest of the Chicago Daily News. Cowan was con nected with the Denver Tribune at the same time that the crimson-crested poet of the Wild West, Eugene Field, was also illuminating it pages. In looking over the exchanges Cowan's attention was frequently attracted by splitting paragraphs which appeared in a dis tressed looking sheet called the Laramie Boomerang. Investigation resulted in the discovery that they were the contri bution of a Boomerang compositor named Bill Nye. 0. H. Rtothacker, the editor of the Denver Tribune, so dazed the newly discovered humorist with a magnificent offer of a salary of $25 a week, that Nye left the printing case and plunged into the maddening whirl of literature. Now the World is his oyster, and he is only a little more than 50 years of ae, and hald-handed at that. "DON'T GIVE UP THlE Si1P." PRESIDENT NORRIS'S APPEAL TO THE FARMERS OF THE STATE. The Situation Reviewed and the Farmers Urged to Keep Up their Fight for a Sepa rate Agricultural College. To the Farmers of South Carolina: I believe that the lively interest manifest ed by you for the past two years in the press, in public meetings, in the by-ways, at home and abroad, and in three State conventions held in Columbia, attended with loss of time and a considerable ex penditure of means, which many could ill afford, meant something more than a capriciousness of purpose. The first of these conventions con sidered many things. The second, more clearly perceiving our necessities, narrowed its delibera tions materially, specially recommend ing a separate agricultural college, the establishment of an experimental station in connection with the said college, that the board of agriculture should be di vorced as far as possible from politics and its members chosen by the Farmers' Association, and that thediw orgs.nizing the board should be so amended as to in crease its members from five to ten, with the power of electing its own secretary. The last convention, held after the lapse of twenty months from the first, and after the recommendations emanating from the second had been earnestly dis cussed both publicly and privately, unanimously closed its session by affirm ing the above recommendations, al though, before the vote was ordered, an earnest exemplification had been made them of the plan afterwards followed by the Legislature. It is for you to say whether or no your wishes have been met. Instead of one strong, well equipped, experimental station, in connection with the agricul tural college, we have three weak ones, at which a large percent. of their income will be annually expended in "dupli eated" officers. Instead of a real agri cultural college, separate and apart from the influences of the South Carolina College, where it was hoped boys would not only be educated and trained in the mysteries of successful agriculture and made acquainted with the powerful levers of progressive farming, but where the allirements and inspirations of farm life would be constantly instilled into their minds and from which we might hope to have a fair percentage of them return to the avocations of their fathers, we have an enlargement of the annex only. Instead of a board of agriculture reorganized on the plan outlined by your convention, the Legislature has en larged the present board, denying it the power to elect its own secretary, thus fatally crippling its efficiency. Without claiming that all wisdom is with the farmers, it appears to me, as I feel it must to you, that in these matters affecting us and our interests first and foremost, our judgment and wishes should have been concurred in, not in the grudging and half-way manner in which we have been recognzed, but cheerfully and heartily. The more so when the enactment of these measures into laws would have entailed little or no additional tax, as their maintenance would have chiefly come from money now appropriated by law for similar but unsatisfactory use. Congress has given to the farmers of South Carolina, in common with those of other States, $15,000, and has secured to us besides $11,500, both sums to be paid annually. Besides this the farmers of the State are aying about $'25,000, a year's inspection fees on fertilizers, to furnish a fund to e used in their interest and for their rotection. Who gainsays their right to say how his $31,000 should be expended, or who so bold as to deny that it would not be xpended as it should be? It is largely trough your labor that the State has ollected its taxes during the five years mmediately following our redemption from Rhadical rule, not counting the aove annual tax on fertilizers, nor the onstantly increasing income from phos phate royalties, the poll tax, the ordina y and special county taxes, nor the con stitutional two-mill school tax, from which sources many millions have been xtorted from us since 187G. I repeat, in these years the State has collected for its ordinary purposes the enormous sum f $2,837,000, and in the past five years, (1887 not made up,) the increased sum f $3,626,500. These vast sums have been freely given to every variety of purpose, from ice tickets to canal dig ging, from soap and towels and matches to gilding the State House, and from ex tra clerical services to $136,000 in sala res. And yet we are told that the State is too poor to give the meagre sum of $50,000 to commence to build up this institution upon which the farmers were beginning to look as to their Mecca. The advocates of the scheme adopted by the last Legislature made no issue with the justness of the demands made by your convention, as witness the laws en larging the board of agriculture and the annex, and the establishment of experi mental stations. They diverted the breeze you had stirred to the sailing of their boat. You are called upon to say if the Legislature, which has just ex pired, voiced the sentiment of the ma jority of the people of the State on these questions. These measures were not be fore the people when it was elected, and as a conseqluence it was voted for with out reference to them. Will you, once disregarding the taunt that farmers will not stick together, unite in your strength numerically, financially and politically, and secure to yourselves that measure of the State's fostering care which your im portance deserves? If you decide to right yourselves and gain that consideration in the councils of the State to which you are entitled and which is graciously extended to the farmers in man., of our sister States, leaders will be found who are the peers of any who may oppose you. Consider these matters as settled and a generation will live and die without seeing them changed. I would not impugn the mo tives of the friends of the recent legisla tion on these matters. They are South Carolinians, equally interested with any of us in the State's prosperity and ad vancement, but I deny in toto their ueior wisdom in dangn with anue interest, for I am persuaded many, if not most, of the supporters of the bills passed relating to these things are not of our profession and necessarily do not, nor cannot, think and feel as we do in reference to them. I would respectfully ask the press of the State to give publicity to this ad dress, that it may be considered by all of the farmers of the State. D. K. Nornns, President Farmers' Association S. C. Hickory Flat, February 23. LEAP YEAR PROPOSALS. Advice to Youn; Ladies Who Dare to Ex ercise Their Privileges in 1888. A young lady comes to us with a very curious request, says the Baltimore American. "I want you," she writes, "to tell me how to proceed to make a leap year proposal. I do not mean any thing farcical, but a reel matrimonial proposition, and I desire to do it in-such a way that the effort will not be a failure. Please give me a few practical direc tions." Of course we will, dear Miss "Cyn thia," of course we will. Evidently you have never made a leap year proposal and you naturally feel nervous; but, never fear, it's nothing when you get used to it. In the first place, you must catch your man. From the tone of your letter we infer that you have got him.' Well, the next thing is to surround thel man with favorable conditions. Never propose in the morning. It is worse than useless. To nine people out of ten there is no more romance in the earlier part of the day than there is sunshine at midnight. The evening is a good time. When the young man is alone with you and his face assumes a sentimental look, pop the question. Force an answer at once. The average man needs time to frame excuses and equivocations. The best plan is to make him commit him self, and after he does this get him to write a few sickly love letters. The sicklier the better. Then, Miss Cynthia, you must make a few pr.esents to the young man. A cluster diamond ring is quite aeceptable; a gold watch and chain would not be amiss, and almost anything that costs from $500 to $2,000 would not be likely to freeze his love. You must also pay for tickets to the drama and opera. Booth tickets at $7 for the two for six nights in one week would be slightly ex pensive, but you must remember, Miss Cynthia, that courtships are very ex pensive, especially leap year courtships. And, after all, if his love should wan der away from you and he should try to defeat matrimony by innumersble post ponements, your course would be en tirely clear. - You would merely have to get those sickly love letters before a jury and the verdict would follow. Forty-five thousand dollars is the fash ionable figure, but as Baltimore is more sympathetic than New York there is no reason why you shouldn't get $50,000, and any young lady who has $50,000 in her own name need not remain un married long. The Duty of Every Patriot. At the reunion of the Confederate so cieties in Baltimore on Washington's birthday Gen. Wade Hampton was pres ent. The Baltimore American says: "Loud calls were made for United State Senator Wade Hampton, who, with ex-Governor Hugh Thompson, of South Carolina, had seats on the stage. One man called for the rebel yell, and a great shouting followed. Senator Hampton said: 'It was the greatest misfortune of my army life that I was not present at these sad scenes. I had fought through the whole war, and was in North Caroli na when Lee surrendered. -I felt as we all felt-that the South had failed, and that it was better to have died on some of the battlefields, where the rebel yell was sounding and our flags were flying. When I saw General Lee after the war he said it would have been easy for him at any time to have been relieved of his great responsibility by riding along the line and letting a friendly bullet end him, but that he lived and did what he did for duty's sake only. 'I could have taken no other course with honor,' he said, 'and if the same thing were to do over, I would do as I did then.' Every true old Confederate ought to feel in that way. I make no apology for my course during the war. .[ could wish my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth if I attempted to call my old comrades in arms traitors. It is the duty of every patriot and old Confederate to try to make this country fit for freemen to live in for all time to come.' ". The Experience of Exoduses. We have had several negro exoduses since slavery was abolished, and we know how they have turned out. In every case, whether to Texas, to Kansas, or to the North, the result has been col lapse and misery. The whites who colonized Central America and Brazil after the war starved, and tlie remnants were brought home as paupers. It takes the best of timber to make colonists. This sort the negroes of the South are not. If they have not the fibre to meet~ the difficulties of their present situation, they cannot meet the morecopiae diliculties of a new climate, new crops, new diseases, and, what is worse to such races, home sickness. The movement has a rascal in it somewhere, or an im poster, or a fraud.-St. Louis Globe Democrat. Dusrn Mu. Eniron:--Won't you please tell your male readers that .$3 will buy a fine, strong and serviceable pair of pants, made to order by the N. Y. Stan dard Pants Co., of t;6 University Place, New York city? By sending G cents in postage stamps to the above firm, they will send to any address 5 samples of cloth to choose from, a fine linen tape measure, a full set of scientific measure ment blanks and other valuable informa ion. All goods are delivered by them through the U. S. Mails. A novel and practical idea. Advise your readers to try the firm. They arc thoroughlgre liable. Yours truly, WILLLAM VAND)ERBIILT. John L. Sullivan once drove a street car in New York for $:2 a day, and wore an overcoat tbat looked a good deal like Joseph's. The only man who would go to see him then was the conductor, who threatened twenty times a day to have him "fired"' for warming his fingers in stead of watching his horses. Now lie is kicking a football arounud under the Qnnan's nose. EVERY MAN HIS OWN MIND READER. The Astonishing Discovery of a Georgia Amateur Scientist. (From the Lexington, Ga., Echo.) Just at present there is no small amount of talk and excitement in Lex ington over what may prove to be one of the greatest discoveries of the nine teenth century. It is nothing less than the fact that everybody is gifted more or less with the heretofore wonderful pow er of mind-reading. Our readers will remembet that last week we locally mentioned that a Lex ington young man had discovered that he was giffed in that way. The young man alluded to was Mr. Z. H. Clark, and, while he did not want his name made public just then, promised to let us see his power that we might the bet ter judge it. We did not have to wait long. Friday he invited us to witness a private seance that would be given at Mr. J. T. Arnold's that evening after tea. We had before seen what purport ed to be mind-reading, and had no rea son to doubt that Mr. Clark had the gift. But we were wholly unprepared for the developments that were to be made that evening. The night's performance was made up of tests given different ones (for it was found that all present possessed more or less the gift) of finding the objects that were thought of by some other person. These tests were conducted in this wise: The medium or mind-reader would be brought into the room blindfolded; one or two persons would firmly grasp their hands and place their fingers upon the back of their neck over the spinal cord, thinking intensely of whatever object was selected-while the mind-reader would almost abandon all thought from his mind. Quickly there would be an in clination upon the part of the person blindfolded to move, and following his inclination they would go directly to the object thought of. If it was willed by the parties who had them in charge to pick up the object, their hands would unerringly go to it and grasp it, seem ingly without any effort whatever on the part of the mind-reader. It is wonder ful to see what difficult feats were thus performed. One test was that Mr. Clark should upon entering the room, go to the man tle, take therefrom a plaque, go to a cer tain person in the room, take from her hands a corkscrew, place it in the plaque and carry both the plaque and contents to another person in the room. He was then to a get a small basket that had been placed in another part of the room, find a key that had been hidden else where, place the key in the basket and then deposit the basket on a loot of a bed. All this was done as well as it could have been done by any one in the room without the blindfold and knowing exactly of what the test consisted. Equally as difficult tests were given almost every one in the room, and wer# gone through with about as much promptness and correctness, which goes to prove that every one is possessed, more or less, with the gift, or sixth sense as it might be termed. We tried it ourself, and though we could not as well perform such feats as did Messrs. Olive and Clark, we were convinced that we were not without the sense. The sensation that one feels while be ing thus under the control of the mind or will power of another is peculiar. While you are fully conscious, there comes over one a somewhat comatose feeling as if partly asleep and yet awake. There comes upon the subject an incli nation to move in whatever direction the minds of those beside him direct. With hose who are the best subjects this in clination is almost uncomtrollable; they are carried along by it as by force. Whatever enters the mind of the con uctor is immediately taken up by the edium and his inclinations guide him o whatever is thought of. Friday night every test that could be hought of was tried, the most wonder ful being to give the name of a person hought of by the ones who had hold of the reader's hands. Though failures were made at this, it was successfully one several tiies, one of these times eng with Mr. Olive. Not knowing of what the test would consist, he was rought into the room and led before ne os the guests. It was planned, that hose who had him in charge would think of the features of the person. This they did. After some time Mr. Olive said that he felt no inclination to do any thing; that he had nothing in his mind but the features of this person. He did ot know before whom he stood, which showed plainly that his mind was gov erned by the thoughts of those beside him. All these tests were made with the ut ost fairness and with no other object than to fully ascertcin who had the pow r and in how far they would be gov erned by the thoughts of others. Hiuge Trees. In a private letter to a gentleman in this city, from Col. Jno. D). Whitford, there is an account of some forest giants lately measured in Greene and Wilson ounties on ' Contentnea Creek, One nine tree measured 22 feet in circumfer ne and would make a stick of timber, solid heart, 5 feet square and 35 feet long, or straight-edge plant 6 feet wide man 35 feet long. another pine meas ured 18 feet in circumference and 100 feet to the first branch. Some white oaks were measured and would make plank 2 feet wide and 60 feet long. A pine which was felled for making shin gles~ measured 4j feet in diameter and 142 feet long. These immense trees are found abundantly in that section and will some day command a good price. The party of engineers under Colonel Whitford is eigaged in clearing out ob structions from the channel of Con tentnea Creek and will soon have the stream open for eamers to a point within sic inile of the Wilmington & Wedon R-alroad, 63 miles above the mouth of the Creek, and 100 miles above New Berne.-Rlaleigh News-Observer. Miss Leiter, the Chicago heiress, who ias made Washington her home, is not only decidedly pretty, but is in all prob ability the richest young woman in America. She is worth $10,000,000. Miss Leiter is the owner of an opera loak that is a little fortune in itself. It is of white moire plush, brocaded in sil ver, outlined with silver cord and trimmed with white goat's fur. The clsaen o f antiqne gold set with large THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. IT MEETS AND A(rTS UPON SEVER IL IMPORTANT MATTERS. The Matter of South Carolina Being Repre santed at the Augusta National Exposition Held In Abeyance-A Scheme for Farmers' Institutes-Other Matters of interest. (From the Columbia Daily Record, March 2.) The Board of Agriculture assembled yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock. Dr. J. H. Alexander and Gen. M. A. Stovall, represcnting the National Expo sition Company, of Augusta, were heard in advocacy of the board causing the State of South Carolina to be represented by an exhibit at the exposition in October next. The board stated that considering the ex pense of such a display and not being suffi ciently informed of the extent and magni tude of the proposed exposition they were not prepared to act definitely just now, but will hold the matter in abeyance. NO "DEFINITE ACTION' HERE. Messrs. R. M. Anderson and George K. Wright appeared before the board from the Columbia Board of Trade. Mr. Ander son's suggestions that the two boards co operate in the matter of advertising the State in general and Columbia in particular, were referred to the Committee on Immi gration for future consideration. After adjournment the board met again at night and continued in session until midnight. OCR MECIIANICAIL INDUSTRIES. Colonel James McCutchen, from the Committee on Mechanics submitted a re port. recommending the collection of sta tistical information relating to the mechan ical industries of the country to be pub lished for the inform tion of that class of citizens and also information relating to the price of agricultural machinery, and to notify'all manufacturers of such machinery that the department will receive samples of the various implements manufactured by them and test them on the experimental stations. The Commissioner was requested to carry out the recommendations as far as possible. WILL ENFORCE THE LAW. Mr. W. A. Ancrum, from the Commit tee on Fish Culture, to whom various com munications from the lish wardens and patrols at Georgetown had been referred, recommended that the Commission be au thorized to take immediate steps to enforce the law at that point. The report was adopted. SWORN WEIGHERS REQUIRED. Mr. J. S. Porcher, from the Committee on Phosphate Department. reported favor ably on certain recommendations of Special Assistant Roche regarding the rules gov erning phosphate mining, the substance of which is that sworn weighers be required at all shipping points. FARMERS' INSTITUTES AND CONVENTIONS. Mr. T. J. Moore, from the Committee on Farmers' Institutes and Conventions, who were requestad to submit a detailed scheme for farmers' institutes which shall embrace one farmers' State institute and such other l&cal institutes as may be practicable, re o'td, in substance, as follows: There shall be held one State farmers' institute in each year at such time and place as may be agreed upon by the Execu tive Committee of the Board; tbat for this year the same shall be held in Spartanburg ounty, in connection with the summer meeting of the State Agricultural and Me chanical Society and State Grange, if the same be practicable; if not, at such time and place as the Executive Committee shall agree upon; that the Executive Committee arrange such subjects of discussion and select such speakers as may suit the occa sion; that the Executive Committee be charged with the duty of securing proper representation from each county in accord ane with the law ereating the Board of Agriculture; that in. addition to the above State Farmers' Institute there shall be held such other county or local institutes as may be found practicable by the Executive Committee in each county of the State, when requested so to do by any County Agricultural Society, Grange, or other Agricultural Society; that these county or local insti'utes be held in connection with some County Agricultural Society, Grange or other Agricultural Society, which shall o-ve sufficient evidence of interest as to iad to the conclusion that said institution will be successful; that it will be expected of all local societies desiring to hold a farmers' institute to pay all the local ex penses attending the holding of such meet ings, which shall include rgnt of hall, ad vertising and the entertainment of speak ers from a distance whils: with them; that the Executive Committee be authorized to adopt such other rules and regulations ana to do such advertising and printing as they may find necessary to carry out success fully this scheme; that in the selection of speakers, both for State and local institutes, the Executive Committee will not feel themselves bound by State lines, but are uthorized to employ such~ talent as can be procured, having due regard to a wise ex penditure of our funds. The report was adopted with an amend ment to the effect that in all the duties as signed to the Executivo Committee the ommissioner of Agriculture be added. CONDITION OF T HE ExPERIMENTAL FARMs. The following is taken from the report of the special Committee on Erpetimental Farms and Stations: Out of the Hatch fund, the Trustees will apply $10,000 for the salaries of the direc tor and scientific staff for station, tor cost of scientific investigations, chemicals, post age, office, service, fuel, publication of btlletins, reports, etc., and will lump the remainder, $5,000, with an equal- amount to be advanced by the Board of Agricul ture. This $10,000 to be equally divided between the three experimental farms at Spartanburg, Darlington and Columbia. Ihese all to be under one control, direction and management, and the results of the ex periments, tests, etc., at each, to be included in one annual report. This proposition .virtually relieves the State stations of the payment of salary of director, and cost of publication. &c., gives them all the ad vantages of a large scientific staff, consist ing of a director, assistant director, secre tary, chemist, two assistant chemists,. a mineralogist and photographer, a botamist and entomologist, a microscopist and bac teriologist, and a veterinarian, and turns over absolutely to the State farms the sum of $1,666.66. The $5,000 advanced by the Department of Agriculture willbe spent on the State farms, which would each there fore enjoy an income of $3,333.33 ($800 for salary of superintendent and $3,533.33 for running expenses). This report was received and made the action of the Board with instructions to the committee to call for the balance due which had been subscribed by the citizjens of Spar tanburg and Darlington for expenses. On motion of Mr. Porcher, it was voted hat the $5000 necessary to carry out the plan of the stations be appropriated from the funds of the Department. MI OR MATTERS. The Committee on Phosphate Depart ment were authorized and directed to make an annual inspection of the phosphhte ter ritory. No date was fixed for the insrec tion. The proposition of the Cotton Plant, of Greenville, to. print 3,000 copies of the monthly report of the Department for $53 a month, to be issued free to persons not subscribers to the Cotton Plant, was ac cepted. - The Committee on Publicationsasubmit ted a report authorizing the publication at once in pamphlet form 5,000 copies of such parts of the special exposition report as are appropriate, to be accompanied by recent statistics and a map of the State, for gen eral distributinn. Adopted. .This committee also reported unfavora bly on the proposition from Dr. D. P. Robbins for the Board to subscribe for a number of copies of his forthcoming book of Columbia. This report was adopted, as was also the unfavorable reports on the propositions of Mr. John S' Reynolds and Mr. C. A. Calvo, Jr., to publish the monthly reports of the Department. The Board adjourned to meet again on the first Wednesday in May at 10 A. M. THE FLOWERY KINGDOL. A Timely and Appropriate Letter from General John D. Kennedy. (From the Charleston :nn.) A friend in this city of General John D. Kennedy, United States consul gen eral to China, has just received a letter from that gentleman dated Shanghai, January 6. It contains a lively descrip tion of some of the features of the largest (in the sense of the most populous) Em pire in the world, and a running com ment on political matters, both in this city and national, that, paradoxical as it may seem, are timely, notwithstanding the length of time elapsed since it was written and which was necessary for it to have accomplished the great distance between this and the Celestial Empire. We give some extracts which will prove of especial interest to our readers at this time. "I had a trip up the Yang-tse-kiangin December, just before Christmas, and enjoyed it very much. I went as far as Han-Kow, 600 miles, where I stayed three days, and then two days at Chin Kiang. " They are both large cities and we have consulates at them. It is a mighty river, the third or fourth in the world, and for the volume of water that pours down it for so many hundreds of miles probably the first. Then, too, it is the main artery that drains a country in which 100,000,000 of people live. Some parts of it are quite pictnresque in its scenery. The river boats that ply on it remind one of the Fall River and Hudson River boats. "We have had a remarkably fine fall, the best one ever known, and the winter thus far is comparatively mild. There has been no rain for four months worth speaking of. "I was much gratified at the election news. It indicates the renomination and re-election of Cleveland. He has certain ly given the country a clean, business administration and has the confidence of the people to a greater degree than any man who has filled the chair since Lin coln. He is emphatically a people's man and seems to have a great deal of hard horse sense and the knack of saying the right thing at the right time and in the right place. His wife, too, for a young woman, has great tact and judgment. f read the accounts of his sour through eighteen States, and was struck with the absence of ill-timed speeches and foolish actions on the part of both of them. If the Democratic party commits no acts of folly at this session of Congress, I don't see how they are to be put out of power. I am not a civil service reformer to the extent, possibly, that the President is, but as he ischarged with the responsi bilities of the office he probably knows better than outsiders, and as I have such faith in his judgment and good sense, and political sagacity, that for one I am willing to trust his doing the proper thing even in this particular, too." A N~ew Cotton Seed Cleaner. At Washington, D. C., the other day, a new machine for cleaning cotton seed was tested "in the presence of a distin guished crowd." A lot of ginned cotton seed had been provided, each enclosed in its hull of lint just as it is usually sent to the oil mill. It was run through the cleaner and came out at the bottom as clean and bright, almost, as grains of coffee, while the lint hulls, which are' largely wasted under the old methods of treating the seed, were carried into a closed bin, where they fell in a shower of lint. The inventor explained the machinery and demonstrated its useful ness to the planter as not only greatly enhaning the .ylue of the seed, but saving from 175 200 pounds of lint from every ton of seed. The spectators in luded a number of well known mnen7~ Among them were General Rosecrans; Representative Davidson, of Alabama; Major Jones, of Mississippi; M. de Rou towky, a technical agent of the Engi neering Department of the Russian Government, now in this country inves tigating the cotton industry; Colonel Green, an oil mill man, and T. W. Cor oran, a cotton planter of . Arkansas. Perhaps this machine is the one the South has been waiting for all these years.-Dixie. Upland Terracing. G. L. King informs us that he tera. raced about forty acres of upland last year with the most satisfactory results. rhe terraces stood the floods of last summer with very slight injury, and his land was saved from washing. He is sure that twice as much water was held in the fields as would have reained but or the terraces, and believes that not more than one-fifth of the water escaped from them that would have escaped if there had been no terraces. It follows, therefore, that not more than one-half, or perhaps more than one-filth of the water, mud and sand reached the streams from his plantation that would have reached them but for the terraces. Can't any sensible man see that if all the up lands were terraced in like manner be sides standing drouth better, the over flows would not be so destructive, and the streams would soon be cleared of the sand and mud?--Cartersville (Ga.) Regis The question of the day-What shill we o tonight?