The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-20 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

North, America ; Its Agriculture and Climate. By
Robert Russell. Adam and Charles Black,
Edinburgh.
This is a very valuable and laborious work, dif-
fering in many respects from the numerous works
of travel that are constantly issuing from the press.
The record of the author's experiences is less de-
voted to the people and cities than to the soil on
which the cis ies are b gilt, andthevariations by which
the inhabitants are affected. It is partly of a scien-
tifie nature, describing and exemplifying the agri-
cultural and meteorological peculiarities of North
America. The qualities of the soil, its different
productions, the mode in which they are raised, and
the different necessaries for their cultivation are
treated of with care and ability. His researches
extended through Canada, the United States, and
the Island of Cuba. In the latter portion of the
volume he gives the substance of a course of lec-
tures he delivered in the Smithsonian Ins'itution,
on the climate of North America. It must not be
supposed, however, that the author confines
himself to agricultural statistics and meteoro-
logical tables ; on the contrary, though the
soil and its productions are his chief topic,
he interpolates various anecdotes, and incidents
which occurred to him in hiS journey, that serve to
lighten the volume, and prevent the mo' e scientific
part from becoming tedious. On his first lauding
in America, he was struck with the small stature
and pale faces of the men and women. This he '
atqibutes to the great extremes of temperature in
the United States. Of the progress of education in
the States he speaks most favourably.
"It is very difficult to draw lines of distinction be-
tween classes of society in New England. At the hotel
I had some conversation with a person who had all the
appearance and manners of a gentleman, but who was no
other than a working mechanic. He had driven down hie
wife and family from a village 13 miles ielend to have a
day's recreation at Nabant. This way of spending a
little spare money raises the moral and social condition
of those who labour with their hands, and maintains a
sense of self-respect. The general diffusion of education
among all classes in New England has had the effect of
raising them in a great measure beyond the temptation
of indulging in drinking habits, which are more common
where ignorance prevails, especially when combined
with a high rate of vraees. A Sheffield manufacturer,
carrying on business both in England and the Ucited
States, informed me that in the majority of cases the
high wages which be paid to his workmen in Britain
did not improve their cendition, as so much was squan-
dered for spirits, whereas the educated mechanics of
New England were in general a sober and industrious
class of men.
" After travelling for some time in Massachusetts,
one. is impressed with the thorough diffusion of educa-
tion among all classes, and with the universal politeness
mingled wish independence which prevails. Although
American phr ices are very common in ordinary
conversation, yet iu all the larger towns of this State
the English language is spoken with great purity.
The legislature is making efforts to give a free educa
tion to every one who chooses to accept of it. Boston
and its environs contain a population of about 300,000,
and in 1853 they assessed th 'inselve3 te the amount of
60,0001. tor educational purposes.
The Maine Liquor Law was still nominally in force
when he was iii that st its, though in many parts in
abeyance. In some towns it was necessary to go
into the cellar to obtain liquor, but, in others people
partook of it at all hours, and the landlord laughed
openly at the legal prohibition. Tile informers,
having drawn much ill-will on themselves, have
ceased their labours, and the law remains
in a state of uncertainty which our author
considers injurious in its tendency. But how, he
asks, could any other result be expected, when one-
fourth of the populat'on wete opposed to the law
and continually breaking it. Nevertheless, he des-
cribes the New Englaisdera as very temperate
people, wisely attributing their moderation to the
temperate habits of the educated classes, rather
than to an arbitrary law which provokes opposition.
The soil and climate of this state are penilia,ly
favourable to the growth of timber. Fire destroys
wide tracts of the forest almost every year, yet the
soil is never bare. He was shown a spot hich had
been destroyed by fire the previous year, which was
occupied with thriving birch saplings. Every little
crevice in the rocks affords hold for the roots of
some forest tree, and, however rocky and bare the
soil, it is always densely covered with timber, un-
less very precipitou 4. The following description of
oak-openings in Michigan is interesting. It will be
remembered these curious spits ova the name to
one of Cooper's popular novels.
" After bidding adieu to Mr. Holmes, t 3 whom I feel
myself under great obligations for his attention, I left
next afternoon by railway for Chicago on Lake Michigan,
a distance of 140 wiles. The line runs through a long
stretch of " oak-openings," which were the finest speci-
mens of this peculiar kind of forest growth that I saw ;
and what made them more interesting was the circum-
stance of their being almost untouched by the axe of the
backwoodsman. Where oak-openings occur, the soil
is dry and gravelly, and the surface undulating—a
feature which seems common to most of the gravels in
Europe and America. The trees are thinly distributed
over the surface, and the distance at a hich they grow
from each other seemed se regular, that one might have
supposed a skilful forester had been employed to plant
them. The crooked trunks are usually about a foot and
a half in diameter, and bare from 20 to 25 feet from
the ground ; after that they are forked, but, having no
great abundance of branches, have altogethtr a gnarled
appearance. The soil seems to be too dry and
gravelly to support a denser growth ; for on the
ridges they were from 30 to 40 yards apart, while
in the hollows, where the land was moister,
the trees were more thickly planted. The contrast
is very striking between the densely-wooded sands
and gravels of New England, which are the very types
of sterility, and the. stunted growth of the trees on
the better soils of the oak-openings. The climate of
the Western States is not nearly so propitious to the
growth of trees as that of the Atlantic sea-board,
where the rains at certain seasons of the year are more
abundant.
"Oak-openings, I believe, do not occur muc'l farther
to the eastward than Paris in Upper Canada, where the
soil is very similar to that of the oak-openings of Michi-
gan. It is generally supposed that the eraiteee aud oak-
openings are the result of the Indians formerly having
fired the country every year for hunting groueds. The
blackened mould of the prairies is no doubt partly owing
to the charred vegetable matter from fires which so
frequently ran over them. But in the oak-openings
there is little evidence of fire being concerned in their
formation, for the colour of the vegetable mould ie of
the same hazel tinge which prevails in the oak-forests
of Ohio."
A chapter on rice culture gives come curious and
useful statistics. Rice, it appears, is considered an
article of luxury, and is far higher in price than
Indian corn. The demand far exceeds the supply,
as the land capable of raising it with advantige is
comparatively limited. The slaves on rice and cotton
plantations are supplied with Indian corn in its
stead. Large cap tats are required for its cultiva-
tion on the tidal swamps, but the rice grounds are
more valuable than any other crop. One pecu-
liarity of the rico crop is the following :
" The rice plant adapts itself in a most wonderful
manner to the most opposite conditions in respect to
moisture. There is no cultivated plant that bears any
resemblance to it. The same variety which grows on the
upland cotton-soils and en the dry pine-barrens, grows
in the tide-swampe, where the land is laid under water
for weeks at a time ; and even in the lower part of the
delta of the Mississippi, where the fields are under water
from the time of sowing to that of reaping.
In his accounts of the inhabitants and social state
of Cuba, the author gives some melancholy details
of the extent to wh.ch the slave trade is carried
on. " Some planters will tell you that the slave
trade is now abolished; but when one visits the
sugar plantations he sees that the great majority of
the men have been dragged from Africa." The
subjoined extract gives some idea of the labour
which is exacted from them at the crushing season.
" The season for crushing sugar-cane in Cuba lasts for
six months at least ; and from all I heard and saw, I am
fully persuaded that the negroes are much over-tasked
at this time on almost all the sugar plantations.
Until I visited the sugar fields and factories, I had no
conception that such severe and long-continued exer -
tion could possibly be endured by any race of men.
The common practice on all the estates which
I visited, was that the able-bodied negroes begin
the day's work at half-past four a.m., and at
ten o'clock have an hour for breakfast. Then re-
suming work go on till sunset, when they get dinner
and another hour's rest, alter which they work on in
unremitting toil till midnight, thus working 18 hours
ou,; of the 24, and with only four hours fur sleep. The
assts: is so thoroughly organised, that no one can relax
effor, without being liable to punishment. On the
enajoritysol' the estates there is one "driver," or under-
overseer, for •.very ten able-bodied
from slaves.
fiTelheds loathe
that take in the ce‘ne in waggons the
do so .in companies of ten, over
sugar-house, usually
" is set, mounted on horseback,
whom a Creole "drive,
1 cutlass by his side. 1 was
with si whip in his band an..
was
a. working his negroes on the
told by clot) planter, whowas naval., once a week;
Sunday, that a holiday with the system,
but I found others, well acquainctoenelnt
of matters. On
who gave are a very differen.t ac
-ince was that,
one large estate which I visited, t e pra.
so long as the machinery held good, the' re was no
stopping, Sunday or Saturday, during the eetlehing
IlleaCol2.
"I well remember seeing twenty negro men pounding
sugar, with abort hand mallets, in large wooden trougns
drawn out from below a shed. They had no other
clothing than short trousers, and their bare heads and
backs were exposed to the sun. There were two drivers
set over them, the one a creole and the other a negro.
Both bad whips in their bands, and the creole bad a
cutlass by his side. The negroes were not suffered to
relax their efforts for a ruguient, and, hard as they were
working, still I pitied the negro driver almost as much.
The poor wretch was constantly crying out to the others
to work harder ; but this was done as much apparently
for the purpoee of keeping up a certain amount of
excitement to prevent himself from falling asleep as to
keep the others at their task ; for he seemed to be
completely tortured with sleep, as be leaned against