Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-04-11
Social Peculiar; les of Alabama.

Social Peculiar; les of Alabama.
| A correspondent of the Boston
Journal, who is making tour of the
South, writes from Selma, Alabama
"At table the visitor finds Southern
customs widely different from those
OF the New England States. While
you are enjoying the hospitality OF
the festive board you notice that the
servants are continually bringing you
hot dishes from the kitchen. Instead
OF cold wheat bread, you are served
with hot waffies, fritters, and buck
wheat cakes. You see little beef, but
an abundance of ham, fowl and eggs.
The butter is made almost daily from
fresh milk, but you find no cheese,
save what is brought from the North.
Southern cows and Southern climate
are not adapted to cheese making.
In travelling through this State,
one cannot but note how much less
severe labor agriculture requires here
than in New England. Haying time,
the most busy and laborious season
OF the North, occurs during the
warmest season-a period of compar-
alive leisure here, since the heavy
crops are laid by and none of them
are yet ready for harvesting. The
mule is chiefly used for farm work,
as be is nimhler than the OK, and can
endure rough usage better than q
horse.
In other points of view farming
here has manifest advantages. Crops
never prove an entire failure, but are
always sure to more than pay the
current expenses Of the year. The
farmer is able to procure almost ev-
cry article of consumption within
himself 1T his crop is short he has
only to reduce his expenses to the
more immediate necessaries of life.
and these he can produce, except
coffee, salt and iron.
At certain seasons, and the first
half of February is one of them, the
farmer has leisure for amusements..
Of these deer hunting is the univer-
sal favorite. larry with a plan ter
a few days and you will find your
Jusr ao uay 1i0aA, 49, 1917 :. =. s-on
neighbors and twice that number of
hounds, your host and you, mounted
on feet horses, will be traversing the
open woodlands at full speed. The
morning air is exhilirating, but as
you are not an old hunter, you can
see no adequate reason why your
companions should be as full of en-
thusiasm in search of red deer as
most men would be when q private
fortune is at stake, or public enc.
my to be encountered. After reach
ing the hunting grounds, and the
party are apprised by the barking of
the dogs that a deer is started, the
company station themselves at inter-
walls, one by one, at points where the
deer is expected to come, and if he
escapes the first marksman, he is
pretty certain to be brought down
by the second or third. The hunters
fire while the horse is at full speed,
and it requires practiced eye and
hand to make successful shot. AT
ter few excursions of this sort, you
will find yourself participating as
deeply in the ardor of the deer chase
as if you were native Albanian.
Few of the old school planters of
this State possess much wealth be-
sideo their lands. There are, how
ever, exceptions, and among them is
the gentleman whose houses and
lands / have visited this morning,
and who has retained the services of
some of his former slaves. The spa
cious and beautifully arranged
grounds about his residence will re-
pay a journey of many miles. They
abound with every species of semi
tropical shrubbery, vine and plant.
The hedges are of arbor vitae, cedar
and cape jessamine. In q region
where so little effort is made to adorn
and make cheerful either the man
sion of the rich or the cottage of the
poor, he who by his munificence con-
tributes to improve the public taste,
to make our homes and our waysides
more pleasant, is truly public bene-
factor.