Rice. In South Carolina and Georgia, where by far the largest portion of this crop is produced, it is said to have been a good one, equal or superior to that of the previous year. This article was formerly exported in the form of what is called clean rice, but of late years a much larger quantity is taken to England in a rough state called paddy or cargo rice. She, however, relies much for that article, on that which is brought from India, where vast quantities are produced. The whole aggregate crop of rice for the year 1842 was, by our estimares, 94,007,484 pounds.

Silk. It is evident that the feeling with reference to this product is settling down on a more assured basis. While some remembering only the days of the morus multicaulis speculation, smile and turn with incredulity from its very mention, others have learned to discriminate between the solid and the imaginary, and are realizing, if not the golden dreams of past years, at least a fair profit, which not even the ridicule that is not always spared will easily tempt them by abandonment of their object to forego. The crop is increas ing, not indeed with great rapidity, but with a steadiness, and among a class of persons who have turned their attention to it, that promises to render it one of permanent interest. The inflation of speculation has passed away, sober practical views are adopted, and the calculations of those best informed on the subject, are sufficiently cheering to warrant eventually, as they should now satisfy the feelings of the most sanguine. In twelve of the States a bounty is given, and comparison of this from year to year, is said to leave no doubt that the product doubles one year with another. It will be found that in every State the silk culture has increased. In New England the attention is turning yet more toward it, and much practical skill in management of the worm, and modes of manufacture is continually acquired. Large crops of cocoons have been raised in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In Pennsylvania in one small district, not less than 3,500 pounds of cocoons are said to have been raised. The manufac ture of the silk too, at the west and elsewhere, keeps pace with its produc tion. There will be, it is said, several thousand yards woven in Ohio this season (1842), and several hundred in Indiana. Besides the larger estab lishments, there are also a large number of family machines making sew ings and organzine, which last is the most profitable article; as it is worth from $5 to $10 per pound in the gum. Sound practical farmers are going into the business of silk-growing, and this will tend to give it still more per manence. It is believed that not less than 2,000 bushels of cocoons have been produced the past season in middle and west Tennessee. tablishment in Ohio four dollars per bushel is paid for cocoons, and the manufacture of silk goods is said to be at the rate of $1,000 per month, and at a profit of 10 per cent. over all the cost. One person is the proprietor of 3 large cocooneries, and expected to feed two millions of worms, which he cal culated would yield him upward of six hundred thousand of cocoons, worth, at the then prices in October last, $2,000, but which, by his own manufacture of the same, would be worth much more to himself. A convention of silk-growers was held at Northampton, Massachusetts, in September, 1842, at which much valuable information was communicated by delegates and letters from various parts of the union, as to the progress method, &c., of culture of the plant, and feeding the worm. This has been imbodied and published in a small pamphlet, of which we have freely availed ourselves. The same causes which have had a transient influence on the culture of silk, have proved equally unfavorable to other products;

the frosts, and the unusual weather of August and September, injured not less the crops of corn, the vines, and the grain, and fruit, than the worm. The permanent causes of soil and climate in general, however, are thought to be as favorable to the production of silk as to that of any other product. It can be cultivated in all the States, and there is therefore, nothing to forbid its yet being cultivated in all parts of the Union. The mulberry tree is indigenous with us, as well as in China, and this seems to indicate that Providence has designed this country to be more or less engaged in this pursuit. The business, too, is one in which the aged and the feeble can be employed, and the children of many a family may thus be trained to useful industry, as well as kept from idleness and poverty, if not also from vice, crime, the prison, and a shameful death. One who has paid much attention to the subject mentions, that he is confident the business is a profitable one, and that it will sooner or later become one of the staple interests. The south appears to afford peculiar facilities for conducting this culture on account of the climate; and although it is now, for the most part, abandoned there, yet it offers strong inducements to that section as an object of attention, which may come in to take the place of cotton, when the low price of that product renders it unprofitable of cultivation. The decline of the business in that region is not to be attributed to any inherent difficulties, or to the discovery that the business is impracticable or unprofit able, but to the disappointment of high-raised expectations excited during the mania of the multicaulis speculation. The American raw silk, it is perfectly established, is in quality superior to the foreign article. A person for many years, as he declares, engaged in the weaving of silk, in different establishments in London, having had (as he says) for 15 years, from 250 to 300 pounds of silk of every grade and name passing through his hands weekly, expresses the following opinion as to the silk, &c., of our country: "I am qualified to affirm, from various experiments I have tried, that the silk is superior to any I have seen from Italy, China, France, Piedmont, or Valencia, where the worms are fed upon multicaulis or Italian. Its brilliancy, strength, and scent, are superior. I am aware that an exposure to the saline air, in the passage across the ocean, may be the cause of the loss of fragrance to imported silk; but the brilliancy is peculiar to American silk, if reeled in a proper manner, with cleanliness.

"I am confident that the mammoth sulphur worm is the pure Fossam brown. To try this, I had about three lbs. of silk reeled, and enclosed it in an air-tight box for three weeks. When I took it out, it had the fragrance of the Fossam brown stronger than any that I ever smelt in England, which convinced me that the mammoth sulphur is the identical silk which is always from 5 to 8 shillings per pound higher than ordinary silk. The mammoth white and the peanut white is a Novi, and superior to any I have seen in England. The yellow or orange I can not, satisfactorily to my own mind, yet define, but am trying experiments in order to ascertain. I am strongly persuaded it is a Bergam. Should this be the case, it will prove a great acquisition to manufacturers of silk velvet. Some have supposed the peanut white is the Piedmont, but they are mistaken. The Piedmont cocoon is lily white, very diminitive, with a sharp point."

Several facts may here be mentioned, which show that the difficulties which have been variously experienced in this pursuit may be obviated and removed.

A method has been suggested, which further operations will prove whether or not it may be relied on as a successful one, in relation to the killing of the chrysalis by means of the air-pump. If it succeed it will be a most valuable discovery, as it will preserve the fibre of the cocoon from the injury to which it is exposed by the usual processes. At one large establishment the same object has been effected by means of camphor; and it is said, that when the camphor is properly applied it effectually accomplishes the object, without inflicting the slightest injury on the silk fibre, and at the same time leaves the cocoon in the same state for reeling that it was before the chrysalis was killed. The air-pump, however, should it succeed, will be even better than camphor.

Another experiment relates to the retarding the hatching of the eggs. This has been tried with success, and the time delayed to as late a period as was desired. It has also lately been discovered that the leaves of the mulberry can be used to advantage for the purpose of manufacturing a good paper; and thus the silk-grower may profitably use his after growth of leaves. The question has been one of no little interest among silkgrowers, how to cultivate the tree to the greatest advantage, so as to escape the dangers of the more cold climates. One person, who has devoted much attention to this subject, gives, as the result of his experiments, his opinion in favor of setting out the trees on dry warm land, in a state of middling fertility, four feet by two feet, one root in a place; and says that, thus managed, they are fully safe from the dangers of winter, anywhere between Canada and the gulf of Mexico. It is important that they be headed down in the spring, as they do not thus form roots. By laying the trees, and leaving them to stand as they grow, many thousand trees are lost. He also affirms that, after repeated trials, and much reflection and observation, he has found the Chinese method of feeding in the open places, instead of enclosed ones with an artificial temperature, the best one; and that the first third of the season is worth more than the two last thirds for feeding. It may not be improper to quote here the reasons assigned in the convention for anticipating the regular extension of the silk business:

"The regular extension of the silk business may now be expected and anticipated. 1. It has outlived the disastrous revulsion of 1839. 2. All our agricultural journals are now friendly, and most of them are zealously engaged in promoting it. The political press is everywhere ready to pub lish any candid statements on the subject. 4. Unprincipled speculators in trees have all left the field, and the whole silk business has fallen into new and better hands. They did the cause immense mischief. By their opera tions in 1839, and especially in the wanton destruction of their trees in 1840, they practically proclaimed that mulberry trees have no intrinsic value. It has taken the regular silk-growers two or three years to undo the mischief. Yet we have, in a very desirable and encouraging degree, done it. Trees are now appreciated, and some sales made at small prices. From this time the silk business can not be extended at all, without crea ting a corresponding demand for trees. 5. The new tariff, by placing this business on a level with other great interests of the country, gives it a passport to the confidence of business men. 6. Our manufacturers, in silk. some cases, are now shaping their business in reference to taking up Others will do the same, as the times shall seem to justify. This aids the growing of silk. 7. The amount of silk made in years past has been

rapidly increasing each year just about doubling upon the preceding year. In all the States where legislative bounties are given, we have the means of showing this increase with great precision. The State treasurer in Boston gave the following statement, showing how this matter stands in Massachusetts:

In view of these results, secured amid all the multiplied discouragements that we have had to contend with, what may be hoped for, now that we have surmounted these discouragements, and gained public confidence. S. Another consideration, calculated to urge the business forward, is found in the fact that all our present agricultural staples are now extremely depressed, and are likely to remain so. The market is completely glutted. Our farmers must take up something new, or their sufferings will be prolonged indefinitely. In this crisis, silk comes to their aid. In the production of this article they can not glut the market for one whole generation, most assuredly."

Without desiring to excite undue expectations, it is a question which deserves serious consideration whether much more may not be realized from the prosecution of this business than has hitherto been. The little town of Mansfield, in Connecticut, by a persevering devotion to it, undiscouraged by the ill success of others, has been enabled to derive therefrom a very good profit; and it appears from the last census that, with a population of 2,276, not less than $20,000 is annually received from this business.

The bounty paid in Ohio, in 1841, amounted to $2,681 76; in Pennsylvania, $4,418 55. In 1842, there was paid, as bounty, in Ohio, $6,699 61. The whole amount of reeled silk produced in Ohio is set down at 3,000 lbs. One person sold 300 lbs. of reeled silk for $1,600. The whole aggregate of the silk crop, throughout the United States, for 1842, has been given in our tabular view as 244,124 lbs. of cocoons.

It may be proper here to allude to a clerical error in the tabular statement of silk for 1841, in the last year's report, as relates to the State of Massachusetts. Owing to some mistake in transcribing and reducing the amount of cocoons from bushels to pounds, the amount was set down at 198,432 lbs., instead of 19,843, as it should have been. It was early noticed and corrected in several of the agricultural papers.

Sugar. The sugar crop may be divided into that which is from cane, and that from maple and other sources.

The cane crop is confined almost wholly to Louisiana; and, from the best information we can gather, it is believed to have been, on the whole, as successful the past year as in the previous one, if not more so. The early frost and high winds threatened it, and were thought to have cut off the crop by thousands of hogsheads; the clear cold weather, however, succeeding, prevented it from proving so injurious as a milder aud more moist season would have done. Even the frozen cane turned out very well, and thus nearly realized the full amount of the planters' expectations. The

capital employed in the production of sugar is said to be $52,000,000, and the average manufacture is probably more than $80,000,000 of lbs. and 4.000.000 gallons of molasses.

The amount of sugar manufactured from the SUGAR MAPLE has also increased during the past year; and from various accounis, in different sections of our country, it promises to be an article of much importance, and, as it can be refined equal to the best West India sugar, it may be exported. In some of the States it has doubled. Many of them possess large resources in this respect. For instance, It is said that there are at least 30,000 acres of land in Michigan which abound with the maple. A maple-sugar tree is considered worth, to the farmer, from two to three dollars for its sugar: and there are, on an average, in the sugar-maple districts, about 30 trees to an acre, which would give at least 900,000 trees, worth $1,800,000 -probably $2.000.000. By suffering a portion of these to remain, while clearing up their land, the farmers would be able to derive much profit from them, from year to year.

In some small towns in the New England States, as many as 30 tons have been produced during the past year. Much of this sugar, also, is made at a season of the year when the farmer there can not be occupied in the illage of his ground, and the time consumed will amount only to a few weeks each year. Maple sugar, equal to the best Cuba sugar, is now manufactured in flat pans, and it is capable of being refined, and producing a very fine article.

The beautiful sample of maple sugar from Vermont, deposited in the Patent Office by the Hon. S. C. Crafis, induced an inquiry into the manufacture of the article; and a reference to Appendix No. 19 can not fail to gratify as well as instruct those whose curiosity or interest may lead them, to investigate the process.

Comparatively little attention is now paid to the sugar beet, as an article of manufacture into sugar. That it admits of being successfully used for this purpose, no one acquainted with what has been done in France and other countries on the continent of Europe can doubt. The probability is, that it has not been attempted in this country on a sufficiently large scale to render it profitable. Yet large quantities of the beet root have been raised to the acre. The manufacture of beet sugar, which has been carried out so largely in France, seems to have greatly declined for a few years past, and will, it is supposed, be broken up, in the desire to sustain her colonies. Not more than 44 manufactories are reported as in operation there, in 1842: and the amount of beet sugar delivered was only about one-half million of pounds. Such, at least, is the account professedly derived from the report to the French minister, and published in Paris. The whole aggregate sugar crop for the U. S. in 1842 is estimated at 142.445.199 pounds.

Cornstalk Sugar.-Numerous experiments have been tried in various parts of the country, the past year, with respect to obtaining sugar from the cornstalk.

It could, indeed, hardly be expected that persons entering into it without much knowledge of the process of mannfacture, and, in many cases, never having been furnished with any plan on which to conduct it, and possessing no requisite machinery, and before the difficulties attending is granulation had been removed, would be successful in their efforts. Yet the results have everywhere been so satisfactory, that, though but little sugar has been made, not one person from whom we have heard expresses a doubt of its