TAMMANY HALL, NEW YORK, 16th February, 1832. SIR: The subscriber herewith transmits a communication on the cochineal plant and insect, with the respectful request that the department will honer it with an immediate publication in the Globe. The publication of his letter on the agaves, contributed to his success in an application to the Legislative Council of Florida to incorporate himself and associates for the domestication of tropical plants, which resulted in the Tropical Plant Company, composed of the most distinguished residents of that Territory. As no association, however, will subserve his expanded views for the prosecution of this important enterprise, unless he can furnish more weighty inducements than his individual intelligence, he has forwarded a memorial to Congress for a township of land in the southern extremity of that peninsula. The accompanying documents furnish abundant testimony, both private and official, of the sacrifices which he has made by his obedience to the circular of the Treasury Department of the 6th September, 1829. The amount will not appear exaggerated, when it is known that Daniel N. Pope, recently confirmed to the consulate of Tabasco, arrived there a bankrupt, in 1828, and returned to New York in 1831, with seventy thousand dollars, to divide equally with the house of Jewett & Halsey. As Mr. Pope has been rewarded to the injury of a national enterprise for having made a fortune for himself, the subscriber humbly trusts that he may be compensated, to the advancement of that national enterprise, for having lost an equal fortune in behalf of his country. If the department should condescend to a minute examination of the memorial and accompanying documents of the subscriber, he respectfully believes that it would lend its influence to aid his patriotic ambition, inasmuch as it may thereby most speedily and effectually accomplish all the objects of its own circular. I have the honor to be, sir, To the Hon. LOUIS MCLANE, Your obedient servant, HENRY PERRINE, U. S. Consul for Campeachy. Secretary of the Treasury, Washington city. COCHINEAL PLANT AND INSECT-[Cactus Opuntia.] [Coccus Cacti.] A tradition relative to the foundation of Mexico is commemorated on its coin, by the representation of an eagle, with a serpent in his beak, standing on the nopal, or prickly pear, the plant which nourishes the living insect known after death, in commerce, by the name of cochineal. The series of oval and fleshy masses, commonly called leaves, which constitute this plant, do not extend along the ground like the prickly pear of the north, but ascend into the air in the shape of a shrub or tree, the lower ones becoming converted into a woody stem. The great importance of the nopal to Mexico is generally known, but it is not perhaps as public, that, since the independence of New Spain, the insect has been successfully introduced into the peninsula of Old Spain, and bids fair to become a source of prosperity to that unhappy nation. As the peninsula of Florida, with a happier climate, has a much happier Go verument, it is very reasonable to believe that, in a few years, this Territory also will produce at least enough cochineal for the consumption of the United States. The Royal Economical Society of Cadiz, after five years' attentive observations on fifteen generations of this precious insect, published, in 1825, the result of their experience on the management both of the nopal and the cochineal best adapted to the seasons and people of Spain. The Indians of Oajaca, in its native Mexico, affirm that there are two varieties of this insect, the domestic and the wild; and that the latter is inimical to the former, and injurious to the plant upon which it subsists; but the society denies even the existence of the wild variety, and attributes to accident alone the inferior size and quality of the insects which originated this distinctive epithet. The society also states, that, by experiments made on the various kinds of nopal in the vicinity of Cadiz, the domestic insect finds sufficient matter for nutrition and growth to accommodate itself to all; that a scanty cultivation of these plants improves their qualities by rendering the quantity of the prickles less numerous, the texture of the cuticle more delicate, and the substance of the leaf more tender; and that hence the insect is enabled to attach itself with more facility in the manner most appropriate to its existence and preThe society further asserts, that, in Spain, neither the insect nor the plant has been attacked by any of the numerous enemies to which they are subject in their native country. How encouraging are these facts to all our southern States. servation. The production of cochineal is effected with very little capital and very light labor, but it requires great vigilance and care: the plants must be defended from heavy showers, from strong winds, and from intense cold, without depriving them, in serene weather, of the beneficial influence of the sun and atmosphere. Of the numerous varieties of nopal, a preference is given to those whose leaves have the fewest prickles, the most juicy substance, the tenderest cuticle, and the most downy surface. As these qualities are changed by age, no plant is employed longer than three years. For a small experiment, a few insects may be attached to a leaf a year old, planted in a flower pot, which may be removed or covered at the pleasure or convenience of the experimenter. The general cultivation of the nopal is commenced by that slight preparation of the soil which is usual for common horticultural vegetables. The leaves, eight days after cutting, are planted about two feet from each other, in facing files, which are six feet apart. Immediately around their tender roots, the weeds are extracted by the hand. If necessary, in the hottest and driest weather of summer, a little water may be sprinkled at the foot of each plant early in the morning or late in the evening of every fourth day. The new leaves which do not sprout upwards should be cut off; every bud which might form a flower should also be separated. The plants should be occasionally cleansed from dust, webs, &c. by the breath, or a brush gently applied. At the end of the first year, a sufficient number of young leaves have grown to support the insects; two years afterwards each plant is pulled up, one of its latest leaves is put in its place, and the others are taken to form new plots of nopal. A bed 24 feet long and 9 feet wide will contain 25 plants, each of which, in the third year, usually has 10 leaves; each leaf may sustain a nest of ten mothers, and nourish well a hundred insects, which will amount altogether to 25,000, and furnish one plants, with leisure for other rural or domestic labors. Although four months are required for the reproduction of the insect, only three months from its birth are necessary for it to arrive at that grade of maturity and perfection in which it is killed for commerce. In the climate of Spain, the cultivator can calculate with safety on only the two crops between March and October, but as they will yield fifty pounds of cochineal, he obtains a lucrative reward for his labor. From its birth to its death, the cochineal insect adheres firmly by its feet. and its mouth to the leaf of the nopal, and if it accidentally falls, it perishes, without attempting to return. When largest, it is about the size of a small pea, and is covered with a whitish powder, and is then ready to discharge its numerous offspring in thready envelopes. At this period, eight or ten mothers are delicately separated by a slender stick, and collocated under a square piece of gauze, or other porous material, fastened at its corners to the lower part of a fresh leaf by its longest prickles. The progeny escaping through the pores, in 12 to 18 days, populate the whole surface. The middle of a sunny day should be chosen to confine the parents, as the young ones will then soon become dry enough to move with facility. The leaf whose insects are destined for propagation is not touched during the first seventy days of their existence. When the others are cleansed, especially in the later periods, by the breath or brush, care must be taken not to separate the insects with the powder, webs, &c. which may need removal. On their arrival at maturity they are killed and prepared for commerce in various ways. They are spread on linen sheets and exposed four hours daily to the strongest rays of the sun for ten or twelve days; or they may be first put into an oven, as hot as the hand can bear, for eight or ten hours, and then be placed in the sunshine during six successive days. They are also prepared by pouring boiling water on them until dead, and then exposing them to dry in the sun by roasting them in a covered carthen vessel, surrounded by hot ashes, during several hours, and finally by suffocating them in a closed sack. It has been calculated that every mother contains upwards of half a million of insects, but being so extremely small and delicate, many must perish in the first days of their existence, and all the males which are winged at 30 to 40 days disappear as soon as they have fulfilled their destined func tions. Nevertheless, their fecundity is so great that it is said they have furnished an annual exportation from Mexico to the amount of ten millions of dollars! The nopal is also prized by the natives both of Old and New Spain, on account of its abundant fruit, which, although somewhat astringent, is pleasant to the taste, believed to be nutritious, and called the Indian fig. It is moreover highly esteemed for its beauty and utility in forming living fences for their little fields. As my inquiries have been directed after plants of the most extensive practical utility, I now present the nopal as one whose advantages can be enjoyed alike by the rich and the needy, by the lady in her parlor and the servant in her kitchen, by the planter around his palace and the negro around his hut. It will form an ornamental enclosure for the gardens of the wealthy, a fruitful hedge for the patches of the poor, and will furnish both sexes and all ages of every family with a source of pleasant and profitable labor. NEW YORK, Feb. 17, 1832. HENRY PERRINE, TAMMANY HALL, NEW YORK, 21st March, 1832. To the honorable the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America at Washington city. SIR: The subscriber yesterday first saw the resolution reported on the 14th, by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, inquiring of the department whether the American consul for Campeachy has made any researches, and rendered any services, in compliance with the Treasury circular. It is respectfully considered by the subscriber that his communications on the logwood, the agaves, and the cochineal, are alone evidences of a great extent of researches in a country, where the obstacles to observation and inquiry are so numerous and enormous as they are in Mexico. He did not burthen the department with detailed intelligence concerning many plants of partial utility, believing that the journals of medicine and of other sciences would be supplied with them through his private correspondents, and that the objects of the circular would be thus most conveniently accomplished. It would require the labor of two or three months to arrange and copy all the correspondence and other documents relative to Mexican plants now in the possession of the subscriber, and then "the nature and extent of those services and researches" would not be completely exhibited, in consequence of the unsettled state of the papers of the late Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, and of the blanks occasioned by the miscarriage of letters to and from other gentlemen. The executor of Dr. Mitchill, Dr. Akerly, has promised the subscriber to select his correspondence as soon as possible. Some of his letters to the deceased have been published in the New York Farmer and Horticultural Repository, and the others will appear in the shape most agreeable to the relatives of that celebrated philosopher. The annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of this city, the pages of the Journal of Science of New Haven, and the numbers of the periodicals of agriculture and medicine in various parts of the United States, it is believed, will ere long afford a satisfactory reply to the resolution aforesaid of the Committee on Agriculture. The department is already apprised, not only of the great obstacles to observation and inquiry in the consular district of the subscriber, but also of the almost insuperable impediments to the collection and transmission of plants, and of the time and labor which were wasted before he became convinced that it was absolutely necessary to depend only on his own eyes, and his own hands, in the acquisition of intelligence and the collection of vegetables. Without roads or carriages, not one attempt in a dozen was entirely successful in getting the plants from the interior to Campeachy. On their arrival, there were difficulties occurred in preserving them from accidental and intentional injury; then their transmission to the United States was impeded by the rarity of vessels sailing directly to the northern ports, and by the character of those which went to New Orleans, being mostly the property of Spaniards or Mexicans. Neglect, jealousy, or direct hostility, prevented their reaching their destined ports in most instances, and, in others, after their arrival in the United States, delay and accidents combined to let them perish. The agents of the subscriber in Lisal, Laguna, and Tabasco, not being animated by his ambition, seldom executed his orders ef added their embarrassments to the train of disappointments; in short, the comparative fruitlessness of all his labors to transmit tropical plants, occasioned his letter to the department of the 8th November last. The amount sacrificed in his profession alone by his services and researches, in obedience to the Treasury circular, is shown by the testimony of Dr. Johnson, a personal acquaintance of General Root. The memorial, however, of the subscriber, does not found its prayer for a grant of land on his past researches and services alone. It distinctly prays for it as an encouragement to his future services, for the introduction and domestication of tropical plants. Unless he can offer land in the southern extremity of Florida for that purpose, he knows not how he can obtain associates in the enterprise. Texas is carrying off thousands of our agricultural citizens, by offering sitios' of more than 4,000 acres to every family. The subscriber could not reasonably expect that, under these circumstances, any settler would accept less than a quarter section in Florida, burthened with the condition of cultivating a given quantity and quality of tropical plants. If the territory south of 26° were surveyed, and in market, he should not molest Congress with his memorial. If he could obtain even the pre-emption right to a sufficient number of sections to form a settlement of a hundred families, he would not ask for a township of land. He is now prepared to sail for Campeachy in fifteen days, with all the books, &c., requisite to make his future services more valuable. His funds and his labors shall continue to be devoted to the great enterprise of domesticating tropical plants, whatever may be the fate of his application to Congress. I have the honor to be, Your obedient servant, 'HENRY PERRINE. TROPICAL PLANTS. Extract from the Message of the Governor of Florida, in the Floridian of January 2d. "Hundreds of the vegetable productions of tropical climates of great value, and some in such common use as to be considered articles of necessity, and which we now import at high cost, could be easily cultivated in any part of our Territory. Many too tropical to flourish in West or Middle Florida, could be reared under the more genial climate of the southern part of the peninsula. The southern part of this continent, and South America, and China, abound in trees, plants, herbs, and roots, possessing the most valuable properties, the use of which has been confined to the places of their production, but which could as well be produced and enjoyed by our own citizens. I herewith transmit to the council, and respectfully invite their attention to an extract of an official letter from H. Perrine, United States' Consul for Campeachy, to the Secretary of the Treasury in relation to this subject, which has been published in the newspapers, and from which I have taken it. Other documents worthy of attention are also herewith sent to the council. It will be noticed that Mr. Perrine is desirous that an act of the council should be passed, incorporating himself and his associates into a company for the cultivation of tropical exotics, and he proposes to |