The floating debt (viz., bills payable, circulation, and other accounts), The income bonds, which fall due in 1870, will also be fundable in the same bonds. When all this funding has been completed the total bonded debt will be $2,067,800, and the interest thereon $156,068. The ability of the road to earn this amount cannot well be questioned, and before the funding is completed it should earn a much larger amount. The earnings over ordinary expenses as heretofore shown, for the year 1865-66, with an incomplete road and a deficiency in rolling stock, amounted to $173,729 48. SOUTH SIDE (VA.) RAILROAD. The South Side Railroad constitutes a principal link in the chain of railroads between the seaboard at Norfolk and the Mississippi at Memphis, and prospectively a link in the line, now being constructed, via Knoxville and Cumberland Gap to the Ohio River at Cincinnati and Louisville. As a distinct work it extends from Petersburg to Lynchburg, with a branch from the first named place to tide-water at City Point, as follows: At the commencement of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1866, the reestablishment of the roadway and stations which had been destroyed during the late war, and the necessary repairs of locomotives and cars were yet incomplete, while much remained to be done to make the rolling stock equal to the business demand of the road. At that time also, the very important structure, the bridge over the James River, was not completed, and, in fact, was not in usable order until February 1, 1866. This, however, and all other works of immediate necessity were carried forward as rapidly as possible; but from want of means the whole property is still left in anything but a desirable condition. Even at the present time the equipment of the road is in sufficient for the service demanded of it. It consists of 13 locomotives, 7 of which were added during the last year, and 110 cars, 29 of which are needing repairs. The train mileage of the year was 211,623 miles, viz.: passenger trains, 90,376; freight trains, 86,440 miles; material trains, 24,990 miles, and switching trains 9,817 miles. The gross earnings of the company from transportation for the year 1865-6, as compared with those of 1858-59, show the following results: Previous to the war the revenue of the road was very largely derived from local business, and for five years of its existence previous to that period, averaged in round numbers $371,000 per annum gross, or about $31,000 per month. For the fiscal year last past, when its receipts have been only in part and not until lately drawn from the transit trade of the country within reach of its connections, it amounted to $289,580 88 or monthly to $24,131 74. The receipts from local business were very fairly maintained from the accumulations of products during the war (which were hurried into market) until the month of May; since which time they have settled down to the low average of $12,000 per month. In the meanwhile the revenue from foreign freights increased from $4,000 to $16,000, carrying the gross earnings of the road up to $29,000 per month. Hence, it is thought that with the return of reasonable prosperity to the country through which the road passes, and the proper development of the transit trade which rightly belongs to the great route of which it forms an essential link, as between the Mississippi Valley, and the Atlantic seaboard, its future success is not doubtful. The receipts and disbursements of the company in cash from the 1st October, 1865 to the 30th September, 1866, are shown in the following abstract of the Income Account: Of this total, $446,501 12 belonged to the accounts of 1865–66 proper. The remainder has been disbursed on account of obligations contracted prior to December 1, 1865. The total liabilities of the company, exclusive of the funded debt, and at the close of 1865-66 are shown in the following memorandum: I-Obligations contracted prior to Dec. 1, 1965... II-Obligations contracted in 1865-66 III.-Interest on funded debt to Jan. 1, 1866. Less amount satisfied... IV.-Interest on funded debt to Jan 1, 1867.. Liabilities outstanding Jan. 1, 1867.... .......... $146,187 08 50,754 00 $322,624 62 The nature of this indebtedness rendered its adjustment impossible, except upon the basis of immediate satisfaction, and in view of the hesi tancy with which foreign capital now makes investments at the South, the further issue of bonds, in subordination of liens already upon the road was deemed a useless resort. In this state of the case the last General Assembly of of the State, on the application of the company for a transfer or assignment of the State claim and mortgage upon the road and its property, to the proper authorities of the company, passed an Act under the authority of which bonds for $1,000 each, and to the amount of $709, 000, that being the balance due the State to the 1st January, 1866, on her loan of $800,000, have been issued and duly certified by the Board of Public Works, as prescribed by the terms of the Act. These bonds bear 8, per cent. interest, payable semi-annually by coupons in New York, and run in even sums of $100,000 for 18, 19, 20, 211, 22 and 23 years, and in the sum of $109,000 for 24 years from July 1, 1866. The successful consummation of these plans will relieve the company from all present embarrassment, and enable it to resume the payment of interest for and from the 1st July, 1866. The funded debt of the company at the close of the fiscal year 1865-66, stood as follows: 6 per cent. 1st mortgage vonds, guaranteed by Petersburg, dated April 21, 1855, and due Jan. 1, 1870 and 75 $200,000 00 8 per cent. mortgage bonds, payable Jan. 1, 1863, $4,500; 1866, $13,500; 1867, $6,000, and 1869, $18,000.. 6 per cent. special mortgage to City of Petersburg, of April 21, 1854, payable Jan. 1, 1865 and 1868, in equal instalments. 6 per cent. 3d mortgage bonds of Jan. 12, 1855, payable Jan. 1, 1862, $14,900; 1870, $200,000, and 1872, $160,000. 814,900 00 175,000 00 7 per cent. State (Va.) Loan, payable by 1 per cent annually as a redemption fund $800,000, less amount paid to date 42,000 00 708,102 34 Total amount, Sept. 30, 1866 $1,540,002 34 The condition of the company, according to the report of the treasurer, made for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 1866, is exhibited in the following abstract: The liabilities and claims against the company outside the books, and including coupons to July 1, 1866, are stated by the Treasurer at $185,447 64. Since the date of the report, from which most of the above facts have been obtained, the Legislature of Virginia has passed an act for the consolidation of the Norfolk and Petersburg, the South Side and the Virginia and Tennessee railroad companies into a single corporation, which, with the connecting lines in the States west of Virginia, will constitute a through line under the title of the Atlantic and Mississippi Railroad, from Norfolk (Va.) to Memphis (Tenn.). This proceeding carries out the idea of a great Southern through-line entertained by the original projectors of the separate works, but which had hitherto been held in abeyance. RAILROAD EARNINGS FOR MARCH. The gross earnings of the under-specified railroads for the month of March, in 1866 and 1867, comparatively and the differences (increase or decrease) between the two periods, are exhibited in the subjoined statement: Notwithstanding the damages by the Spring floods in the West, which, this season, have been of extraordinary volume, the aggregate earnings on a less mileage of road by 50 miles, surpass those of the corresponding month of last year. This is certainly more than was anticipated, and is highly satisfactory. The statement which follows shows the miles of road operated, and the gross earnings per mile of the same roads for the same months: GROSS EARNINGS PER MILE OF ROAD OPERATED. This shows an average gain, as compared with March, 1866, of $10 on the mile of road operated. The earnings of the Erie Railway have increased most largely, the receipts showing an excess of $340 per mile. On the Chicago and Northwestern and the Michigan Central the increase over last year was $133 per mile, and on the Atlantic and Great Western $98 per mile. The Chicago and Alton, which has suffered most largely from flood damages, has lost $185 per mile. The Ohio and Mississippi earned $138 and the Illinois Central $124 per mile less than in the corresponding month of 1866. The gross earnings of the same roads for the first quarter of 1866 and 1867, compare as shown in the following table: RESULTS OF THE 1ST QUARTER OF 1866 AND 1867, COMPARATIVELY. The following account of a new staple, which is to become a competitor for the place occupied by cotton in the industrial economy of the South, is from the pen of A. B. Bacon, Esq., Chairman of the Section of Agriculture, New Orleans Academy of Science. The importance of the subject and the general interest it has elicited among planters are sufficient reasons for the reproduction of the article in the Merchants' Magazine. We ask for it a careful reading, being confident that if all that is said of the plant be true, we are indeed on the eve of a grand economical revolution: As it is one of the duties of this Academy to bring into notice any new plant which botanical science has opened to light, and which mechanical invention has made useful, it is with very great satisfaction that we present to your consideration the boehmeria tenacissima, which was transplanted from the Island of Java, in the year 1844, into the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, by the Naturalist Blume, member of the Institute of France, and which has been, within the last eleven years, introduced to practical usefulness in the appropriate soil and climate of Mexico, by M. Benito Roezl, formerly at the head of the Horticultural Institute of Belgium. A brief review of the history of this plant, and of those textiles with which it may be compared, may not be uninteresting. Flax and hemp, which like it furnish from their stalks the fibre which is used for threads, have been in use among civilized nations almost from the origin of man. But with all the discoveries made in chemistry, all the skill in cultivation, the result of centuries of use, and all improvements made in mechanical contrivance, they have never yet been made to cheaply clothe the multi |