AGRICULTURAL OBSERVATIONS 269 



observe the failures and successes along many lines 

 of agriculture in widely separated districts and 

 saved me from making many mistakes, while 

 forming my judgment and improving my teaching 

 capacity. 



While travelling in South Carolina, on one oc- 

 casion, I was the guest of a wealthy and intelligent 

 planter who had somewhere earned the degree of 

 M. D. I commented to him on the great value of 

 the oil* expressed from the cotton-seed which 

 had formerly been wasted leaving all the nutri- 

 tive value of the seed for feeding and fertilizing 

 purposes and in an improved condition. To which 

 he replied, quite seriously, that he never sold any 

 cotton-seed because he considered the oil which it 

 contained a valuable fertilizer everybody knew 

 how beneficial soapsuds were when used around 

 fruit trees and the soap was made of oil and 

 grease ! This reminds me of another superstition 

 that I picked up in the South. While visiting Mr. 

 Joseph Jefferson, the well-known actor, at his cat- 

 tle ranch and winter home near Vermillion Bay, 

 Louisiana, he told me that he had cured his rheu- 

 matism by carrying a potato in his pants pocket 

 until it had dried up into a hard little sphere; and 

 to prove one part of the story he exhibited the 

 potato ! 



