PRINCIPLES AND PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE. 50 



and a-lialf to four pounds of cotton, carefully weighed. In the 

 perfection of this improvement, yet in a state of great crude- 

 ness, when every stalk upon the acre (2940) shall mature 

 equally ivcll, what may I reasonably calculate to gather ? 



" Nil desperandum, 



Possunt quia, posse videntur." 



N. B. CLOUD. M.D. 

 Planters' Retreat, Ala., Dec. 26, 1842. 



SECTION II. PRINCIPLES AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE IM- 

 PROVED CULTURE OF COTTON. 



From the Albany Cultivator. 



MESSRS. GAYLORD AND TUCKER: Entertaining the profoundest 

 respect and the kindest feelings towards the opinions and 

 practices of those planters who are greatly my seniors in 

 age and in agricultural experience, I propose, now, to en- 

 gage in discussing " the principles and philosophy of this 

 improvement in the culture of cotton." I will first remark 

 directly, gentlemen, what I have intimated throughout this 

 correspondence that in conducting these experiments, and 

 in advocating the claims of this improvement, (the leading 

 and meritorious features of which belong to your invaluable 

 Cultivator,} I have had no ambition to gratify which is not 

 common to the lover of science and agricultural improvement ; 

 nor have I any interests to subserve thereby, which may not 

 be the privilege of every planter in the country, however 

 humble his pretensions or ability. Yet, admonished as I have 

 been, by the precipitate and unmeasured tirade of vituperation 

 and spleen which my first paper excited among the corps edi- 



