176 COTTON 



ment, the presence of a poisonous substance, or from some 

 unknown constitutional defect. The source of " canker," 

 which attacks fruits and fruit trees, of the potato rot, and 

 the rot in the seed and lint of cotton, is involved in great 

 obscurity. "Whatever may be the primary exciting cause either 

 of the premature extinction of life in the parts affected, and 

 of their rapid dissolution, the warmth and humidity of the sur- 

 rounding atmosphere may be such as to favor the destructive 

 increase of the malady. All living beings are creatures of 

 circumstances, with many of which the wisest are yet un- 

 acquainted. We know that inflamed flesh is apt to mortify ; 

 and that the dead limbs of a man, like those of a tree, may 

 even drop off by purely vital and chemical processes. Nature 

 has many secrets in vegetable and animal life and death, that 

 human science may never penetrate nor reveal. But this fact 

 should not prevent our studying all the phenomena of vitality, 

 as displayed in ultivated plants and domesticated animals. 

 English farmers find it impossible to grow common red clover 

 on land where this plant has flourished for a half century, 

 without being able to assign any good reason for the fact that 

 the soil is now "clover sick." A change of crops, in all such 

 cases, has been the best remedy, where others failed. The 

 fastest horses, with the largest constitutional resources, may 

 be broken down by over work ; and why may not the vital 

 resources of the cotton plant be over tasked by those who seem 

 willing to drive cotton culture as one drives a free horse, till 

 he foils dead and rots ? 



The over-feeding of an animal is a poor remedy for pushing 

 him beyond his natural powers of endurance ; and, by a parity 

 of reasoning, to surcharge the vessels and cells of a plant with 

 liquid manure, is not a proper preventive of " rot," in its sound 

 or. diseased system. Potatoes rot most, when thus treated. 



According to our ideas, diseases in vital organs and functions 



