THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



105 



The night before washing, rub the clothes 

 where most soiled, with the soap, and soak in 

 water till morning. This soap, which has been 

 more than doubled in quantity, will go quite as 

 far, bulk for bulk, as the original, thus saving 

 at least one-half. The boiling and washing are 

 to be performed in the usual manner; but it 

 will be found that the labor of rubbing is di- 

 minished three-fourths, while the usual caustic 

 or eating effect of the soap is greatly lessened ; 

 and the hands will retain a peculiar soft and 

 silky feeling even after a large washing. The 

 preparation is adapted to all kinds of fabrics, 

 colored or uncolored, including flannels, and it 

 is thought to increase their whiteness. By 

 using this preparation, with the previous soak- 

 ing over night, we have had sixteen dozen 

 pieces finished early in the forenoon, when, by 

 the old process, it would have been an "all 

 clay's job." — American Agriculturist. 



DISCOVERY IN BAKING. 



A correspondent of the " Scotsman," writing 

 from Munich, says: "I have visited Professor 

 Liebig, and seen his admirable lecture-room 

 and laboratory, models for imitation in other 

 countries. He told me that in England the 

 bakers use a great quantity of alum in making 

 bread. It is employed to make the bread white, 

 moist and soft. It acts by coagulating the 

 gluten of the wheat, and it is deleterious in its 

 effects. He has discovered that water saturated 

 with lime produces the same whiteness in bread, 

 the same softness, and the same capacity to 

 retain moisture, while the lime removes all 

 acidity from the dough, and supplies an element 

 needed in the structure of the bones, which is 

 deficient in wheat, and still more so in rye. I 

 ate bread made of it in his house ; it was ex- 

 cellent. He uses five pounds of water saturated 

 with lime, to nineteen pounds of flour. No 

 other change is necessary in the process of 

 baking. The lime coagulates the gluten as 

 effectually as alum does. The bread weighs 

 well, and the bakers consequently approve of 

 it. He allowed me to report the discovery at 

 discretion." 



LIME. 



A valued friend asks us to insert the following 

 article on lime, from Lord Kaimes' Gentleman 

 Farmer : 



Lime, which is a profitable manure, and great- 

 ly profitable when it can be got in plenty within 

 a moderate distance. Philosophers differ wide- 

 ly about its nature, and the cause of its effects ; 



and they talk so loosely as to convince a plain 

 farmer that the matter is very little understood. 

 But practice is our present theme ; and the 

 benefit of lime is so visible, that the use of it 

 has become general, where the price and carriage 

 are moderate. However people may differ in 

 other particulars, all agree that the operation 

 of lime depends on its intimate mixture with 

 the soil ; and therefore that the proper time of 

 applying it is when it is perfectly powdered, 

 and the soil at the same time in the highest 

 degree of pulverization. This opinion appears 

 to have a solid foundation. Lime of itself is 

 absolutely barren ; and yet it enriches a barren 

 soil. Neither of the two produces any good 

 effect without the other ; therefore the effect 

 must depend on the mixture, and consequently, 

 the mere intimately they are mixed, the effect 

 must be the greater. — Kaimes' Gentleman 

 Farmer, p. 259. 



From the Alabama Planter. 

 THE FIELD PEA. 

 Edwards, Miss., Jan. 27, 1855. 



Messrs. Editors: The field pea being destructive to 

 cattle and hogs under some circumstances, has, in 

 your eighth number, January 22, another advocate 

 in Mr. David Lee. This matter. I thought had 

 been settled beyond all question by the many wri- 

 ters of the Cultivator in the negative, or perhaps 

 more correctly in the absurdity of such a thing, 

 when Mr. John Smith has turned hogs into his pea 

 field for forty years, more or less, and never lost 

 one. 



Some ten or twelve years ago I gave notice in a 

 paper devoted to agriculture, published in this 

 State, that I had lost nearly my entire stock of hogs, 

 and I could attribute it to no other cause than the 

 cow pea (all field peas planted south are styled 

 thus), having examined the field and opened sever- 

 al hogs. This occurred two years alter, and a 

 year after I lost nearly all of my milch cows and 

 beeves. This brought upon me much talk of want 

 of care in providing water, salt, &c. Some attrib- 

 uted it to the cockle bur, though my hogs died in 

 November ; others to the root of the pea ; others to 

 the prickly down on the pea haulm, imagining that 

 it resembled an article used for destroying worms ; 

 others to an over quantity ate, though hogs had 

 been in the pea field for thirty or sixty days and 

 cattle for a month; others to the pea being so hard 

 that it irritated the stomach, and some had cut 

 through: but finally settled down to the fact, that 

 no careful man lost stock. To all this I affirmed 

 that salt and ashes and water were in abundance 

 where my stock were ; that my stock never died 

 until after a moist, warm spell of weather, and that 

 when kept out at such times, I lost none ; but all 

 this would not do. I then produced the names of 

 quite a number of planters who had also lost hogs 

 and cattle, not as early by two or three years as I 

 had, but all would not do. 



I continue to sow peas bountifully, permitting 

 no stock but fattening hogs on them ; for if hogs 



