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SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 27 
MOIiES AND CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — I see that one of your 
correspondents does not like the idea of killing moles 
with strychnine ; but believes in letting them have full 
sway. Now it has been my plan, as it is many others, to 
kill all of the above mentioned pests that could be found ; 
nor do I think it would be profitable to stop a warfare 
upon them; for, to my certain knowledge, they are very 
destructive to young cotton ; and last spring they nearly 
ate all my peanuts; besides there are other depredations 
they commit. 
I have been feeding the Chinese Sugar Cane, and find 
that it gives my horses a very bad cough. I should like 
to know from F. J. R., why it is so. It would afford me 
much pleasure to have my inquiry an inoculation of 
fruit trees answered if there can beany light given on the 
subject. R, 
November, 1858. 
[What was the question 1 We have lost sight of it. — 
Eds,] 
Manufactories at Home.— It seems a great pity that 
the North can’t learn to raise cotton, or the South to spin 
it. 
So said Prentice, of the Journal, on the 7th July, and 
60 we endorse on the 21st, and by way of helping 
along, we ask the planters of Hinds and Madison, who 
have money to enter land in the abolition States, if they 
would not act more to the interest of the country which sup- 
ports them, by investing in manufactories. Rumor oc- 
cassionally reaches us Americans, that Louis Napoleon, 
and Mr. Prince Albert are investing in America, looking 
out for some change by which they may lose their crowns. 
Is it so with these rich folks — afraid to lose their negroes 
— and they are making fair weather with the enemy. 
If the South will manufacture all she needs, the North- 
ern men will have to work to keep body and soul to- 
gether. We have ever found the troublesome animals 
well fed. Do the Yankees as the man prayed about the 
preachers — “keep them humble, dear Lord, and we will 
keep them poor,” — put them on short rations and they 
will not meddle with any body’s business save their 
own. 
There is wealth enough in Hinds to build a large factory 
in Jackson, enough in Madison to build one on Canton, 
and in Warren for the largest size in Vicksburg, and if 
managed well, will pay as well if not better than cotton 
planting. Manufactories, unlike railroads, benefit all 
owners and citizens, whereas railroads seldom pay the 
owners. 
We go not for a manufacturing community, but to 
make our own necessaries, and would not object to see in 
the entire South all shirtings, sheetings, calicos, towels 
and linseys, including twills of cotton and wool. Negro 
shoes, hats, blankets, wagons, carts, plows, axes, hoes, 
&.C., &c . — Planter and Mechanic. 
Feeding Poultry. — Professor Gregory of Aberdeen, in 
a letter to a friend observes : 
As I suppose you keep poultry, I may tell you that it 
has been ascertained that if you mix with their food a suf- 
ficient quantity of egg shells or chalk, which they eat 
greedily, they will lay twice or thrice as many eggs as be- 
fore. A well-fed fowl is disposed to lay a large number 
of eggs, but cannot do so without the material of the shells, 
however nourishing in other respects the food may be; 
indeed, a fowl fed on food and water, free from carbonate 
of lime, and not finding any in the soil, or in the shape of 
mortar, which they often eat on the walls, would lay no 
eggs at all, v/ith the best will in the wmrld. 
Wash your Head.— One of the New York quarantine 
physicians. Dr. Bissell, in giving his testimony touching 
the matter of the late riots, stated it as his opinion “ that, 
if a person’s hair is washed and combed every day he is 
not liable to disease, because cleanliness of the person is 
alwmys preventive. If a man were at work all day in 
the vicinity of the sick, and his hair v/et with perspira- 
tion, the doctor don’t think he would get the disease ; but , 
if he let the hair get dirty and matted, he thinks he could 
not very well escape.” The Norfolk Herald, in corrobo- 
ration of this, says ; 
So important a result from so simple a cause may 
seem incredible to many, but not to us. There is not a 
more effective preventive of disease than the immersion 
of the head in cold water every morning, the year round. 
We know an old gentleman, now the rise of seventy, who 
says that until he was thirty years old, he was of rather a 
weakly constitution, and particularly liable to attacks of 
bilious fever, violent colds, and headache; but having 
beard that the best preventive of headache was to wash 
the head in cold water every morning immediately after 
rising, he commenced the practice, and has continued it 
to the present time; and, during the interval of forty 
years, has never had the billious fever; hardly knows 
what the headache is, and, though sometimes taking 
cold, has never had a cold that hindered him from attend- 
ing to his ordinary afifairs ; add to this, he passed un- 
scathed through the terrible epidemic of 1855. In other 
respects he has lived, ate, and drank as other people do, 
and has rather been inattentive to matters of hygiene. 
Advent of “Jack Frost” for Ten Years Past, — A 
vast number of inquiries having been made to us by citi- 
zens yet staying away in our vicinity for some authentic 
data of the past by which to form some judgment of the 
probable visit of frost in the present season, we append 
the dates as taken from our yearly statements. 
These dates are of what is termed a “killing frost,” 
though in some a white frost appeared at an earlier period 
of the season. Still as these are not always reliable for 
clearing away the epidemic, we give those which are quite 
sure : 
In 1848 there is none recorded. 
In 1849 it was on the 26th of November. 
In 1850 it was on the 17th of November. 
In 1851 it was on the 6th of November. 
In 1852 it was on the 27th of November. 
In 1853 it was on the 25th of October. 
In 1854 it was on the 14th of November. 
In 1855 it was on the 24th of October. 
In 1856 it was on the 8th of October. 
In 1857 it was on the 19th of November. 
Mobile Register. 
A Fact Worth a Thousand Theories.— One of the 
stationed preachers in Charleston states that the colored 
portion of his congregation pays one-third of the expenses 
of his church— their contributions amounting to SljOOO to 
Si, 500 per annum ; that the colored persons attached to 
the four Methodist Episcopal Churches in that city, con- 
tribute annually about $1,000 to Missions. Is there a 
single church in all the free negro States where the hired 
white laborers are able to pay one-third of the church 
expenses 1 We doubt it, even including Lowell, the hot 
bed of abolition, and of bought free labor. — Cherav) Ga- 
zette. 
