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SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
who would fieely spend the time and money required to 
hold such a Convention. Popular sentiment is ready for 
it, provided all our agricultural journals agree upon it, and 
they ought to take the lead. We hope all will speak free- 
ly upon this subject. 
With deference and respect, 
F. H. Gordon. 
Sugartree Farm {near Rome) ^ Tenn,^ Feb., 1859. 
BOIili WORM INSECT — BIBB’S PATENT. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — In this, my first 
communication, I promise to deal in plain, stubborn facts 
— facts, proven by experience, and, if any contributor to 
your excellent Cultivator should feel his experience ag- 
grieved in reading these “facts,” let him “stand from 
under,” or else, take up his pen and wage a war to the 
last drop of ink in the “stand.” So much by way of in- 
troduction. 
Here, in the northern portion of Mississippi, we have 
as fine a farming country as the sun has yet shone upon 
(I refer to the prairies of Monroe and Lowndes counties) 
unlike any other soil I have ever seen, requiring a differ- 
ent mode of cultivation. What I consider the proper cul 
tivation of this peculiar soil I shall possibly make the sub- 
ject of another communication. Allow me, in this, how- 
ever, to that the continued growing of one crop, with- 
out ever rotating, upon the finest land in cultivation, 
will entirely exhaust and render it worthless in a few 
years. All farmers are aware of this, and yet how few 
profit by ib 
These Prairies were once covered with a dense mat of 
grass, weeds, &c., the soil being fed continually by a 
large amount of decomposing vegetation, the natural soil 
containing large quantities of shells and lime in almost 
every conceiveable form, together with other necessary 
chemical compounds, making the soil capable of the high- 
est productive qualities. In this condition it was found 
and settled — the heavy surface of grass and weeds were 
turned under by large plows, and cotton and corn grew in 
perfection — large crops w'ere soon gathered — one bale to 
an acre was a common yield — by some, fouiteen bales 
were made to the “hand.” Nothing was allowed to grow 
in the field but the planted crops ; grass and weeds were 
almost considered a disgrace ; the farms were as clean as 
an eastern garden ; the fi-rmer would defy you to produce 
a hatful of grass frdm his entire farm. In preparing the 
land for a crop, the cotton and corn stalks of the previous 
year were all carefully pulled up, thrown in heaps and 
burned — time could not be spared to haul off cotton 
seed, which rotted in large heaps at the gin house. 
It seemed riever once to occur to the farmer to restore 
something to his land until, worn out by constant drain- 
age, it refused to yield so bountifully. This despicable 
system of cZeaw has well nigh ruined our prairie 
lands. I confess the soil is as black and, apparently , as 
rich as ever, yet it does not yield one-half as much as 
formerly. I, therefore, class this mode of culture under 
the head of ‘^dovjnright foolishness.'^' 
I am not an advocate of foul farming ; but believe in 
returning to the sail something, whether it be in the rota- 
tion of crops or a portion of the farm lying out resting, 
sowing small grains or a crop of peas in the corn, or at 
least, giving back to the soil the cotton and corn stalks. 
Our lands are now rich in some things, yet literally im- 
poverished for want of vegetable matter in its composition. 
With us, the cotton crop has got to be the most uncer- 
tain of all others, and subject to more disasters than ever 
cursed the land of Egypt. Grant that it escapes the early 
frosts of spring, the cold rains, “sore shin,” crawfish, rust 
and insect, and that even in July, the prospect was never 
so flattering, let there be but a few more rains than are 
needed, the miller makes its appearance and in flying 
about, -deposits its larvae on every stalk in the field, and in 
twenty days the cotton bolls are but empty, rotting, stink- 
ing hulls — the “second growth” has made a mass of large, 
thick, heavy leaves — tender “water shoots,” and all over 
the field, the best prospect in the world for non-payment 
of debts and extended bills on January 1st following. 
What has brought about this great change in the produc- 
tion of our soil ? Why this exhaustion of the soil 7 Why 
these unnumbered disasters I if, in a great degree, it be 
not through a system of bad cultivation, then give me a 
reason, ye learned “cotton headed” savans of the prairie. 
The insect, or “cotton louse,” frequently injures the crop 
in the spring. 
In reading your Oaltivator I find various opinions ad- 
vanced in regard to what it is that produces this insect. 
Seeing them in great numbers on my cotton last spring, 
and desiring to find out what produced them, I experi- 
mented sufficiently to satisfy my mind of their origin, 
habits, &c. They are deposited on the leaf by a small 
black ant ; a few days after the hatching out of the egg 
they have wings and can fly about. If now taken and 
placed under a glass, in a few days they will shed off their 
wings and are nothing more than the common little black 
ant. 
I experimented, also, with the boll worm, and may, at 
some future time, give you the result of my observations 
with regard to them. I will say now, however, that the 
prevailing idea of their hibernating in the cotton or corn 
stalk is false in the extreme. I am prepared to prove this 
assertion. 
Wm, H. Bibb, a citizen of this county, claims to have 
invented a plan for destroying the miller, which produces 
tne boll worm — he has procured a patent for it. It is 
simply a lamp set in a large tin pan — in the pan there is 
molasses •, it is Ik up at night and placed on a pole some 
six feet high ; the moth flies against the glass and falls in 
the molasses below. One lamp cought two thousand moths 
iu one night, whilst testing it last summer. 
Now, my dear Editors, if you can make this communi- 
cation in anything like “ship-shape,” you will have per- 
formed an “Herculean task.”' 
Homespun. 
Prairie Horne, Feb., 1859. 
EDUCATION OF ENGEISH GIRLS. 
BY REV. J. C. BODWELL. 
Step info Moseley’s in Summer street, and you will see 
one indication of a good time coming for daughters — 
ladies’ boots, with soles of a thickness which it will cheer 
every man''s heart to look at — and fa.shionable, too — the 
very latest fashion ! -Now, is it not a matter for Kejoicing 
and even for devout gratitude, that it is actually fashion- 
able for women to wear shoes which will keep their feet 
dry and warm '? 
Our countrywomen have long endured great and cruel 
hardships in this particular, compelled to wear so flimsy 
an article as if all the shomakers were in league with con- 
sumption and death ; while their husbands and brothers 
have walked by their side in boots which protected them 
from all harm. This hardship and cruel inequality of the 
sexes has been national, as the custom of pinching the feet 
of women has been peculiar to the Chinese. European 
women have been wearing the very description of boots 
and shoes which is now fast becoming fashionable with 
us, never dreaming of anything else as at all consistent 
with common sense. English duchesses have worn shoes 
from time immemorial which our country misses would 
have considered very vulgar. And so English duchesses 
have retained their plumpness and bloom and joyous 
health to fifty and sixty years of age, while our women 
