SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
197 
I promised to show that yeast in bread may be produc- 
tive of more mischief than soda. Yeast is the deposit 
formed in fermenting liquids, and has the property, when 
added to solutions of starch or sugar, even in exceedingly 
small quantities, of exciting the vinous fermentation in 
the whole mass. “A little leaven leaveneth th3 whole 
lump,” was a familiar household phrase long before the 
advent of chemistry as a science ; and yeast is still added 
to bread, that it may communicate the vinous fermenta- 
tion to the starch and sugar in the meal or flour, and 
thus cause a disengagement of carbonic acid and alcohol, 
by which the bread is “raised.” I do not wish to deal-as 
unmercifully with yeast as others have done with soda ; 
but facts are subborn things, and I will state a few that 
must be admitted by all. We take into the stomach at 
every meal, more or less, sugar and starch, and if it be not 
readily acted upon and dissolved in the gastric secretions 
will undergo the vinous fermentation, producing sour 
stomach and the escape, by belching, of carbonic acid. It is 
well known, as above stated, that yeast hastens this pro- 
cess, and will, as a matter of course, lessen the possibil- 
ity of a healthy solution in the gastric fluids. Cholera 
morbus and diarhoea are much more common in large 
cities where yeast is easily obtained, and much used, 
than in the country. A healthy stomach, especially in 
winter when the system is in a vigorous condition, may 
take yeast in considerable quantity and digest the meal 
before the process of fermentation has time to take place. 
But not so with weak stomachs, or healthy ones in the 
heat of summer when the vital energies are depressed ; for 
under these circumstances sour stomach is caused, car- 
bonic acid is disengaged in large quantities, and if the 
contents of the stomach are not ejected by vomiting, they 
are forced through the pylorus undigested, frothing and 
foaming into the bowels, and a diarhoea is the only means 
violated nature has for relieving the system of the offend- 
ing materials. Sylvanus. 
Sumter County ^ Ala., Jane, 1859. 
WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD EARMEH ? 
Our friend and correspondent, G. D. Harmon, thus 
asks and answers this important question, in a late num- 
ber of the Cotton Ptanter ; 
If the Disposer of human events should permit this 
world to stand a thousand years longer, the time will 
surely come when every man who tills the earth will be 
compelled to be a good farmer or stay-ve to death. This is 
a strong expression, but as true as it is strong. Old fogy- 
ism may continue to denounce those who labor to im- 
prove the agriculture of the South ; but the time will 
come when their posterity will see their stupid folly, and 
be forced to improve the soil which their ancesters butch- 
ered. The day has already come with England, France, 
Germany and Ireland, where agriculturists are compelled 
from true necessity to study their profession, and improve 
their systems of farming economy, to an extent limited 
only by their power to do so. If they were to pursue the 
course that the planters of the South are now persuing, in 
less than twenty years they would either starve to death, 
or be forced to leave “their own, their native land.” 
But the question arises, what is a “good farmer I” 
There is much diversity of opinion on this question. 
Sometimes the men who run over the most land per hand, 
and drag out of the soil the most money, regardless of the 
wear and tear of land, and team and force, are called 
good farmers, yea, the best farmers. But is that true I I 
admit it not. To do so would be equivalent to admitting 
that the doctor who made the most money, regardless of 
the lives he destroyed, was the best doctor. The one 
would be about as true as the other — both are utterly 
false. 
A “good farmer,” according to the best and most intelli- 
gent agriculturists of the South, is the man who improves 
his land, and the appearance of his place, improves his 
stock and takes care of his force. And I think this de- 
finition of the term is correct. 
No man, however intelligent on other subjects, no 
matter how much money he may be making for the 
time being,, should be considered a “good farmer,” in the 
strictest sense of that term, who grossly neglects the im- 
provement of his soil and force and stock. No man who 
cultivates the hills and permits his fields to wash into 
yawning gullies, and turns them out for his children to 
reclaim, at the cost of much labor and expense, or leave 
their old homes, or starve, is to any extent, whatever, a 
good farmer. No rnan who denounces agricultural im- 
provement, and agricultural journals, totes corn in one 
end of his sack, and a rock in the other end to balance it 
because his “daddy” done it, can possibly be a “good 
farmer.” 
COTTON — FAESE PACKING! 
A correspondent of the Edgefield Advertiser thus re- 
bukes a very mean, rascally and fraudulent practice 
which has of late become altogether too prevalent : 
Mr. Editor — If “I am not out of order,” I beg permis- 
sion to call the attention of the cotton growers of South 
Carolina, to what I conceive to be, and is a sad and grow- 
ing evil — involving character on the one hand, and money 
on the other. I allude to the improper packing and 
putting up of cotton. I have been a dealer in cotton 
for many years, almost exclusively in that product ; and 
sold within the limits of South Carolina ; and I am sorry 
to say that I have had to do with more cotton thus im- 
properly put up the past season, than I have had in the 
whole of any three years of my experience. Therefore, 
you will perceive that the evil is a growing one. 
I need not say that there is evident wilful fraud mani- 
fested, by the putting into cotton any foreign substance, 
such as sand, rocks, seed, &c., — and, last, but not least, 
loater — which of all, is the most objectionable, from the 
fact that it is the most common. The purchaser not only 
losing the weight of the water, but, to a great extent, the 
cotton. 
Will not some or all of the various Agricultural Associ- 
ations, that have been, and are being formed in the vari- 
ous Districts, take cognizance of this evil % Some of the 
States have interposed by Legislative enactment. I would 
much rather that the necessity should not arise here. I 
have but little doubt that many cases occur through inat- 
tention on the part of owners or overseers. The result in 
this case is the same to the purchaser ; and who most 
generally comes to the worst conclusion in the premises. 
,There are many who designedly put their cotton up in 
this way, under the belief that the cotton cannot be traced 
back to them. I will say to such, they are under a mis- 
apprehension. The shipping of cotton is to so perfect in 
system, that every bale can be traced from Liverpool back 
to the-planter or the first seller. Under that impression, I 
have no doubt but that many are induced to persist in it. 
Many sellers of such cotton have been sllowed to pass, for 
the sake of feeling, when it is traced, beyond a doubt, to 
their door. 
I say, therefore, inasmuch as the evil is a growing one, 
the reputation of our State and Nation demands a relief— 
and right and common justice demands it. I trust that 
the pride of our State will never be again compromised 
and humiliated by the record in Liverpool or elsewhere — 
that a fraudulent packed bale of cotton cleared from a 
port in (or was produced in) the State of South Carolina 
Then our proud motto wilt be 
Justice. 
