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SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
CROWDED SLEEPING — BAD VENTILATION, 
♦See. 
Few people seem to be aware of the serious evils result- 
ing from the crowding of several children into the same 
bed, the sleeping of healthy persons with those having or- 
ganic diseases, such as consumption, &c., &c., or the 
sleeping of young people v/ith those of advanced age. 
We deem it our duty, therefore, to publish the following 
warning from HalVs Journal of Health, and to commend 
it to the especial attention of all heads of families,, princi- 
pal of boarding schools, &c ; 
“If a man were to see a quarter of an inch of worm put 
m his cup of coffee, he could not drink it. because he 
knows that the whole cup would be impregnated. If a 
very small amount of some virulent poison be introduced 
into a glass of water, the drinking of it might not produce 
instant death, but that would not prove that it was not 
hurtful, only that there was not enough of it to cause a de- 
structive result immediately. 
“We sicken at the thought of taking the breath of 
another the moment it leaves the mouth, but that breath 
mingles with the air about the bed in which two per- 
sons lie; and it is re-breathed, but not the less offensive 
is it in reality on account of the dilution, except that it is 
not taken in in its concentrated form, but each breath 
makes it more concentrated. One sleeper corrupts the at- 
mosphere of the room by his own breathing, but when 
two persons are breathing at the same time, twelve or 
fourteen times in each minute, each minute extracting all 
the nutriment from a gallon of air, the deterioration must 
be rapid indeed, especially in a small and close room. A 
bird cannot live without a large supply of pure air. A 
canary bird hung up in a curtained bedstead where two 
persons slept died before morning, 
“Many infants are found dead in bed, and it is attribut- 
ed to having been over-laid by the parents; but the idea 
that any person could lie still for a moment on a baby, or 
anything else of the same size, is absurd. Death was 
caused by want of pure air. 
“Besides, emanations, serial and more or less solid, are 
thrown out from every person— thrown out by the pro- 
cesses of nature, because no longer fit for life purposes, 
because they are dead and corrupt — but if breathed into 
another living body, it is just as abhorrent as if we took 
into our mouths the matter of a sore or any other excre- 
tion. 
“The most destructive typhoid and putrid fevers are 
known to arise directly from a number of persons living 
in the same small room. 
“Those who can afford it should, therefore, arrange to 
have each member of the family sleep in a separate bed. 
If persons must sleep in the same bed they should be 
about the same age, and in good health. If the health be 
much unequal, both will suffer, but the healthier one the 
most— the invalid suffering for want of entirely pure 
air. ^ 
“So many cases are mentioned in standard medical 
works where healthy, robust infants and larger children 
have dwindled away, and died in a few months from 
sleeping with grand parents, or other old persons, that it 
is useless to cite special instances in proof, 
“It would be a constitutional and moral good for mar- 
ried persons to sleep in adjoining rooms, as a general 
habit. It would be a certain means of physical i|;^vigor- 
ation, and of advantages in other directions, which will 
readily occur to the reflective reader. Kings and Queens 
and the highest personages have of courts have separate 
apartments. It is the bodily emanations collecting and 
concentratidg under the same cover which are the most 
destructive of health — more destructive than the simple 
contamination of an atmosphere breathed in common.” 
THE OLD HOME PLACES — THE HILLS. 
Editor Southern Cultivator — Why is it that planters 
will leave their old homes, their old friends, their father’s 
grave, the old church, the cool spring , ecaA emigrate to the 
swamps of Louisiana, and Mississippi, to get rich land, 
and spend as much money and labor (to say nothing of 
the clean siceep of profits which they occasionally suffer 
by overflows) as would, if put upon their hill places, in 
the way of composting, subsoiling, hill side ditching and 
horizontalizing, make them as “rich as cream” — A No. 1, 
10 bale to the hand places 7 G ve me the labor and money 
which the planters of the swamps are compelled to spend 
upon their plantations in the way of ditching, and level- 
ing and lean make a hill place, with a soil of ordinary 
capacity, just “as rich as mud,” and for ten years to- 
gether, beat the swamp man to death, making money. 
Give the hills a chance. Don’t wear them out by an in- 
fernal system of agriculture, and then curse them and 
abandon them as worthless. The hill planters seem to 
think (with honorable exceptions, thank God) that all the 
labor and money they put upon their plantations, except 
what is actually required to cultivate their crops in a most 
ruinous manner, is lost — lost — for ever lost ! Ah, that is 
what has ruined the South The hill lands are worn out 
and the swamp and river lands are under w,ater —flooded I 
The late lamented S. S. Prentice said that “God had given 
known laws to every thing but the Mississippi River, 
and he just created that and told it to rip.” 
I do not know whether the Missisisippi River has laws 
by which it is governed or not, but one thing is certain to 
my mind, that it is not governed by level laws. It has torn 
the levees on both sides of the river to flinders, and is 
pouring forth floods of its imprisoned waters upon the 
broad cotton fields, one after another, and its course is on- 
ward still. 
But let us hope that the water may yet retire in time 
to plant cotton and make a half crop. Out of 1000 acres 
of cotton on this place, we have 600 out of the water. 
Yours, &c., D. 
Louisiana, May 2, 1859. 
COTTON SEED. 
Editor Sojithern Cultivator — “Cotton seed, when 
rotted, or the germinating principle in them destroyed, is 
fine feed for hogs.” 
Well, that is a fact; but they are still finer if they are 
sound. It is the oil in cotton seed that gives its value as 
a stock feeder. And as there is more oil in sound cotton 
seed than rotten seed, of course it is more nutritious and 
valuable. 
And let me tell you, the notion that there is anything 
detrimental to hogs in the soundness or germinating 
principle of cotton seed is a mistake. It is not the cotton 
seed that affects hogs, but the lint upon them. When you 
rot your cotton seed, you rot your lint, and the lint pass- 
es through the hog without harm ; hence the notion that 
rotten cotton seed will not kill hogs. Corn, with sound 
cotton lint upon it will kill hogs just as fast as sound cot- 
ton seed will. 
To get the full value of cotton seed as a stock feeder, 
boil them, with a little corn and salt, and, occasionally, 
ashes. 
Yours respectfully, 
G. D. Harmon, 
MiUiken's Bend, La.. May, 1859. 
I^^God gives riches to asses, to whom he cannot give 
anything else. — Maotin Luther. 
