SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR, 
205 
MODEST CORRESPONDENTS — CHINESE 
Sugar Cane— Sweet Gum Trees, &c. 
Editor Southern Culwvator — I suppose you but 
seldom receive fault-finding communications for your jour- 
nal. I have concluded to make up a small bill of com- 
plaints — not against the CultivoMr directly (for I suppose 
that I am not a whit behind its warmest friends in admi- 
ration of the valuable information it contains), but against 
the practice of many of your correspondents. In the first 
place, some of your correspondents that write as sensible 
and every way as well as there is any need for, 
will consume much time and space in making apologies, 
such as “ I am not accustomed to write for the pre?s,” “I 
waited for a more experienced hand,” &c., just as if all 
the readers of the Cidlivator were literary or learned men 
and all sneering critics at that, whereas I suppose that 
most of us would not more than detect a palpable viola- 
tion of English Grammar. This maybe justifiable mo- 
desty, but too much of it does harm, I think. Again, 
another numerous class of correspondents write some of 
the best pieces, and most interesting, over fictitious names. 
Now, I can see no use for that course in an agricultural 
paper, and have no doubt but many good and timely com- 
munications have failed to make an impression for want 
of a proper name to back them ; for it has much the ap- 
pearance of a novel, or it may be even worse — it may be 
a cheat. 
But to the subject that directly induced these reflec- 
tions : 
In the June number of the Southern Cultivator, for 
1859, pages, 174-5, is a communication over the signa- 
ture of “Sylvanus,” Sumpter county, Ala., (no Postoffice) 
that I feel some interest in, and as I am a cultivator of 
the Chinese Sugar Cane, I have no doubt but he could 
give me some valuable information, but for want of his 
address I have no means of getting it (I fear) in time for the 
present crop. 
The information wanted is : first, the proper time to 
cut the cane to make the largest yield as well as the best 
article of Syrup. I have cultivated the cane and made 
Syrup for the last two years, and have a crop growing 
now, and believe that it pays better to the amount of 
home consumption than any crop I raise. I feed my 
hogs on the green stalks from the time the heads turn 
dark, and they do well, and I cut the heads from the cane 
that is ground, and h^use them for the cattle in winter 
which is also good, and make plenty of Syrup for family 
use, and sold two barrels last year at sixty cents per "i- 
lon. I have made the best Syrup that I have seen, - ut 
am satisfied that it »ight be made better. I clarifie the 
first with lime, and the next with soda, which was .uuch 
better ; yet there is something wrong, for althou . it is 
palatable, and, I think, perfectly wholesome, yet a child 
that eats it lavishly at almost every meal, keeps his teeth 
always stained, and I fear will finally cause them to de- 
cay. I should like to know it Sorgho Syrup has a bad 
effect upon the teeth, and whether he thinks that we can 
well afford to make Sugar for family use while we culti- 
vate cotton principally as a crop. 
To kill sweet-gum trees, instead of belting with an axe 
in the usual way, use the poll of the axe and pound it 
just hard enough to make the bark puff up, without 
breaking, forming a belt about six inches wide round the 
tree. Do this any lime in summer — at the time of full 
moon may be best. Respectfully, yours,. &c , 
Wm. H Stevenson. 
DeKalb, dJiss , Jane, 1859. 
[We send you a pamphlet on Sugar Cane per mail, and 
hope you will find it useful —Ed.] 
WHEAT, RYE, OATS — DESTRUCTIVE WORMS, 
&c. 
Editor Southern Cultivator — The wheat crop is al- 
most a failure in our section, this season. I manured a ten 
acre field with guano and stable manure last year and it 
yielded me four hundred bushels of corn. I sowed it in 
wheat last fall (one bushel to the acre) and have only 
been able to save five bushels from the ten acres of land. 
Some of the wheat ripening early and the other being 
green, I desired to let it stand until all was ripe for seed 
and most of the early ripening fell down before the latter 
was ripened. 
In hauling in the manure, some rye grains were scat- 
tered in the field ; they came up and grew finely and after 
heading and the grain commenced filling I found a. small 
horny worm destroying full half the grains of the rye, 
eating into each grain from the outside and remaining on 
the head from one to as many as five to each head, mea- 
suring from a half to three-quarters of an inch in length, 
the diameter about the same as a full grown grain of 
wheat. There are some stalks of Oats in the same field, but 
the worms have not committed their pepredations on any- 
thing but the rye, webbing themselves up after eating all, 
or nearly all, the grains. 
I have bottled a few heads of rye, with several worms 
thereon. One of the worms has produced a pretty, little, 
harmless-looking fly. 
Will some of your correspondents inform me if they 
have known or heard of such an insect devouring rye to 
the same extent, and oblige 
Yours truly, W. S., Sen. 
Gum Creek, Dooly County, Ga., May, 1859. 
■ " ■ ■ • ^ • ■ ' 
False Pride.— “Uncle Jeems,” writing from Charles- 
ton, S. C., to a country paper, notes the arrival in that 
city of two school teachers from the North, and remarks : 
We have much available talent in the South, but I fear 
there is too much pride in the way. I can see no more 
discredit in a female teaching for a livelihood than for her 
husband to be working for a living. There are, I fear, 
many yOung ladies of education, who, while they might 
be contributing to the dignity and independence of the 
South, by engaging in some occupation where they are 
needed, though they may feel ever so patriotic, allow us to 
seek the services of those North of us, whose interests 
must be more or less antagonistic to our institutions, 
simply because a false pride will allow them to imagine 
that dignity and a crust are preferable to anything assimi- 
lating to servitude. This is a great error. True dignity 
arises from the ashes of the spot on which we build the 
fires that illume and cheer, and warm the friends and off- 
spring of the friends who surround us. “To do good and 
to communicate, forget not,” is an injunction of Holy 
Writ; and it would be well for us to shake off our lethar- 
gy, and rise to a true knowledge and sense of our po- 
sition and duty. 
Strength of the Camel. — The Mobile Advertiser 
says : 
“A trial of strength was made with one of Machodo’s 
camels yesterday afternoon. Two bales of cotton, weigh- 
ing together about 1100 pounds, were lashed together and 
placed upon his back, with which he marched off appar- 
ently as unconcerned as though they were not there. 
This was not one of the large camels.” 
2^“Could every man be always impressed with the 
solemn fact that his life is short, and the labor which he 
ought to accomplish great, he would more than double 
his present rate of intellectual attairments and material 
progress. 
