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SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
A MODE TO MEASURE CORN— PERFECTET 
Correct and Applicable to all Circumstances 
—Simple— Easily done and not 
hard to Remember. 
Get a box of any convenient size and guage it accu- 
rately, so as to get tne number of cubic feet it contains — 
fill it with Corn— shucked or unshucked, and shell and 
measure it correctly. Measure crib also in the same 
way — then apply the Rule of Three and you have con- 
tents of your crib, if you have made your measurements 
and calculations correctly. } 
To illustrate : Suppose your box is 3 by 4 ft. and 2 ft. 
1 inch deep — 25 cubic feet. We will suppose thht it holds 
5 bushels of shelled Corn\— no matter whether schucked 
or unshucked. Of course, the Corn measured, comes from 
the bulk you wish to guage. Your crib or bulk of Corn, 
wc will suppose to be ICTby 20 ft. and 10 feet deep— 
2,000 ft. 
Now, here is the statement : 
FEET. 
BDSHELS. 
FEET, 
25: 
5: : 
2000 
5 
25) 10000 (400 bushels. 
100 
00 
This is reliable — will do to buy by, or sell by— any kind 
of Corn. If in the shuck or any portion is unsound, as 
is usually the case— assort the Corn in the box when 
you shuck it and measure the sound and unsound seper- 
ately — the quantity of each gives you the basis for ascer- 
taining the exact quantity of each in the bulk to be mea- 
sured, if the boxful which you have measured, is a fair 
specimen of the whole. I prefer the above rule to any- 
thing I have seen on the subject, because of its accuracy 
and universal applicability. H 
Sparta, Ga., 1859. 
DEADENING SWEET GUMS, &c. 
Editor Southern Cultivator — In the June number 
of the Cultivator, “C. L.,” a new beginner, inquires for the 
best mode of deadening Sweet Gum timber. I answer, belt 
them during the month of August, by simply taking out a 
chip all around; they will put out the next spring in a weak 
state, gradually decline that summer and die. That is 
my experience and observation, and is the best plan, all 
things considered, known in our parts. 
If we are so situated as to thus belt them the August be- 
fore planting the land, we would not have a green gum 
on our land ; and, in addition, the roots would give way 
measurably the first year we cultivate. 
I will also inform everybody interested how they may 
effectually kill Willow Trees, root, top and branch. Any 
time that the bark will peel, spring or summer, chop the 
bark through, 4 or 5 feet above the ground ; strip it loose, 
in strips, down to the ground, (not pulling it off) ; let it 
lie there; and, my word for it, it will never bud again, 
nor ever put up a single sprout from the stump or roots. 
If you wish, you can cut them down the ensuing winter, 
for the work of killing is accomplished. 
Thos. F. McGehee. 
Meriwether Co., Ga., June, 1859. 
How to be Respectable. — In an article upon Free 
Blacks and their duty to make money, if they would be 
considered respectable, the Christian Examiner says : 
“ No race in this country will be despised which 
makes money. If we had in Boston or New York ten 
ourang outangs v/ith a million of dollars each, they would 
visit in the best society ; we should leave our cards at 
their doors, and give them snug little dinner parties.” 
PASTURAGE — CORN CROPS, &c. 
Editor Southern Cultivator— Next to the able and 
judicious manner in which your journal is conducted, 
the most admirable feature in the Cultivator is the cor- 
respondence from practical farmers. Farmers generally 
reflect too little upon the various ways and means of 
farm economy ; but I am encouraged to hope, from indi- 
cations, that a better day is coming. I believe that farm- 
ers are beginning to appreciate the dignity and importance 
of their position, and it will be a glad day for our country 
when they do take heed of their course, and endeavor to 
redeem their past history ; for I think that the history of 
farming in the South is the most disgraceful that any 
people had ever to reproach themselves with; for they 
have in a short period of time exhausted and, to a great 
extent, ruined the whole country east of the Mississippi, 
They have allowed Bermuda and Coco Grass to ruin a 
great many plantations in the Mississippi Valley— they 
have cleaned out none of their rivers, and have built very 
few railroads, and paid for still fewer (by the bye, the 
city and town people must have most of the credit for 
what Railroads are built), they have paid little or no at- 
tention to sheep raising or the improvement of stock, in 
fact, most of them not raising meat enough for home con- 
sumption, but depending upon a distant country— little or 
no attention has been given to fruit culture or horticul- 
ture, or the embellishing of their residences. They have 
paid no attention to preserving or improving their lands, 
but have directed all their energies to opening and 
destroying fresh land “to make more cotton to buy more 
negroes,” All the clear money that has been made by 
farmers in the South has been laid out in introducing ad- 
ditional negroes, while the course has been to lessen the 
value of their labor by destroying the productiveness of 
the soil. e 
In this connection, I am happy to see that you and 
your correspondents are devoting so much attention to 
Grass Culture, It is a mystery to me why the pasturing 
of land has been so long overlooked by our people. I do 
hope that the grass-pasturing of land will be quickly and 
generally adopted ; both for the preservation of our poor 
ill-used land from the plow ; and its renovation, and for 
the feeding of stock, as there are but few localties where is 
good “range.” We have been accustomed to depend on 
crops of Indian Corn, which is the meanest, most trouble- 
some and uncertain crop we raise, besides yielding the 
poorest return for the amount of labor. For you know 
that it requires deep, rich soil, almost constant work — 
plowing, hoeing, suckering, &c. And then it must have 
rain too, or our labor is, in a great degree, lost ; and if we 
could sustain our stock on pasturage of grasses (as 
we undoubtedly could do) we would not have to 
plant more than one-half of an acre in corn to each per- 
son on a place, and then we could work that small quan- 
tity like a garden, and manure it until it was a perfect 
Lobos. And there is hardly any soil but would produce 
some one, or more, of the grasses well enough to raise 
stock, on and that, too, in any sort of a season. I re- 
member, a few years ago, (1855 I believe) there were 
serious fears of a famine in South Alabama in conse- 
quence of the drouth. Corn got up to ^1.50 and to S^.OO 
per bushel in the canebrake, the greatest corn country in 
the South, I know planters who had a large surplus to 
refuse to sell at ^1.50 per bushel, but after rain did come, 
several advertised over 1000 bushels of old corn for sale. 
This, too, in fifteen miles of Isaac Croom, from whom 
these people should have learned the wiser policy of a 
variety crops. 
This shows how much corn crops depend on rain. Is 
it not unwise to depend entirely for life on such a crop. 
Yours truly, Ozan. 
Washington, Ark., May, 1859, 
