SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
231 
•country they bring home to their resting places at night, 
but what they bring there they have taken from their feed- 
ing quarter, so that while they enrich their pen they im- 
poverish their pasture. Add to this, more than half their 
food passes off in insensible perspiration. Of that which 
remains a great deal passes into bone, blood and flesh, 
while no inconsiderable amount is consumed in keeping 
up the wear and tear of the animal system. Of all they 
eat and drink there remains for manure but the indigest- 
ible parts, and the decayed portions of the animal which 
pass off in the farm of dung and urine— perhaps not a 
tenth. 
It seems to me the reason of the thing suggest the fol- 
lowing remedies: 
1st. Deep horizontal plowing and ditching. This will 
keep what you have and what you add. 
2nd. Turning everything into manure which will make 
it, husbanding it as you do your gold, and scatter it over 
your field with a liberal hand. 
3rd. Shade the soil. This cannot be done to better ad- 
vantage than by sowing, in abundance, grasses, clover 
and small grain, peas, planting potatoes and fruits of 
every kind. These will shade the earth in summer and 
their rootlets act as ties to the soil in winter. 
Shade induces gentle showers. These grasses, grains, 
<&;c., will extract food and richness from the atmosphere — 
from the soft showers and pearly dews — and their roots 
from the decomposing subsoil which deep plowing will 
enable them to reach. All the parts of the earth unshaded 
and exposed to the direct and continued rays of the sun 
have and would become sandy deserts. Let us learn 
from and imitate Nature. 
After raising grasses and small grain, stock-raising be- 
comes of value to a farmer. They change these into pork, 
milk, butter, cheese and beef, wool and mutton. In a 
word, they are machines by which he can extract from the 
bulky and raw material, the prepared and valuable por- 
tion ; leaving the insoluable parts in the form of manure 
— bring everything into use at once. 
5th. Since we must raise cotton, let it be done amidst a 
rotation of crops, and as much as can be, on land too level 
to wash when thrown up in ridges and deprived of root- 
lets. 
6th. Let our farmers raise everything at home neces- 
sary for home consumption, which the soil will, either di- 
rectly or indirectly, produce, and there are few things 
which it will not. This will give farmers an opportunity 
to rotate their crops; enrich, instead of wearing out their 
soil, and save the freight and carriage of the articles back 
and forth which they buy for home use. They will have 
less cotton for sale, it is true, but what they do have will 
be clear cash — not spent in expenses and buying the 
next year’s support. It seems our farmers are in a whirl, 
“making more cotton to buy more negroes to make more 
cotton to buy more negroes,” &c. They should make 
land (not negroes) the standard of value; ornament and 
cherish home as a patriotic and Christian virtue ; live 
there — not stay, as at a tavern — and cease this everlast- 
ing moving “Westward, ho !” 
Publius. 
Reclusa, Ark.^ June, 1859. 
[We commend the above article (with those previously 
published on the same subject,) to the especial attention 
of our readers ; and, in this connection, cannot refrain 
from giving the private note which our friend, “Publius,” 
sends us with his very excellent article. It is as fol- 
lows : 
June 1st, 1859. 
Dear Sir : — Enclosed I send you an article, suggested by 
reading the article commenced in your May and concluded 
in your June number, on “The Cheapness of Lands at the 
South— its Causes and the Remedies.” A subject fraught 
with the dearest interest of the South, and one, in my 
view, which cannot be too much agitated. Should you 
think the article worthy, give it a place in your valuable 
journal. It is longer than I should wish, but, owing to 
the extent of the subject and the many causes and reme- 
dies connected with it, I could not express my views in a 
less space. 
I am not farming as a primary pursuit, but was raised 
on a farm in the South and love it better now than the strife 
and chicanery of Court, lou will see by your list that I 
am a subscriber to the Cultivator and have been for some 
two years. Everything contained in it, even to the ad- 
vertisements, is carefully read by not only myself, but by 
my wife also. No visitor is more welcome. 
Very respectfully, H. 
HONEY BEES — WARTS ON FOWLS, «fec. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — As the Honey Bee 
question has been agitated in your journal for the last 
number or two, I would like to ask a question or so, if 
found suitable for the Cultivator. I see, by reading in the 
Agricultural Report of the Patent Office for 1857, D. J. 
Browne says that the oldest queen bee leaves the old hive 
with the young swarm every time. If so, does a bee’s 
wing grow out after being cut off I fori have cut off 
several wings in my life, and they have swarmed after- 
wards and always seem to do fine. More, the queen 
may be caught very often, if you see them commence, by 
standing at the old gum and watching the hole as they 
come out; for she is about the last. If not found, go to 
the place where they commence settling; for she will 
frequently light some distance from them and crawl along 
to the bunch, and as the workers find her out they will 
hold tight, with head down, to the thing they are on and 
fan with their wings— easily noticed by any one. If 
scissors in hand, you can very soon have the hive, what 
I call, safe. 
One more item. A neighbor has lost a good many 
chickens by warts. Several instances where an old hen 
would take warts on her bill and eyes and then on her 
legs, and soon the whole brood of chickens would be in 
the same condition, and death always followed. He lost a 
great many in this way. They were fed and watered 
better than the common run. Both Shanghais and com- 
mon chickens all fared alike. 
A cause and remedy, from some of your correspondents, 
would oblige one and perhaps many more of your readers. 
H. S. H. 
Gaudaloupe Co , Texas, June, 1859. 
SWEET GUM — TO DESTROY. 
Editors Southern Cultivator— Though but three 
years a subscriber to your journal, I find myself, like the 
country lass with the gloves, “I do not know how folks 
do to get along” without it, and, as a matter of course, con- 
sider myself under obligations to contribute my mite ofin- 
formation when I can. You will please inform your in- 
quirer of how to kill Sweet Gum trees, that if he will belt 
them about the 20ih to the 25th of August he will not be 
bothered with many of them long. Occasionally one will 
survive until the second year, or even sometimes to the 
third season, but they will be few and far between. 
I am, yours truly, JoNiH. 
Cheney ville. La., June, 1859. 
A great many farmers trim up a little pet of a tree 
until it is nothing but a broom handle, and then complain 
that it does not do well. 
