358 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
^P^During a very pleasant visit which we lately made 
to St. Simons’ Island, our kind host, Col. Hazzard, pro- 
mised to give his mode of making Sea Island Compost 
and erecting Tabby Houses ; and we thankfully acknow- 
ledge the receipt of the following article, which, we 
doubt not, will interest many of our readers on the sea 
coast and elsewhere : 
SEAISI.AND COMPOST»-‘*TABBY” HOUSES, &c. 
Mr. Hedmond — Dear Sir — You request me to furnish 
you with a statement of the mode of making our valuable 
compost, which is far better adapted to our soil and cli- 
mate than all the foreign fertilizers we have tried. I men- 
tioned to you my experiment with Kettlewell’s prepar- 
ation, which burnt up the rice it was applied to; stiewed 
along the drill by the spoonful, as directed; while a por- 
tion of the same field, manured with our compost, grew 
over five feet high, and yielded 32 bushels to the acre, 
which, I am told, is a fair average on river swamp as this 
was highland rice. 
Our mode of making compost is to gather up all the 
little people on the place, as soon as the leaves begin to 
fall from our extensive groves about the buildings, mak- 
ing it quite a jubilee to them ; after they have swept up 
and carried off lo the cow-pen in wheei-barrows all the 
the leaves fallen at that time, they are treated to a lunch. 
This forms the neuclus with the marsh grass from the 
stable every nciorning ; and as soon as the labor can be 
spared, men are employed in mowing our Blackrush and 
Marsh Grass, at from 6 to 9 cords per hand per day, as 
the tides suit. A cart with a long slat body, a yoke of 
oxen and a boy takes off about a cord per load, driving 
into the hard marsh, filling and scattering it over the pens, 
then a layer of the most succulent weeds, such as Poke, 
“Jimson” (Datura Stramonmni), and all other weeds, 
mud, cotton seed, leaves and lime, alternately. When it 
is required to be applied to cotton land (as it has accumu- 
lated since the first operation of leaf-gathering with our 
little people, as a source of amusement to them and profit 
to us, some 4 or 5 feet deep of solid, well rotted manure 
in every pen you saw,) it is cut through and carried off 
in carts by oxen and strewed along deep furrows run in 
each old cotton alley by a double mould board plow and 
two oxen, another small plow following, throwing up a 
furrow on each side, forming the bed and retain- 
ing the rich grasses to become the future pabulum of 
our fine Sea Island Cotton, 
For corn, it is applied and the land prepared different, 
being flush-plowed, racked off the distance the corn is to 
be planted 3, 4 1-2 and 5 feet, holes chopped deep, partly 
filled with this compost, partially covered with the hoe, 
corn planted and the covering finished. 
You wish, also, to know how our “Tabby” Houses are 
made, which you saw during your late agreeable visit to 
West Point, We have a vast deposit of oyster shells, as 
you saw, cast away on every side of the Indian wig- 
wams, the former inhabitants never imagining, in their 
wildest visioms of the future, that a race of men would 
drive them to the utmost limits of the West and use these 
very shells to erect fine buildings and construct the most 
permanent, beau*iful, level roads for their comfort ; but 
such is the case. 
The Tabby buildings you saw, are built out of these very 
materials. We burn the lime on the spot, cart the shells 
along the line of buildings, and to one part of shells, we 
add one part of lime, one part of sand, and water to mix 
the whole, forming two two-inch planks into open moulds 
the length of the wall you wish to build ; the thickness 
being regulated by head pins and nails to secure the 
moulds in their places with two guage pins at each end and 
two or more in the middle, according to the length of the 
wall, then fill in with the shell mortar, pestled well all 
the while with a round piece of wood with a handle in 
the centre of one end ; hence the advantage of carrying 
up the walls of more than one house at a time, which 
gives your Tabby time to dry and consolidate in the 
moulds before knockiug out the pins and removing 
them. 
I have thus endeaved to answer your inquiries as suc- 
cinctly as possible, earnestly hoping they may be satis- 
factory to you and interesting to the readers of your 
valued work, and wishing you the utmost success in 
your laudable efforts to improve the literature, and extend 
the agriculture of our noble State, and the most complete 
realization of your sanguine expectations of establishing 
vineyards and wine making throughout the State, 
I am, dear sir, yours truly, 
V/. H. H. 
St, Simons'' Island, Ga., Sept., 1859 
KIEEING HOGS AND SAVING BACON. 
To A “Lover op Ham” — I will give the mode which I 
have practiced for a long time very successfully. The 
hams I cure, generally sell in Savannah at 15 to 18 cents 
and are considered equal to Westphalia. Kill the hogs 
before day, and when they are drained remove them to 
the smoke house ; or, which is better, kill them at 4 or 5 
P, M., and get them to the smoke house by nightfall. The 
object is to keep the meat from the sun and flies. Cut up 
the meat, cutting off the hams first, so that while some 
of the hands are engaged i,n cutting up the other meat, the 
hams can be attended to ; sprinkle a small teaspoonful of 
powdered saltpetre on each ham, and rub it in with the 
fingers, or make a solution of saltpetre and swab the 
hams with it; then add a tablespoonful, or more, of red 
pepper to each ham and rub it in ; then add a tablespoon- 
ful of good brown sugar or good New Orleans syrup to 
each ham and rub that in ; let the hams lay till the other 
meat is cut up and rubbed with salt and laid away; then 
take the hams and rub them with salt and lay them away 
single, on boards. 
The next morning or the next night take up the hams 
and rub them with salt thoroughly and put them 
in tight tubs (molasses hogsheads cut in two) till the end 
of the fourth week ; then hang them up to smoke. The 
shoulders may be treated in the same way—the middlings 
need not be. Smoke with tan bark or green hickory 
wood ; kindle with light-wood chips. Have some hick- 
ory ashes prepared in dry weather and kept in a barrel 
in the smoke house, and when the meat is taken down 
(early in March) rub it all with ashes; lay away the 
hams by themselves in tubs or boxes ; between every 
layer of hams put four sticks, made from old oak boards 
or seasoned wood. Pack the shouHers by themselves in 
the same way, and the sides or middling the same. Over- 
haul the meat the 1st of May and 1st of July, and rub 
with ashes again if need be. 
This is very troublesome ; but every lover of ham must 
take pains in order to satify his delicate appetite. 
D. P. 
Mount Zion, Hancock County, Ga., 1859. 
How TO Prevent Sore Shoudders in Working 
Horses, — An exchange says, the plan we have tried and 
never found to fail, is to get a piece of leather and have it cut 
into such a shape as to lie snugly between the shoulders 
of the horse and collar. This fends off all the frictions, 
as the collar slips and and moves on the leather and not 
on the shoulders of the horse. Chaffing is caused by fric- 
tion ; hence this remedy is quite a plausible one, and is 
much better than tying slips of leather, or pads uf sheep 
skins under the coUar. 
