246 
SOUTHSUN CULTIVATOE. 
SWEET POTATOES, ETC. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — As very near all of 
our planters have lost almost their entire crop of Sweet 
Potatoes the past wintei", I would like to get some infor- 
mation from you or some of your correspondents as to 
the best mode of preserving potatoes through the winter. 
Seed potatoes have been selling at three dollars per bushel 
here this season, and I have no doubt that slips will sell 
readily at fifty cents per hundred, perhaps more, indeed I 
understand that one of my neighboi's has been offered a 
cent a piece for every slip he can spare. It may be that 
potatoes would have rotted last winter, pnt up in any 
manner, but still there may be a difference between your 
mode and ours. 
Our planters have been set back a great deal by a heavy 
storm of wind passing over our county Tuesday night, the 
29th of April, a great quantity of timber being blown 
down, houses unroofed and one or two persons in this 
neighborhood killed, and some cotton destroyed. We 
have had several hard washing rains within three weeks 
past, and we have now fine stands of corn, cotton, weeds 
and grass. 
Excuse me for troubling you, but being a young farmer 
I wish to learn all I can from experienced persons, rela- 
tive to anything pertaining to the business. 
Truly yours, L. H. Hall. 
Her nandoy Miss. ^ May, 1856. 
[See the various articles in the present and previous 
numbers of this journal. The rotting of the Potatoes last 
year was not generally caused by defective putting up. 
Many of them were spoiled before they were dug. — Eds.[ 
THE WYANDOT CORN. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — Almost every mail 
brings me complaints from those I furnished with “Wy- 
andot Corn and, as many of the complainants are your 
patrons, may I ask to say a word in explanation in your 
most excellent paper. 
I received from Mr. J, E,. Thomas two lots of corn. Of 
the first lot I do not think I have a complaint. Of the 
second I have many complaints, and I an entirely at a 
loss to account for it, unless the corn being shelled from 
the cob in that extreme cold weather and when frozen 
(for Mr. T. was obliged to shell it in mid- winter to fill the 
pressing orders) or if injured on the way to me by express 
(for it was a long time coming) I cannot say which. 
On the first complaints I thought it was planting too 
early, so I tried it under glass and found it would not ger- 
minate. I stopped selling it, and to as many as have 
complained I sent a little to all from some ears I saved 
out of the first loti received from Mr. Thomas, and I hope 
they will have an opportunity of seeing what it will do at 
the South, 
I have apprised Mr. T. of the fact, and he says all who 
lost their corn shall be supplied next year gratis. 
I sent you some to have you try it, but do not know if 
of the first or second lot. Will you please advise me if 
yours come up ; for I ^m sadly disappointed at the failure, 
as I had looked for the most flattering result from the long 
and warm summers of the South allowing it to fully ma- 
ture. 
Fearing you may have received of the second lot, I put 
in a few grains to re-plant in case the first failed. 
Yours truly, &c., 
J. C. Thompson. 
To'niykinsville, Staten Island, New York, May, 1856. 
[The first lot we received came up and is doing very 
well.— Eds.] 
BED EDGS--AGAIN. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — -Perhaps there are 
many people who are acquainted with the fact that 
bed bugs may be destroyed by catching them on leaves ; 
but of the many recipes for destroying them I do not re- 
member ever to have seen published the following, which 
the writer of this article deems not only the most effectual, 
but most convenient, and subject to the least objections, 
which is : 
To sweep the hall or room ; spread the bed or mattrass 
on th^ floor; then lay comfrey leaves all around, lapping 
them a little so that the bugs will have to cross them to 
come to you, when their claws will hitch to the fuzze on 
the leaves and they will rem.ain attached to the leaves 
and may be removed with the leaves in the morning and 
burned. 
The writer has counted 100 to the leaf, not a few leaves 
either. Leaves may be placed under the table legs or bed- 
stead feet— we do not have to seek where to apply our 
means, they come to you from all their hiding places. K 
building, in this way, may be entirely rid of them. I have 
seen them taken from the largest to the smallest size. 
Comfrey grown on poor or dry land will not answer this 
purpose. Comfrey loves rich, damp land where the leaves 
will grow long and as large as tobacco, which might an- 
swer for the same purpose, but I have never tried it — the 
only objection is, it must have time to grow. 
Jefferson, 
May, 1856. 
[An ingenious remedy — neat and simple — who will 
give it the first trial 1 — Eds.] 
THE BLANCHING OF PLANTS. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — If you deem the fol- 
lowing worthy the attention of your readers, please give 
it a notice in the Cvltixator : 
Comstock says : “Plants vegetating in the dark are 
white, feeble, almost tasteless and contain but little com- 
bustible or carbonaceous matter. On exposing such 
plants to the light of the sun their color become green, 
&c.” 
Last week, when plowing and replanting a few acres 
of corn, we found a number of such (white) plants, with 
from four to six blades. These were in the same hills 
with the green plants and had the same opportunity of 
containing combustible matter. What is the cause of these 
plants being white 7 They are exposed to the light of 
the sun. Why do they not becomes green % 
Said corn was planted the 11th of April — only one 
light shower of rain, and a light frost after planting, till 
plowing and replanting. A Subscriber. 
Rock Springs, Ga., May, 1856. 
P. S. — May the 6th. Rain in abundance since writing 
the above. 
THE SEASON IN MISSISSIPPI, &C. 
Messrs. Editors; — As elsewhere, it was extremely 
dry here until a few days ago, when we had a delightfiil 
season, which considei’ably swelled the streams, and so 
thoroughly saturated the soil as to enable all who had 
neglected it before, to finish preparing their stiff lands for 
the reception of seed ; thus giving new life and energy to 
the planting community, and especially to those who had 
lands so hard by the 15th of April that they could not 
have been planted without rain. 
Three days after this it commenced raining again, and 
such a succession of heavy rains as we had for four days 
and five nights, it seems to me, I never saw fall in the 
same length of time, and I am certain not at the same sea- 
son of the year, within my recollection. 
