SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
PEOGEESSrVE PLAITTERS — LETTEB FBOM DR. 
PHILIPS. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — To >vhom honor is 
doe, palsied be my pen if I fail in rendering it, according 
to niy ability. In my steam trip to your State I saw 
much to admire, and would be gratified to spend an entire 
year in visiting the planting region of the South, in ex- 
amining the workings of Cotton, Sugar and Rice. 
Having been devoted to our calling — agricultural im- 
provement — for these 25 years, and taken pains to examine 
as carefully as time and circumstances would warrant, I 
hope to be excused if I call names. I do so not to need- 
lessly bring private men before the public, but that their 
good example may be profitable to our people. 1 will go 
farthest from my home, and yet in sight of my old home. 
Dr. Parker, in Columbia, has one of the choicest herds of 
milk cows I have seen ; his arrangements are worthy of 
examination, and the visitors to Columbia would profit by 
going out to his dairy, where they will see Brahmin and 
Devon and Durham cattle w'ell provided for and yielding 
a handsome profit to their spirited and worthy owner. He 
has a few fine hogs. Dr. P. is improving lands and being 
compensated, though the same lands were not remunera- 
tive when I was a boy, for I knew almost every foot, once 
my father’s. I could name an estate near Augusta, where 
much attention is being paid to stock, where waste lands 
have been made to produce equal to our Mississippi 
swamp lands, through the indomitable energy of the 
talented owner, but I am forbidden to allude thereto, and 
will cross the noble Savannah and refer to a planter who 
shows an annual 'return from sale of corn, hay, shucks, 
pumpkins &c., equal to our 10 bale planters of Mississppi. ‘ 
I allude to Col. Wai. J. Eve, of course; and here I thank 
him for his appreciation of agricultural labor, by his kind 
-treatment of one of its workers, I feel that the very kind 
attention to me was a tribute of respect to the cause I love 
to follow. 
Col. Eve proves conclusively that a varied husbandry 
will pay in the South as well as elsewhere ; and I hope as 
he becomes more conversant with the management neces- 
sary that his pay will increase, It requires more talent, 
thought — mind — and labor to keepup a varied husbandry 
than to make money by cotton, sugar or rice. His wood 
lands must be laid down to pastures, and when clover, i 
timothy, herds grass and blue grass are thoroughly and i 
properly tried in the swamps of the Savannah, hogs and , 
mules will be reared in connection with wheat and oats i 
and corn, cheaper tlian in Kentucky. Clear up all under- i 
growth, deaden all useless trees, and sow down clover i 
and timothy, then blue grass as follows: — 10 to 12 lbs. of! 
red clover with 12 to 15 lbs of red top (herds grass) or I 
10 to 14 quarts of timothy, afterwards 5 to 10 lbs, of blue ! 
grass seed. Use no plow ; sow on the land in October, and | 
when the two first are about in bloom feed off from say j 
15th ot April to 1 5th of June, not two closely fed off; the j 
trampling of cattle will benefit blue grass, fed again in the 
fall, and as the two first wear out watch for spots where 
no blue grass and scatter seed ; be careful in feeding blue 
grass to not let stock on for about 30 to 40 days when in 
seed so as to have fresh seed until your land is well set. i 
Thus will he be able to rear stock for market and for i 
home use. This is the great desideratum in the South. 
We must try all the grasses. ! 
Georgia will make a betterinvestment by paying Si, 000 | 
or S10,000 to some man to test grasses thoroughly in the 
proper way, than in any other investment. We expend j 
far too much capital to raise corn, to kill up our mules | 
and make our own meat. \ 
Pastures are the cheapest, and when planters see for I 
ti'emselves that gras.ses can be grown profitably we will 
m 
then have taken the march to independence, and it is 
sheer folly for us to speak of independence when we have 
to buy mules, meat, butter, &c., from abroad. A few such 
men as my friend Col. Eve, and we will see less depen- 
dence on cotton and our country be the gainer thereby. 
Yours truly, M. W. Philips. 
Edwards^ Miss., June, 1856. 
OWE NO MAN ANYTHING. 
This may be bad poetry, but depend on it ’tis excellent 
sense. It is an old saying that the debtor is a slave to 
the creditor. If so, half the world enter into voluntary 
servitude. The universal rage to buy on credit is a seri- 
ous evil in this country. Many a married man is entirely 
ruined by it. 
Many a man goes into the store for a single article. 
Looking around, twenty things strike his eye ; he has no 
money, buys on credit. Foolish man! pay-day must 
come and ten chances to one, like death, it finds you un- 
prepared to meet it. Tell me, you who have experienced it, 
did the pleasure of possessing the article bear any propor- 
tion to the pain of being called on to pay for it when you 
had it not in your power I 
A few rules well kept will contribute much to your hap- 
piness and independence! Never buy what you really 
do not want. Never buy on credit when you can possib- 
ly do without. Take pride in being able to say, I owe no 
man. Wives are sometimes thoughtless, daughters now 
and then extravagant. Many a time when neither the 
wife nor the daughter would willingly give a single pang 
to the father’s bosom, they urge and tease him to ^ 
articles, pleasant to be sure to possess, but difficult for him 
to buy ; he purchases on credit, is dunned— sued ; many 
an hour is made wretched by their folly and imprudence. 
Old Robert presents his compliments to the ladies, and begs 
they would have the goodness to read the last eight lines 
once a week till they get them by heart, and then act as 
their own excellent dispositions will direct. 
Never owe your shoemaker, your tailor, your printer, 
your blacksmith or laborer. Besides the bad policy of 
keeping in debt, it is downright injustice to those whose 
labors you have received all the benefits of. 
How happy the man who owes not a pound, 
But lays up his fifty each year that rolls round, 
He fears neither constable, sheriff, nor dun; 
To Bank or to Justice has never to run. 
His cellar well filled and his pantry well stor’d, 
He lives far more blest than a prince or a lord. 
Then take my advice if a fortune you’d get, 
Pay off what you owe, and keep out of debt. 
Strawberry Leaves as a Substitute for Tea. — M. 
Kletzinsky, of Vienna, has lately made a report upon the 
use of the leaves of the wild strawberry {jiagariavesca) 
as a substitute for tea. When gathered soon after the 
ripening of the fruit, an infusion of the leaves is a most 
agreeable dietic drink. The leaves may be dried in the 
sun or on heated pans; the infusion from the leaves thus 
prepared is greenish, slightly astringent, and somewhat 
similar to that obtained from the China plant. The in- 
fusion is miscible with milk without coagulation, possess- 
es the same diaphoretic and diuretic properties as tea, 
and is slightly excitant . — New Orleans Medical, News 4* 
Hospital Gazette. 
Benzole for Insects. — M. Reynal, a veterinary sur- 
geon, has discovered that benzole is fatal to parasites ift 
animals, and he has employed it v/ith success on animals. 
It is more safe than tobacco juice or mercurial ointnaent 
to be used on calves and sheep. 
