SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
m 
Hogg’s Seedling, a small apple that does not ripen until 
frost, but keeps well until April. Away then with your 
Northern varieties; they are fit only for abolitionists to eat 
on Southern soil. Give me Mr. VanBuren’.s at S'l a tree, 
in preference to having my orchard set with Northern 
trees for nothing. I, therefore, recommend all those want- 
ing good winter apples to send to Mr. Van Buren for his 
kinds, or do as he has been doing for years past — select 
from the seed themselves. 
In conclusion, Messrs. Editors, will you be so good as 
to give us your plan for raising Celery. We see many 
recipes in the Cultivator, but none has succeeded with us. 
In earthing up the side leaves, as directed, the bud is also 
covered up and dies. How, do your manage it % Please 
give us your mode of cultivation. Very truly, 
E. JlNKINS. 
Horse Pen, Miss., June, 185G. 
Remarks. — The bud should not be covered. Draw 
tire side leaves together with the hand, and pull up the 
earth carefully. In all other respects, adhere to the system 
iveretofore recommended. — Eds. 
Remedy for the Peach Tree Borer.— Some years ago 
I procured 25 pounds of sulphur and put one gill to each 
peach free that I had set at the time. I removed the earth 
two or three inches around the tree and applied the sul- 
phur close to the body of the tree, and the borer never 
troubled them for the eight years I was there. I examined 
them yearly and found none, but the sulphur was there 
as good as ever, and apparently unchanged; I think it will 
remain so for a century. Ashes are good : if put around 
the tree before the borer attacks them I think them a sure 
remedy. One peck in two years will not hurt them, 
leached or unleached — I prefer unleached.— Araeri- 
'OM. 
HOGS, PORK AND BACON. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — There is no subject 
of more practical interest to the Southern planter than the 
proper mode of making his home supplies. The immense 
quantity of pork and bacon of foreign growth sold in the 
State of Georgia affords a forcible illustration of our want 
of a well regulated syustem of plantation economy. Why 
not raise our own pork 1 Is there any want of adaptation 
in our soil, climate, or the labor we employ, or any other 
inherent obstacle in the way of accomplishing what we all 
concede to be a most desirable object I That there are 
no such barriers in the way, is proved by the fact that 
many, very many of our judicious planters make their 
own supplies, and some of them a surplus, and at the 
same time realize a large income from their cotton crops. 
It is not necessary to appeal to the lessons of political 
economy to prove that no State can be continuously pros- 
perous which draws a large proportion of its sustenance 
from a foreign source. 
Is it our interest to raise pork, or is it good policy to re- 
main dependent on the neighboring States of Tennessee 
and Kentucky for this great necessary of life I The ex- 
perience of a vast majority' of the planting community, 
e.specially that experience which extends through a series 
of years, will establish the proposition that it is cheaper 
to raise our pork than to buy it. Irrespective of the great 
outlay of money in providing an ample supply of pork, 
there are some minor considerations which should not be 
overlooked. The inconvenience of procuring bought hogs 
at the proper time for killing and the trouble and risk of 
I 
transporting them from where they are bought to where 
they are consumed, however near the two points may^ be 
to each other, are objections of some moment. If these ob- 
jections are removed by purchasing bacon, I reply that 
we can manufacture a better article than we can purchase, 
an article containing more solid meat, less salt and water, 
and affording a more healthful and nutritious diet for our 
negroes. It is considered by many, and I think properly 
so, that some disgrace is attached to the habit of purchas- 
ing meat for plantation use in the absence of any acciden- 
tal cause which may have rendered it impossible to make 
it. I do not use the word disgrace in its offensive sense, 
nor as implying any act of moral delinquency, but as merely 
expressive of that sense of humiliation which we all feel 
when we are compelled, however disagreeable it maybe, 
to do that which, by proper prudence, we might have 
avoided. 
In Middle Georgia we have but little excuse for not 
raising our pork. Not to do so under the favorable cir- 
cumstances by which most of us are surrounded argues 
some obliquity of judgment — some want of agricultural 
skill — an ignorance of the plain principles of domestic 
economy, and always exposes us to the suspicion of cur- 
tailing the necessary allowance of food meeted out to our 
negroes. It is an undeniable truth — the whole world 
knows it — that generally when the planter makes his own 
supplies, his negroes and stock are not so often put on 
short allowance and are much better cared for. Do we 
not gain something in protecting ourselves against the in- 
fluence of this cruel suspicion 1 
In reading Mr. Eve’s very well written address on (he 
subject of pork raising, published in the July number of 
the Cultivato'r, I was disappointed in not finding his plan 
of making pork. It unfortunately happens that our most 
fluent writers have not sufficient practical experience to 
furnish the minute details of any system of agriculture, 
and those of us who have the experience are not practised 
writers and have but little facility of style and no scholas- 
tic grace in communicating what the labor and toil of 
years have taught us.* 
It is too much our habit to suffer our hogs to take care 
of themselves. They require regular attention. What- 
ever attention they require, however regular and constant 
it may be, takes but little from the labor which the crop 
requires. I concur with Mr. Eve in the opinion which 
he expresses that in-and-in breeding exerts a deteriorating 
effect on a stock of hogs, and, therefore, we should occa- 
sionally introduce a boar from a diflerent stock. But I 
attach less importance to the occasional infusion of ex- 
traneous blood than to good breeding sows. In order to 
have sows of good size, they must be separated from the 
boar until they are grown. If they are suffered to have 
pigs at an immature age, they become stunted and are 
ever afterwards too small for breeders. This is an impor- 
tant consideration and one which is too often disregarded 
as I know from bitter experience. A large sow is a better 
milker and much more fruitful than a small one. 
Success in raising hogs depends very much on the 
nursing which the sov/s and pigs receive. No one can 
be successful in raising hogs unless he separates his sows 
and pigs from his stock hogs. Both sows and pigs re- 
quire more food than they can secure in a genei'al scram- 
ble with the whole stock, and in cold weather the pigs are 
liable to be overlaid by larger hogs crowding upon them 
in the same bed. Every farmer should have a small woods 
pasture with water in it, even if it is several hundred yards 
from his crib lots, and should have a small house contigu- 
ous to it as a depository for corn. In this lot he should 
turn in his sows before they have pigs, together with 
*Our correspondent need scarcely rank him.self among the lattei- 
class. There i.s a here an ample sufficiency of “scholastic grace" 
and lucidity for all practical X'urposes. AVc hope to hear from him 
regularly.— E d.s. So. Cult. 
