SOUTHERN CU*LTIVAT0R. 
331 
ting back the limbs of a tree and the roots of a corn stalk. 
According to “W, R.'s” argument, you should begin to 
pull fodder and pluck off suckers, to increase the yield. 
It is not the cutting of roots which “aids the activity and 
life of the plant,” it is the opening of the snil to the action 
of the air, rains and dews of heaven, all of which contain 
fertilizing properties. The roots were put there to absorb 
these elements and reorganize them — not to be cut; the 
cutting is only a necessary consequence of tillage, which 
is reryus nature. You till the soil to keep down its natu- 
ral growth and force it to produce an artificial one. The 
plowing that makes your cotton kills the broomsedge, 
iron-weed, fox-tail, and other plants that would grow 
without it. Root cutting is not generally practiced in our 
gardens, yet corn or cotton grows in them more luxuri- 
antly than under the action of the plow. But we will go 
farther, and still say that by far the greatest abundance of 
facts in our knowledge is in favor of shallow cultivation 
when the condition of the soil will admit of it. It by no 
means follows that he who advocates deep plowing must 
advocate deep culture. You might as well argue that he 
who advocates shallow culture should be in favor of shal- 
low preparation, “W. R.’s” argument amounts to this — 
that the more you cut the roots the greater the product, 
and that the product depends more upon the culture than 
the soil. He cannot get out of this dilemma. Our re- 
mark as to plowing deep and cutting roots preventing the 
formation of weeds, was intended to apply to cotton. 
Every careful observer knows that as long as you plow 
cotton it grows; and the deeper you plow the more cer- 
tainly it will cast its forms. 
A word on shallow manuring. The most valuable pro- 
perties of manure are volatile. If placed near the surfkce, 
the chances for their escape into the air by evaporation, or 
of being leached out by rains are certainly more favora- 
ble than when deeply covered. The roots of plants are 
known to go downwards five or six feet in search of food 
and moisture, and there is very little danger of their not 
being able to find it, plow as deep as we may. So far as 
our experience goes, nearly every one of the maximum 
corn and cotton crops by experimenters have been made by 
deep preparation and shallow after- culture. Whenever 
“W. R.” or any of the advocates of deep after- plowing shall 
produce on an exhausted field of 20 acres an average yield ! 
of 80 bushels per acre by root cutting and surface manu- { 
ring, we may think we have been asleep. 
Broomsedge. 
Big Branchy Oct. 10, 1850. 
— — j 
THE WAY TO CATCH OWLS. j 
Editors Sodtheen Cultivator — My poultry having 
suffered all this summer from the predatory excusions of 
one of these nocturnal thieves, I procured a common little 
steel trap, such as is used to catch rats, and placed upon 
it a small bunch of cotton, with a few feathers stuck into 
it, making a poor sham of a chicken by which to decoy 
the bird of wisdom, and set it on a post in the midst of 
the territory subject to his maraudings. This was in the 
garden, where a flock of chickens roosted among some 
shrubbery. The trap had remained about a week, during 
which time we tried to drive the chickens from roosting 
on such dangerous ground, but never succeeded fully, 1 
think, until Saturday night, the 27th of September. On 
Sunday morning, the 28th, the servant girl, who slept 
contiguous to the garden, informed us that she had heard 
an owl in the steel trap, and on sending out to see, she 
reported the thief safe, “but must let him stay till Miss M. 
gets up to see him.” Miss M. is our little daughter, who 
knows where all the hens’ nests are, which are the best 
tempered and most motherly hens, knows them all by 
their cluck and how many chickens to each, their ages 
and accomplishments generally. Indeed, she is on friend- 
! ly and visiting terms with all the feathered tribe on the 
I place. But being as anxious to see the prisoner in irons 
as Miss i\I , I hastened down, a)id at the door steps found 
i all the boots and shoes of the family strewed on the grass. 
I 1 suspected what had become of Henry, the shoe-black, 
I a boy some fourteen years old. On arriving at the scene 
I of triumph, 1 found “boots” on his all-fours, that he might 
the better face the owl, (he measured forty-nine inches 
j from one extr mity of the wing to the other,) and lectur- 
ing him on the violation of the eighth and sixth com- 
! mandments. His audience, besides the owl, consisting 
! of some half dozen little darkies the nurse and the baby, 
I all the latter applauding as if he were a stump orator, 
i “making some happy hits.” But the owl seemed much 
1 bored by the business ; and if he could have spoken, 
: would no doubt have replied somewhat in the way the 
I negro sailor did, when the captain, having him stripped 
j for the cat, on a cold, windy deck, was lecturing him on 
j the enormity of his offence, when the negro said, “Mas- 
! sa, if you going to whipee, then whipee; but if you going 
to preachee, then preachee; but no whipee and preachee 
both.” The owl, like the sailor, got whipee and preachee 
both, from boots, as he was the executioner. Nor did I 
I conduct myself with proper chivalry to a fallen enemy, 
I for I gave him several ill-natured jobs with my cane, 
taunts for mistaking his chicken, &c. Indeed, the whole 
family took their turn in reviling and buffeting the pris- 
oner. It reminded me of an Indian lodge turning out to 
enjoy the fallen state of an old enemy, every member of 
the lodge having his turn at insulting or punishing the 
prisoner. 
The owl and his misfortunes continuing the subject of 
conversation at the breakfast table, I told how Miss M., 
instead of triumphing when she saw his feet in the steel 
trap, commiserated his helpless condition, saying “poor 
thing.” This led to the suggestion that the little owlets 
were without breakfast this morning, and how any of us 
would like to see father shot or caught in a steel trap, for 
procuring breakfast for little Charlie. The reply was, 
but father should not steal, even for little Charlie. But 
suppose, was the reply, nature had furnished him with 
no other means of feeding the baby : and this is a stump- 
er in ethics which I shall ask you, Messrs. Editors, to 
solve. Wilkes. 
October, 1856. 
CHEESE MAKING IN THE SOUTH. 
Editors Southern Cultivator— 1 notice a short ar- 
ticle in the August number of your invaluable Cultivator, 
with the caption “Cheese Making in Texas.” 
I will make such response my as experience will enable 
me. The rennet being the first consideration, slaughter a 
female beef or steer (either young or old); take out the 
stomach by cutting off at each end; turn it inside out; 
empty its contents ; rinse it quickly ; salt highly, on a 
plank; let it remain fifteen minutes; then stretch on some 
bush twigs ; hang it in the chimney where it can be 
smoked. When wanted for use, cut three or four pieces 
somewhat larger than a silver dollar ; put into an earthen 
vessel that can be covered; then add a large handful of 
salt, and a pint of boiling water; let it stand as long as 
one night before you commence using it. Then draw the 
milk from the cow, and to every four or five gallons of 
milk strain in one pint or more ot the rennet water. 
The milk must be warm. If the curd is not soon pro- 
duced, strain in more. Keep your rennet vessel always 
supplied with rennet and boiling water ; (do not empty 
the contents of the vessel oftener than once in ten days). 
As soon as the milk turns to curd cut it with a knife into 
squares of one inch ; take the cheese cloth, which must be 
thin and strong, and lay it on the rop of the curd ; press 
the edges under the curd ; as the whey rises dip it off 
