SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
65 
THE FIG. I 
This is, emphatically, the poor man’s fruit, thriving in j 
almost any soil, producing fruit the first year from cut- j 
lings, and yet, notgone family in fiftyihave a good meal of j 
figs in the year. Every family in the South should have j 
a few fig trees : they require less care than any other tree. I 
Cattle wilt not browse upon them, and whites, blacks, 
adults, and children, pigs and chickens will fatten on them. 
They are a natural vermifuge for children, and not bad to 
take. 
In the upper portions of the South, fig trees will require 
some little protection during the coldest weather. It is mot 
generally the cold weather of winter that kills them, but 
the cold of spring. They should be planted in the cold- 
est, most exposed situations, so as to retard the putting 
forth the bud in the spring. A thick dressing of stable 
manure around the roots of the tree in the winter, will 
prevent frost from injuring the tree. But little attention j 
has been paid to improving this fruit, through new seed- j 
ling varieties, when it is as susceptible of improvement, ! 
- as any other fruit. Throughout the whole Southern por- 
tions of Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and 
Texas, dried figs may be exported as profitably as from 
Smyrna. — Soil of the Smith. 

Fertilizers KOR Flower Plants. — It has been proved 
that, for the generality of flowers, and more especially 
geraniums and the more delicate lilies, common glue, di- 
luted with a sufficient portion of water, forms a richer 
manure than any o'ther other yet discovered. Plants i 
placed in sand on the worst soils, display much beauty 
and vigor when watered with this composition. 
CHINE.^E .SFGAIl CANE AT THE NOHTH. 
The New York Tribune discourses upon the merits of 
the Sorgho and its ultimate effects upon the imports of the 
country in this wise, after speaking of the Beet as a sugar 
producing plant; 
“But the prospect of a liberal and profitable yield of j 
sugar from the Sorghum, or Chinese Cane, is still better. ! 
Here is no crude theory— no rash experiment. The Sor- j 
ghum has been extensively grown for sugar from time im- i 
memorial in China and other parts of the East, where | 
its product came necessarily in direct collision with that I 
of the cane. The Sorghum will grow luxuriantly in all! 
our States south of 45®,' though it will prove most produc- | 
live and profitable in the South. Two crops of it (for j 
sugar) may be grown in all the Southwestern States, 
though but one probably would ripen its seed. The evi- 
dence embodied in the last two Agricultural Reports from 
the Patent Office, wiih that afforded by the personal ex- 
perience and observation of thousands of our citizens last 
summer, abundantly prove this a sugar plant of value, 
and in connection with the use of the refuse (or bruised 
and pressed stalks) for fodder, will soon render the pro- 
duction of sugar (or alleast Molasses) as common throngh- 
our Union as that of corn now is. 
“That Sorghum is a plant strongly charged with saccha- 
rine juice — that it will grow luxuriantly from Lake Erie 
to Florida — that its juice boils readily into a very palat 
able and sweet Molasses— that the cuttle will eat and be 
nourished by the pomace or bruised and pressed stalks — 
and that this plant might be grown with profit for 
fodder alone — so much is already established. The ready 
erystalization or graining of sugar from this hlolasses is a 
more difficult process, requiring skill, chemical know- 
tedge, and perhaps expensive machinery. As yet, seed 
te scarce and dear, exj^erience limited, machinery, even for 
crushing and pressing, hardly in existence, while the no- 
torious inertia of the great mass of our farmers, and their 
reluctance to ti’y new plants, weigh heavily against any 
new industry such as this. We do trust, therefore^ 
that Congress will not now abolish nor essentially modify 
the duty on sugar. The current assumption that this 
duty enhances the price of the staple fifty or sixty per cent, 
is simply absurd ; but let it pass. We desire that sugar 
be cheap and abundant — not for to-day merely, but per- 
manently — and we believe the way to this end lies 
through the steady encouragement of sugar-growing at 
home. 
-If if 'll- ^ if . 
“But we do not gauge the capacity of this country^ to 
produce sugar by’- its adaptability to the growth of the 
Sugar Cane. On the contrary, there are other plants of 
broader range within our limits from which sugar may 
be produced, and among these we give a higii rank to the 
Sorghum This habitant of the temperate zone is not an 
upstart — it has been producing sugar in China for centur- 
ies, and in Southern Africa for generations. And the ex- 
periments in growing it in France and this country have- 
thus far proved highly satisfactory. It grows luxuriantly 
from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Champlain, though the 
IMiddle and older Southern States appear better adapted 
to it than the extreme North, where ihe uniform ripening 
of its seed cannot be relied on. We are confident, how- 
ever, that it will produce sugar in three-fourths of the 
area of the New England States. Its value as a fodder 
plant is fully established j it will produce more food for 
cattle per acre than even Indian corn, as it grows far tall- 
er, and horned cattle, horses, and even hogs eat it with 
avidity, not only when green, but also after it has ripened 
its seed. The American experiments in making sugar 
from it have as y'et been on a small scale, and with imper- 
fect machinery ; but the juice is abundant; it is about as 
sweet as that of the cane; and the syrup therefrom is de- 
cidedly the more palatable. Hitherto seed has been 
scarce, so that but a patch has been grown by any one ; 
but this year’s seed will serve to plant thousands of acresv 
and it is ail carefully saved. 
“Vfe trust Congress, therefore, will let the sugar duty- 
alone for the present. Let us give the Sorghum a trial; 
and let any other saccharine plants be also tested. To 
give up that we cannot make sugar, is to narrow the 
field of production and enhance the the price of the staple 
in Cuba, Brazil, &c To enlarge this field seems to us 
the true way' to abundant and cheap sugar.” 
COTTON TEREt^HEli AND CLEANER. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — I have been kindly shown 
an article in your Cultivator, wherein I see that you have 
received a letter from a gentlem.an residing in Texas, ma- 
king enquiries of you, if there is any such a thing as a 
Cotton Thresher and Cleaner, that cleans the dirt and 
trash out of the Cotton without injuring the staple. Also 
your invitation to correspondents or subscribers to inform 
you if there is any such a machine in their section of 
country. 
I have written to inform you that T am the inventor and 
Patentee of just such a machine as I think your corres- 
pondent wants It is a machine for cleaning the dirt and 
trash out of Cotton, preparatory to ginning. I do not 
pretend to ^ay that it icUl remove stains ; l-ut it is every- 
thing in the form of a perfect Cotton Cleaner that any' 
Planter co'vtld wish ; as it not only cleans the Cotton per- 
fectly, bu! leaves it so open, witliout injuring the staple, 
that the Saw or Roller Gin can gin one third more, and 
ihe hands can pick as much again ; for the most dirty and 
trashy Cotton can be cleaned by running it through the 
machine once. It is also an excellent Thresher for Peas, 
riie machina when made full size, run by the gin gear, 
and properly fed, call clean 35 or 40 bales of Cotton per 
/ 
