162 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
sity will force us to improve what we have, or our lands 
and negroes must perish together. I, therefore, consider 
every spadeful of manure as adding something to the in- 
dependence of the South ; and, of course, I advocate level 
culture, hill-side ditching, rotation in crops, manuring, 
and everything else calculated to improve our soil ; and 
could we make it a Belgium in one year it would place 
our institutions on a much firmer basis. 
Before closing this communication, 1 must notice a re- 
mark made by ‘ A. R.," of LaGrange, Ala., in your Febru- 
ary number, who also alludes to my article in your De- 
cember number, about fattening hogs on peas. He be- 
lieves, with many others, that hogs should be taken from 
a pea-field two weeks before slaughtering and fed on corn, 
to harden fat. He, in this, is advocating a doctrine not 
founded on practical experience. The fat formed by corn, 
peas, acorns, or any other food, unless it is mixed, will 
appear as obvious to the discerning eye as the layers of 
alluvial soil on the banks of the Mississippi River. Corn 
fat is white and firm, pea fat a light flesh color, and that 
made from acorns is a very light yellow and oily, which 
is never mixed until rendered up. I. hope, therefore, to 
put this hardening of fat to rest, as I think I am sustained 
by all experienced pork raisers. I have fattened pork fre- 
quently on corn and peas and discover but little difference 
as to dripping in the summer. 
I never keep my stock hogs out of my pea-field if I 
have enough for all; it is well, however, to feed and salt 
them pretty well after taking them out, until you get them 
back into industrious habits; they not being fed well after 
taking them out is the cause of their dwindling off and not 
doing well. Raise a child in idleness, with plenty, and 
put him on his own resources, without aid, and he will go 
the same way. E. Jinkins. 
Horse Pen, Miss., March, 1857. 
CHINA THEE BERRIES POISONOUS. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — In answer to the quer- 
ries of M. T. McGehee, with regard to the China Berry, I 
would state that I have some little experience, as there 
are some very fine looking trees about my yard, which 
never fails to bear large crops of berries. They have 
killed some fine pigs for me. They will keep perfectly fat 
on them and die at last. I do not know that they will 
kill old hogs, for my sows ate berries with the pigs and 
was not hurt. The robins crowded on my trees last spring 
*n gangs, and we could find them sitting about m every 
department of the yard, apparently drunk, and could not 
get out of the way. To satisfy myself whether they 
would die or not, I brought one into the house and it died 
in a few-hours. 
I have often heai’d that a decoction of the bark was an 
excellent vermifuge for children , and accord ingly I requested 
my wife to give some to our son ; she did so, and in less 
than three hours his eyes were swollen very much and 
the water streamed down his cheeks in abundance. For 
further information I would refer the reader to Ewel’s 
Medical Companion, under the head, “Pride of India, or 
China.” 
I verily believe that they will kill anything that will 
use them as their entire food, and would advise Mr. Mc- 
Gehee to abandon the idea of planting an orchard of them, 
and plant the same ground in Chinese Sugar Cane. 
J. C. Wylie. 
Marshall, Texas, March, 1857. 
N. B. — If you know of any cure for Blind Staggers in 
Horses, please publish it in the CultivoMr. This county 
is very subject to this disease. 
[See back numbers of the Cultivator for various reme- 
dies for Blind Staggers, and other diseases of horses. — 
Eds.] 
VIEEAGE ARISTOCRACY. 
Many are the follies and weaknesses of human mature ; 
but none are more contemptible than those acted out by 
the scrub aristocrats of our towns and villages. These are 
to be found in all the relations of life. A young man 
whose father was a hard working mechanic, either has a 
moderate fortune left him, or he marries a few thousand dol- 
lars, and forthwith puts on airs, perfectly disgusting to all 
who are acquainted with his “rise and progress” in the 
world. Such young men regard as beneath their dig- 
nity, the vocation of their parents, and not unfrequ^ntljr 
avoid letting it be known that they spring from such 
sources. We have even met with some who looked upon 
the vocation of an humble mechanic as beneath the dig- 
nity of a gentleman, forgetting, meanwhile, that the taint 
of the father attaches to the son ! Pride of this kind 
never finds a resting place save in a weak brain, and 
manifests itself in a perverse temper. 
There are many young men in our towns and villages 
(and some young ladies, too !) who seem to be proud of 
the wealth of their parents — while their own reputations 
would be soiled by associating with the sons of mechanics. 
In their strange infatuation, it never occurs to them that 
their fathers made all their property by downright steal- 
ing, cheating, and lying — while their grand-fathers were 
sold at public auction, in our seaports, to pay their pas- 
sage across the ocean ! See the number of young men in 
our country, who, endowed with scarcely common-sense, 
and no sort of love for genuine republicanism, resort to 
the study of learned professions, such as law and medi- 
cine, while every mark about them declares, in terms 
which cannot be misunderstood, that the God of Nature 
intended them for brick-layers, house-carpenters and 
black -smiths. Many of these ought now to abandon 
their professions for the more profitable and equally hon- 
orable fields of labor, where their fathers made money 
enough to educate them, and thus elevate them to stations 
in which they never can move with ease and grace. God 
deliver us from the bastard aristocracy of our little vil- 
lages, and cod-fish aristocracy of our larger towns ! Among 
these hateful funguses of society, respectability is based 
upon the nature of a man’s vocation, instead of the man- 
ner in which his duties are performed. The only senti- 
ment which well regulated society recognizes, is in that 
sound maxim — “ Act well thy part — there all the honor 
lies .” — Exchange 2^aper: 
THE COTTON PEANT AND THE OLIVE 
Brandi. 
The -olive branch as an emblem of peace, has parted 
with its significance in the amity existing between the 
American eagle and the British lion. The classicality of 
its deep green spray and bright berries has lost all its 
appropriateness, since the sturdy spokesmen of the depu- 
tation of English husbandmen, in addressing Mr, D'Israeli 
said, “Now doant let us have no war wi’ Merica, Cluster 
Duzerly.” England had learned a lesson, had drunk au 
unpalatable draught just then, and found to her astonish- 
ment that though she might trample upon the long accept- 
ed emblem of concord, the olive branch, yet the cottou 
plant, the bread-giving, wealth-creating cotton plant, was 
not thus to be treated with indignity. It was no doubt a 
revolting mental dose this realization of her own depen- 
dence, and doubly so because it has, in a measure, placed 
her in a false attitude before the world. For the press of 
France insists that England quails before the power of the 
United States, and that we have placed upon her a most 
grevious insult. To view the matter in this ligh‘ is not 
generous, nay, more, it is unjust. England has not been 
I brow-beaten, but has merely attended to the admonitions 
j of sound sense. The English may be a nation of utilitari- 
