50 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
rich claret culor and very abundant ; the flavor 
line, with a delicious admixture of sweet and 
sour; and forming altogether, wheu fully ripe, 
a most delicious table grape. If Mr. Camak 
will intorm me by letter or otherwise, how to 
forward to him, I will have much pleasure in 
sending a couple of plants, that he may test this 
fine fruit in his region. 
When I have again leisure, I may have 
somewhat to say on the cultivation of the vine, 
through yours or some other journal. I, will 
only now add, that excessive deep planting will 
assuredly prove injurious. Moderately deep 
planting, however, tke soilbeing of a provorlion- 
ate depth, is by all means advisable. W ith you 
in th • north, even as far south as Cincinnati 
and Nashville, and in the colder districts of Eu- 
rope, the vine is trained low that it may benefit 
by the reflection of the sun’s rays from the earth ; 
while here, and even in l.itiludes north of us, to 
avoid this, and to secure the lull benefit of the 
shade afforded by its own foliage, and all the 
air possible, the vine requires to be trained 
high — over a ten or twelve feet arbor, if possi- 
ble. 
I must pass over the subject of “new staple 
crops,” on which a lengthy series of papers 
might be written. Indigo has been successfully 
and profitably grown here — the sole objection 
to it being the difficulty of making sale of the 
entire crop without having to seek for a market. 
Madder, I am confident, would find its most 
congenial climate and soil here. It is a native 
of a southern clime, and requires just such a 
warm, light soil as we can here furnish it svith. 
Bread, meat and clothing, every cotton plan- 
tation and can in'cxi\^)x for its own con- 
sumption, and even for sale, and yet g^ow as 
much cotton as should be grown. In fact, there 
is not a doubt, but if such a system could be 
generally introduced, cotton would again com- 
mand a remunerative price. Other itemsshould 
be included — comforts instead of blankets; lea- 
ther lor shoes and harness; tobacco for the ne- 
groes ; bagging made at home, ot cotton ; hay 
grown for stock and for sale ; all the mules and 
horses needed, raised at home; a flock of sheep 
kept, sufficient not only to clothe the negroes, 
but to afford a considerable return for wmol and 
mutton; butter made for sale, the butteimilk 
being decidedly more wholesome for the negroes, 
young and old, than sw^eet milk, especially in 
summer, and any tidy old woman can easily 
ra.ake more in the dairy than in the field; and 
many other ways in which hands can be em- 
ployed to at least as great advantage and profit 
as in the cotton crop — wdth the great additional 
advantage of thereby lessening the ruinous 
ever-production of that staple. 
I have already written you, thus far, a most 
egotistical letter; too much so; and yet 1 do 
not see how 1 can so well sustain my assertion, 
as to the practicability of this change in our 
system of farming, as by giving my own expe 
rience. True, this experience has not been 
great — but it has this advantage, that though 
but of three years standing, it has been acquired 
in the face of serious difficulties. 1 had every 
thing to buy but corn — and even some little ot 
that. So, wdth your leave, I will continue as 1 
have begun, and give you a little more oi Ego 1 
— premising, that in good and economical ma- 
nagement, 1 am far, far behind many of the plan- 
ters of this region, as v't. 
Corn can be grown here quite as well as in N. 
York, notwithstanding the opinion of that en- 
lightened soiUhern gentleman, w'ho made such 
wonderful discoveries relative lo the climate of 
the south — see the garbled edition of Johnson’s 
Farmers’ Encyclopedia. I am now offering 
200 bushels of corn lor sale, being my surplus 
of this year’s crop, over the requisite supfiiy for 
that plantation. Wheat, also, will do .veil at 
least two seasons in three ; if w’e had a sort .suf- 
ficiently early to ripen before excessive warm 
weather, 1 do not believe this crop would be 
any more subject to failure than with you. The 
“Valparaiso,” of which I received a small 
quantity of seed through the Patent Office, was 
entirely destroyed, this year, by rust. It tillered 
well, and the heads when coming in bhiom, 
were very large. I mean to secure a supply of 
all Mr. Harmon’s sorts against another season. 
Egyptian or winter oats do remarkably well. 
They are sown in September or October, and af- 
ford capital pasture all winter, and a fine yield of 
grain, ripe early in May. Forty bushels is 
spoken of as a good, fair crop : one bushel sown 
produced me twenty. 1 prefer this grain to rye. 
It commands readily from sixty cents to a dol- 
lar according to the supply. My pea crops, with 
the gleanings of the sweet potatoe lots, will fat- 
ten my hogs this year — a trifling quantity of 
corn may be needed. Of sweet potatoes, tur- 
neps, Irish potatoes, white beans, rice, hay, fod- 
der, pindars, &c., I have hitherto found no diffi- 
culty in growing in abundance. 
Cattle, unless where the range is extensive 
and good, or where the planter has formed good 
Bermuda pastures, I do not consider profitable 
stock here — at all events, by no means as much 
so as sheep, hogs or mules. To raise one’s 
own meat, requires a good deal ot care and at- 
tention— but it can be done profitably and ad- 
vantageously on any cotton plantation. A lit- 
tle over two years ago, I commenced operations 
with eight thorough bred Berkshire sows, as 
many good common ones, and two or three fine 
boars, of different families of Berkshires, in- 
cluding imported Newberry. This fall 1 will 
kill a fair supply of meat, and offer some thirty 
or forty fine, youn?, in-pig sows for sale, being 
unwillingto kill them while they are so much 
needed in the sou h. 1 offer them at less than 
the price of a liarrel of pork— $10. I lost, 
last spring, over one hundred pigs and shoats of 
a disease in the throat, caused, I believe, by 
theireating young coek-le-burr plants. Such, 
too, is the opinion of my overseer who had 
charge ol them — Mr. Plamilton— a very intelli- 
gent,~obseiving man. When turned out ol the 
field where these grew, the hogs ceased dying 
and got well — when put back there they became 
sick again, and many died off, In addi ion to 
this, I have lost, in spite of every precaution, a 
good many thtough my own and my neighbors’ 
negroes — no matter how much meat they may 
get, both salt and fresh, the negroes have a par- 
ticular liking lor fresh pig, killed and cooked 
on the sly, as school-boys say. All this, how- 
ever, can be prevented.- And even supposing 
that from ten good sows, one hand devoting his 
entire time and attention to them and their pro- 
duce, 50 hogs of 200 los. each can be killed per 
annum, that hand is doing a fourfold better bu- 
siness than at growing cotton. Moreover, the 
hogs being during the picking season in the 
pea field, the services of the hand can be had at 
that time, when they are most valuable. 1 think 
[ can have two hands supply the slaughter pen 
with three hundred fine fat hogs, each year, and 
attend to the breeding and stock hogs also. I 
feed much cotton seed, thoroughly cooked, and 
a small proportion of meal, with salt and ashes 
added, and occasionallv pumpkins and lurneps, 
boiled with it— and with decided economy and 
advantage. For-sheep, as I have often assert- 
ed, this is the finest country I have ever seen, 
and I think myself tolerably good author ity in 
ihe matter. This, however, may very fairly 
form the subject of a separate article. 
Clothing — this too, requires time and atien- 
tention ; but there is nothing else needed to ena- 
ble any force of negroes to manufacture the 
materia! lor their cwn e]o\.hing, ivith profit to 
their owners During winter the women can- 
not be so well empKiyed in any wmy as in spin- 
ning up the wool — particularly w’here a carding 
machine is accessible. One wmrnan, keeping 
a ^spinning machine and a loom, going all the 
year, would spin the warp and weave the cloth 
fora very large place. Those spinning tna- 
chines are a great co ivenience — they spin six 
threads at a time — the gin saws taking the cot- 
ton from the seed— the brush placing it on the 
cards when ginned, w'i ere it is carded, and then 
spun direct from the cards, all at one operation. 
Mine was made by Pearce & Co , Cincinnati, 
and cost S130. We have now, in Natchez, a 
very excellent manufactory established, and 
now in the hands of a most energetic bu.siness 
man— Mr. McAllister, ol the firm of McAllis- 
ter & Watson— who is proving that such a con- 
cern will succeed in the South, afiord a profit 
to the manufacturer, and be a great source of 
convenience at.d economy to the planter. Lin.'^ey, 
jeans, all kinds of cotton goods, including bag- 
ging and sacking, bale rope and twine, &c. &c. 
Also burring and carding wool at so much per 
pound. Mr. McA. began by pledging himself 
that he w'ould manufacture for the planter, from 
his own cotton and wool, fabrics of any kind to 
cost him, at least, no more than he could buy it 
for of northern manufacture, allowing a fair 
price for the raw material. The cotton bag- 
ging, made fer Mr. Isaac Dunbar, out of most 
indifferent cotton, wmrth perhaps one or two 
cents per pound, is a very superior article — 
better, in the opinion of many, than the hemp 
article. I have little doubt that the cotton ship- 
ped from Natchez will be, half of it, put up next 
year in bagging ol cotton — if the planters con- 
sult their own interest they will do so. It all 
the cotton made in the Union was packed in 
this material, we would have the crop le sened 
or consumption increased rather, to the amount 
of 22,500,000 pounds, or 56,250 bales — being 
five yards of bagging, weighing 9 pounds, for 
two and a half millions of bales. Bale rope and 
twine would swell the amount to over 70,000 
bales. 
- Mrs. A. is just finishing off a lot of over 50 
double and single comforts for the negroes, in 
place ot blankets, which cost an average of 
about $1.12 each — not including the labor of 
making, which in fact may be so much wet 
weather time of the w'omen’s labor saved, and 
it is well repaid in the difference in the cost of 
blankets. Had we not made comforts, I would 
have required over 45 pairs of blankets — diffe- 
rence, to pay for the making of the cotnfort-, at 
least $120. This has been our first experiment 
in comtorts, though some planters here have 
used them for many years. The use of com- 
forts ha.s ether advantages — see the extra con- 
sumption of cotton — then the women are all 
taught to sew belter than they would u'^ually do. 
Many other items of economical manage- 
ment of the plantation might l^e mentioned, 
each ol sufficient importance tor a separate ar- 
ticle; but I must now close, with the hope that 
every planter who has the good ol the south at 
heart, and who is desirous (..(lessening the over- 
production of our main staple, will never cease 
to act, to talk and to write with that object in 
view, until public attention is drawn effectually 
I to if. Yours, (fee., Thoma.s Afflsck. 
Ingleside, near Washington, Miss., Nov. 16, 1644 
Corn-Stalk Sugar. — In our May number of 
the volume lor 1844, we gave a communication 
on this subject Irom Mr. .lohn Beal, ol New 
Harmony, Indiana. It appears that Mr. B. 
has been still more‘succe.s.sful the present rear 
than he (vas last. We are informed that he 
has made three hundred and ninety five pounds 
A good sugar this season, !rom the corn stalks 
.vhich gtew on three-quarters ol an acre, which 
is at the rale iff five hundred pounas per acre. 
His plan is said to be as follow.'^: ‘AVhen the 
ears begin t ) form they are pulled off. W’hen 
the leaves ?ire dead about hall way up, the 
stalk is stripped of leaves, cutup at the root, the 
top cut off’, and then ground in a sugar mill. 
Twenty .Rta.ks will yield about one pound and a 
half, and of this three-fourths is grained sugar. 
Mu B. made eighty pounds in a dav, w ith a 
simple apparatus of his own con.«lriietion. Five 
hundred pounds, at four cents per pound, is 
twenty dollars per acre. It would have pipo- 
duced, say fifty bushels ol corn, at twentv-five 
cents, or twelve collars and a half . — Albany 
CnUivntor 
Egyptian Cotton. — Mr, White, of Louisi- 
ana, has on his plantation a cotton stalk, from 
Egyptian seed, about fifteen feet in height. Mr. 
White obtained twenty seeds, gathered from the 
garden of the Pacha. He thinks, if care'ully 
managed, it would probably yield ficm 25f0 to 
3,000 lbs. of seed GQU(An to the gcre. 
