THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
Ill 
are assured, who has a clayey or sandy soil, 
will be deterred, by the above remarks, from a-t 
tempting to improve his sandy soil by the ad- 
mixture of clay, if it be at hand, nor from im 
proving his clayey soil by the admixture of 
sand, ffitcan be easily procured. In either 
case, we do not believe the operation would be 
too costhj, as Bousingault asserts^-and much 
experience in this country could be adduced in 
disproof of the assertion. — N. E. Farmer, 
From the South Carolinian. 
Home Truths. 
“Some things can be done as well as others.” 
Sam Patch. 
Little indeed, thought Samuel, when he pen- 
ned the foregoing line, that he was writing don n 
that which was to become one of the triiest pro- 
verbs in Yankeedom. But it is more than this 
—it is a great speech— not as great as Cresar’s 
*• Veni vidi vici"' it is true, yet we doubt if Cae- 
sar could have bettered it on the occasion, or 
beaten Sam at his own game. Lover of pure 
English as we are, we think that we can see 
much meaning in this saying — a deeper truth 
than Sam, perhaps, ever dreamed of in his phi- 
losophy. It containeth all that is embraced in 
that hackneyed motto of every idle college boy, 
“ Perseverentio. fiabet premUuri " — it goeih even 
further, even unto “ nil desperandiim.” It is the 
true type, the very embodiment of Yankee cha- 
racter. It is, in one line, the history of that har- 
dy race which has forced its way into every 
corner of the globe, which has conceived,^and 
executed what the old philosophers never dre*am- 
ed of. Space has been annihilated; years have 
been compressed into moments. Madame Ru- 
mor, that fabulous mistress, who once rode up- 
on the wings of ihe wind, is now eclipsed by 
the Yankee news-god who travels upon the 
winged lightning. But Sam, poor fellow, made 
like many other heroes, his last leap for fame, 
an 1 proved that there were more ways of going 
out of the world than one, and what was more 
to the purpose, that he was not born to be hung, 
since ‘those born to be hung never get drowned’. 
We have travelled out of the record and al- 
most, verily, forgotten what we sat down to 
write about. 
It is a commonly received opinion now-a- 
davs, that planting in this country has ceased to 
be a business by which one can earn a living, 
It is a doctrine preached by almost every man 
who is now in debt, or has been engaged in im- 
prudent sueculations, that we cannot grow cot- 
ton in competition with the planters of the fer- 
tile West, and that to think of growing grain, 
raising stock, manuring and improving our 
lands, and diversifying our culture, is the veri- 
est humbug in the world. And the effect of 
this doctrine is, that hundreds of the very best of 
our citizens are constantly moying westward. 
It has pained u.s deeply to witness this sur- 
plus tide of emigration to the West duiing the 
last year. Whyisitso? Must our dear little 
State be thus stripned of its jewels, to enrich 
the hammocks of Florida and prairies of Tex- 
as? Can nothing be done to arrest it ? It is a 
question well worth answering. It all springs 
from this heresy — that the only profitable crop 
is cotton. That money can be made at nothing 
else — that one would starve who would pretend 
to plant anything else but cotton. His manure, 
if not suffered to “ waste its sweetness on the 
desert air,” is sparsely scattered over the bald 
spots on the farm. He plants just what corn 
will do him; no more. He buys his own pork, 
horses, mules and negro clothing, on a credit 
till the cotton crop is made; denends upon his 
cotton crop for all money, and upon his corn 
crib for the support of all sorts of animal life. 
Every man should adapt himself to his situa- 
tion — in other words, he should “cut hiscoat 
»ccording to his cloth.” Nobody thinks of such 
1 thing in this country. No one thinks of be- 
ginning life as their fathers did before them. 
Acting as if they had the virgin soil and mono- 
poly of staple which their "fathers had, they 
begin to live in all the style and magnificence 
of a milliondire. A young man now-a-days, 
who works ten or filteen hands, must needs 
sport his carriage and horses. It is no common 
matter to keep up an equipage. A turn out 
worth S800 will incur an annual expense of 
$200; twenty-five percent, on a capital which 
must be reinvested, every five or six years at 
least. Then the furniture of one’s establishment 
— the style in which he must live, all go to drain 
oflTthe profits of the plantation. Say now that 
our young friend with his ten hands, makes five 
bags to the hand, and plenty of corn. He can- 
not clear more than $30 per hand. His whole 
cotton crop is laid out in a turn-out which bids 
fair to turn him out of doors; for, the $300 ba- 
lance against him, and $200 tax w'ill soak up 
the next year’s crop. Should he be unfortunate 
enough to buy property or speculate, once in 
debt, his story is soon told. He borrows money 
of the bank, or of some shaver at a high per 
cent., gets behind-hand, ultimately fails — pro- 
perty is sold under the hammer, and goes, as 
apt as not, into the hands of his father’s over- 
seer. He abuses the country, complains of 
our worn-out lands, the low price of cotton, and 
moves off'io the West. This is the sad history 
of many of the cleverest fellows of oar ac- 
quaintance. 
But how does it happen that the overseer be- 
comes so often the owner of the plantation? 
Why, he economized, he laid out every dollar 
he earned at interest; lived according to his 
means, and didn’t go in debt. And here is one 
of the most lamentable effects upon our coun- 
try — men, who by shaving and holding other 
fiehple’s noses to the grindstone, have laid up 
large fortunes, are to become henceforth the 
gentlemen of the country ! ' Men who have nei- 
ther education nor the pride to educate their 
children ; who think that a man is to be estima- 
ted by the number of niggers he owns, are to 
rule the country. If any man will take the 
trouble just for a moment to look about him, he 
will find cases enough in point; men sprung 
from the very dregs of society, (which should 
not detract from their merits if they had real 
worth about them,') clothed in a little brief au- 
thority because they have money to lend, begin 
^o throw their toils’about them, till one by one, 
their neighbors are caught and drawn into their 
power, and then set themselves up for gentle- 
men. We have a perfect horror of this fashion 
of recognizing any man as a gentleman, simply 
because he rides in a cardage or has money to 
lend. We most earnestly hope we may live .to 
realize the beautiful lines of the Ayrshire Poet; 
“ Then lei us pray that cnme what may. 
As come it will for a’ that ; 
That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earlli. 
May bear the gree, for a’ that.” 
For our own part, we believe it all humbug; 
this doctrine, that a man cannot do well here, 
much as it is preached. 
We believe, that nin°-tenths of the men who 
have done well in the West, would have done 
well here, had they pursued the same course. 
We know many who regret they ever left their 
old homes, and hesitate not to say, that if they 
were back again, they would be far happier, 
and could do as well. There are exceptions, it 
is true, but “ cxceplio probat regulum.” Let a 
man once cut loose the moorings which bind 
him to his dear native home, and he is in spirit 
a wanderer for life. He is never so well satis- 
fied but he will sell out at a moment’s warning, 
to seek farther west, some new Eldorado. 
Pictures of this kind -may be seen all over 
the West. The people have no social attach- 
ments; the haunts of their ch ildhood, the fami- 
liar facesof the friends of iheir youth, the burial 
places of their fathers, are not around them to 
chain them to the spot. They live but for The 
accumulation of wealth. Their life must be 
one of continual excitement, or they are mise- 
rable. 
Hundreds of our citizens are growing rich 
every day, who cultivate poorer land than ma- 
ny of those who move off to the West; and 
why? Because they have set to work in the 
right spirit, satisfied “That somethings can be 
done as well as other.s.” A Cracker. 
From the London Iforlicullural Rlagazine. 
Refuse of the Gardeu, 
One of the most important things to be attend- 
ed to in a garden is that of saving every atom 
of vegetables that can be scraped together. 
The stems of peas and beans, the mowings of 
grass, the cuttings and prunings from trees and 
shrubs, the fallen leaves, should be as carefully 
preserved, to be returned to the ground, as if 
they were the richest manure. In some instan- 
ces this refuse may be dug into the ground at 
once in its green state ; in others, it may be 
thrown into a proper place to decompose, and 
the decomposition be assisted by the means of 
other applications. 
The objection made by some to digging-in 
the refuse in its green state, has been, chiefly, 
the liability to nourish instead of destroying the 
various eggs of the pests which annoy ihem, 
and that by throwing the refuse in a heap to rot, 
a good deal of this is destroyed. 
The refuse of a garden has been undervalued, 
or rather not valued at all, up to a very recent 
period ; for even outside of'market gardens in the 
vicinity of London, there have been seen large 
quantities of cabbage and brocoli leaves, and ve- 
getable wasteof all kinds thrown there tube taken 
by any one who cared for it, and removed by 
cottagers for their pigs and cows, or perhaps for 
the very purpose to which the gardener ought to 
have applied them— the manuring of the ground. 
Self -manuring, as it has been called, has been 
of late the subject of experiment in many pla- 
ces, and has been written and talked of by ma- 
ny as if it were a novelty, though we have been 
in the habit of using every description of waste 
not only for ihe garden, but on the field where it 
came from. Thus, potatoe vines have been 
dug in where the potatoes came off; cabbage 
leaves, turnip, carrot and parsnip tops have 
been dug in where the crops were grown; the 
cuttings of currant and gooseberry bushes have 
been chopped up and dug in between the bushes; 
and strawberry clearings have been used be- 
tween t.he rows of p'ants as the only dressing 
they had. While these matters rotted slowly, 
they kept the ground open, and as they decom- 
posed, they enriched it. 
The finest piece of strawberries we ever saw, 
was in a celebrated market-gardener’s ground 
at Deptford, where the trimmings were always 
dug in. We have unquestionable evidence 
that in some places on the continent, where 
vines are cultivated, the leaves and clippings 
are carefully forked in about the roots as a dress- 
ing for the next year. 
We do not mean to infer that this dressing is 
sufficient in ail cases, because the bulk which 
goes away in the crop has always had some- 
thing from the soil ; though we deny that it has 
taken anything near the quantity of matter 
found in it, because we have mentioned, and 
have proved by experiment, that much of the 
contents of any crop, no matter what, is taken 
from the water and the atmosphere. But let ns 
mention one application which has never failed 
us — the leaves of trees laid on pink beds, pansy 
beds, and autumn planted ranunculuses, and 
other subjects which are the better for protec- 
tion, will almost always rot by spring, and if 
then forked into the ground carefully without 
damaging Ihe roots, will be found an excellent 
dressing; protecting all winter, and nourishing 
as they rot. And it is well known that where 
leaves are allowed to rot into mould, ihere is 
not a more efficacious dressing. 
Taking a Hint. — ft is very surprising to see 
how slow some men are to take a hint. The 
frost destroys about one half the bloom on fruit 
trees; every body prognosticatesihe loss of fruit ; 
instead of that, the hai.e that remain are larger, 
fairer and higher flavored fruit than usual ; and 
the trees, instead of being exhausted, are ready 
for another crop the next year. Why dont he 
lake the hint, and ihin out his fruit every bear- 
ing year? But no, the next season .sees his or- 
chard overloaded, fruit small and not well form* 
ed, yet he always boasts of that first menifonea 
