THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
155 
and you will rarelv meet with a refusal. 
At any rate, you will have (what many of 
you have not had before) a clear conscience, 
in this matter. Try it. The wrter in this 
way, sent more than “twenty” subscribers 
for the year 1646. andintenus, if life and health 
are spared, to try to do better for 1847. As you 
want something definite to act upon, Mr Editor, 
put me 'own fot twenty, and I will increase the 
number, ifl can. 
Allow me to thank Mr. Fa.rb,ae and Major 
Rose for answers to my inquiries about their 
crushers ; Maj. R.’s were private. Respectfully, ! 
Joel Hurt. ; 
Crawford, Russell Co., Ala., Sevt. 10, 1346. | 
Crops in >Iississirpi"Smut in \S heat— 
Croup— Inquiries. 1 
Mr. Cahak— Like my friend A. McDonald, j 
(ifl may use the term of one whom 1 know on- ! 
ly as a contributor to your invaluable paper,) I j 
quit (not plow and hoe but) spade, and mall, and | 
w'edse, to give vou and your readers an idea of | 
the prospects of the crop in this, the Eastern, 
part of Mississippi. Our preparations for p. ant- 
ing were much better than usual. Having had 
a short crop, the previous year, we had more 
time to increase our fall sowing of grains, and 
our bedding and fallowing, as well, also, as to | 
add, by clearing new lands. Thus, we have | 
planted a larger crop of small grain, corn and : 
cotton than in any previous year during the past | 
twelve, which period covers my lesidence in this : 
State. The spring and summer have been re ! 
markably wet, and, of course, cultivation has ' 
been bad and grass abundant, so much so that ! 
our wheat, rye, and oats have moulded, sprout- ; 
cd and rotted in the fields ; and what we have ■ 
found time to sun, makes but poor flour, and I ! 
fear will make very bad bread. 
The ridge lands on the Tombigbee and War- 
rior rivers have a very fine crop of corn and cot- j 
ton, looked well until recently, having rather j 
more size than usual on the first of July j but 
since then the boll-worm, as we term them, has I 
attacked the cotton, squares, blooms and bolls, j 
and now there is literally no cotton left on the 
stalk to open. Our bottom and flat lands were' 
drowned in the spring, and the wet summer has 1 
prevented the corn and cotton on them from ma- ' 
king or promising to make even ahalfcrop; and ! 
the worm has been as destructive on what little j 
formation has been on them, ot blooms and bolls, i 
and we are now, instead of picking 150 to 20(1 ; 
lbs. of cotton per day, actually hoeing grass out ! 
of the cotton fields with our weak hands ; and I i 
am engaged in ditching and draining, having suf- j 
fered so much from the excess of r lin that I have | 
concluded to put all my spare time in this kind | 
of work, to better prepare for such a season in . 
future, as I have more land cleared than I can ! 
cultivate- i 
Our lands are chiefly prairie and creek bottoms, j 
and hauling is sj heavy in winter that I find it! 
best to make and haul rails in the summer, and! 
repair fences during winter or spring, as is gene- ! 
rally not the prectice in this section. But I find ; 
that my team is by this plan in much better con- j 
dition for winter and sp ing plowing, and my 1 
hands less exposed, as most of our rail timber | 
lies in swamp and creek bottoms 
I would inquire of D. G., of Busby ville, Hous- i 
ton county, (4a., if he has tried wheat seed 'wo 
years old ; and if his experiment proved that it i 
did not smut ; and, if so, if that season the smut ■ 
was as abundant as usual on the farms of his i 
neighbors. ; 
I, last season, bought my seed wheat, (my ! 
own having smut so bad that I thought even i 
blue-sione, had I knowm the recipe for using it, j 
would not avail,) and while sowing, I learned | 
from an old man I accidentally met with in tra- ■ 
veiling, that to scald in boiling water rom 3 to ' 
6 minutes on so .ving tl e worst wheat seed, and { 
I would hive no smut. I t-ied it, rnd am pleas- j 
ed to communicate to you and your readers 'hat 
not a head of injured wheat was this spring 
found in the small field of scalded seed, whiles 
good many heads o! the other, which 1 thounhi 
entirely tree from smut, were injured. I used a 
pot in the field and immersed a handled basket 
filled with wheat in the boiling water. I once 
used blue stone without success, but am now 
satisfied that it did not remain in soak long 
eno gh. 1 think, from the experience of the 
Benton County, Ala., farmers, that it should be 
soakec from 24 to 36 hours, to insure it a preven- j 
five. I 
While on recipes indulge me while I give you j 
another, for the cure of croup among children : j 
.Apply a warm bath ; so soon as out, cup or j 
bleed; then give Spanish float Indigo, sulphur i 
and saltpetre in molasses, the size of a cow pea ; 
each ; and in half an hour give castor oil, com- , 
mon dose. 
It will cause a foaming or frothing at the 
mouth, and sometimes nose, and vr ry generally . 
the child wiil have to be roused out of a sound ■ 
s’eep to give the oil. j 
Buffer me to suggest to all your readers that 
have not carefully read and thought on M. VV. 
Phillips’s letter, in your August No., to do so, 
and act upon its suggestions, and, my word for 
it, they will never repent it. I am confident, 
from several years experience, that rest in the 
heat of 'he day is not labor lost, but gained. I 
wish you had a contributor Irom some prairie 
district of country who would give his views to 
the public in the copious and free style of M. W. 
P. or friend McDonald, and if you could induce 
our old friends Judge Jno. Moore, or Thos. C. 
Billups, both o' Noxube county, or Col. Geo. H. 
Yocsg, of Lowndes ceunty. Miss., to engage in 
this work, you would much benefit some few 
subscribers, and add to your own list, which, at 
east, would afford pleasure as well as profit to 
my old sch i.d fellows, th Publishers. 
The worm in cotton is general, so far as I have 
heard— SO miles East, 100 North, 60 West, and 
25 south of me — and I here predict that the re- 
ceipts at Mobile, during the next season, will be 
100 to 150,000 bales short of the t ast season, un- 
less the crop cn the Alabama river turns out 25 
per cent, over an average ; and from the opinion 
of travellers, the New Orleans receipts cannot be 
so large as the past year. Trep. 
Query? — Do your Georgia planters sow suc- 
cessfully rye and oats in the fall on corn land, 
without plowing in, and turn stock in to tramp 
and cover. If so. how long ought the stock to 
run on it 1 Would hogs nol destroy too much of 
the grain ^ and if a cold winter, would not much 
more be killed by freezing? 
I hear you have a large white-bearded wheat, 
is it freer from smut and rust then the common 
varieties of white wheat ■? T. 
A~ear Walwlak, Kemper Co , Miss.. Aug. 2-3, 1S46. 
iMiiieral Manures. 
Mb. Camak: — In looking over the last year’s 
volume of the Southern Cultiv^ator, I came 
across Prof. Sheppard’s Analysis of Cotton, Cot- 
ton Seed, &c. Professor S. ascertained that cot- 
ton wo 1 (fibre or lint.) contained, in its compo- 
sltio.n, for every ten thousandparts : 
Potassa 31 
Lime 17 
.Magnesia 3 
Phosphoric .Acid 1'2 
t^alphoric Acid 1 
or that for every ten thousand lbs. of cotton 
wool raised upon a soil, it required about 60 lbs. 
of the above substances. 
In twenty-four analyses of different planta- 
tions in Burke county, Geo , made by Jlr. Cot- 
ting, taking the mean of the above substances, 
which he found, with the e.xception ol phospho- 
ric acid, of which he gives no account, we find 
the result asioliows : Sulphate of Potash 2 I- 10 
per ct.. Lime 4f per eent., Magnesia J per cent., 
Nitrate Potash \ percent. The phosphoric acid, 
which must evidently exist in these roils, is, I 
presume, included in what 3Ir. C terms “solu- 
ble animal and vegetabie matter “ 
Now an acre ot land contains 43,560 square 
feet. Allowing the soil to be on an average six 
inches in depth, we shall have 21,780 cubic feet 
of soil, equal to about 17,820 bushel.-', or 1,140,- 
480 pints, and the average specific gravity of 
these soils is 2^ times as great as waler, there- 
fore the above amount of soil would weigh 2,- 
851, -200 lbs. 
T iking the mean of the minerals and acids 
found by Mr. Getting as before stated, we should 
have in this amount of soil ; 
Lime .,123.352 lbs. 
P.otassa 35.993 “ 
Magnesia “ 
Sulphnric Acid, (lulled wilh potassa,). 27,216 “ 
If 'hen an acre of this soil yield 1 COO lbs. an- 
nually of seed cotton for thirty years in succes 
sion, the amount of the above minerals would 
not be appreciably diminished, if the seed be re- 
turned to the soil. But if the seed be not re- 
turned to the soil, it will make no matefial differ- 
ence, with the exception of the phosphoric acid, 
of which we can make no calculation as to the 
amount contained in the soil. 
But none of these soils will produce cotton to 
this extent before it becom s exhausted. U m 
w-hat Mien depends this exhaustion? Is it from 
a fai’ure of the phosphoric acid contained in the 
soluble animal and vegetable matters of the soil ? 
Whe heT this be the case or not, we know that 
the production is greatly increased bv the appli- 
cation of decomposing vegetable and animal 
manure formed by supplying lots and stables 
with litter from the woods and other sources, 
which mixes with and absorbs the solid and fluid 
parts of the excrements of our domestic animais. 
V\ e find too, from the analysi" of cotton seed 
made by Prof. Sheppard, that nearly fi'ty per ct. 
I of their inorganic constituents is phosphoric 
' acid, which, if not returned, the soil will, as he 
states, rap dly “become completely exhausted 
and unproductive.” Does this not point to the 
j application of the immense beds of shells and 
I shell marl, so liberally disposed through the coun- 
ties of Burke and Jefierson, which by their gra- 
dual decomposition would supply the waste? 
For these marls and shells, like all other sub- 
: stances of animal origin, contain phosphoric acid 
I to a greater or less extent Then lime also, where 
there is a deficiency, as there seems to be in 
; some olaces, or where there is a superabundance 
I of undecomposed vegetable matter, would be ve- 
; ry beneficial. The experience of Gov. Ham- 
I mond, to whom the agricultural public are so 
. much indebted, is sufficient pro . f of the benefit 
of marling. 
I As to applying other mineral salts, unless 
I there is an ascertained deficiency, I cannot see 
' the use, whether inform of “ Bommer’s method” 
I or otherwise. Of the benefit to be derived from 
, the application ot decomposing vegetabie ma‘- 
i ter there is no doubt. Yet if it is not placed suffi- 
I ciently deep, so that a constant moisture s-cure 
' a steady and gradual decomposition, it may prote 
; injurious to a single crop in a dry season, as ma- 
i ny sur/ace farmers can testify from last ..a's 
I experience. Lime will undoubtedly has’ rn the 
! decomposition of vegetable matter, yet if tliere 
i is not an abundance of these matters in ihe 
I soil upon which it can act, it may prove injuri- 
I ous in too great quantity, 
j There is another substance called “green 
sand” which contains, judging from the compo- 
sition of the rock from which it is decomp-csed, 
I a considerable per cent, of lime and potash. It 
; has been recommended as a mineral manure. I 
j do not know, but would like to beinformed whe- 
ther it is a profitable application, 
i But I presume, Mr. Editor, you are fired of 
I this yarn, so accept my best wishes and best ef- 
; forts also for the success of the Southern Cul- 
i TIVATOR. P. D IVIDSON. 
j Indian Hill. August 17, 1346. 
I Cure for Bots. 
Mr Camak Having seen an a'^ficle in the 
! last number of the Cultivator headed “ Bots in 
! Horses,” and there being no certain cure given, 
j made me desirous of making known 'o the pub- 
' lie a remedy, which I believe is known only to a 
few individuals, and is a certain cure for that dis- 
I ease, unless they have perforated the stomach: 
Take a piece of Indian meal dough of the size of 
a walnut, flatten it on the hand and pour thereon 
sixty grains of red precipitate, (which may be 
obtained from an Apothecary or Doctor,) and 
close the dough over it, making a kind ol pill. 
Then raise the horse’s head, draw out his tongue, 
lay the pill as far back as possible on the to gue, 
and let it go, which will carry the pill so far back 
; that the horse cannot throw it out of bis mouth, 
i Nothing more is required, only light diet for a 
j fewdays. 
j By the above directions, I have known horses 
I relievec from the most excruciating agony in a 
few minutes. Would not a few doses of this be 
a most useful “pocket companion” for wagoners, 
coachmen, etc? A Subscriber. 
Gravel. 
Mr.Caaiak: — I would like to elicit, through 
the columns of your i iteresting paper, a remedy 
for a disease, which is prevalent among horses, 
called “ Gravel.” A Farmer. 
