THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
157 
will produce from ten to fifty heads, say the for- 
mer, and each head forty grains (which is not ex- 
travagant,) would be four hundred grains from 
one. VVell, if one grain will produce four hun- 
dred, one bushel should produce four hundred 
bushels. But, instead of that, only about ten 
bushels are obtained from one sown, which is con- 
sidered by the most of farmers here a very good 
yield per acre, which is in fact only one -fourth of 
a head to each grain sown. I think the secret 
lies heie, that those bushel sowing farmers turn 
their wheat in very deep late in (Jptober or No- 
vember, without previously breaking the land, 
and by the time the wheat gets up and forms a 
stem or fibre sufficiently strong to afford roots 
near the surface, (as soon as this takes place the 
roots at the grain perish,) the cold winter wea- 
ther finds it with but *a few short roots, and must 
remain so until spring, and then can only affb.d a 
few slender stalks with small short heads, while 
the grain but an inch deep comes up immediate- 
ly, and the roots first thrown out remain per- 
manent and have time to increase their num- 
ber and length, and a quantity of blades which 
enables it to stand the winter, and will grow oif 
in the spring and yield a number of fine, healthy 
stalks with large heads full of plump grain. 
When I tell some of rny neighbors that hallow 
covered grain will stand the winter better than 
that covered deep, they laugh at the idea. Very 
well. 1 have succeeded well for the last seven 
years on the above plan, and do not feel disposed 
to abandon it until I find out a better. 
Respectfully yours, J. D. Havis. 
Houiton, Ga., August 19, 1846. 
Cotton — Caterpillar. 
Mr. Camak : — As I am one of your subscri- 
bers, I feel in duty bound to contribute all the 
information that I am in possession of, that 
would enhance our Cotton crops, by destroying 
the worms which have been, and are now, 
making such havoc on some farms that the 
crops will be an entire failure. 1, for one, be- 
lieve that all diseases and disasters have their 
effectual remedies, which if rightly applied, and 
at the right season, will prove successful. I 
know there are many farmers who disdain to 
believe any thing like experiments to be pro- 
fitable. They are an anti-prosperous kind of 
beings (not Farmers,) who are content to sit on 
the stool of do nothing and murmur at Provi- 
dence, and will not even listen to any new idea, 
take hold of no new inventions, but hold on to 
the old rules. Father larnt them well; father 
cut off his pig’s tails when he castrated them, 
and they do it too ; and father lost about one 
pig in ten or fifteen, and they do too. Well, 
Anti, just ask your neighbor who has hogs 
with long tails if he ever loses any by castra- 
tion, and my word for it he will tell you no, 
scarcely ever ; and on the other hand ask your 
neighbor who has short tail hogs if he ever 
loses any by the operation. He will say, oh 
yes; some how or other 1 never can get a good 
hand to attend the operation, as I know I al- 
ways attend to these things when the sign is in 
the fat, and my pigs die. Well, sir, lay down 
your prejudice, and never cut off a pig’s tail and 
they will not bleed to death. Try it; and as I 
shall tell you how to keep the worm out of your 
Cotton, try it also; and if either tails, just pub- 
lish your name in the Cultivator, and 1 will 
pay the subscription for one year of all who 
will try it fairly and fail. 
About the first of July I discovered the worms 
had made their appearance in my Cotton. 
About that time we had a tew very warm days 
which made them disappear; and I saw no sign 
of them till about the 15ih August ; and then on 
close examination, I found nearly every stalk 
had more or less worms and eggs ; in the bud of 
the stalk, [counted as many as 12 eggs and saw 
some at the stage when the worm was coming 
out of the egg. The eggs are very small, about 
the size of mustard seed, and of a pale dove 
color. The worm, when it first hatches, com- 
mences eating the bud where the eggs are de- 
posited. The worm, when first hatched, is 
about the stze of a small ant’s body; and in a 
few days they will shed and commence search- 
ing for the squares. On the 15lh 1 caught 
numberscf the flies which lay the eggs, about 
sun set, and found their bodies full of eggs. 1 
made it a business every evening to go into the 
field to catch the fly and examine them ; and 
I found ever} evening they had less eggs in 
them; and on the 20th day I caught numbers 
of the flies, and in pulling them in two I found 
they had layed out their eggs, or at least I 
could find none in them. 1 had not topped my 
Cotton till 1 found at what time the flies had 
stopt laying. As 1 wished to make an experi- 
ment, 1 started my hands to topping and gave 
them instructions to top as low down as they 
discovered any squares had opened, and also 
to top all the suckers ; and I will assure you 
it looked like a ruinous business, as some times 
it Would take one third of the stalk. I made 
the hands rub what was pulled off) so as to de- 
stroy what eggs and worms they gathered. At 
that time I offered to take 10 bags of Cotton 
for my crop, which was 70 acres ; but since 
the topping I would not take 39. It is true it 
was a considerable task, as my hands would 
not top more than 1| acres per hand a day. 
1 feel richly rewarded for my trouble and ex- 
periment, and know of a truth that others may 
be benefilted, if we ever should be troubled by 
the worms again. 
I would have wrote sooner, but wishing to be 
satisfied with the experiment makes it too late 
to be of any advantage to the farmers this sea- 
son, as the worm has got ilown into the large 
bolls. 
But I dare say some Anfi will say. Father top- 
ped his Cotton, and he had worms in it tco, and 
I don’t believe the experiment will do. But 
again, let Father keep his eye on the fiddler, and 
watch the fly, the egg and the worm, and ton 
with judgment, as I have given directions, and 
he will say, away with prejudice. Give me 
instruction and let me know the signs of the 
times, which will be by taking the Cultivator. 
September, 1846. Watts. 
History of Husbandry. 
Mr. Camak: 1 propose, with your approba- 
tion, and from my recollections ot former, and 
information by present, readings, to give a suc- 
cinct History of Husbandry, for the edification 
of such friends of the Southern Cultivator, 
whose time and money preclude to any satis- 
fac ion, such an investigation. By the compre- 
hensive term Husbandry, I mean Agriculture 
and Horticulture, combined. I shall endeayor 
to treat the subject with accuracy and justice. 
Husbandry is the oldest and leading business 
of man. Eyen at the creation, the hour of its 
birth, Adam was placed in a garden to “dress 
and keep it” — and hence the first manual ope- 
ration of man, was in the uncovered air— and 
horticultural. It was an employment befitting 
celestial beings! And the Divine power walk- 
ed in the coolness of the garden. After that 
moral catastrophe, the fall, the two sons first 
born to Adam, Cain and Abel, were, one a “til- 
ler of the ground,” and the other a “keeper of 
sheep” — primeval pursuits familiar to Far- 
mers. In the progress of time, the process of 
business branched into the manufactures, which 
are always sustained by farming as the original 
foundation. The Deiuge intervened. The 
new creation again found its Patriarch attend- 
ing the soil; and Noah as “a husbandman 
planted a vineyard” — proof that the art of fabri- 
cating wine is lost in the lapse of immemorial 
time. 
Alter the dispersion from Babel— the various 
families of mankind retained, or lost their civi- 
lization, in exact proportion to ifieir relainment 
or loss of the husbandrial art. Even Baby lon, 
the first built city, and those of the Egyptians, 
Greeks, Jews and Romans, were unrefined 
until in after ages the art of aardening had been 
better perfected. Nations that had no address 
in drawing sustenance from the land, but be- 
came hunters and fishers, living on the surface 
of an ostensible and precarious nature, were 
like the aborigines on this continent,— having 
lost sight of every vestige of Agriculture, and 
by consequence, of all the arts and refinements 
of life. “Among savage natior^ one of the first 
indications of advancement towards a state of 
civilization, was the cultivation of a little spot 
of ground for raising vegetables ; and the degree 
of refinement among the inhabitants of any 
country, may be determined with tolerable cer- 
tainty, by the taste and skill exhibited in their 
gardens.” This fact is corroborated by an ob- 
servation of the Indian tribes removed beyond 
the Mississippi, who are gradually becoming 
enlightened. 
If the oldest record of our religion mentioned 
husbandry as the primary occupation, in like 
manner the oldest of the profane writers, He- 
siod has spoken— in a book called the “Works 
and Days.” The Cadmean art — the invention of 
letters, either by Thot of Egypt, or by the 
Brahmins of India, or as imparted lo Moses by 
the finger of God, if it was not long before evi • 
dent in the “mar^ set on Cain” — as an ap- 
proach thereto— may have been known and 
used before the Greek, Hesiod. But Literati 
do not appear, aside from the Book of Job, to 
possess any authority anti-dating the Grecian 
Poet. The first writing, therefore, of mao, as 
his first employment, was AgricuLural. And 
the Farmer can stand up, and tell the Free-ma- 
son, that his brethren and his operation are the 
oldest in action— having survived the fall of 
empires, the decay of the works of art and the 
forgotten memorials of greatness; andyet, with- 
out the necessity of secrecy, or oaths, remained 
more entire 1 
The Chaldeans were probably the original 
farmers who retained possession of the soil, and 
improved it. After them, the Egyptians and 
the Persians. Nearly the rest of the descend- 
ants of Adam became Nomades, and went 
afar in every point of the compass, and planted 
colonies that in after ages frightened the refined 
Romans with their appearance, and finally, it 
seemed, subjugated that proud city, and popu- 
lated Europe as she now is. Commerce, after 
Agriculture had completed its bounds, followed 
as a consequence. Phoenicians built Tyre, and 
engrossed the trade of the then known world. 
They were not agricultural on that barren rock; 
but by conveying produce between different 
countries they served an useful purpose. But 
let not merchants boast over farmers. Without 
the assistance and solidity of that useful son of 
the country, wdiere would traffickers be 1 
In ancienttiraes Agriculture, though not much 
mentioned by historians, too intent on depicting 
armie.s, must have been very universal, or else 
carried to a high state of perfection, since pro- 
visions were obtained for so many and such 
constantly succeeding wars. “The Greeks 
and Romans most celebrated for their military 
enterprises, were also most attentive to the cul- 
tivation of the soil.” And often the very hands 
that guided the plow, periodically wielded 
the truncheon of the armies. Who has not 
read of Cincinnatus — who rose from the plow 
thrice to save the Roman Common wealth, and 
then, as successively, went back to the plow 
again 1 Of Cato, who was the orator, the gene- 
ral and the censor, who lived on eight acres 
which he himself tilled, and in a hut, eating 
turnips ? Of other leading men, both Roman 
and Greek, who during the principal times of 
their Republics, disdained not to harden their 
hands and cheer their honest hearts, upon the 
peaceful fields of Agiicullure"? 
As Rome became more colossal, even before 
she became, unhappily lor liberty, imperial, 
her great tnen - proponionably neglected hus- 
bandry, and in their lofty pride disdained its 
useful, though humble, and life sustaining pur- 
suits. Unlike our own peaceful Calhoun, and 
Clay, and Webster and Van Buren, the Mari- 
uses and Syllas, the Pompeys and Caesars of 
antiquity overlooked the fertile fields of the Ro- 
man boundary, and cas' Eagle-eyes upon the 
impregnant lands of Gaul and the Orient. 
The state could not as a common weal survive 
tins pride or ambition. She was smothered in 
their too warm and potent embraces alter fame. 
