SOUTHEHN CULTIVATOR. 
227 
regulations they are worse than useless. When the liver 
is torpid or the bowels sluggish, an occasional dose of 
some mild aprient will be useful. But I advise you to 
take no medicine at all, except with the advice of a good 
physician, to whom you should always apply for your 
medicine. This is the only safe, as it is the only rational 
course you can pursue with respect to medicine. It is not 
wise nor even safe to tamper with any medicine, of which 
you know nothing at all. You cannot say with certainty 
that “if it does no good it will do no harm;” and if you 
could, that, at the best, would certainly be very poor en- 
couragement to swallow a nauseous drug. But this' is a 
fatal mistake, whereon many a constitution has suffered 
shipwreck. All medicine, to say the most of it, is only a 
necessary evil ! And all blind and ignorant meddling with 
medicine, is usually followed by serious mischief— often 
with irretrievable ruin. 
Above all, have nothing to do "with any of those 
monstrous quack humbugs, commonly called “ Patent 
Aledicines,” no matter how many ^^vvonderful cures'^ they 
have performed. They will not cure you. And you should 
not, therefore, feel interested in any way about them. 
The proprietors and venders of these vile preparations 
know nothing of your system, your constitution or your 
complaint ; and if they did, they could not cure you in a 
thousand years, if you were to live so long, with all the 
abominable Panaceas, and the more horrible Pillgarlicks 
ever invented by the whole tribe. You acknowledge that 
you know nothing about them or their nasty preparations. 
What assurance have you, then, that you will not be in- 
jured if you tamper with them 'I Will you be so silly as 
to be caught in a trap which you know, or ought to know, 
has been adjusted with the utmost stretch of skill and pre- 
cion for tlrat express purpose I You profess to have an 
utter abhorence for all medicine, and especially quack 
medicine; yet you are continually taking medicine ; aye, 
and quack medicine, too ! What palpable contradictions ! 
What strange inconsistencies! Omo. 
Toccopola, Miss., May 1855. 
VALUABLE EECIPES. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — I have some valuable 
recipes, and if you are not prepared with better, and 
think proper, you may insert them in your invaluable 
paper. 
To Cure the Scours in Colts. — Keep the mare off of 
green pasture; take 3 eggs, half a pint of whiskey or other 
spirits, 2 oz. of brown sugar, half an oz. of Laudanum ; 
mix well, and pour down the colt. I will insure a cure. 
To Cure the Swelling or Quinsey in Hogs. — Cut the 
knot or kernel open at the jaw ; filll the cut with salt, and 
let him go. 
The above I have tried, and never knew or heard of them 
filing. W. S. 
Ja,sper, Tcnn., May, 1855. 
PLANTATION GATES— INEOKMATION WANTED. 
Editors Southern Cultivator— Wishing to put some 
gates on my farm, I have been seeking for the best mode 
of making and hanging them ; knowing that there is a 
good and a bad way of doing this, as well as other things. 
On referring to the March number (1854) of your paper, I 
find there the plan of one, given by “R. Ward,” of South 
Carolina. 
The constmction of the gate is easily understood. But 
the hanging of it does not appear to me quite so plain, 
(perhaps from my want of familiarity with the subject,)' 
that is, if the plate is a correct representation. 
Mr. Ward says : “I always gutter the head post,” &c., 
which I presumed meant cut fartly into the post. But in 
the plate the post seems to be cut all the way through. 
And I would suppose the gate was intended to swing 
both ways, but cannot reconcile the position of the hooks 
with this idea. If the gate is intended to open but one 
way, and the plate is correct, against what does it shut '? 
And, being self-shutting, is it not liable to be injured by 
slamming*? For it seems wonderful to me that such a 
gate could be slammed by negroes 20 to 40 times a day for 
17 years, without being shattered all to pieces ! 
I also would beg to know the best mode of hanging a 
gate so as to swing both ways ; and at the same time be 
self shutting ? and what is the best kind of hinge for the 
purpose 1 Are there any good objections to such mode of 
hanging gates 1 Yours, &c,, K. 
Woodlands, Ga., June, 1855. 
Remarks — Will Mi*. Ward or some other of our prac- 
tical and experienced correspondents answer the above ? 
Our bump of constructiveness (or mechanical ingenuity) 
is not well developed. — Eds. 
SMUT IN WHEAT— EFFECTS OF BLUE STONE. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — I have been a close 
reader of your very valuable paper ever since I have been 
a citizen of the State, and expect to be so long as I can 
raise that dollar in exchange for the paper, and I have 
read or heard a good deal said about the smut; and my 
experience is that wheat that is sown the same year it is 
raised will always have more or less smut in it, unless it is 
soaked in blue stone. I am clearly of the opinion that it 
is the faulty grains that produce smut. There is now and 
then a head that is not well matured. Let that wheat re- 
main until it is two years old and the immature, or faulty 
grains, so dry up that they will not germinate ; but sow 
it the same year it is harvested and these faulty or imma- 
ture seed will germinate, but are not well enough matured 
to produce its kind. It is true, there is something like a 
grain, but not filled out. I much prefer it to remain until 
it is two years old for seed than soaking in blue stone ; for 
it is the blue stone that kills the germinating properties of 
the immature grain and is so severe as to kill all that i» 
not well matured. It must have its proportionable effect 
Ott the well matured grain. 
It is true, I am a young farmer and have had but few 
years experience ; but I never have seen a good stand of 
wheat after the seed was soaked in blue stone. My ob- 
ject in writing this is to give a helping hand to my brother 
farmers, if possible, as I have been much assisted by you 
and your contributors. Yours truly, 
R. E. H. 
Jacinto, Miss., May, 1855. 
' ' ♦ ♦ • 
Domestic Life. — What a charming picture of domestic 
love has Croly drawn in the following stanzas : 
“ Domestic love, not in proud palace halls 
Is often seen thy beauty to abide ; 
Thy dwelling is in lowly cottage walls. 
That in the thicket of the woodbines hide ; 
With hum of bees around, and from the spring 
Shining along through banks with harebells dyed ; 
And many a bird to warble on the wing. 
When morn her robe o’er heaven and earth doth fling. 
O ! love of loves ! — to thy white hand is given 
Of earthly happiness the golden key ! 
Thine are the joyous hours of winter’s even. 
When the babes cling round their father’s knee ; 
And thine the voice that, on the midnight sea. 
Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home. 
Peopling the gloom with all he longs to ^ee. 
Spirit! I’ve built a shrine; and thou hast come: 
And on its altar closed— forever closed thy plume !’' 
