SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
321 • 
SICKLY -WOMEN. 
There is a chapter in i\liss Beecher’s new work (Let 
ter to the People on Health and Happiness,) that presents 
the “Statistics of Female Health.” No one can read it 
without being amazed at the fearful progress of disease 
among the women of our country Of late years, public 
attention has been earnestly called to this subject and 
nu.nerous facts, calculated to show the havoc, which is 
spreading the ills of suffering and death throughout our 
households, have been sternly arrayed before the Ameri 
can people. But we have seen nothing which conveyed 
so strong an impression as this statistical table. 
Miss Beecher has taken great pains by travel, corres- 
pondence and other means to familiarize herself with this 
subject and to obtain reliable data concerning its facts. 
The results indicate, that wherever an investigation was 
had, not more than one-fourteenth of American Women are 
strong and perfectly healthy. This is the maximum 
under the most favorable circumstances, which came un- 
der observation. The “delicate and diseased” are some- 
times nine in ten and “habitual invalids present a frighi- 
fal freqency.” The author gives the results of her personal 
observation. She has “nine married sisters and sisters 
in-law ; all of them are either delicate or invalids except 
two.” She has “fourteen married female cousins and not 
one of them but is either delicate, often ailing or an in- 
. valid.” “fn my wide circle of friends and acquaintance,” 
says she, “all over the land out of my family circle, the 
same impression is made. In Boston, 1 cannot remember 
but one married female friend, who is perfectly healthy. 
\n Hartford, Conn., lean think of only one; in New 
Haven, Brooklyn, New Vork City and Cincinnati, but one.’ 
She states further, that in “my imme»se circle of friends 
and acquaintances all over the Union, so many as ten 
htdies born in this century and country” cannot be recall 
ed, who are perfectly sound, healthy and vigorous. 
Miss Beecher makes some very sensible remarks on 
the causes of this serious decline in the health of Ameri 
can Women. She thinks, that the larger portion of our 
wives and moti.ers have too many cares and burdens 
There is too heavy a tax on their nerves and brains. A 
^rreat deni of mischief is also done by improper habits of 
living — by the waist of air and exercise — by pernicious 
dressing and other false social customs. Her observations 
here are very forcible. If others are free from perplexing 
cares and duties, they indulge themselves too much and 
<hus exhaust their strength in sheer indolence. 
We are glad that this work has been published. It is 
extremely difficult to awaken any effective degree of at- 
tention to (his important matter, but the public mind must 
be operated on until its sensibilities are thoroughly 
-'.roused to the magnitude of the evil. Three things ought 
10 done at once, viz : 
First. The false habit of overworking and r!o.sely con- 
fining girls for so many hours in school ought to be broken 
down. 
Second. Much more attention ought to be given to 
diet and dress. 
Third. Exercise should be made agreeable, inspiring 
and a regular part of every day life. Whaf we especial- 
ly end particularly want is more for the muscles to do and 
jess for the nerves, and to doit, we ought to make recre- 
ation and amusement as rational as possible. The larger 
part of our pleasures are slowly suicidal. We go into 
society just at the time and just in the way we ought not 
to go; and we eat, drink and sleep pretty much as if eat 
ing, drinking and sleeping w'ere tributary to death instead 
ef life . — SoiUhern Times. 
The Hair. — Ur. Cazenoe, of the Hospital of St. Louis, 
Paris, has published a valuable paper on the hair, in which 
he says the most healthy mode of dressing the hair of fe- 
(uales, especially young ones, is to let it be as loose as pos- 
sible, or arranged in large bands, so as to allow the air to 
passthrough them. It is a great mistake to plat the hair of 
children under eleven or twelve years of age. The pro- 
cess of platting more or less strains the hairs in their 
roots; pulling them tight tends to dejtrive them of their 
requisite supply of nulriincnt, and checks their growth. 
Pile liair ol'girls should also not be cut nor thinned, but 
merely shortened. 
INSECT PESTS—CAN THEY BE DESTSOYEDI 
Editors Southern' Cultivator — You have shown 
yourselves so willing and competent lo assist, through the 
columns of the Cidiieator^ all applicants for instruction 
and advice, that I am encouraged to ask your friendly aid 
in the same way. For two years 1 have devoted iny lei- 
sure time to my garden and fruit trees, and though con- 
fined to narrow limits in both time and space, J have en- 
gaged in this employment with the greatest interest and 
enthusiasm. I have, however, met with one difficulty 
which has greatly disheartened me, and well nigh defeated 
my efforts. 
That difficulty has been the ravages of the insccl tribes, 
against which 1 have not been able to find an effectual 
remedy, and I have perseveringly tried a great many. 
First and worst has been various species of the aphis. I 
could fiad you a dozen dift'erent sorts of them in the com- 
pass of my umall garden. My cabbages, winter and 
spring, young end old, have been actually destroyed by 
them. i>o were my watermelon vines, both the early and 
the late planted, and much of my okra. My only 
quince tree has had every leaf on it blasted by a species 
peculiar to itself. They attacked my plum and apple 
trees, and grape vines. I have applied salt, ashes, ley, 
soot, snuff, tobacco watter, and guano w’ater, and have 
I found it easy to destroy multitudes ; but they multiply 
I with such rapidity as to baffle my efforts. If two or three 
escape, they are as numerous after twenty-four hours as 
before. Attached to the underside of the leaves, too, it is 
very difficult to reach them with any meaa.s at my com- 
mand. Indeed, I could do nothing with those which at- 
tacked my watermelon vines. They seem to flourish 
equally well in hot or cold weather, and were as numer- 
ous on my winter aabbage in December and January, as 
they have been in March and April. 
My Tomatoes are attacked by a worm which appeared 
this year in June; it is a green worm, with diagonal 
stripes of white on the sides, and a stiff horn on the rump, 
curving downwards. It sometimes comes in great num- 
bers and eats the young branches, leaves, blossoms, and 
fruit, and in a little while will strip a plantation of toma- 
toes naked and bare. When lull grown it is as large as 
my finger. I have discovered no remedy for it but to pick 
it ofl and kill it. It usually feeds from sun down lo sun 
up, and, b^ing very nearly the color of the tomatoes, can 
be found only by a c'ose search. 
My Mv.skviclons, of all sorts, are always ruined in Au- 
gust and the last of July by a green worm, an itich or an 
inch and a quarter long, which eats into ihe rn-.lon and 
feasts on the delicious treat I j« tended for rriyscif. 
Many of my S'roMhernj plants were killed, and all of 
them injured in the winter and spring, by a worm which 
burrowed a hole just at the root, and seemed to live there 
and eat the roots. This rascal I have never seen, as he 
committed his depredations late at night. 
The.! f es and ends of the twigs of my fine plum trees 
