SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
371 
Vellow Wood. 15— Halesia tretrapteru, Silver Bell IG — 
Larix Europea, European Larch. 17 — Cehis occidentalis, 
Nellie Tree. I8— Acacia julibrissin, the Julibrissin Tree. 
19— Juglans regia, Madeira Xul. 20— Berberis purpurea. 
Purple Berberry. 21 — Pyrus Japouica, Jujian Quince. 
22 — Buxus sempervirens arborea,Trec Box. 29 — Euony- 
nius Japonica, Evergreen Euonymus. ; 
Ai D in Ihe flower garden, a plant of the weeping cher- | 
ry, and stars shows the j)Osiiion of sugar maples for | 
shade. Wii.i.iam Saunders, | 
Landscape Gardener, Germantown. 
• \ HorticalLurist. ! 
DRY ROT IN COTTON. | 
If the Cotton Plant should sufler as much from prema- j 
ture decay in the course of a few years, as the Potato 
Plant has, the occurrence will not surprise us. Gangrene, : 
whether “dry” or otherwise in vegetable and animal lis- ' 
sues, arises commonly, either Irom the weakening of vital 
force by improper nourishment, the presence of a poiso- 
nous substance, or frotn some unknown constitutional ; 
defect. The source of “kanker,”— which attacks truits and 
fruit trees, of the potato rot, and the rot in the seed and 
lint of Cotton is involved in great obscurity. Whatever 
may be the primary exciting cause, either of the prema- 
ture extinction of life in the parts affected, and of their 
rapid dissolution, the warmth and humidity of the sur- : 
rounding atmosphere may be such as to favor the de.struc- 
tive increase of the malady. All living beings are crea- 
tures of circumstances ; with many of which the wisest 
are yet unacquainted. We know that inflamed flesh is 
apt to mortify; and that the dead limbs of a man like ' 
those of a tree, may even drop ofl’ by purely vita! and 
chemical processes. Nature has many secrets in vegetable , 
and animal life and death that human science may never 
penetrate, nor reveal. But this fact should not prevent 
our stuvlying all the phenomena of vitality as displayed 
in cultivated plants and domesticated animals. English 
farmers find it impossible to grow common red clover on 
land where this plant has flourished for a half century, 
without being able to assign any good reason for the fact , 
that the soil is now “clover sick.” A rhavnc of crops, in ■ 
all such cases, has been the best remedy, where others 
failed. The fastest horses, with the largest constitutional ■ 
resources niay be broken down by over woi k ; and why ■ 
may not the vital resources of the Cotton Plant be over- , 
tasked by those who seem willing to drive cotton culture ! 
as one drives a free horse till he tails dead and rots ? 
The over-feeding of an animal is a poor remedy for 
pushing him beyond his natural powers of enduran'C ; 
and by a parity of reasoning, to surcharge the ves.sels and 
cells of a plant with liquid manure, is not a proper pre- 
ventive of “rot” in its sound or diseased system. Potatoes 
rot most when thus treated. 
According to our ideas- diseases in vital organs and 
functions are seldom viewed so philosophically as the 
present advanced state of physological science render^ 
practicable. If we were to say that the earth and climates, 
including air and water, produce murrain in cattle far 
more in some localities than in others, as similar elements 
of disease produce bilious affections in the human family, 
the true sources of these well known maladies would be 
but poorly explained. Unquestionably, many causes often 
CO operate to weaken the vital principle in plants and 
animals; and the early deatli and dissolution of a single 
cell in the fruit of a cotton plant, are doubtless sufficient 
to bring on the chemical disorganization of the whole boll 
if not of the whole plant. The rotting, or decay of every 
tissue is purely a chemical process, however this disor- 
ganizing operation may have originated. 
If we have read the agiicultural literature of civilised 
nations aright, such diseases as the blight on pear trees, 
the premature rotting of apples, potatoes, and other vege- 
tables, and the rot in cotton, are not likely to diminish in 
the aggregate until farmers know more of the laws of 
nature, and of the true principles of farm economy, than 
they now do. They can not systematically obey laws of 
which they know little ot nothing. So long as farmers ill 
Western New York raised potatoes on fresh virgin soils, 
they were exempt from the potato rot as a prevailing dis- 
temper; and we fear that as cotton is cultivated year after 
year on the gradually deteriorated laiids of the South, 
there is no strength of vitailty in this weed to pirotect it; 
itidofmilelti , Lpm constitutional deterioration, and its 
natural consequences 
In an excellent article on “Cotton culture and selectioa 
of Seed'" in our last issue, IMr. A. W. Washburn, of Yazoo, 
i\Iiss. says that his crop averages a bale of cotton ofi400 
lbs. to the acre, although he plants “on prairie land 
twenty-five years under hard cultivation, without manure.” 
He makes ten bales to the hand : and probably is not at 
all injured by the rot. 8uch facts speak well for the na- 
tural resources of his .soil ; but “hard cultivation” for 25 or 
30 years more without manure may so change the physi- 
cal and chemical properties of this land as to weaken the 
cotton plants which grow therein; and their seed, planted 
in districts where the rot prevails will yield crops equally 
subject to the malady. If our cotton rotted, as described 
by ‘ Beaver Bend” in our last number, we should grow, or 
obtain from another, seed produced on fresh land to plant 
hereafter. T he land an which cotton wms to he cultivated 
should be plowed an inch or two deejier than usual to give 
the growing plants the ^>pncfit of a better pasture in fresh 
earth. The subsoil is oflen full of virgin, fertilising re- 
sonrees, wdiich superficial, shallow tillage never reaches, 
riiere is a striking analogy between the heallhypasturage 
of domesticated plani.s and dome-sticated animals. If 
unchanged into new% and iVe.sh pastures, cattle soon eat 
down, and finally kill nut, tlmse nutritious grasses and 
hcrl'S best adapted to form pure blood, sound flesh, nerves 
and bones. T hey may .still subsi.st, and propagate their 
kind, for several generations; but under far less favor- 
able circumstances, and more subject to casualities. The 
over croppir;g of their land is a similar folly. It parts 
with some clement of vegetable nutrition, unseen and 
unappreciated by the cultivator, and there is left to him a 
disordered soil yielding cotton plants of unnatural, unsound 
grow'th, which Nature disowns, Vitality deserts, and 
Chemical Laws speedily resolve into their original 
elements. As every thing that lives, de.cay.s or “rots,’ 
sooner or later, it is a question of time and circumstance 
when, and June this final result shall be attained. A rea- 
sonable supply of potash in the soil is know-n to promote 
the healthy growth of the woody fibre in plants, (which 
forms the lint of cotton and a part of its seed) and also 
favors the perfect organization of stapch, sugar, oil and 
the so-called protien compounds ; therefore let w'ood ashes 
be applied to the “sandy land” where cotton rots. 
It is an unwise, a bad system of cultivation that makes 
so many old and deserted fields in tlie cotton growing 
States. Nature never gets tired of growing crops of forest 
trees even on the very poorest lands of the South. This 
fact IS full of instruction. Man wantonly violates her 
laws, and disease in a thou.'^ahd forms is sent to chastise 
him into better conduct. How far Providence will punish 
the impoverishment of arable lands, we have all yet to 
learn. It will, however, be sufficient to compel a reform 
in our present system of tillage and husbandry. If one 
degree of rot, of “murrain,” or other calamity, is insuffi- 
cient to bring us back to the strait and narrow path of 
agricultural duly, another, and still another degree of 
chastisement will be added, until penitent, and willing to 
obey the laws of his Creator, man will properly feed the 
land that both feeds and clothes him. L. 
