THE SOUTHERX CULTIVATOR. 
03 
shake them out at the end of my fingers. I have 
■written this, hoping it might be the means ol 
callingoiU o^hers who are capable of writing; 
but I know planters are too apt to depend on 
others to attend to that which they should do 
themselves, and in this way much to their inter- 
est goes undone. J also hope it will have some 
infiuence with the Committee. The times are 
hard, and we should act for the interest of the 
community. A Pl.ixter. 
Green county, Ga. 
[We cheerfully insert the communication of 
our correspondent, and hope to hear from him 
often. — Ed. South. Cult.] 
I\>r t/ie Southern CuUirutor. 
Gree.v County, Ga., April 20, 1813. 
Messrs. Jones — As the time has arrived that, 
in the old counties of Georgia, we must fall 
upon the plan of manuring and resuscitating 
our old (and I may say, much abused) lands, or 
meet a poor return for our still poorer mode of 
cultivating them. As the first step, I would say 
to farmers, commence the right way to make 
manure, and save ■« hat you make. As the sta- 
ble lot is the proper place to form your dung 
heap, manure pit, or whatever you may please 
to call it, it should be on the north of your dwell- 
ing house, the better to avoid the deleterious ef- 
fects of the gases arising from the decomposi- 
tion of the various matter you may make avail- 
able in forming manure. Your stables and 
cow-sheds should be on the IJghest elevation in 
your lot; your dung pit on the lowest side, and 
formed in the following manner; — Mark ofi' in 
a straight line, (or an eliptic form wdU anstver 
if the fence around your lot is m that form,) the 
size you intend for 3''our pit. Strip off all the 
soil until you come to a solid foundation, say 
two feet deep at tlie low^est side, gradually less 
until you arrive at the surface or upper side of 
the pit, and form a bank with the soil you take 
off on the lowest side, close to your loc fence; 
then form side wings from this line, diverging 
in width from a right angle about thirty degrees, 
so as to embrace all the wash or moisture that 
may incline from your stables and cow-sheds, 
and endeavor to make this the receptacle of ev- 
ery thing that comes off your farm that can be 
converted into manure. First, all noxious 
■v\'eeds about your garden and lots during the 
summer; next keep j-our stables well littered 
with leaves or straw, and, in the fall of the year, 
keep your lot well covered -nuth com and cot- 
ton stalks, and when tolerably well trodden, say 
ever)' two or three weeks, select a rainy day and 
clean out your stables and cow-sheds, and rake 
up your lot, and with a wheelbarrow deposite 
all in the pit. Then litter your stables well 
with refuse straw, and strew your lot twelve 
inches deep with all and every thing that can be 
converted into manure. Follow up this process, 
and leave the side of the pit nearest your stables 
gently sloping, so that by laying a plank there 
you will be enabled to wheel up your manure 
after the pit has filled to a considerable height. 
Your stable manure and moisture becoming 
amalgamated with the mass in the pit, which, 
by its well known heating and fermenting qual- 
ities, will soon decompose the mass into a solid, 
well rotted manure; and, by pursuing this me- 
thod, on the March following you will have ev- 
ery thing that came of your fann the previous 
year, in a proper form to return to it again, and 
have the good reflection of cariying out the 
principles ol natural justice towards Mother 
Earth, and you will meet your reward in her in- 
creased fertility. 
The scientific may object to this process of 
forming a dung pit, as calculated to destroy or 
let the ammonia escape; but this can be obviat- 
ed by mixing a layer of muck, rotten wood, 
coal dust or marl, or common soil will answer 
in a great degree. Thus, whenever you add 
any thing to your dung pit, cart in a few loads 
of cither of the above absorbents, which will 
sufficiently fix and retain the ammonia. 
The smallest farm may with care, in this 
manner, manure ten acres of land well; and if 
he will devote his spare time and wet days to 
composting in his woods, where nature has gi- 
ven him ample material in rotten logs and 
leaves, also the vegetable mould which has ac- 
cumulated in the corners of his fences, he may 
manure and give a good dressing to ten acres 
more, and that with less labor than would be ex- 
pended in clearing five acres of knobby land, 
(which is all that a goodly number of farmers 
have DOW' to clear.) 
If from these rambling views, any of your 
readers may glean a single hint, and improve 
the same, the aim ol the writer is accomplished; 
and if you think you can present them to your 
readers in a form worthy of your valuable pa- 
per, I may be induced to trouble you again at 
some future da)'. 
Yours, with respect. 
WOODVILLE. 
Hints for Hard Times. — Rise early in tlie 
morning, be diligent during the day, in attend- 
ing to our business, and not werry ourselves 
■with our neighbor's concerns. 
Give encouragement to home industry, and in 
all give the preference to American manufac- 
tures over foreign in ever)' case, when they are 
equally good. 
Instead of following the fashions of Europe- 
ans, let a spirit of independence be cultivated, 
and decide for ourselves how our coats, boots 
and hats shall be made. 
Keep out of the streets, unle.ss business calls 
us to transact that which we cannot do in our 
shops or dw'ellin^. 
By all means keep away from drinking and 
gambling houses. 
When we buy an article of clothing, study 
commendable economy, at the same time get a 
good article, and wear it out regardless of any 
change of fashion — fashion is a great tyrant 
and men are fools to be slaves to it. 
Stay home at nights, improve yourselves by 
reading, writing or instructive conversation, and 
retire to your beds at an early hour. 
Be kind to your relations, obliging to your 
friends and charitable to all . — Maine Cult. 
Cure for the Red-water in Cattle. — Take 
a mixture of equal parts of oleum philosopho- 
rum, oleum asptc and oleum terebinlhum, and 
put sixty to seventy drops in half a quart of 
lukewarm water for a middle-sized cow, and 
from thirty to fifty for a calf. If it does not 
cure in twelve hours, repeal the do^. 
Choked Cattle. — Myrn^xle of giving relief 
to choked cattle is, to let them have agoodpiufh 
of rnuff. They will sneeze and throw up any 
that is too large to pass down. Will you try ill 
AUKICULTLRAI. CllLMls?TKV 
CARBON — ITS FROPERTIES AND KELATIO.NS TO VE- 
GETABLE LIFE. 
Carbon is the name givcu by chemists to the 
substance of wood charcoal in its j)urcsl form. 
When wood isdistilled in close ves.-cls, or burn- 
ed in heaps covered over, so as to juevcni the 
free access of air, wood charcoal is lelt behind. 
When this process is well peifi rmed, the char- 
coal consists of carbon witli a slight admixture 
only of earthy and saline matters, which re- 
main behind on burning the charcoal in the air. 
Heated in the air, charcoal burns w ilh little 
air, and, vilh the e.xception of the a.'-h which is 
left, entirely di.<appears. It is converted into a 
kind of air known among chemists by the name 
of carbonic acid, which ascends as it is fonued 
and mingles with the atmosphere. 
Charcoal is light and porou.«, and floats upon 
water, but plumbago or black lead and the dia- 
mond, which are only other foi ms of carbon, are 
heavy and dense. '1 he fonnei is 2J and the 
latter 3§ times heavier than water. '1 he dia- 
mond is the purest fonn of carbon, and at a high 
temperature it burns in the air or in oxygen gas, 
and like charcoal, dhsappears in the stale ol car- 
bonic acid gas. 
Of this carbon, all vegetable substances con- 
tain a very large portion. It forms from 40 to 
50 per cent, by weight, of all the parts of plants 
which are cultivated for the food of animals or 
of man, that is, of these plants in their uried 
state. In the economy of nature, therefore, it 
performs a most important part. 
The light porous charcoals obtained from 
wood, (e.specially from the willow, the pine and 
the box,) and from animal .substances, possess 
several interesting properties, which are of prac- 
tical application in the art of culture. 1. They 
have the power of absorbing in large quantity 
into their pores, the gaseous substances and va- 
pors which exist in the atmosphere;* and on 
this property, as 1 shall explain hereafter, the 
use of charcoal powder as a manure probably 
in some measure depends. 2. They also sepa- 
rate from w'ater and decayed animal matters «)r 
coloring substances which it may hold in .solu-; 
tion; hence its u.se in filterers for purifying and 
sweetening impure river or spring waters, or for 
clarifying syrups and oils. This action is sc 
powerful that port wine is rendered perfectly 
colprless by filtering through a well prepared 
charcoal. 
In or upon the soil charcoal for a time will 
act in the same manner, will absorb from the air 
moisture and gaseous substances, and from the 
rain and from flowing waters, oiganizetl matters 
of various kinds, any of which it will be in a 
condition to yield to the plants which grow 
around it, when they are such as are likely u> 
contribute to their growih. 3. They have the 
property also of absorbing disagi ecable odors in 
a very remarkable manner. Hence animal 
food keeps longer sweet when placed in contact 
with charcoal — hence also vegetable substances 
containing much water, such as potatoes, are 
completely preserved by the aid of a quantity ol 
charcoal — and hence the refuse charcoal of the 
sugar refiners is found to deprive night soil ol 
its disagreeable odor, and to convert it into a dry 
and portable manure. 4. Th^' exhibit also the 
still more singular property of extracting from 
W'ater a portion of the saline substances they 
may happen to hold in solution, and thus allow- 
ing it to escape in a less impure f orm. The de- 
cayed (half carbonized) rooLs of grass, which 
have been long subjected to irrigation, may act 
in one or all the-se wavs on the more or le.s,« im- 
pure waters by which they are irrigated— and 
thus gradually arrest and collect the materials 
which arc fiued to promote the growth of the 
coming crop. 
"Thu* of ammonia thoy ah»orb Oo umet their owr. 
bulk, of »olphnrelled hydrocen 56 Ume», of oxyem 9 
time*, of hydropen nearly twice their own bulk, and of 
aqneoa* xapor so mnch aa to increase their weight from 
to to 20 per cent. 
That life is long which answers life’s great 
ends. — Yeun^. 
