THE SOUTHERX CULTIVATOR. 
175 
gether; stable them at night, and turn them out 
iu the day time, except in bad weather; lorce 
them all you can the first winter. Alter they 
are one year old they should not be kept so fat, 
nor permitted to get poor: a stud colt, which is 
intended to be kept as such, should be separated 
from other horses at 11 months ora year old, 
and stabled of nights; his rack and manger 
should be so high as to strain him a little to get 
food; the windows of the stables should also be 
high, as he will be looking out at them; by this 
means his shoulders will be thrown back and 
his withers raised. How graceful it looks for 
a horse’s shoulders to be well thrown back, and 
his withers well raised. 
The best plan we have found to increase a 
colt’s quarters, enlarge his muscles, and other 
material parts, is to keep him in the stable fre- j 
quently for several days together, which will : 
animate him, then turn him out in a lot, and en- j 
courage him to run and exert himself all you ! 
can, as his parts will acquire size and strength 
in proportion to the use made of them. When | 
a colt arrives at the age of two or two and a 
half years old, it is time he should be handled • 
and taught the use of the bit. It is of great i 
consequenceihe should be first gentled by a per- 
son who well understands the management of 
horses, to prevent bad habits; as first impres- 
sions are hardly ever entirely removed Irora 
mare or horse. 
We recommend corn for colts iu the winter, 
and oats in the summer. Colts and horses 
should be furnished with good stables; great at- 
tention should be paid to stables, the removal of 
all offensive and putrid matter, to prevent dis- 
eases, which frequently proceeds from such ne- 
glect. A log stable is preferable lo any other, 
on account of its admitting a free circulation of 
air in the summer; and by the use of rough-edge 
plank and straw in the winter, can be made 
warm. The rack should be smooth, high and 
firmly fastened to the wall, which will prevent a 
horse from injuring his eyes, skinning his face, 
and doing himself other injury when feeding. 
The upright pieces in a rack should be four or 
four and a half inches apart, to prevent long 
food from being unnecessarily wmsted. The 
halter should never be tied to the rack, (horses 
have been ruined by such carelessness,) but 
should be passed through a ring in the manger 
and confined to a long, smooth piece of wmod, 
weighing about a pound. A stall should be 
four and a half or five feet wide, which will al- 
low him to lie down with comfort. 
Verv respectfully submitted, 
H. H. Kenan, Sec’y. 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON COTTON. 
The Committee on Cotton respectfully re- 
port, that their object is not to point out the man- 
ner of producing the greatest quantity of cotton 
to the hand, for that is generally too great already; 
but to show the easiest and most perfect man- 
ner of cultivating the plant, so as to produce the 
greatest quantity to a given number of acres; 
and as the manner of cultivation must be much 
influenced by the quantity of cotton planted in 
proportion to that of other kinds of crop, the 
Committee will first direct your attention to 
that part of the subject. They are of opinion 
that, in order to enable the planter to give that 
attention to his cotton crop which its proper cul- 
tivation requires, he should not plant more than 
six acres to the hand, allowing eight for com, 
and fourteen for wheat and oats, — one-half for 
each. They are aware that some of our high- 
pressure planters will say that this is not enough 
for cotton, for some of them plant as much as 
10 acres to the hand; but lor those who wish 
fair and easy sailing six acres will be plenty. 
With this quantity the planter can cultivate his 
crop, and attend to every necessary operation of 
his_ plantation, without that hurry and pushing 
which is always the consequence of a large 
cotton crop, and which is so injurious to ne- 
groes, working stock, and even to land. The 
planter, by planting moderately, is enabled to 
drill his corn, by allowing time for hoeing it, 
and thereby preserv'es his land from washing. 
He has sufficient time for harvesting and sow- 
ing his small grain, which is often neglected 
and injured by the press of a heavy cotton crop. 
The qualiqv of his cotton is also much superi- | 
or, by being gathered earlier, and his negroes | 
are saved from the horrid tram of diseases and | 
death which are produced by being exposed, in j 
picking a large crop, to the inclemencies and i 
rigors of the weather through the whole winter; 
whereas, the quantity which the committee pro- 
pose can always be got out with ease, before the : 
hardest of the winter sets in. ; 
Haring determined on the quanlit}'’, the land ! 
which is^ intended for cotton ^should be w'ell 
broken up with a scooter, and if in stubble, 
should be turned over in the lall, or early in the 
winter, with a twister, so as to allow time lor 
the decomposition of the grass and stubble, for i 
if this is neglected, it wdll be impossible to get 
a stand; it should then be laid ofi' in rows, three 
feet apart or wider, owing to the quality of the 
land; and if necessary to manure, the furrow 
should be opened out very deep, by running, if 
necessary, two shovel furrows in the same place, 
and after scattering in the manure, a bed should 
be thrown on it as high as possible with a twist- 
er plow, and where the ground is sideling, drawn 
up with a hoe, so as to prevent the water break- 
ing over; or if too low and wet, it should be 
drawn up with a hoe, ;o prevent the cotton from 
drowning out. The bed should be opened very 
shallow, with a small scooter plow: the seed 
should then be strewed in very thick, from three 
to four bushels per acre, and then covered with 
a board or hoe, or if in stiff red land, by running 
a scooter furrow on each side of the seed, and 
scraping ofi with a board when the cotton seed 
begin to sprout. As soon as the cotton makes 
its appearance above ground, it should be sided 
or run round with a half shovel or twister, run- 
ning the straight side next to the cotton, and 
lapping the dirt in the middle of the row, so as 
to cover the first crop of young grass; the hoes 
should then follow, chopping out, and leaving 
three and four stalks in a place, a hoe’s width 
apart, or more, to test the quality of the land; 
though, on ordinary land, about five inches will 
be the proper distance. This working is dis- 
pensed with by many planters, but a part of the 
committee are satisfied from trial of its advan- 
tages; it gives the plant an earlier start, by dis- 
incumbering it of the great quantity of cotton 
which first comes up, and which not only causes 
it to die, but must check its growth if suffered 
to remain until the first working is gone through 
in the usual way, which requires double the 
time necessary for chopping out, a hand being 
able to do two tasks, or acres, per day, and then 
the cotton will be in a situation to wait wuthout 
injury, until the second working can be given, 
w'hich consists in running with the plow in the 
same manner as at first, and drawing a little dirt 
to the cotton with the hoe, and thinning it to a 
•Stand, which in all cases should be only one 
stalk in a place, without regard to the quality 
of the land or the distance of the stalks apart. 
For the committee are of opinion that one stalk 
in a place would make more than two, if there 
w'as but the one stalk in an acre. The next or 
third working consists in throw^ing out the mid- 
dles which had been left in the two previous 
plowfings, with a twister, and drawing up a hill 
with the hoe, after which the cotton will be in 
bloom; any further working with the plow is 
always a hazardous operation, for if plowed too 
deep, or too close, or too dry, it causes it to shed 
its squares and small bolls, which is an injury 
that cannot be repaired, for the bolls which are 
substituted for those which have fallen off will 
be too late to mature. The use of the scraper 
or eagle plow, by merely scraping off the young 
grass without injuring the roots of the cotton, 
would obviate the risk of injurj’-from late plow- 
ing, and would be a great desideratum for laying 
by a cotton crop, and perhaps for other pur- 
poses — though the committee have not made 
sufficient trial of them to speak positively. 
J. N. Herndon, Chairman, 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SAVING PORK 
A.\'D CURiNG BACON. 
Your committee, after conferring together, 
come lo the conclusion, that it would not be any 
thing ami.ss, to give some of our experiments in 
fatting of hogs, belbie we undertake to make 
pork of them ; ihereiorc, about the first of Octo- 
ber, we put them in a pea-field that there is 
water in; if not so, minding to give them plenty, 
iefore we turn them in the field; we give them 
as much corn as they will eat, and then a little 
every day. As soon as they have ate the peas 
pretty well out olfhal field, put them into another 
until we wish to pen them ; we then make close 
pens and floor them, and put them in ; we shell 
the corn that we give them, and soak it from 12 
to 16 hours. We keep salt pretty constantly in 
their trough. By this plan we, can fatten our 
hogs on a great deal less corn, than to ieed it 
dry. We kill our hogs from the middle to the 
last of December, which is generally a favora- 
ble time for saving pork. The day we kill we 
cut up and salt lightly down upon plank, which 
draws out a great deal of bloody water; next 
day we salt it over again and pack it down in 
tight hogsheads, minding to have every layer of 
meat covered well with salt, (and when we are 
salting, we rub the skin well ;) we let it lie in 
salt about six weeks, we then hang it up and 
smoke it with green hickory wmod, until we dry 
it properly. In the first of March, before the 
Stripper Fly makes it appearance, wm take 
down the joints, and put them dowm in hickory' 
ashes, (or any other good strong ashes ;) the 
manner that some of us perform this process, is 
to take a large box or hogshead, sift ashes all 
over the bottom till you cover it, then put down 
a layer of hams, so as not to touch each other, 
then sift in the ashes, until we have filled every 
crack, then we take sticks about the size of a 
common hoe helve, and lay across in order to 
keep the meat separate, and so on alternately, 
until we have filled our box, or put down what 
meat we have. By this method we can preserve 
hams as sound and as sw'eet, twelve months, as 
they were the day they came out of the pickle. 
Some of our committee have tried rubbing the 
joints with ground (or pulverized) red pe, iper, 
with very good success. This is done before 
hanging them up. All ot which is respectfully 
submitted. 
Matthaw Hall, Chairman. 
From the Southwestern Farmer. 
Ingleside, Adams Co., Miss., ) 
September 11, 1843. J 
Gentlemen — The Farmer of the 1st instant 
has suggested to me a few remarks — and I have 
an inquiry or two to make. 
What means are used to preserve corn from 
the attacks of weevil? I find that open cribs 
and close cribs; the application of abundance of 
salt; laymrs ot China tree leaves and branches; 
and gathering and storing the corn when wet 
enough to undergo a pretty severe sweat, have 
all been tried with more or less success. 1 was 
a severe sufferer last year, and am anxious to 
learn of a preventive. 
Is the T'A'umps, in a horse, curable or not? If 
cut able, by what means? Is it a violent palpi- 
tation of the heart? or, what is the cause of the 
animal’s suffering? It differs from heaves. 
What is the objection, if any, to a drick 
smoke house? Is it, or is it not, preferable to a 
frame or log building for that purpose? 1 ask 
for information — and should like a plan of a 
house, method of curing and smoking included, 
I have some suggestions to make, but will wait 
for farther light. 
I find that a good table spoonful of spirit of 
hartshorn, given to a horse afflicted with colic, 
will afford instant relief. It may be put in a 
bottle, and water enough added to drench with. 
I am indebted to a medical friend for the pre- 
scription. 
Much has been written on the comparative 
value of cotton seed as food for stock, and as 
manure. It seems to me a strange question. I 
cannot understand what would excuse a man’s 
