REVIEW OP FEBRUARY NO. OF THE AGRICULTURIST. 
209 
the wheat crop, one year with another; for it must 
be remembered that in our mode of culture we save 
seed and lint from the same growth. 
New Seedling Potatoes — Mr: Smith’s interesting 
account of his experiments winds up, like too many 
communications, with “ potatoes to sell.” If he 
believes in “ the degeneracy of the potatoe, and its 
liability to run out,” and consequent necessity to 
obtain a new stock from seedlings, 1 don’t. I would 
as soon believe that wheat was about to run out 
because it was struck with the rust for several suc¬ 
cessive years. I am always pleased to see.experi¬ 
ments made to improve our old stock ; but I cannot 
recommend the public to buy under the expectation 
of getting a new variety that will be proof against 
the all-pervading and mysterious potatoe disease. 
The Corn or Fly Weevil. —Mr. Ruffin says most 
truly that . “ several insects very different in their 
appearance and habits are called * weevil,* which 
serves to confuse the prevailing and erroneous opi¬ 
nions concerning them.” It is a fact that the word 
“ weevil” means just what the person having it has 
previously known as “ my sort of weevil.” In 
some parts of the United States the “ Hessian fly” 
and nothing else is the weevil. Now this is an 
insect as entirely different from Mr. Ruffin’s weevil 
as he is different from a ruffian. In other places 
the grain-worm, that has infested the wheat of New 
York, is called weevil, which is also very unlike 
the one now under observation. And I am not 
certain that Mr. Editor Allen and Mr. Ruffin are 
talking about the same insect. Although I have 
seen enough of the real Southern weevil to eat up 
corn sufficient to feed seven millions of starving Irish, 
I have never examined one of them closely enough 
to decide whether they are the same as the Angou- 
mois moth that created so much excitement in 
France eighty or ninety years ago. If Mr. Ruffin 
can point out an effectual way to prevent the ravages 
of this dreadful pest, it will be of more value to the 
South and Southwestern states than all his previous 
valuable services to the agriculturists of that vast 
region. 
To Revive Old Writing, reminds me to deprecate 
the use of all “ blue ink.” Although it may some¬ 
times be good and durable for aught I know, yet in 
nine cases out of ten it is a fleeting show. As an 
example ; a bond concerning the title to a piece of 
land was put into my hands to-day, for advice, 
which was written only two years since, that cannot 
now be deciphered. A short time since I was called 
into court as a witness, to prove what had once 
been written upon a paper that once had been a note 
made of modem “ writing fluid.” Unless people 
will desist from using the vile stuff, nothing in your 
columns will be more useful than recipes “ to re¬ 
vive old writing.” 
“ Mr. Norton’s Letters.” —This gentleman’s letters 
are always interesting. Pray, Mr. Allen, can you 
tell us the best method of making the small pipe 
tile, that Mr. Norton speaks of as superseding all 
others in the vicinity of London, and the expense of 
making and laying it in this country. [We could ; 
but it would require a long written explanation and 
several cuts to illustrate it; and we doubt whether 
the subject is of sufficient interest to American far¬ 
mers to compensate for so much expense and trou¬ 
ble we should necessarily be at in doing this]. 
Popular Errors. —Lest your correspondent has 
not heard of all the vagaries of the moon, I will tell 
him that I once had a neighbor who was sure that 
if he should lay the worm, or bottom rail of a new 
fence in the old of the moon, the whole would rot 
down and settle into the ground in half the time of 
one built in the new of the moon. 
Mastodon Cotton, No. 1.—The number indicates 
that more is coming. I hope that after reading a 
long series it wont turn out to be like a great many 
other articles, a mere announcement of “ a new and 
very superior kind of cotton-seed for sale. Price, 
$5 a bushel!” 
Bees, No. 7.—Pray, friend Miner, what is the dif¬ 
ference to me whether my bees freeze to death or 
starve to death, in consequence of getting so cold 
that they cannot eat? They do “ winter kill,” I 
know, and I would like to know how to prevent it. 
Perhaps if I give a more earnest attention to your 
articles, past and future, I shall yet be able to “ live 
and learn.” 
Weather Predictions. —These six lines from the 
writings of M. Arago, will be read by every reader 
of the Agriculturist; and yet not one in a hundred, 
perhaps, will take the trouble to think who M. 
Arago is or was, or why he should think that all 
“ weather predictions” belong to the family of 
“ popular errors.”' It appears to me that the two 
words that head this article might be profitably 
employed for a text to a series of articles upon this 
subject. It certainly is one upon which the mind 
of the present generation needs much enlightening, 
and the “ Almanac makers” as much correcting, as 
they do for planting cucumbers in the moon, or en¬ 
couraging them to look to the Almanac to see 
whether or not “ a storm may be expected some¬ 
where about these days.” All weather predictions 
should invariably be accompanied with that true 
and never failing old saw : “ All signs fail in a dr% 
time.” 
Letters from the South, No. 3.-— If it had been three 
times as long, it would have been three times more 
interesting. Who ever tires in reading a fluent 
well told description of a section of country that 
they never saw, and perhaps feel deeply interested 
in ? Is it a fact that rice is the most profitable crop 
in the United States ? If so, why is not the culti¬ 
vation extended to the North ? It is not an exclu¬ 
sively southern crop. I have seen it grow finely 
as far north as Lat. 40° ; and the wild rice of the 
Northern Lakes grows most luxuriantly I know r 
some 5 or 6 degrees further north. Friend R. L. A. is 
not quite right in regard to what cattle fatten upon 
in the cane-brakes. Those “ evergreen leaves” 
possess just about as much “palatable nutritiveness,” 
as the grass in your father’s old bog-meadows did 
after a frost, or an equal quantity of shavings 
from hickory hoop-poles. The small cane is not 
the young cane, nor does the old cane put forth 
young shoots; but in all cane-brakes there are con¬ 
stantly springing up from the ground new stalks, 
which are without leaves and branches for the first 
year, and are as soft and tender as half-grown corn¬ 
stalks, and as much loved by cattle, and equally 
nutritious. This is called “ mutton-cane.” This is 
what bears live upon, and for which they resort to 
the cane-brakes. It runs up 15 or 20 feet high in one 
season, and obtains al nost full size before it becomes 
