84 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
If they are taken sick by surfeiting, and loathe their food,, the mother will 
say, my dear, you must eat; you cannot live without eating; and the child 
believes its mother, crams in the food, and sometimes vomiting will suc¬ 
ceed, and not unfrequently fever, inflammation and death follow. Na¬ 
poleon Bonaparte was seldom ever sick, though he was exposed in all 
climates and to all weathers, sometimes wet and cold day after day; then 
again near the torrid zone, where the plague raged among his soldiers. In 
all of his travels, whether by day or night, by land or sea, he says he ne¬ 
ver had a physician but twice to attend him. When he was sick, it was 
his practice to fast until the disease had fled. He took care not to eat too 
much; and this is one reason he was so healthy. Regularity in diet, in 
sleep, and in labor, should be followed as near as can be, in order to pre¬ 
serve health and happiness. We certainly cannot be happy in this world 
if deprived of our health, and we should use all means to preserve it. 
Your friend and well wisher, A. WOOD, Jr. 
CORN BREAD. 
The south has been long celebrated for its grateful corn bread, cakes, 
muffins and homminy. In consequence of an invitation in the Cultiva¬ 
tor, a young lady in Tennessee, has kindly sent us the following direc¬ 
tions for making these domestic delicacies of the table, for which we re¬ 
spectfully tender her our acknowledgments. 
PLAIN CORN BREAD. 
Six pints meal, one table-spoonful salt, four pints water; thoroughly 
mixed with the hand, and baked in oblong rolls about two inches thick. 
Use as much dough for each roll as can be conveniently shaped in the 
hand. Many persons use hot water; in winter it is certainly best. The 
bread is better to be made half an hour or more before it is baked. The 
oven must be tolerably hot when the dough is put in. All kinds of corn 
bread require a hotter oven and to be baked quicker than flour. 
LIGHT CORN BREAD. 
Stir four pints meal into three pints tepid water; add one large tea¬ 
spoonful salt; let it rise five or six hours; then stir up with the hand and 
bake in a brisk oven. Another method is to make mush, and before it’ 
grows cold, stir in half a pint of meal. Let it rise and bake as the first. 
CORN CAKES. 
Six eggs well beaten, one pint milk, one tea-spoonful salt, two pints 
mush almost cold, two pints meal, and three table-spoonsful melted lard. 
Grease the oven and put one large spoonful of batterjn each cake. Do 
not let them touch in baking. 
CORN MUFFINS, 
Made in the same way as corn cakes; grease the muffin hoops and heat 
the oven slightly, before putting in either corn cakes or muffins. A bet¬ 
ter muffin is made by substituting two pints flour instead of meal. 
best batter cakes or mush cakes. 
Beat the yolks of eggs very light, add one pint milk, two pints mush 
almost cold, 1| pints flour, one tea-spoonful salt, three table-spoonsful 
melted butter. To be well beaten together. Just before frying them 
whip the whites to a strong froth, and stir it lightly into the batter. For 
frying all kinds of batter cakes, use no more lard than is necessary to make 
them turn well. 
MUSH. 
Put two pints of water into a pot to boil; then take one pint cold water 
and mix smoothly into it one pint meal. When (he water in the pot boils 
stir this well into it, and let it boil ten or fifteen minutes, or until it looks 
clear. 
COMMON BATTER CAKES. 
Six eggs well beaten, 2J pints milk, one tea-spoonful salt, stir in three 
pints meal that has been thrice sifted through a common sifter. Keep 
the batter well stirred while frying, otherwise the meal will settle at the 
bottom. 
BEATING HOMMINY. 
Soak the homminy corn len minutes in boiling water; then take the 
corn up and put it into the homminy mortar, and beat it until the husks 
are all separated from the corn. Once or twice while beating it, take it 
out of the mortar and fan it; that is, throw up on a tray or bowl so as to 
allow the husks to fly off. When sufficiently beaten, fan it until all the 
husks are out. 
PREPARING HOMMINY FOR THE TABLE. 
It must be thoroughly washed in cold water, rubbing it well with the 
hands; then washed in the same way in warm water, changing the water 
several times. Put it into a large pot of cold water, and boil steadily 
eight or ten hours, keeping it closely covered. Add hot water frequently 
while boiling, otherwise the homminy will burn and be dark colored.— 
When homminy beans are used, one pint to a gallon of homminy, to be 
put in when the homminy is put on. If it is put on the first thing in the 
morning, and kept briskly boiling, it will be ready for dinner at two o’clock. 
Season With butter and send it to the table hot. 
But the usual mode is to boil homminy twice a week, and put it into a 
wooden or stone vessel, and set it in a cool place to prevent its becoming 
musty. When wanted for use, take the quantity necessary for breakfast 
or dinner, and having put a small quantity of lard into an oven, let it be¬ 
come hot; put in the homminy and mash it well, adding some salt; when 
well heated it is ready for the table. Some persons allow it to bake at 
the bottom, and turn the crust over the homminy when put on the dish. 
Be careful to have no smoke under the pot while boiling, or when frying 
it for the table. Few things require more care or nicety in their prepa¬ 
ration than homminy. 
(These pints were all measured with the common tin cup.) 
SHEEP BARN—RUTA BAGA. 
JYew-Lebanon , May 26, IS37. 
Dear Sir— As you are engaged in agriculture, and no doubt take an 
interest in all improvements, I enclose you a sketch of a barn, [fig. 82,] 
which I built last season for the accommodation of sheep—141 by 40 feet, 
with a basement, three sides of which are built of stone laid in mortar, 6£ 
feet high in the rear and 7£ in front, with a cellar 40 by 16, which will 
hold about 2,500 bushels roots, which are dropped into it through a trap door 
from the outer floor. The barn will hold from 80 to 100 tons of hay, be¬ 
sides grain, straw, &c. The basement will conveniently hold 700 sheep, 
where they are fed with hay, ruta baga,and watered. In cold weather, we 
close the doors and window s,* and throw them open in mild weather, and is 
sufficiently warm in March and April, for young lambs. We shear on the 
centre floor, and have a wool room plastered on the right. Our flock con¬ 
sists of about 1,000 of the finest Saxony sheep, and we have long found 
it difficult to keep these fine and tender sheep sufficiently warm, and par¬ 
ticularly to guard young lambs against the vicissitudes of the weather, even 
in April. 
We think ruta baga are decidedly preferable to any other roots, and 
raised about three thousand bushels last season. They are as valuable for 
cattle as for sheep. 
The enormous high prices which are demanded for oxen and cows, as 
well as for butter and cheese, admonish us that the people of this coun¬ 
try have run too much into sheep, to the neglect of cattle; which the good 
sense of the farmers will soon rectify. We have an earnest of this from 
the number of calves which we see in the pasture of almost every farmer. 
I enclose a few samples of our wool. 
1 am very respectfully yours, &c. 
E. TILDEN. 
Wilkinson's Cross Roads, Tennessee , May 22 d, 1887. 
J. Buel—Dear Sir— A few of us are quite busy in trving to extend 
the circulation of the Cultivator. In it we see no scurrilous abuse—no 
ill-natured thing said by one rogue against another—-no party strife mani¬ 
fested, by persons hunting for place, power and authority. We witness 
in it none of the mad-cap folly of political gamblers, nor heartless dema¬ 
gogues. VV'e read of no religious fanatic denouncing his honester neigh¬ 
bor, because he will not believe the absurdities and licentious stuff which 
he proclaims. It is telling us in every page, how to recover from the pa¬ 
nic—how to escape the weight of the pressure—how to live without banks, 
and always to have a surplus revenue of ourown. Hence we like it, and 
are quitting the reading political papers, and soberly returning to the na¬ 
tural business of man. The first business which God put man to do, you 
know, was to cultivate th® soil. This was the first business of all. Abel 
was a shepherd, or a tender of stock, which in the eye of the Deity, 
was the second in the list of duties. Cain, after he had killed his stock- 
taising brother, fled, and became carpenter, for you know he built a city. 
To till the soil, to raise stock, and to make houses, were the occupations 
which God put our forefathers at, and I reckon it would have been best, 
had we, their sons, pursued their calling. I intend getting back to those 
vocations. 
About Nashville, and in the county of Rutherford, we are getting some 
superior Durham cattle, imported from Mr. Murdock’s pasture, and some 
first rate breeding hogs. I may hereafter say more to you about some of 
them. Respectfully, 
FRED. E. BECTON. 
* We doubt the propriety of closing the doors and windows at anytime, 
except during a driving snow storm. No animal is more sensitive to foul 
air than tne sheep; and 700 of these animals will soon vitiate the airof the 
basement story. We think it would be an improvement to have doors or 
ventilators, on the ends and rear, as well as in front. 
If we were to prescribe rules in regard to the management of sheep, 
they would be somethinglike the following:—1. Give them pure air; 2. feed 
them well; 8. keep them dry; 4. give them salt often; and 5. graze them 
in hilly, stony pastures.— Cond- 
