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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, SEPTEMBER 1,1882.
The Cabbage Worm.
Editor Southern World—I have seen
several remedies for destroying both the red
and green worm, but I think I have a rem
edy far superior. Break a leaf from the un
derside of the cabbage and place in a re
versed condition on the top of the cabbage,
late in the evening.
If taken off in the morning while the
dew is on, you have all the worms on that
cabbage, as they go under the leaf for pro
tection from the dew. This I have tried sat
isfactorily. J. A. K.
Felix, Perry county, Ala.
Tbe Great Need.
Editor Southern World—I am applied to
by so many of my neighbors, that I once
more address machinists and inventors,
through your valuable paper, ou the subject
of individual farm machines for hand or
horse-power. We want a rice-huller and
cleaner, cotton seed huller and cleaner and
press to get the oil, small circular-saw for
short wood, hand corn-sheller to be screwed
to a table or bench. We do not want ma
chinery for large cotton mills or factories,
but something every man can use at home,
and what we want we can pay for.
J. Hendree, Callierville,
Chilton county, Ala.
Too Mncb Moisture In Mississippi.
Editor Southern World.—As you invite
the readers of your excellent paper to re
port the crops of their counties, I will write
you what 1 know about tbe crops of Scott.
Before the late rains began our crops were
very, very good, but now our prospects are
very gloomy. Nearly all our low land cot
ton is drowned out. On our place we have
not done a days work since the 3rd of July
in the field and our crops are very foul. Had
I not examined some corn before I began to
write this letter, I would have pronounced
tbe corn crop of this section very good, but
on examination of it I found that the ears
were not more than two-thirds full. To go
through the fields most persons would pro
nounce tbe corn crop excellent; it has a
splendid color and large shoots, but little
corn. The sandy land in the eastern por
tion of this county will make as good, if not
better crops than usual, but the flat lands
near Morton cannot make more than two-
thirds the usual crop. J. M. Champion.
Morton, Miss.
Weather Predictions and Crops in Ala
bama.
Editor Southern World -I wish to state
through your very valuable paper for the
benefit of the fanner, that my experience of
more than two yean, from observation and
careful instrumental data made three times
a day, that the weather forecasts of Oeo. It.
Cather, so far as they concern this district
are correct I quote from his pamphlet,
briefiy stated:
1. “The high and low places of the moon,
are tbe greatest monthly distances of the
moon north and south of tbe equator.”
2. “By corresponding periods is meant pe
riods which fall either at high moons or at
low moons. A succesive period at high moon
corresponds with a previous period at high
moon.
3. “Note the season and the character of
the weather, and from these estimate tbe de
velopment for the next corresponding pe
riods. By following this up you will soon
become an expert.”
.4. “You need give your weather no range,
as you are only interested in your own lo
cality.”
6. “In winter the cold developments are
of long intervals, sometimes running into
each other.”
6. “It is interesting to watch the weather
about the time of the autumnal and vernal
equinoxes.”
7. "Whenever the development occurs
just before the moon reaches its highest or
lowest point, and an interval of ordinary
weather succeeds the same weather will re
turn as the moon gets back to this point
This is worth observing, as it proves the the
ory of lunar weather belts.”
8. “The temperature falls and rises in lo
calities'during the intervals between the
climax developments, but the latter are too
well defined and marked to be overlooked—
they are easily detected.”
9. “The electricity of a storm is generated
by molecular pressure and movement.”
10. “The warmer intervals lie between the
cooler. The four intervals of the month are
the lunar seasons.”
I want every farmer to send to Oeorge It.
Cather and get bis little pamphlet. It will
amply repay him, for it is full of scientific
truths verified and proven. I believe he has
fully solved the meteorological problem.
Before tbe war, I was engaged by Professor
Henry in such pursuits, and a long life of
over 70 years groping in the dark, at last has
opened up to day and light.
We have enormous crops of oats, wheat
and corn; fruit and vegetables with much
increased acreage for cereals. Your much
pleased subscriber.
Georoe D. Norris.
New Market, Ala.
Crops In East Tennessee.
Editor Southern World—Our harvesting
and threshing is about done, and we are now
busy preparing the ground for next year’s
crop of wheat. The average yield for East
Tennessee is increased and promises better,
though many farmers are disappointed in
results from the use of commercial fertilizers.
Clover lands have invariably come up to and
in many cases exceeded expectations. My
own crop of forty acres yielded me 710 bu
shels, an average of a little less than twenty
bushels to the acre.
Weare having an abundance of rain, more
apparently than is needed. Our corn crop
promises fair, but we are short of hogs to
eat it.
We will have two Farmer’s Institutes tnis
fall, one in Greenville and the other at Jack-
son, Tennessee. They will be held under
the direction of our Commissioner of Agri
culture, A. W. Hawkins. The meetings no
doubt will benefit those attending. I expect
to be present at both, and will give you sy
nopsis of proceedings.
Capitalists are investing largely in manu
facturing and mining enterprises here, and
large quantities of marble, coal, etc., are be
ing shipped, making money plentiful for
farmers and producers.
Our Commissioner of Agriculture has
attracted a useful class of immigrants to our
State and many are purchasing homes in our
midst, highly pleased with - their surround
ings. John M. Meek.
Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.
From the Old North Slat*.
Editor Southern World—I am in receipt
of the Southern Wobld, and am much
pleased with it. I think it an encyclopedia
of valuable instruction and information that
every Southern planter should have for
both home and farm improvement.
We have been blessed this year with boun
teous crops of wheat and oats, and the pros
pects now are that to all those who have
“ tickled the bosom of old mother earth,”
she yet will “laugh forth abundant har
vests,” of a different character. Corn is
looking splendid, tobacco and cotton fine.
Some few here have the Australian cotton,
which is the finest of all cottons. Its staple
is as long as Sea Island, and its yield is from
two to three times as much per acre as that
of other kinds, so it will be the cotton of the
future here. The timely showers have
caused all vegetation to grow kindly, and
our cattle are now fat and sleek off of that
most wonderful of all grasses or trifoleates,
the Les Pedexa Striata. This plant is described
by Hooker and Arnott in the flora of Hong-
Kong, and it is supposed to have made its
way here from China. It was first seen in
this section in 1866, occupying a space on the
roadside, surrounded by broomsedge and old
field pines, not exceeding ten feet square.
In 1870 the broomsedge had all disappeared
and this clover had formed a rich carpet of
nutritious verdure in its stead covering
hundreds of acres. Land is rapidly improved
by it, and when turned under with the plow
it gives the same fertilizing and chemical
elements to the soil that red clover and pea-
vines do. It will grow on any soil, in fact in
gullies where there is no soil. I have seen
it three feet high among old-field pines and
in tbe original forest. Its seeds are almost
infinitesimal in appearance, and it produces
them in great abundance, consequently it is
the most fructiferous plant ever seen here.
Stock and cattle prefer it to any other grass
and keep fat and sleek on it from its appear
ance in February until the frost in October
or November. It does not cause that flow of
saliva that other clovers do. In this new in
vader of the grass domain of the South we
have the future rejuVenator and reclaimer
of our old worn out and turned out lands.
It frees them of the worthless broomsedge
and gives the best of pasturage in its stead,
and improves the land annually. When
once sown you have it for all coming time,
as it never runs out, Yet, like all other val
uable grasses, It is easily destroyed with the
plow.
Near here Nature’s remedy for consump
tion has been found in a bed of natural “ hy-
pophosphites,” just above the famous Con
sumptive Springs. Tbe mineral is white and
since its discovery has never failed to cure
any one so afflicted who used it This is
certainly a boon to those afflicted with that
heretofore incurable disease.
J. W. Walker.
Franklin, North Carolina.
Gluten.
“Forever and forever” are we entertained
by the would-be philanthropists with argu
ments loud and long against the use of white
bread, and in all these arguments the burd
en of the song is the smaller percentage of
gluten contained in the center or white por
tion of the wheat berry as compared with
the total contents of the grain. In London,
England, the crusade of the Bread Reform
League has been long and determined, and
yet we do not read that all of the millers of
England are changing over their mills
to the Campbell-Morflt system. On the con
trary, those wicked men, like the millers of
the United States, are pandering to the de
praved tastes of misled humanity and are
striving to make their flour white and to
eliminate by all the devices tbe inventor's
brain can put before them every particle of
those outer coatings of the wheat berry
which, although containing, according to
bare chemical data, a large percentage of
gluten, do not nevertheless, contain this
gluten in a convenient form for assimilation
into the human system. Chemical data,
pure and simple, do not suffice for our guid
ance in the choice of food; experience, as
propounded by the dictates of nature, must
have its share in the direction of our diet to
as great an extent as the theoretical results
of the analytical laboratory. There are very
many substances whicli contain a larger
amount of gluten than wheat. Why, then,
if the presence of gluten per se decides the
food value of all we eat, should wheat be
preferred to any other vegetable food ? Na
ture answers the question. Because the con
stituent parts of wheat, although partaking
of the same nature chemically as certain
constituent parts of other vegetable sub
stances, possess in reality different proper
ties, and, following in the same order of
things, it has been maintained by competent
authorities that albuminoids contained in
the outer coatings of wheat are not of the
same value as those dispersed throughout
the central whiter portion. Wo know quite
well that flour containing a large portion of
gluten makes a finer loaf than that made
from flour poor in this constituent; but we
also know that oatmeal, which contains
more gluten than flour, will not make a loaf
at all, thus showing that the gluten of oats is
not identical with the gluten of wheat.
In the same sense the gluten which is reject
ed by the miller is not identical with that
retained in white flour, and may not have
the same effect either in the loaf or stomach.
To make strong flour the miller should use
strong wheat, and he is not going in the
right direction when he scrapes the bran to
help himself.
To demonstrate more clearly the truth
of our argument that we do not eat wheat
bread simply because it contains gluten, we
append a table of percentage of gluten con
tained in various vegetable substances which
will be interesting to the curious:
Cauliflower (dried) 64
Mushroom (dried matter ot( to
Cabbhge (dried leal) JO to 35
Dried onion-root 25 to 30
Dried tea leaves JO to 25
Wheat—Venezuela 22)4
Wheat—English 12
Beans, peas, lentils—about............„......~........ 34
Qulnoa flour 19
Oatmeal ........... IS
Bran of English wheat IS
Corn meal ........ 12
Dhurra. - —....... 11)1
Buckwheat flour...... 10)4
Wheaten bread 5H
Bye bread......... — 5)4
Tires of Mixed Metals.
Tbe Saint Chamond Works have recently
beguu to manufacture tires of mixed metal-
half iron and half steel—and which, it is
claimed, will have the hardness of the latter
without its fragility. The body of the tire
is composed of a ring made of pices of pud-
died steel, and inserted between two hoops
of fine iron, which from the outer sides of
the section. The whole is welded together
by tbe hammer. The principles of this
maufacture are as follows, but they have not
been developed very far as yet: A bar of fine
iron, which is to serve as the core, is first
rolled, and then a hoop of fine iron is put on
at each end cold. One of these hoops is
afterwards to form the flange, and is com
posed of three coils of equal size. The other
is formed of a single coil, and is to make the
outer face of the tire. Wedges of puddled
steel are then placed obliquely in the space
between the two hoops, thus making so an any
spirals inclined on the axis of the tire. This
arrangement brings the wedges together
when the hammer is applied, and thus a
complete welding is obtained. The wedges
are cut from lolled bars; they should be of
hard steel, but yet soft enough to weld with
fine iron. The round pieces thus obtained
are forged and welded with the hammer.
Four heats are requisite to obtain a ring like
those used in tbe ordinary process. The
welding is completed by the rolling, and it
brings the inside core to such a small thick
ness that it disappears altogether in the bor
ing.— Engineering.
The Clover Plant.
Dr. Byron D. Halstead presents in the
American Agriculturist for September, the fol
lowing important Tacts with regard to the
agricultural value of the clover plant: The
clover plant is a close and deep feeder, send
ing its fine roots far down into the soil, fill
ing tbe sub-soil with a net-work of rootlets.
It exposes a targe leaf surface, and is thus
able to concentrate weak solutions of plant
food, and prepare them for the formation of
vegetable substance. The clover plant grows
throughout the whole season, and is thus
able to take up the nitrates as they form.
These compounds of nitrogen are produced
in large quantities in hot summer months,
and, being very soluble, would be washed
out by the rains, were it not that the clover
plant absorbs them. This is one great ad
vantage which clover has over all the com
mon grains, that finish their growth, and are
harvested before tbe time for the most rapid
nitrification arrives. It is a well-known
fact that clover prepares land for the pro
duction of large crops, and this is explained
in large part by the long season of its
growth, and its deep and close feeding, and
the storing up of compounds of nitrogen.
Tbe clover plant is largely below ground, so
that removing the tops takes away only a
part of the vegetable matter that has been
accumulated. The roots of clover are large
and numerous; when they are turned over
in plowing, and decay, they yield a good
supply of plant food to such crops as feed
near the surface, and must grow rapidly for
only a few weeks. In this way the clover
crop will help tbe succeeding wheat crop,
and has’given rise to the saying, that:
“ clover seed is the best manure that a farm
er can use.” If tbe whole crop of clover is
turned under, as a green manure, a much
larger amount of plant food is put into the
soil. This is one of the quickest, cheapest,
and best methods of increasing the fertility
of a piece of land.
Putting Away Tools.
The wearing out of farm implements is, ns
a rule, due more to neglect than to use. If
tools can be well taken care of, it will pay to
buy those made of the best steel, and finish
ed in the best manner; but in common
hands, and with common care, such are of
little advantage. Iron and steel parts should
be cleaned with dry sand and a cob, or
scraped with a piece of soft iron, washed and
oiled it necessary, and in a day or two clean
ed off with tbe corn-cob and dry sand. Fin
ally paint the iron part witli rosin and bees
wax, in the proportion of 4 of rosin to 1 of
wax, melted together and applied hot. This
is good for the iron or steel parts of every
sort of tool. Wood work should be painted
with good, boiled, linseed oil, white lead
and turpentine, colored of any desired tint;
red is probably the best color. Keep the
cattle away until the paint is dry and hard,
or they will lick, with death as the result.
If it is not desired to use paint on hand
tools, the boiled oil with turpentine and “li
quid drier,” docs just as well. Many prefer
to saturate the wood-work of farm imple
ments with crude petroleum. This can not
be used with color, but is applied by itself,
so long as any is absorbed by the pores of
the wood.—American Agriculturist.
California comes to the front with tbe
champion busy woman. She is as active
os Dr. Jim McCool, the celebrated conduc
tor. The lady in question is Mrs. Gertie De
Force Cluff, proprietor of the Valley Review
at Lodi. She sums up her work thus: “In
the past four years we have coooked, washed
dishes, nursed babies, solicited, canvassed,
collected, wrote editorials and locals, and
built up the Review from a patent outside
with press work done in Stockton, to its
present improved appearance.” May she
live long, prosper and b'e happy.
I was ever of opinion that the honest man
who married and brojght up a large family,
did more service than he who continued
single, and only talked of population.—Gold-
smith.