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20 THE SOUTHERN WORLD, NOVEMBER 15, 1882. Journal, published at Chicago, 111., and bays endeavored to have these questions answered through it, but for some reason they were not answered. To the people of my section, who as a general rule know almost nothing about stock raising and the proper feed for them, the Information asked would be valua ble, more particularly the last as scarcely any of our native cows calve oftener than once in 18 or 20 months, and if some plan could be adopted to make them calve often er, it would add largely to our profit from this stock. Novice. Winniboro, La. Answer.—(1.) Pearl millet—which is the same as cat-tail millet—is not a good hay plant, being rather too suceulent and want ing in ‘'body.” (2.) We have cut and fed it at all stages and never found it unwholesome or danger ous at any period. (3.) It is an excellent green feed cutat any stage, but is relished better when cut before commencing to joint. A given area will also produce much more feed if cut as often as the plants gel two or three feet high. (4.) We know of no safe "mode for forcing cows into season ahead of ther natural peri od” except a course of generous feeding on nutritious and stimulating food such as wheat bran, oats, cotton-seed meal and green food. In a state of nature—as illustrated in the “range"—the "season” usually comes on when the grass puts forth in the spring. Weaning the calf by separating from its dam, is also helpful to the object in view. R. The World’s Cotton Centennial Ex position. Among the resolutions adopted at the Lit tle Rock Convention of the National Cotton Planters’ Association, was one to hold in 1884 a grand Exposition under the auspices of that body. It is to be called the World’s Cotton Centennial Exposition, and will be to the whole country the event of the de cade, and, so far as the cotton interests are concerned, the event of the century. Never before in the history of the South was a movement more enthusiastically inaugu rated. The idea was hailed with universal approbation at its announcement, and not a single doubter of the feasibility of this co lossal enterprise has been found among the numerous planters and manufacturers with whom we have since discussed it. Even at this early day a number of manufacturers have signified their eagerness to be among its exhibitors, and letters of inquiry con cerning it have already been received. Al though cotton will form the chief exhibit, yet it is proposed to make its scope univer sal, so as to Include not only everything ap pertaining to cotton culture and manufact ure, but whatever improved implements may be necessary for the most approved methods of diversified farming—in fact all inventions, devices and fabrics that may pos sibly prove of interest to tbe people of the Bouth or promote their general industries. Tbe resolution of the Convention author ising this mammoth Exposition provides that it shall be held at such city as may oiler the greatest inducement, and it is a privilege well worth contending for. Nearly all the leading cities have had successful exposi tions, supported only by local or quasi-local interests and patronage, and have found it profitable to invest large sums in such enter prises; but this proposed World’s Cotton Centennial Exposition will command the di rect and united support of the entire cotton producing territory of America. In view of . the vast extent of this territory and com mercial Importance of its leading staple, it is a self-evident proposition that any city could afford to spend ten fold more in order to secure such Exposition than upon any mere local affair. So far as exhibits are con cerned, it cannot fail to attract them from the whole Union, aye from the four quarters of the globe. The fact that it is to be a Cen tennial Exposition, will likewise give it great and world-wide prominence. It may interest the public to know that in tbe year 1784 eight bales of cotton were exported from this country to England, where, upon arriv al, it was condemned as contraband, and seised, by order of the Privy Council, who held that so large an amount of cotton could not possibly have been raised in America. Thus the year 1884 will be both an agricul tural and commercial Centennial in tbe opening and the closing year of this cotton century I No enterprise could be too stu pendous to do justice to the celebration of such a Centennial. The whole South will be organised for the purpose of contributing to its grandeur—in deed all tbe cotton producing countries of the world will doubtless participate in swell ing its attractions. If we are fortunate in its location and can secure men of sufficient breadth of view to compass so gigantic an undertaking, it will prove but little, if any, less magnificent than the National Centennial Exposition of 1876. So far as its location is concerned, we are in clined to the belief that New Orleans is the most eligible site, but the claims of all com peting cities will be carefully and imparti ally considered. Correspondence in this di rection will be immediately instituted, and a month given to the various cities in which to make known what inducements they may have to offer. The Executive Committee has not yet taken action on this point, but among the cities that will probably be invi ted to compete are New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Cincinnati .Louisville,Richmond, Memphis, Nashville, Charleston, Mobile, Sa vannah, Montgomery and Atlanta. It is proposed to raise rfbt less than two and possible over three millions of dollars, and there are several cities whose offer should not be less than five hundred thousand dol lars of this amount. We may appropriately close this, the ini tial article upon the World’s Cotton Centen nial, by promising the city that may be so fortunate as to secure it, the united support of the entire planting interest. We feel that we are not transcending the bounds of prudence in predicting that it will at the same time prove a lever of incalculable power in promoting the industrial progress and prosperity of the successfully compet ing city, and at the same time bring an im mediate return commensurate with the ex tent of its donation.—Rational Plantert Jour nal. Habits or Economy and Industry. Editor Southern World—I am at some anxiety how to present a case; to me, it seems, involving infinitely more than to be able to give explicit directions how to make largest clear gains at least expense, at the same time improve land, workshops, machin ery To make it stronger, suppose I could demonstrate it, and no man of the largest intellect and most extended experience, could find a flaw in it. Suppose I could show the thing done in my case, and a few others; this submitted to a jury of twelve or one hundred experts in farm economy, and they decide, it is true in detail or con crete. My head and heart and hands are all for the practical, tbe best thing temporal for my country, my people, “all the world, and the rest of mankind.” I had a college mate who received property worth a million in gold. Suppose he had been adissipated man—gam bler, drunkard and the etceteras. I had a dear friend who had nine children, making 2,000 bales of cotton, and adding farm to farm; his rule, the day each was of age, he or she had forty thousand dollars to start off on. Is the property, a million, or forty thousand in hand, with a prospect for a ninth of a 2,000 bale property, all our youth need? Now I am for the best for our country— temporally. Suppose Vanderbilt can give his children twenty million each in U. S. bonds; they know nothing of any business, any economy, and only of spending and dis sipating. Remember the South sea bubble; the communists, even in the North, when a mob destroyed so much property; but near er home—where are the 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 bale planters ? Would it not be better than planning for riches, to do as an Emperor of Russia, re quire all his sous to learn a trade ? or go back to the chosen race and require all to know of labor? It is more important to the rich than the poor. Begin at the nursery; require each one to take care of its own clothing; shoes, etc., put in a proper place; never to leave the bedroom until proper cleansing, dress, hair and shoes. To be civil, polite and decorous to all, even to servants— their equals, parents, or to strangers. No teacher should admit rich or poor, unless even finger nails be clean. Habit is much. Require an immediate return from school; no loitering on the way about village, town or city. Children are better at home than elsewhere. Require them to do many little things about borne. Give habit of Industry; taking-care of books, clothing, etc., etc. Parents owe it to our country to give atten tion to the studies of their children. Parents should see the little boys and girls prepare at home for school exercises. Mrs. Rouge says, “No, you don't mean that my little darlings should be kept all day in the old school house; not allowed to enjoy them selves in mixing with their playmates; go ing to little sociables,” and on she went My reply is, “Mrs. R., when I was a lad I thought father was cruel, all other chaps could hunt, fish and gad about, but the truth is, not one boy who was with me in the academy is now alive; the great bulk became dissipated. Even Governors and Congressmen followed. I say this day, better give a first-class education—ability as to means and access to it—beginning at the very alphabet; permit no advance until there was mastery of the subject. Give male and female a practical knowledge of every day affairs, even if os a boy had to do, who wasafterwards Governor and Senator in Congress—his father told him he was not re lying on self, and he had warned, but no ef fort: “Now I am done.” He had to leave and make money to go on, and did go on. Who were the great men of the old South 30 to 40 years ago ? I know many who when boys worked their way. I knew a 900 bale planter who could not place agin stand prop erly ; could not train a gin wheel; had to send off miles for a mechanic, who did all needed in half an hour; the owner and his ginner could have done it before mechanic could have ridden to gin house. Would we not do better to train our boys and girls to economy and industry—how to do ordinary matters, than to neglect and give a fortune f —if lost they are tramps. X. X. Mississippi. Corn and the Pindar In Same Row. Editor Southern World—I am sorry I did not think of this in time to have prevailed on some on some of your readers to try it. "Prove all things and hold to that which is good.” I have seen an entire crop, rather I was on the place—saw a part, and was told the crop —500 acres, was all in com and pindars, ground-nuts, peanuts. The owner, a rich Irishman, never married, said to me he fat tened hogs entirely on the pindare, and had enough to feed all other hogs the whole win ter. Land plowed and planted in drills as usual, except between stands of corn. He dropped the pindar—ground-nut, covered at same time, thus requiring only an extra hand to drop the nuts—peas. Worked through the year as be did corn. A few years after, in a little trip to “the country by the seaside,” I saw quite a field perhaps 50 acres, for that backwoods coun try; mind you, in those days much of our section was owned by 10 to 50 hands, or larg er planters; getting back in the thin land portion the most are one-horse farms. Any one who will give it a thought, they will know how great tbe advantage. I have had a stock of hogs kept in high condition, no corn; the hog worked for its living, root ing. I cannot see bow corn can be injured. Of course a full crop of the ground-pea is not expected, but ample to fatten hogs and to feed stock hogs after. The planter first alluded to usually killed 200 bogs. Of course had a large stock. I havo had 6 acres in the peanut for hogs. H. J. N. Clinton, Mist, Scientific Farming Practical. Mr. Buckmaster, before a well-attended meeting of farmers, held at Tadley, in Eng land, to consider a scheme for teaching the science of farming, said that there was no opinion more deeply engraved in the mind of the English farmer, than the belief that there was some antagonism between science and practice. Some even went so far as to say that the two are incompatible. The far mer who drains his land, or tries a new ma nure, or a new plan, or a new crop, calls himself a practical man ; he despises all ex periment, and laughs at the teaching of sci entific men. He is not conscious that, when be is thinking over new plans and adopting new methods of cultivation, he may be il lustrating, in his daily work, a series of chemical and physiological experiments of extreme complexity and importance. Men of the highest order of Intellect, and whose researches were tbe most original, have been practical men. Practice and theory ore but phases of the same form of thought. The practical farmer, if he ever permits his mind to rise above the traditions and empirical rules of his forefathers, and asks, “Couldn’t this have been done in abetter and more perfect^.way ? Would not this be an im provement?” becomes a theorist; and, when he tries to realize these conceptions, becomes a practical man. Theory and practice are inseparable in every art, however much men may seek to disunite them. The most practical man is often the most theoretical. Every operation is, with him, a theory. He recognizes no change. He will admit of no trial or expe riment, because that would be an acknowl edgment of science. Every science is built up of principles, and and these principles carried into work we call practice. There is the science of astronomy, and the art of nav* igation ; the science of geometry, and the art of measuring; the science of mechanics, and the art of making machinery; the sci ence of chemistry, and the art of agricul ture. Almost every science is the basis of a cognate art. The most obvious and natural way of arriving at a real knowledge of the art of agriculture, would be to know some thing of those principles on which the art is based; art being nothing more than the ap plication of principles previously acquired. A farmer who is able to unite a perfect mas tery of principles with a knowledge of prac tical details, is an educated and scientific farmer. It might reasonably be inferred that the shortest and easiest method of learn ing any industrial art, and the surest guide to new discoveries in the art, would be a knowledge of those fundamental princi ples upon which art was based. No amount of practical skill and experience could ever replace the want of scientific knowledge in farming —Cincinnati Orange Bulletin. On the first of last April Dr. M. H. Zellner and his son Jim commenced preparing their land to produce a crop. They had both been sick for several months and it was thought by some that they would not be able to make a crop, but they succeeded in making a crop by hiring eight days hoeing that would be hard to beat by any two abled bodied hands in the valley. The Dr. estimates the corn he has now gathered at 550 bushels, and says he has 125 bushels yet to gather. He also has a good crop of cotton, and an extraordinary crop of peas. The Dr. rents about % of the land that he cultivates. He says he can rent land on such good terms that it is more profitable than to clear his own land, which is owing to the fact that he is such a good farmer. He has rented the land he cultivated in com this year for a term of five years, from Hon. J. W. Inzer, who, he says, is one of the most liberal and agreeable men he ever dealt with. He has had enough peas harvested to pay for the human labor expended on his entire crop, rating the labor at the customary price; and he has made and cured enough No. 1 tobacco to keep him, Jim and his old lady smoking 3 years besides goobers, arti chokes, turnips, etc.; and he expects to have his entire crop harvested and wheat sowed by tiie 10th of Novembor in addition to all this, he has brought to this office a stalk of cotton that measured ten feet eight inches high, and six inches in circumference at tbe ground.—Ashville. (Ala.) Aegis. The Mobile (Ala.) Register thus unfolds a wonderful plan for speedy returns to orange growers: One of the most serious stumbling-blocks that a man finds in his way when be thinks of becoming an orange-culturist, lies in the fact that it takes the trees eight or ten years from the start to get into profitable bearing. This stumbling-block seems about to be removed, to a great extent at least. A new method for propagating the orange has lately been discovered, which bids fair to work considerable revolution in the orange busi ness, as it does away with the necessity of waiting so long for returns as is tbe case of tbe old methods. Under it you plant out a tree, say in the spring of 1883, and in 1884 it will bear a very fair crop of fruit. This new method consists in propagating by layers made on a certain plan. We will suppose that you have a bearing tree which forks not far from the ground. In the spring you provide yourself with an empty barrel, with one head out, (a flour barrel will an swer, )and“ saw it in" justat the bulge until one stave is cut off. This stave you remove, with all the hoops, down to where you have been sawing. You next remove the bark from one prong of your orange tree forming a girdle about an inch wide, located, say two inches above its junction with the other prong. The girdle must not go entirely around the prong but a stripof bark an inch in width must be left undisturbed on the side next to the other prong. Now slip your prepared barrel over tbe girdled prong, rest ing it against the main trunk of the tree, and li tting thegirdied prong pass into it through the opening made by removal of the stave, and through the headless top of the barrel. Raise the barrel until thegirdied prong rests on the end of the sawed stave still in the bar rel, Secure the barrel in that position. If the tree is of good size a few small nails may be driven through tbe barrel into the trunk of the tree, “toe-nailed” upward from below, perhap—they will do no harm. The barrel may be held up in place by something built under it, or by three strips of board securely nailed to to its sides at the bulge, their lower ends resting upon the ground, or better still, upon a bit of board or a brick on the ground.