Southern shield., 1851-05-17
NO. 6.
The Cotton PrOsDects,

| nave sung p9anS Ot deliverance over th T fall of waters. It would have been as wei to have been drowned out as starved ou 1 by cold aud drought The whole month o ; April from the first to the last day has beer total failure throughout ike entire valley ot the Mississippi. as it regards the cotton growth, and partially so in respect 10 corn
 Last week scientific planter of Adams county, out of an entire section of plowed land which he put in cotton in April, broke up six hundred acres and planted again
 leaving only forty acres of the first planting to stand. The entire month has been as cold as charity and literally as dry as dust The few rains were flashing and violent 'i shaEers. lNhich ran off suddenly withou, | penetrating the soil, while the cold atinOs- phere chilled the delicate plants which peep ed above the surface, or prevented its ap. Pearance at all. IL has a meagre, misera- ble, starved and dwarfish appearance in general, giving no hope for the future, but in replanting. The news from the capital ot Tennessee, telegraphed to the Natchez Courier, on Thursday May lst, is to the same effect. Tennessee is as bad off as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
 Talk of the cotton that has sneaked out of the powdered dust and stands shivering in the chill winds; it looks no more like the old fashioned cotton plant than the confus- ed milky way looks like the full orbed fix ed stars. Old planters, long resident in the heart ot the great cotton growing region, say that three week at least has been lost, everything being behind formel years as much as that
 We have recently visited Tensas Parish, and travelled along Choctaw Bayou, and our personal observation confirms ali we have heard and now state In company with tensas friend, but three days since we crossed over into Mississippi and called on Mir. Payne, one of the oldest and most extensive planters in Jefferson cou1ty.- The prospects of his crops and those around him he declared were never more gloomy
 We travelled over portion of Mrs Fer guson's crop and some others in the vicini- ty of Church Hill, Miss, with her overseer Mir. Wm. A. Miller, who for years has been one of the most successful cotton planters in Tensas Parish, La Mr. Miller finds his skill baf1led by the late cold weath- CT and drought, and states it will require the most unparalleled season for the growth oi cotton 10 insure an average crop.
 ConcOrdia MtcHgencer. ard have been taught to understand the importance of draining. The following re- marks by an able writer on the effect oil climate on cultivation in England, will per haps serve to impress it on the mind ot the reader:
 Now, all he rain that falls upon ourI fields must either be carried away by na- tural or artificial drainage, or having thor oughlv saturated the soil on which it falls, be left upon the surface to be carried off by evaporation. Every gallon of water thus carried off by evaporation requires as much heat as would raise five and half gallons from the freezing to the boiling point! Without going to extreme cases, the effects of heat thus lost upon vegeta- ton cannot fail to be striking, and have frequently found the soil of a field when drained higher in temperature from lO to l5 degrees than that of another field which had not been drained, though in every oth- CT respect the soils were similar. l have observed the effect of this on the growing crops, and have seen not only much ln- ferior crop on the undrained field, but that crop harvested fully three weeks after the other, and owing 10 this circumstance and the setting in of unsettled weather, (which frequently in our climate does set in about the autumnal equinox) have seen even that crop deteriorated fully ten per cent. in value."
 A GRATIFYING FAcT.-Under date of April 23d, "IoN," the intelligent and well informed correspondent of the Baltimore Sun, makes the following interesting state ment:
 A fact has been mentioned, to-day, which truly illustrates the temper of the young men of Boston, in regard to the late excite ment there. The splendid regiment of | Boston Tioht Infantry commanded by