Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1874-08-27
Mi5fellaneou5 Reading.
A WONDERFUL COTTON PLANT.

NVNDEhrUL CUI1UN ILANl.
A correspondent of the Augusta Gron
icle and Sentinel, who has been travelling il
Florida, tells the following wonderful story o
new kind of cotton which he has seen grow
ing in that State, and is destined, he thinks
to put all other varieties to flight, and revolu
tionize the entire cotton culture:
| rode several miles to see new specimen
of cotton, and assure you of my astonishmen
when I predict an entire revolution in the
present growth of that article, growing out o.
this Asiatic species, now being raised upon /;
small scale by Mr.. Myack Bellyminger, al
Soap Floating Springs, in Florida, six miles
from the Georgia line. Two years since Mr.
Hyack received, in a letter from his brother
in-law, Mr.. Michael Grigie, six seed. They
were obtained in the tar-famed Cashmere
Valley, in Central Asia, two years since-thi:
being the third year of cultivation, resulting
in ten acres the present season. [ at once
suggested a name, which was prompted by
its similarity to our orange tree, aud the
owner, being pleased with the same, it will
hereafter be known as the Asiatic Orange
Cotton. This cotton tree, having now its full
growth, is about eight feet high, and will about
match in size at the butt end the leg of all
old fashioned split bottom chair, tapering
gradually to the top, and is of very enormous
strength and elasticity, and which enables ii
to sustain the heavy weight of fruitage to
which it is subjected. 1t is planted in hills
fifteen feet equi-distant, to give room for lis
spreading branches, which run out on all sides
six or seven feet. The leaf is the only feature
closely resembling our common plant. The
balls resemble very much in size and color
a large green orange, only much larger, and
are attached to the limbs by a streng stem
from one to two inches in length. When
open, it contains at the base of the boil in
small cells, four or FIVE seed, which might be
mistaken for small buck-shot. The lint, in
picking, leaves the seed in the bur, which, Of
course, avoids the necessity of ginning, and Is
thrown, as picked, into packing machines, SC
that each days gathering is compressed into
bales the same evening. The cotton hangs
pendant from the boil, three to four inches, in
rolls, as large as Bologna sausage, five rolls
to the boil. | looked in amazement, and
could scarcely believe in the reality of what
| saw.
I asked how much cotton will these ten
acres produce. | was answered promptly
one hundred bales, or bale to each row OF
fourteen stalks. This, he continued, was the
average production last year. 1 continued
by desiring to know how much to the hand
could be picked in one day-and was inform
cd for grown men 450 lbs. of lint (thcre being
no seed,) or one bale, was regarded an easy
daily task. Now, gentlemen, if what 1 have
said is true, are we not rapidly approaching a
new epoch in cotton culture? Five years
will suffice to spread universally over the cot
ton area of the South this wonderfully pro
ductive speces-and if it should prove last
ing and not subject Gas many new kinds have
proven) to deterioration, it would not be un
reasonable to estimate the American crop of
1880 at twenty millions of bales-which could
be more easily raised and saved than a crop
of three millions at the present time. What
mighty changes will necessarily follow, |
leave for solution to more fertile imaginations
than my own.
THE TELEGRAPH on THE BATTLE FIELD.
Its just twenty years since, for the first
time, the electric telegraph was used in the
field, and to the British army belongs the
honor Of having led the way in its adoption.
The trenches and batteries before Sevastopol
were traversed and connected by lines Of tel
egraph, and the French soon followed our ex-
ample and constructed a similar system in
their own lines while later on, a cable laid
across the Black sea put the armies in the
field in direct communication with Paris and
London. Since that time regular telegraph
corps has been organized in every European
army. And the field telegraph was used by
the French in Ital y in 1859, and in their cam
paigns against the Kabyles in Algeria and,
in America, both the federals and confeder-
ates made free use of permanent and tempo
rary lines during the war Of secession, the
southern cavalry in particular displaying
great daring and enterprise in riding round
the hanks of federal armies, seizing their tele-
graph lines, sending false messages to the
northern generals, and then cutting the line
and retiring as rapidly and secretly as they
came. 1t was, however, in the Prussan army,
and in the great campaigns of 1864, 1865,
and 1S7O-'7l, that military telegraphy attain
ed its greatest development; and, after the
experience Of these three wars, the Prussan
telegraph corps is probably the most efficient
in Europe. Wehave already seen how we'll
it did its work in the campaign of 1866, and
in 1870 it established the network Of wires
over the northeast of France, that enabled
Moltke, sitting in his bureau at Versailles, to
move his armies as accurately and certainly
as pieces on a chessboard; while round Paris
itself circle of telegraph-wires-that in a
moment flashed information Of a sortie, and
orders for reinforcement of the threatened
point, to every part of the long line Of sixty
miles, on which the besegers lay-contribu'
ted almost as much toward the reduction OF
the vast fortress as the circle Of steel and iron,
of batteries, earthworks, and redoubts, which,
without the connecting link of the telegraph.
wire, could not have been maintained for a
single month. On their side the French dis
played no less energy. The regular telegraph
corps was shut up in Metz or lost at Sedan
but fresh corps was organized for the armies
Of the republic, and at Paris the telegraph
lines linked together the enceinte, the forts
and outworks, and the headquarters of Gener
al Trochu. But it was in the second siege o
the capital that the French telegraph corps
obtained its greatest success. During the
fighting in the street of Paris, in May, 1871
the moment barricade was taken, a telegraph
station was established in neghboring house
and when another post was carried the tele
graph corps would again move forward with
the troops, and thus Mcmahon was able tt
watch every turn of the fight, and provide for
every contingency, in way that otherwise
would have been utterly impossible. For our
selves, we have had no European war since
1854 but our armies have carried the tele
graph with them into India and China, ant
through the ravines and passes of Abyssinia