340 [Senate 



mixed with animal manure, or in their crude state, and since the late 

 discoveries of extensive beds of marl in South Carolina, by Pr. Ruf- 

 fin, and that gentleman's admirable essays on the uses of Calcareous 

 Manures have been more widely circulated, both lime and marl have 

 been much used. Still 1 hear of no improvement in the manner of 

 cropping the land. No rotation, even the most obvious and simple, 

 has been yet adopted. Mr. Ruffin recommends alternate husbandry, 

 and the use of the pea and sweet potatoe, as the most suitable plants 

 for restoring or keeping the land in heart. His recommendations 

 will, it is to be hoped, produce a better system of farming and plant- 

 ing than has hitherto been practiced. The soil of the middle and 

 upper districts being composed chiefly of disintegrated primitive 

 rocks, all containing more or less lime, or potassium, is well adapted to 

 the growth of clover, and therefore capable of the highest improve- 

 ment ; and the abundance of marl and shell lime, in the lower country, 

 would enable the planter there to cultivate both clover and turneps, 

 in order to prepare the land for grain. Both planters and farmers, 

 ought to be impressed with the importance of the rule adopted in 

 the best farming countries in Europe — never to raise to maturity 

 two culmiferous crops in succession on the same land. The granite 

 region of South Carolina, by which I mean that portion of the State, 

 situated above the first falls of the rivers, does not present the bold 

 and rocky scenery which generally distinguishes regions of granite 

 and gneiss ; but a gently undulating surface covered with vegetation, 

 a peculiarity arising from the circumstance of its primitive rocks 

 having become disintegrated by the action of the atmosphere, produ- 

 cing a loose, friable and fertile soil from the valley to the hill top, 

 easily cultivated and very productive, but requiring constant atten- 

 tion to preserve it. The frequent use of the plow, and the unremit- 

 ted culture of the soil in corn and cotton, have not only deteriorated 

 the quality of the land, but exposed the surface to be washed away 

 by the heavy rains of these latitudes, and the traveller in passing 

 over districts remarkable in former years for their fertility, encoun- 

 ters little else than bare hills of red clay, washed into hideous gullies 

 or barren fields, overgrown with broom grass and low pines, the ob- 

 vious effect of injudicious cultivation and bad management. The 

 only remedy that presented itself to the ignorant cultivator for the 

 havoc he had wrought on this fair land, was to clear new fields, and 

 when that resource was exhausted to seek a new country, so that the 

 effect of this wretched system was not only to destroy the fertility of 

 the lands, but still further to impoverish the State by promoting emi- 

 gration. 



Through the praiseworthy exertions of the State and District Agri- 

 cultural Societies, all kinds of stock are improving. Until a few 

 years past, the hogs reared in this State were all of that long-snouted 

 and long-legged breed, which consumes so much and produces so lit- 

 tle. Too many of these ill-favored pigs are still to be seen in our 

 woodlands, but they are gradually diminishing, and it is to be hoped 

 that they will be so entirely superseded by a more thrifty race, as 

 soon to be regarded only as natural curiosities. The Berkshire and 



