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when they are interested in the crop; moreover, an acre of land that will produce 8 
bushels of corn will produce 125 pounds of lint-cotton, which of course is much more 
profitable. 
The following, from Gadsden County, Florida, presents the case of 
that State in a nutshell: : 
The efforts in this county are rare and feeble. A few are impressed with the impor- 
tance of the subject, and are making some efforts in the proper direction, but the great 
majority of planters have ignored it entirely. Under the present system the land iS 
either rented to the laborer annually for a specified sum per acre, or he receives aS 
compensation for his services a share of the crop produced; in either case his interes? 
ceases with the housing of the crop. 
In Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, efforts at soil-improvement are 
but little more than nominal. In some cases farmers working their own 
lands haul manure, but neither the large planter nor the tenant-culti- 
vator thinks of such an extra exertion. A few experiments in subsoiling 
and deep plowing are disparagingly spoken of. In Texas, in some local- 
ities, soil-improvement is considered a proper subject of amusement. In 
all of these States, where any effort is made to utilize barn-yard manures, 
the purpose of saving labor is everywhere prominent. Occasionally a 
truck-patch or garden is manured by ‘“‘ cow-penning,” or confining farm 
animals within an inclosure, in order that the soil may receive the bene- 
fit of their droppings without the labor of hauling. Cotton-seed and 
commercial fertilizers are used largely for stimulating the growth of 
cotton. In Arkansas there is manifest a greater interest in this subject, 
and efforts, though partial and feeble, show an appreciable difference 
from the other cotton States. Very considerable efforts are made by 
a portion of the farmers of Tennessee to improve their soils. Clovering 
is the main stay in a part of the State. Our correspondent in Knox 
County gives the following: 
But few fertilizers are used, and not much barn-yard manure. Farmers rely chietly 
on clover and plaster, and the result is astonishing to northern farmers. After our lands 
have become so exhausted that five bushels of wheat to the acre cannot be counted on 
with certainty, by the sowing of clover, or clover and timothy, and using one bushel 
of plaster per acre for three years consecutively, the land will yield from fifteen to 
twenty bushels of wheat with almost an absolute certainty; and during the three years 
in clover will yield from one and a half to two tons of hay per acre; and if again sown 
in clover and timothy, and allowed to remain two years, will be restored to its original 
productiveness. During the past five years the hay and clover-seed will net the farmer 
more clear profit than any other crop he can grow, aside from the improvement of the 
land. 
Green-soiling is but little practiced. Grasshoppers have deterred the 
raising of fertilizing crops in some cases. Some counties report great 
improvements in the last five years, but the general indications are that 
public attention, as yet, is but little awakened to the subject. 
In West Virginia and Kentucky general efforts at soil-improvement 
appear to be wanting, yet there is, in many counties, a growing atten- 
tion to the subject. Clovering has not been so successful during the 
past two seasons, on account of drought, but it is largely used in some 
counties, though often too closely cut or grazed to be of signal value. 
Live stock, and especially sheep, are increasing in numbers, enhancing 
the productiveness of the soil. Manuring is practiced with greater 
care, but still it is too much neglected or confined to ‘* poor spots.” 
In Boyle County, Kentucky, four-fifths of this material is wasted. In 
Pocahontas County, West Virginia, there is “very little effort toward soil- 
improvements; barn-yard manure is not economized, while limestone 
and lumber lie moldering side by side.” Our correspondent in Daviess 
County, Kentucky, says: 
Within the last few years the people are beginning to awake to the value of fertili- 
zers. Much waste land has been reclaimed by their influence, such as red clover, red- 
