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crops of corn and cotton, simply for the want of food. Thousands of acres have 
been thus abandoned, and thousands will yet be, for the famine is yet rife in 
the land, and this very loss of crop has entailed another year of suffering upon 
all classes of the rural population of the South. 
In point of fact the people were in a worse condition this spring than they 
were when the war closed. There was money then in the hands of a portion of 
the people ; our army had left some; others had cotton to sell, so that there was 
some money in circulation. This spring, however, most of that money had left 
the country, and a failure of the crops the past year had left them badly in 
debt, and in a most helpless condition. They have, therefore, already antici- 
pated much of their coming crop, and it is doubtful whether at the end of the 
year, as a whole, they will be better situated financially than they were two 
years ago. 
The defective system of their agriculture has been strongly exemplified this 
year. Millions of dollars have been sent to Tennessee, Kentucky, and the 
western States, for corn, bacon, hay, and oats, all of which articles, except ba- 
con, could have been produced equally well on the farm. It is a grave mistake 
to think that hay cannot be made at the south, or that forage crops are unprofit- 
able. Nearly all the grasses which flourish at the north will do equally weil 
there, if properly cultivated. The quack grass, which is so much dreaded north, 
has proved itself very useful here, making a permanent sod, and being product- 
ive as a pasture grass. The Bermuda grass is invaluable for pasture; and 
though, from their very superficial method of cultivation, it becomes a pest in 
cotton fields, if it were more extensively sown in abandoned and worn-out 
lands, thousands of domestic animals could find support where only barren and 
desolate fields are now to be seen. Had the North pursued the same wasteful 
methods of cultivation which have prevailed at the south, there would be many 
unsightly worn-out fields where there are now smiling homesteads. The vege- 
table matter of the South, if properly conserved, would be truly enormous. 
At Macon, Georgia, on,the 2d of May, I saw lucerne that had been cut the 
second time, (nearly two feet long,) and red clover, orchard grass, blue grass, in 
blossom, that would have made at least a ton and a half of hay to the acre. 
On the Mississippi bottom, and indeed upon all intervale lands, white clover 
grows in luxuriant profusion. 
There is therefore little land where an abundance of forage for stock may not 
be made cheaply ; nor is there any where an ample supply of green food could 
not be grown for soiling the working animals during the spring and summer. 
I have seen no country where I thought soiling would pay so well, and it should 
be universally adopted as in the cotton and sugar zone of the South; for 
there, especially upon their lighter and thinner uplands, “ the pine lands,” as 
they are called, vegetable manure is of the utmost value towards securing a 
good crop, either of corn or cotton. The great cause of the exhaustion of those 
lands has been the loss of the vegetable matter of the soil. Nothing but an 
alluvion, often replenished by the-overflow of the river, could withstand the ter- 
rible process of cultivation which has so long obtained at the south. Land and 
labor being plenty, and cheap, the plan has been to open new fields constantly, 
and as fast as the old ones ceased to make remunerative returns, to abandon 
them and resort to the new ones. It cost more to conserve manures than to 
clear lands. Hence one sees few conveniences for keeping domestic animals. 
That a rigid system of high farming will become profitable I have no doubt. 
Jn many instances I found farmers who had saved the manure of their animals 
after a fashion, yarding their stock in rail pens without cover, then scraping up 
the litter, much soaked and washed by the winter and spring rains, and carrying it 
out upon their corn and cotton fields. Some few farmers have good barns and 
sheds, and their manure is well handled, and applied in good condition, and at 
the proper time. From these men I learned that by a proper rotation of crops, 
