SOLON ROBINSON, 1846 27 



enough for their perverted taste. We have the seed, and 

 if as good cattle cannot be grown upon our soil as that of 

 Great Britain, let us acknowledge the fact, and own our 

 dependence again upon our old mother for all the common 

 necessaries of life. 



Southern Agriculture. — Perhaps it is as your corre- 

 spondent from Louisiana^ thinks, "almost useless for any- 

 one to waste paper and ink to write to the southern plant- 

 er," &c., because he won't read. If your "plantations are 

 too extensive to manure thoroughly," throw away one- 

 half or three-quarters, and treat the remaining part ra- 

 tionally. The fact is, your system of rushing everything 

 is your ruin. I don't know how it is with you, as I have 

 never visited your immediate locality, but I know in many 

 of the cotton plantations, the most destructive system of 

 farming is pursued that I ever saw. The timber is barely 

 cleared from the land before the soil is literally washed 

 away down the steep side-hills, and the land spoiled for 

 ever ! Perhaps your land at "Redwood" is level, and only 

 in danger of being worn out by the eternal round of cot- 

 ton after cotton every year, which you cannot prevent, 

 because you "have no time to haul large quantities of 

 manure to the field." But I tell you that you do not need 

 to haul manure ; your land can be kept in good condition 

 for ever by green crops plowed in, and by doing all your 

 plowing twice as deep as you now do, which I venture to 

 assert is not over two inches. If you think differently, I 

 beg you to go into your fields unknown to the plowmen, 

 and stick down a dozen pegs two inches below the sur- 

 face, and then follow the plows and see how many they 

 will plow up. If the present low price of cotton contin- 

 ues, it will drive you to cultivate other crops, which, if 

 not otherwise profitable, will save your soil from utter 

 prostration. I have seen as fine Cuba tobacco grown a 

 hundred miles north of you, as ever grew upon that 

 Island. As for the assertion that northern farmers would 

 be as bad off as your southern farmers now are, I cannot 



'James S. Peacocke, of Redwood, near Jackson, Louisiana. 



