[21 ] 



Let me cite an example from my own exptrience : At Byram station, 

 below this, we have in the banks of Pearl river two thick strata of ex- 

 celknt marl, separated by a 10 inch band of gray clay. Finding that 

 the bank had been dug into, I was told, on inquiry, that &quot;a foolish 

 fellow&quot; had thought the &quot;stuff&quot; good for manure, and hauled off 

 several loads of it. Unfortunately, he had chosen the gray clay, to 

 get at which he had shoveled six feet of excellent marl into the river ! 



There was an experiment and I dare say that whosoever perpetrated 

 it, thinks &quot;marl&quot; a great humbug ! 



A WORD ABOUT &quot;THEORIES.&quot; 



And here let me say farmers talk a good deal against &quot; theories, &quot; 

 as connected with &quot;book farming.&quot; Yet such experimenters and 

 their number is large among them are the most arrant theorizers, if 

 they only knew it. From their extremely limited experience, they 

 jump to the boldest conclusions, and stand up for them like a stone 

 wall ; the more obstinately the less they know about the matter. 



Take, for example, the old popular superstition regarding the trans 

 formation of wheat into cheat, and vice versa; which contradicts alike 

 the experience of the farmer with all other plants, and the concurrent 

 results of all accurate observation. How, then, has the idea arisen? 

 Simply thus: When (as is but too frequently the case) the feed of 

 wheat and cheat are sown together, both will come up ; but ordinarily 

 the wheat will grow much the faster, and in a great measure &quot; choke 

 off&quot; the cheat before blooming time. But if in winter or early spring 

 the field is subjected to close grazing or cutting, the wheat suffers much 

 more thin the cheat, which will bear repeated cutting without injury. 

 In consequence, the cheat gets an advantage, the wheat is set back and 

 mostly &quot;choked off&quot; in. its turn before it can recover ; and thus a crop 

 chiefly of cheat is obtained. Nevertheless, if the same mixed seed be 

 sown the next season, and the cutting or grazing omitted : the wheat 

 may prevail in the fight for existence. Then, old farmers say that the 

 cheat has reverted back to wheat ! 



Again : In the good old times when all our corn and bacon came 

 from the Northwest, it was a settled opinion that forage crops, grasses, 

 clover, etc., would not succeed in our climate. It had been tried, and 

 they could not get a stand, and the summers killed it all. 



My friend Philips then, as now, proclaimed, but in vain, that this 

 was an error; that with proper treatment, not only could a stand be 

 obtained, but the summer heat would be successfully resisted. Nobody 

 heeded him he was a book-farmer, a theorizer, and so forth; &quot;stub- 



