362 



Durham Cattle. 



Vol. IV. 



taining a good and early tilth or seed-bed, 

 are greatly increased ; and there can be no 

 doubt that even the climate itself will be 

 much improved by the general prevalence of 

 dry and deep land. »Since the introduction 

 of this great improvement into practice, the 

 intrinsic merits and evident results of the 

 system have raised its character, even with 

 many of its former opponents. All who 

 have ever studied or experienced the most 

 common culture of a garden, must be aware 

 of the advantages of deep working, and 

 when this can be obtained in the common 

 field culture, they will readily believe that 

 crops will be more than doubled in every 

 succeeding grain crop, and abundantly, even 

 in pasture; the cattle feeding upon M-hich 

 will be relieved from those epidemic com- 

 plaints, murrain, &c., which, it has long 

 been ascertained, are to be attributed in a very 

 great measure, to wet and unhealthy jiastures, 

 upon which fogs will hang for hours after 

 they have been drawn off and evaporated 

 from dry and healthy meadows and pasturage. 

 When land has been thoroughly drained, 

 deeply-wrought, and well-manured, the most 

 unpromising and sterile soil becomes a deep 

 and rich loam, rivalling in fertility the best 

 natural land of the country ; and from being 

 fitted for raising only scanty crops of com- 

 mon oats, will produce good crops of from 

 thirty-two to forty-eight bushels of wheat, 

 forty to sixty bushels of barley, and from 

 forty-eight to seventy bushels of early oats, 

 besides mountains of root crops, which all 

 good agriculturists know, are the abundant 

 producers of mountains of manure. There 

 is no want of employment for all spare 

 labour and capital of the country in the gen- 

 eral, thorough cuItivafUm of the soil ; and if 

 properly conducted, it will afford ample re- 

 muneration to the individual possessors and 

 farmers of the soil ; while the wealth of the 

 country, its health, its morals and happiness, 

 will be increased a hundred fold. 



The cultivation of the inferior soils, will 

 tend to lower the value of the high-rented 

 lands, but the general value of them will be 

 much increased ; whilst the varieties of agri- 

 cultural produce can be aflTord-ed at a lower 

 rate, thereby affording a cheaper sustenance 

 to the manufacturer and artisan. 



The knowledge of agriculture is still in 

 its infancy ; often has it been thought, during 

 the progress of manufactures, that the per- 

 fection of these arts had been attained, when, 

 by the application of science, capital, divi- 

 sion of labour, or industry, or all these to- 

 gether, some new and extensive step was 

 gained, whereby the cost of production was 

 cheapened ; then followed a lower selling 

 price to the consumer, and immediately the 

 field of consumption was extended ! In most 



of these cases, these steps of improvement 

 were urged more by the necessity arising 

 from low profits and extensive rivalry, than 

 from the encouragement of high profits and 

 extensive demand ; and so is it now operat- 

 ing with the agriculturist — during the reign 

 of high prices, any sort of farming was sure 

 to pay, but now, when prices are low, 

 nothing but skill and industry, and a well- 

 regulated system of management will do; 

 and since high prices are scarcely to be 

 looked for, the onl}' trust of the land-owner 

 and the farmer is in the use of every means 

 to produce their articles cheaper and in 

 greater quantity, yrowi the same extent of land. 

 From the progress which the new system of 

 husbandry, and especially drainage, has made, 

 the lists are fairly entered by the hitherto 

 considered poorer soils against the rich ; the 

 rivalry cannot be stopped, and the result will 

 shortly be, a greater agricultural advance- 

 ment throughout the country than has ever 

 before taken ])lace ; the grand natural prompt- 

 er, self interest, will in due time work out 

 the result. 



From the Southern Cabinet. 

 Durham Cattle. 



It is affirmed that the Durhams are too 

 delicate in their construction, require more 

 feed, and are more unsuited to our climate, 

 than any other breed of cattle — my experi- 

 ence is directly the other way — for under 

 proper treatment, they have fulfilled here the 

 respective characteristics they have borne 

 elsewhere. All cattle imported, before they 

 become acclimated, must undergo the same 

 changes of constitution as foreigners, coming 

 for the first time amongst us ; and if you 

 expect that cattle from Europe, where they 

 are housed and fed on the richest and best 

 food, shall keep healthy and fat when turned 

 out upon our razor-shaved meadows and 

 corn-stalk fields, you will be sadly disap- 

 pointed. Most of us, at a very high price, 

 import the Durham cattle when fully grown ; 

 their constitutions already formed, and ac- 

 customed to the climate from whence they 

 came; and it is almost impossible for them 

 to undergo, without serious injury, the change 

 required here. Now, were we to import at 

 a much younger age, the result would be 

 very different ; for, while out of twenty or 

 thirty bulls and cows imported from Europe, 

 the north, and Kentucky, during the past year, 

 I know but of three or four now surviving, 

 while of the same number of calves, I know 

 of as few that have not stood our southern 

 climate. 



Three years since, I purchased in Charles- 

 ton a Durham bull calf one year old ; I 



