FARMERS' REGISTER— PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE. 



255 



my statement of prices was incorrect. If the ge- 

 neral fairness and correctness of the estimate 

 should be objected to, or the deductions from these 

 premises (if their correctness is admitted,) be de- 

 nied, I shall be ready and willing to maintain my 

 positions, and pursue the investigation of the sub- 

 ject — si ill lio\vever considered as one merely of 

 domestic and national economy. 



A SLAVE IIOLDKR. 



EXTKACTri FROM PRIVATE COltREriPONDENCE. 



SEASONS AlVD CROPS TIIK FENCE LAW EF- 

 FECTS OF MARL JIAGADABA BEAN AND 



PARTRIDGE PEA QUERIES ON HOGS AND 



PIGGERIES. 



Charles City, July 3d, 1834. 



If I was a good pensman I should like to tell 

 you something about the Coggins Point marl, and 

 what it is doing. I have seventy-four or five 

 thousand corn hills marled. In my field at this 

 time the corn is from hip to waist high. The 

 marl was spread this spring after the land was 

 fidlowed. The corn along side of that marled is 

 from ankle to half lef^ and knee high. I have 

 thirty thousand corn hills that have been limed. 

 The" corn on that is about knee high. This is the 

 second crop of corn I have had on it since I have 

 rented the land. So liir as I have been able to 

 judge between the two, I prefer the marl. 



Camden, S. C. July 16. 

 We are full of rail roads. The Charleston peo- 

 ple want Camden to join Columbia in a road to 

 the junction of the North and South Edisto. The 

 Sumter folks want Camden to join in a road to the 

 San tee, and thence to Charleston. For the bene- 

 fit of the mad the former must be eventually laid 

 down; but the importance of having a great road 

 from North Carolina on the right bank of the Pee 

 Dee should give that a preference. However, 

 710US verrons. 



Buckingham C. H. July 25, 1834. 

 The wheat is uncommonly fine in quality, 

 though short in quantHy. Crops of corn never 

 more promising, at this season of the year. We 

 have had abundant rams, without having any 

 etorms to do injury in this neighborhood. 



Neivbern, iV. C. July 22. 



I left Florida the middle of June. At that time 

 crops were promising but suffering from drought. 

 I infer from subsequent information that the 

 drought did not pontinue long enough to do much 

 inj^r)^ Late reports from Alabama speak favora- 

 bly of" the gro\ving crop, and it is now probable 

 that the crop of cotton will be large. I shall look 

 with some anxiety for the eflect of this on prices. 

 At this place the rains, for ten days past, have 

 been excessive, and the injury in the immediate 

 neighborhood is probably considerable. I do not 

 know how far these rains have extended. 



The "Magadaba Bean" of one of your early 

 correspondents, I suppose to be the Jleschyaomene 

 hispida of botanists, which however naturally pre- 

 fers a sandy, but moist soil. It is sometimes de- 



not a vine, as one of your late correspondents seems 

 to suppose.* The amphicaq:;a monrica, a sort of 

 wild pea, is a vine running over snail shrubs. 



Is the common mode of rearing hogs in the 

 Southern States an economical one? I mean that 

 of suffering them to range at large, and calling 

 them up once a day to receive a small allowance 

 of corn I 



Could you not procure from some experienced 

 person at the North the best mode of constructing 

 and managing a piggery? There is a valuable 

 account of one in New England in one of the vo- 

 lumes of the American Farmer. Some one has 

 lately mentioned to me an account of a remarka- 

 ble one contained in Mr. Poinsett's Notes on 

 Mexico. 



Camden, S. C. July 26. 



The crop of corn and cotton in the Southern 

 and Western States will be overwhelming. We 

 have had plenty of rain and no freshets. 



Caroline, July 28. 



The prejudices which most of our old farmers 

 entertained against marl are rapidly vanishing, and 

 ere long, I hope to see our beautifid district of 

 country, still more beautiliil from its effects. My 



nearest neighbor Mr. J. H. B , marled very 



hea^■ily an acre of land lust fall, and seeded it in 

 wheat and clover. The wheat was improved by 

 its application, and the clover is now so much bet- 

 ter than that adjacent, that the eye detects it at a 

 considerable distance. 



I marled two acres in the spring, and seeded 

 them in oats and grass seeds. I put about two 

 himdred and fifty tumbril cart loads on this lot. 

 The marl used was pi-incipally taken from thesur- 

 li\ce of one of my marl banks. There was no 

 shell in it, but the impressions of many — and every 

 lump was interspersed with selenite — pure gyp- 

 sum. The lot produced me one hundred and se- 

 venty-five bushels of clean oats, heaping mea- 

 sure. This seems to me to be a good product. 

 The rains in tlie spring had beaten down these 

 oats frequently — and when cut, grass blades were 

 used, in consequence o( their tangled condition. 

 But for these drawbacks it is probable the product 

 would have been two hundred bushels. As your 

 writings on the subject had first directed our atten- 

 tion to the effects of marl, I thought that you 

 would not deem me impertinent to communicate 

 the above facts to you. 



[* Our two correspondents certainly mean different 

 plants under the same name. The partridge pea so 

 well known in Lower Virginia is the same described 

 (in the former communication from Cambridge, Md.) 

 as a vine which climbs upon, bears down, and thereby 

 destroys growing wheat. It is a slender vine, bearing' 

 purple blossoms, and round dark gray seeds (about the 

 diameter of grains of wheat,) in a cylindrical black 

 pod, which bursts and scatters its seeds soon after ri- 

 pening. Like all other plants of the pea and clover 

 tribe the growing of the partridge pea is promoted in a 



peculiar degree by the use of marl and other calcareous 

 nominated "False sensitive plant." The partridge I manures— and it may be presumed also by the use of 

 pea ia the Cassia chamaecrista of botanistSj and is I gypsum, where that manure will act on any thing.] 



