FARMERS' REGISTER— MR. GARNETT'S ADDRESS. 



493 



most wonderlul thintj; about it is, that it should 

 never, until very latelv, have attracted sufficient 

 notice lo l)e caliivated by any one: especially when 

 ft'ood grass for horses and cattle is so great a de- 

 sideratiun throughout our whole southern country. 

 Still the written accounts in its fovor are too flat- 

 tering, and derived from sources too respectable to 

 be disregarded. Let us all, therefore, (as I certain- 

 ly will myself) give this agricultural stranger a 

 fair and full trial; — keeping all the while a good 

 lookout in the hope of a favorable result, for that 

 favorite proverb of the worthy Sancho Panza 

 which admonishes us that, "where we are least 

 aware, there often starts the hare," is as useful in 

 fiusbandry as it is in hunting. There is indeed no 

 branch of our profession in regard to which we 

 have been so negligent as in the culture of the 

 various grasses adapted to our soil and climate: 

 nor any to which the necessity for increased atten- 

 tion is daily becoming more and more urgent. 

 Many of our farmers are incurring considerable 

 expense in purchasing cattle of the improved 

 English breeds, without any previous preparation 

 of good pasturage for them; although all know 

 perfectly well, that this is indispensable to their 

 well-doing. The general dependence is upon the 

 buds of the bushes in spring; and, during summer 

 and fall, on such weeds as our fields produce, with 

 peradventure, a little crab-grass, if hard cropping 

 has not too far exhausted the soil to permit it to 

 grow. Their winter food, in a vast majority of 

 cases, consists solely of the offal from the wheat 

 and corn crops; although the tesiinionj- in favor of 

 using also the pumpkin, the cabbage, the potato, 

 the mangel wurtzel, and ruta baga, especially for 

 making good porlc, beef and nuitton, is as fall and 

 satisfactory as testimony can possibly be on any 

 sub] ?et whatever. All the last named productions 

 are well adapted to our soil and climate; all maybe 

 cultivated at an expense compensated flir more 

 than an hundred fold by the profits derived from 

 them; and yet, I believe, it may be truly asserted, 

 that not one farmer in 500 cultivates either of them 

 for stock. 



As for our sheep and hogs, poor devils, although 

 some few attempts have been made to improve 

 their breeds also, they are left, in almost all in- 

 stances, to become their own forage masters: — the 

 first to strugifle against famine and death, through 

 winter and a part of spring, b3' browzing upon 

 cedar, pine, holly-bushes, and broom-straw; and 

 the latter to fight the same hard battle, for the 

 same vital purpose too, by seeking with their 

 snouts, below the surface of the earth, that scanty 

 subsistence which they can no where find above 

 it. Now I think, that most of us might safely 

 venture to turn reformers in all the foreiroing par- 

 ticulars; provided only, we would avoid the mis- 

 chievous nrecipitancv of that sad radical Jack in 

 Swift's "Tale of the Tub," Avho tore his coat to 

 tatters, in his haste to strip it of all its gold and 

 silver lace. Might we not, for instance, have a 

 few small lots of clover, orchard grass, and lucerne 

 for spring feeding; cruinea-grass, (if it turns out as 

 I am confident it will,) for summer and two months 

 of the fall; and then orchard grass again, or Peru- 

 vian grass, sometimes called the tall meadow-oat, 

 for grazing, until hard frosts, which rarelv come in 

 the tide-water part of our state, before Christmas. 

 f can see nothing to hinder it, but the want of fix- 

 ed determination. Again, might we not have 



pumpkins, cabbages, and root-cro];s cultivated on 

 a scale sufficiently large, at least to help out with 

 other food, in fattening our pork, mutton and beef; 

 in feeding our milch-coAVs; and in keejjing our 

 work oxen through the winter ? I cannot believe 

 there is a single agriculturist in our whole state 

 who would not answer these questions in the affir- 

 mative; but alas! our practice in this, as in far more 

 important matters, is at war with our belief; and 

 we still continue conscious victims of our own 

 pernicious habitual indolence. To correct it, to 

 shake it oft' entirely, requires tliat each man should 

 become his own physician. All thereibre that I 

 can do, is, most heartily to wish success to every 

 one of our agricultural brethren who will, in down- 

 right earnest, undertake his own cure. 



Another fact wdiich I deem worth j^our notice, 

 is one obtained since we last met, of the capacity 

 of the common black oat to stand even so hard a 

 winter as our last, and make a good crop. An old 

 clover lot had been sown with oats last spring 

 twelve months. They were cut at the usual time, 

 and the ground ploughed up early in August, to 

 try wheat after oats, which I had some where seen 

 highly recommended. The grain however, left 

 on the land, came up so thickly, although in bunch- 

 es with large naked spaces between them, that I 

 changed my mind, and determined to cultivate the 

 ground in corn during the present year. In the 

 mean time, the oats were closely grazed, until 

 hard frosts, as I had no doubt they would be en- 

 tirely killed by the winter's cold. To my .-surprise, 

 however, they put up in the spring, apparently as 

 thick as ever, and I resolved to leave a part of 

 them to ascertain how much they would produce. 

 Had the ground been harrowed immediately after 

 lidlovving, so as to secure an equal distribution of 

 the seed, I believe the product would have been 

 doubled, for the naked spaces between the bunches 

 appeared to amount to nearly or quite half the 

 ground. These spaces, in some spots, were at 

 least a yard square. The quantitj' actually mea- 

 sured was one himdred and fifteen bushels, being 

 at the rate of nearly twenty-two bushels per acre. 

 The product of the previous crop had been within 

 a fraction of forty-one bushels per acre; but about 

 three-fburihs of an acre of the best part of tlie lot 

 on which the volunteer oats grew, was taken off 

 for corn. What effect the fall grazing of those 

 volunteer oats might have had, I am at a loss to 

 determine, although the probability, I think, is that 

 the product must have been materially lessened by 

 it. There are, however, ascertained fiicts enough 

 in the case to render it of sufficient interest to justi- 

 fy my making it known to you. One word more, 

 as to the oat crop. Several very good flirmers 

 have told me, that the fall ploughing of land de- 

 signed for oats in the spring, will increase the pro- 

 duct, as they themselves have proved, much more 

 than will pay for the additional labor. Quere, is 

 not this experiment worth making; especially 

 since the wheat crop in our tide-water country, 

 seems every year to become more and more pre- 

 carious ? 



Before I conclude, permit me to invite your at- 

 tention to another topic of considerable interest — 

 at least to all cultivators of small grain. We 

 have now a great variety of machines for se- 

 parating it from the straw, and their number is 

 annually increasing. The inventor of each pub- 

 I licly claims tor his own, a great superiority over ;dl 



