112 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



plated rotation, inasmuch as every encouragement 

 would be thereby given to the produeiion and per- 

 petuation of vegetable pests — an evil, 1 will ven- 

 ture to say, as deleterious to the lanti, and as fatal 

 to the hopes of the cultivator, as its kindred curse 

 of the animal kingdom. Bad as they are, I would 

 rather have to contend with chinch bug, Hessian 

 fly, and clover worm, than wiih wild onion, blue 

 grass, Canada thistle, " et id omne genus,'''' ol an- 

 nua! and perennial pests. I might hope in the 

 efficacy of a severe winter, or some other natural 

 cause, to relieve me fi-om the one, and I know, by 

 sad experience, that years of toil will not free my 

 poisoned fields from the other. To use a common 

 expression, I know a thing or two on this subject, 

 having once tried, and am now reaping the bit- 

 ter I'ruits of a six-field rotation. From the 1st 

 of March to the lOlh of April a great portion ol 

 my farm labor is employed in what is technically 

 called "cockling wheat," i.e. abstracting wagon 

 loads of wild onions from the crop ; and after all, 

 if I escape, at the time of delivery, a receipt from 



the miller lor bushels of onions mixed with 



wheat, I consider myself extremely fortunate. 

 This fact will be endorsed, I am sure, by a near 

 neighbor, who has a sinnlar calamity entailed on 

 him by upwards of 20 years' perseverance in a 

 five-field rotation, which, fortunately for his splen- 

 did estate, has been at length abandoned. If the 

 clover crop in the proposed rotation could at all limes 

 be relied on, then the year of rest would be indeed a 

 year of jubilee to the persecuted fields, but that crop 

 has become as precarious and uncertain as any oth- 

 er, and, whenever it lliils, the noxious and more har- 

 dy plants that spring up in its place have a fair field 

 for propagation ; and as they are rejected by all 

 animals as food, they will have two years in five 

 of undisturbed possession, to strengthen and per- 

 petuate themselves. Without going farther into 

 this subject, or adducing additional reasons to sub- 

 stantiate my dissent to the proposed plan, I cannot 

 but express my fear ihat when the theory is re- 

 duced to practice, it will be found unavailing to 

 arrest the depredations or cheek the increase of 

 insects, while it will entail evils not less disastrous 

 and far more difficult to conquer. The great mas- 

 ter of the human heart has taught us that " it is 

 better to bear the ills we have, than fly to others 

 that we know not of" The advice is not the less 

 wise and true for its being poetical. I know not 

 how it may be in the section of country below 

 tide-water ; but with us, above it, a cleansing crop 

 once in three or lour years is indispensable in any 

 system of neat and profitable fiirming ; and so 

 well satisfied are our best liirmers of this fact, that 

 the three-field rotation is ijeiting into general use. 

 1 do not mean the old Virginia land-killing course, 

 of corn, wheat, pasture, but the more moTern rou- 

 tine of clover, corn, wheat, aided by a liberal use 

 of putrescent manures, permanent meadows and 

 standing pastures of artificial grasses. 



This subject is most attractive, and strongly 

 tempts in its support an excursion into the field of 

 discussion ; but having occupied my llill share of 

 your columns, I will leave it to a l)elter fiumer to 

 detail its advantages. Mr. Randolph Harrison of 

 Elk Hill, Goochland, has fully tested the rolaiion, 

 and his fine estate bears ample testimony of its 

 efficacy : I therefore hope he will be induced, 

 through the Register, to delineate its advantages, 

 by detailing his practice and its efFeCs on "his 

 land. f{. 



NOTES ON EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. BY A 

 CHARLESTON! AN. 



No. 1. 



From the Southern Cabinet. 



The American traveller who visits Europe for 

 the first time is introduced so suddenly upon such 

 a variety of objects, equally new and interesting to 

 him, that he finds it difficult to confine himself to 

 any depai iment of science or knowledge. Scarce- 

 ly lias he sliaken off the tedium of a long sea voy- 

 age, and recovered the use of his legs, and the 

 steadiness of his head, when his mind is distracted 

 by a multiplicity of objects, all inviting his atten- 

 tion, and each claiming the precedency. He now 

 visits lor the first time scenes of which he read in 

 his youth, and which, from their antiquity and ear- 

 ly recollections, have become classic grounds. He 

 traverses the fields of tournaments and battles — he 

 climbs J3en-Lomond and the Alps — he ascends the 

 Rhine and the Danube — he sails over the smooth 

 waters of the lakes of Scotland and Switzerland — he 

 visits the thronged cities of London and Paris, 

 Berlin and Vienna, and finds a world of wonders 

 in each — and who, Mr. Editor, has time or incli- 

 nation to attend to the dull scenes of agriculture ? 



1 confess thai this was in part my own case. 

 A very extensive tour, during the short summer of 

 1839, enabled me only to lake a cursory view of 

 liie agriculture of Europe — other objects engaged 

 the principal part of my attention. My notes 

 were made hastily, and never corrected. Such 

 however, as they are, I will give you. But I must 

 be allowed to do it in my own rambling way, and 

 in my own lime. I need not say that the southern 

 planter will find nothing in my notes that will 

 throw any light on the cultivation of ihe staple 

 articles of our southern country. Cotton and rice, 

 although abundant in the warehouses and manu- 

 factories, and although feeding and clothing half 

 Europe, are not cultivated there, and Indian corn 

 (in consequence of theicool summers) I only saw 

 growing at one place in Baden, and the stalks 

 were not much larger than a pipe stem. Yet in 

 the cultivation of other articles — in the rotation of 

 crops — in the system of manuring, and other 

 modes of restoring and improving exhausted lands, 

 we have much to learn fiom the older countries of 

 Europe, where a dense population has taught 

 them the value of lands, and the necessity of call- 

 ing in the aids of science and the arts in their culti- 

 vation. 



As a general remark, I am disposed to believe 

 that Europe in general, and England in particular, 

 is more fiivorable to the cultivation of wheat, and 

 other grains, which go under the deno.Tiination of 

 corn, than the United States, with the exception 

 perhaps of our western country ; but thai our 

 own soil can by a proper system of tillage be ren- 

 dered twice as productive as it is at present. The 

 improvements in implements of husbandry can be 

 more easil}' introduced among us than in Europe, 

 where it is exceedingly difficult to indure the la- 

 borers to lay aside the old heavy ploughs and 

 wooden-toothed harrows, which we have aban- 

 doned for half a century ; and when I have seen 

 the miserable hoes, spades and rakes, used by the 

 peasantsof France and Austria, I have sometimes 

 wished that a revolution (not political, but agricul- 

 tural) might sweep them and their wooden shoes 



