FARMERS' REGISTER 



359 



senlial in affording pasturage and hay, and there- 

 by addint^ to the 'icomlbrts of lile in providinir up 

 with milk, butter, and meals lor our tables : they 

 are very important aid3 in restoring exhauFie.d 

 soils. They are substitutes for manure. Our 

 plantations in the south are so large that with ail 

 our, industry in collecting leaves and stable ma- 

 nure, not one-half of our fields are ever manured. 

 Hence, our lands in time become exhausted, are 

 are thrown out as old fields, and not cultivated 

 again for many years. Some of our planters re- 

 move to the west, believing it cheaper to clear 

 new grounds than to restore exhausted ones. In 

 the mean time, they and their (ismilies have to un- 

 dergo many hardships and privations. They are 

 thrown among strangers, severed from the asso- 

 ciations of early life, and are deprived of the ad- 

 vantages of society — of schools and churches. 

 Had the same labor been bestowed in renovating 

 their now deserted plantations, that has been used 

 in settlinsr their new farms, they would probably 

 have suffered nothing in fortune and gained much 

 in comfort. 



That land may be improved in cultivation with- 

 out adding stable manure, has been shown by ma- 

 ny successful experiments. I have seen lands in' 

 Pennsylvania and New York, which are now more 

 productive than they were twenty years ago, and 

 have been continually improving although under 

 cultivation, without the addition of any other ma- 

 nure than the small quantities of plaster of Paris 

 in which the wheat had been rolled previous to 

 sowing. The wheat was succeeded by a crop of 

 clover : this produced one or two plentiful crops of 

 hay the first year, and was probably pastured the 

 j'ear folio vving. Crops of Indian corn, or potatoes, 

 buckwheat, oats, wheat and clover, succeeded each 

 other : the farmer became every year more com- 

 fortable in his circumstances, and ft;k no desire to 

 leave his kindred and native home in search of an 

 El Dorado in the west. 



In my next 1 will endeavor to enumerate some 

 of the foreign grasses that might be cultivated in 

 our southern country with a probability of success. 

 Providence has kindly scattered his blessings in 

 due proportion over the earth. He has endow<"d 

 man with intelligence and industry, to enable him 

 to appropriate to his own use, the various produc- 

 tions in the wide field of nature from which he 

 may derive subsistence and comfort. There is no 

 country so sterile, which man by seizing on the 

 productions around him, may not render subser- 

 vient to his use, and from which he may not de- 

 rive a support. The Arab in the desert, and the 

 Esquimaux amidst the ices of the Pole, find a 

 table prepared for them in the wilderness by the 

 bountiful hand of heaven, and by seizing on their 

 advantages, they are fed and clothed and are 

 contented with theirlot. The man in civilized soci- 

 ety has many artificial wants, but is endowed 

 with greater resources. Science and commerce 

 enable him to bring to light the hidden resouroes 

 of nature — to profit by the experience of others, 

 and to bring into cultivation the productions of 

 other lands. A beneficent Providence has creat- 

 ed various cereal grains, fruits, and grasses, and 

 planted them, perhaps, in some small island — on 

 some obscure spot on this His earthly garden, but 

 has endowed man with intelligence and enterprifC 

 to know their value — transplant them into other 

 poiU — improve these gifts ofnature by cultivation, 



nnd render them inva-luable auxiliaries to his 

 comfort and happiness. 



The most valuable plants and grains which now 

 etiirage the industry and minister to the support of 

 three'^fourths of the world, are of comparatively 

 recent introduction. Whilst the olive, the millet, 

 and the silk, may he iraced back to the ages of 

 antiquity, the articles which now feed and clothe 

 the inhabitants of the civilized world, have been 

 more recently discovered by men of science, and 

 brousrht into cultivation by the skilful agricuhurist. 

 A single generation has only passed away since a 

 handful of rice, and a few seeds of cotton, were 

 sown in a carden in Charleston as a ctirious, and 

 no doubt, regarded by many, as an idle experi- 

 ment. They are nowsuch important staples, that 

 they engage the commerce, and regulate, in a 

 conpiderable dejiree, the monetary system of the 

 world. The Irish potato, which has been of the 

 greatest consequence to mankind, was not known 

 in Europe till the days of Raleigh, and found its 

 way into England by a ship, wrecked on the coast 

 of Lancashire. During the many severe famines 

 to which Great Britain has been subject, there is 

 no exaggeration in asserting that the lives of mil- 

 lions of "human beings have been preserved by 

 this vegetable alone. " It is but a little more than 

 a century since the first coffee tree was brought to 

 France, from which all the trees in the West- 

 India islands have originated. The original sweet 

 orange tree, from which all the varieties of that 

 fine fruit in Europe and America have been de- 

 rived, although a native of China, was shown but 

 a few years ago at Lisbon. The writer of this 

 article,' has plucked fruit from the original tree, 

 which produces the sickle pear now cultivated 

 both in Europe and America, as the finest variety 

 of this fruit in the world. The tree, he believes, 

 is still growing in one of the meadows in the vi- 

 cinity of Philadelphia. Nor is it in the power of 

 any government, by its strictest enactments, to 

 prevent the dissemination of fruits, plants, and 

 seeds. If the ingenuity of man cannot accom- 

 plish it— the birds', the winds and the waves, will 

 efi'ect it. The cocoa-palm is now growing on the 

 sands of Florida, the nut having been floated from 

 Cuba by the waves of the sea. The sea grape, 

 the shore plum, and more than a hundred other 

 species of West-India plants, not omitting the ma- 

 hogany, have been carried thither either by the 

 winds or the birds. The white headed pigeon 

 is known to visit Cuba every day, whilst it is breed- 

 ing along the Florida coast, and thus becomes a 

 courier and a jtlanter between the island and 

 main. The severity of the laws of that exclu- 

 sive and extraordinary people the Chinese, could 

 not prevent the productions of their soil ti-om find- 

 ing their way to other lands— nor could the rigor 

 of the Dutch and the burning of their superfluous 

 spice trees prevent the dispersion of their cherished 

 aromatic plants. The tea shrub of China is now 

 cultivated in Java by men smuggled from Japan, 

 and also flourishes in the vicinity of Charleston — 

 and the spice trees have found their way to the 

 islands ofihe West-Indies and of the Pacific ocean. 

 The grasses cultivated in Europe, although the 

 majority of them are not indigenous, have now 

 become po thoroughly naturalized that they may 

 be regaiiled as natives. In laying down lands for 

 hay or pasture a greater mixture of seed is used 

 than in the nortliprn states nf our own country. 



