32 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



parts of the Northern States, I do not contend. Some of these soils are 

 doubtless, naturally too ban-en to be made to produce good yields of grass, 

 without an expenditure which would more than counterbalance the profits 

 accruing from them. Others have been sunk nearly to the same level by 

 wasting and improvident tillage ; and it is on lands of the latter class, 

 mainly, that the experiments in introducing the grasses and clover have 

 been made. As long as they would produce cotton or corn, these crops 

 were annually taken from them, with perhaps an occasional year of rest 

 (i. e. lying without any crop being sown on or taken from them) ; and, 

 when reduced to such a degree of barrenness that the crop fell short of re- 

 paying the cost of producing it, clover or grass was resorted to in the vain 

 nope of suddenly repairing, through their instrumentality, the ravage and 

 desolation of years. The following is from the report of a Committee of 

 the Fishing Creek Agricultural Society, Chester District, South Carolina, 

 made to the President of the State Society in 1843 ; and, though this dis- 

 trict is not in the tide-water zone, the system of cropping described is more 

 or less the prevailing one* throughout much of the cotton growing region : 



" We generally plant cotton on fresh land four or five years in succession then corn 

 then wheat or oats again corn and cotton ; and, after it will produce little else, we sow it 

 hi rye, and let it rest two or three years. There are no fixed principles observed in the ro- 

 tation of crops. . . . We have no data whereby to fix the expense of cultivation accu- 

 rately. We know this, however, that at the price of produce for the last two or three years, 

 we are sinking money, "t 



I ask what would be expected, in the way of grass or clover, from some 

 of the best grazing lands of New- York, after being cropped with grain 

 crops from ten to twelve years consecutively, with little or no manure ] 

 However carefully seeded with the best grasses, or with clover, they wctild 

 riot form meadows worth mowing, nor pastures where an acre would sum- 

 mer a sheep though, as now managed, an acre is poorly grassed that will 

 riot summer five or six sheep. Take the map of New-York, Sir, and draw 

 a right line from Buffalo to a point a little south of Albany say Coxsackie 

 and all the region, speaking in general terms, south of this line arid west 

 of the Catskill Mountains, is mainly devoted to grazing. It is the best 

 grazing region of the State, and much of it is equal to any in the Northern 

 States. The best farmers in no part of it take off to exceed three grain or 

 root crops before seeding clown to grass ; and, unless the soil is unusually 

 rich, it is customary to give barn-yard manure to one of these crops. This 

 is almost invariably the case where the land was in meadow when broken 

 up. Where no manure is given on meadow lands, or even on lightish pas- 

 ture lands, two grain crops are considered sufficient by the most provident 

 farmers it being an axiom among such, that all ordinary or thinnish soils 

 should be nearly or quite as rich when seeded down as when broken up. 

 In other words, they draw from the soil only what is equivalent to the 

 strength or fertilizing properties of the sod, and of the manure given. 

 When seeded down to grass, these lands are usually depastured by cattle 

 or sheep several years before they are again broken up. If converted into 

 meadow, they are top-dressed from time to time with gypsum, and some- 

 times with stable manures.J The poorest soils, rocky hill-sides, declivities 

 much subject to washing and gullying, are rarely broken up after being 

 once properly seeded down. I repeat it, Sir take all the grazing lands 

 of New-York, and crop them as severely as it is reported above to be done 

 in Chester District, South Carolina, and they would become so sterile that, 



* Id eet, so far as constant cropping without returning anything to the soil is concerned. 

 t See Ruffin's Agricultural Survey of South Carolina, 1843 Appendix, p. 6. 



J [t is not considered good economy, however, to top-dress any meadows with stable manure* which 

 trc dry and arable, and con thus be subjected to the regular rotations of the farm. 



