SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 33 



unless resuscitated by copious applications of manure, they would not 

 yield grass enough to pay the expanse of keeping them under fence, until 

 they had lain waste for a quarter of a century. 



Another cause of the failures which have attended some of the efforts to 

 introduce the culture of clover and the grasses on the tide-water zone, in 

 the Southern States, may, and probably has, existed in the improper selec- 

 tion of the varieties sown. As the first crop on a very meager soil red 

 clover, for example is not appropriate in any region. In Flanders, the 

 natural soils of much of which so closely resemble those of the zone under 

 examination, it is not sown until the land is enriched and got in condition 

 by several preparatory crops. The different grasses seem to be affected 

 by various conditions in the soil or atmosphere, or both, which it is fre- 

 quently difficult or impossible to detect. Timothy grass ( Pklcum pratcnse) 

 is decidedly the favorite meadow grass of the grazing regions of New- 

 York. White clover (Trifolium rcpens) invariably comes up spontane- 

 ously on those lands. Red clover ( T. pratense) is sometimes sown with 

 Timothy in meadows, and generally in pastures. Red Top* (Agrostis 

 (stricta) vulgaris) is preferred on wet lands, where it comes up spontane- 

 ously. It is considered a prime pasture and meadow grass in such situa.- 

 tions. June or Spear grass (Poa pratensis), the Blue grass of the South 

 ern and Western States, so piized there and also in England,! is consid- 

 ered an unprofitable intruder in our meadows, where it comes up sponta- 

 neously, and ultimately drives out the Timothy. The meadows are then 

 said to be " run out," and are broken up. I have never known the seed 

 of this grass sown in a single instance ! The favorite Rye grasses of Eng- 

 land (Lolium perenne var. bienne), Lucern (Medicago sativa), Sainfoin 

 ( 'Hedysarum onibrickisj, Orchard grass (Dactylis glomcrata), and various 

 others equally celebrated in England and on the Continent, have been 

 tried in New- York, and the experiments are generally regarded as decided 

 failures. None of them, at all events, have obtained a footing among the 

 grasses sown by our best farmers. On the other hand, the Red Top of 

 New-York is but little regarded in England, \ and Timothy was not in 

 much better repute until the Woburn experiments demonstrated its great 

 value for hay. Even now it is considered inferior, in general value, to 

 many other grasses.) | All this goes to show that even the hardiest grasses 

 have their favorite situations ; and that we are not authorized to pronounce 

 against the practicability of forming pastures and meadows in a given re- 

 gion, because we have failed in a trial with two or three grasses, out of a 

 list of as many hundreds. 



It has already been remarked that there are patches of good natural 

 pasture on the dry as well as the wet portions of the tide-water zone 

 These are frequent and extensive, and could be rendered infinitely more 

 so by simply clearing the land. In your Memoir on the Cultivation of 

 Rice, furnished to Mr. Ruffin, while making the Agricultural Survey of 

 South Carolina, in 1843, you say : 



" At first, rice was cultivated on the high land, and on little spots of low ground, as they 

 were met with here and there. These low grounds being found to agree ^better with the 

 plant, the inland swamps were cleared for the purpose of extending the culture, In the 

 process of time, as the fields became too grassy and stubborn, they were abandoned for new 

 clearings ; and so on, until at length was discovered the superior adaptation of the tide-lands, 

 wad the great facilities for irrigation afforded by their location. For these, the inland planta- 

 tions were gradually and slowly abandoned, until now, that the great body of land, which 



* Sometimes known as " Upright Bent grass," and in the Southern States as Herds-grass. 

 t Pronounced by Sole the best of all the grasses. 



t Agrostis vulgaris is pronounced " a worthless or rather a mischievous plant," by Sir George Sinclair I 



(I "Our opinion," says Louden, " is that neither Timothy nor (some other grasses named) is ever likely 



to be cultivated in Britain." * 



