38 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



a warm climate, but it requires a good soil. It has been cultivated with 

 great success by Mr. Affleck in (Adams county) Mississippi. 



Bermuda grass* ( Cijnochn dactijlon) I have been led to consider, from 

 the representations of Mr. Affleck, as the best grass, both for pasture and 

 xneadow, on the -sterile sands of the tide-water zone. If half this enlhu- 

 oiistic admirer believes of it is true, it is of inestimable value to the South, 

 and for permanent pastures and meadows, is by far the best grass in the 

 United States. Mr. A. says : 



" We are fully aware of all the objections made to the spreading of this grass, and have 

 a practical knowledge of all the trouble it occasions ; and having also had several years' ex- 

 perience of its great, its incalculable value, we have no hesitation in stating that the latter is 

 manifold greater than the former. The time is not iar distant when all the rough feed cDn- 

 aumed on plantations will be made from this grass ; and when the planter will consider his 



hay crop as of much more importance than Ins sugar or cotton The excellence of thia 



plant for pasturage is evinced by two circumstances. It is preferred by stock of every de- 

 scription to all other grass, and it grows luxuriantly in every kind of soil. It possesses an 

 additional advantage, that of binding the loosest and most barren sandy tracts. But when it 

 has once taken possession of close, rich soil, its -extirpation is so difficult as almost to defy all 

 the skill, industry and perseverance of farmers. It is used to bind the levees on the banks 

 of the Mississippi, and of railroads. We saw it at Macon, Geo., Charleston, S. C., and so 

 on, as far north as City Point, Virginia, where it partially covers the wharf. One hundred 

 pounds of grass afford upward of fifty of dry hay ; and ice do cut, as a regular crop, five 

 tons of hay per acre each season. Were we to state how much more has been cut, we might 

 strain the belief of our readers. No other grass will yield such an amount of valuable hay ; 

 surpass it in nutritive qualities; support on an acre of pasture such a quantity of stock ; will 

 improve the soil more quickly ; or so effectually stop and fill up a wash or gully. But, on 

 the other hand, its extirpation, when once well established, is almost impossible ; though to 

 check and weaken it, so far as to grow a grain or cotton crop, is easy enough. To do this, 

 pursue the course of the best farmers of Kentucky in their management of a blue-grass sod 

 with a good breaking plow, having a wheel and coulter, and a stout team, turn over evenly 

 and nicely a sod four inches thick and as wide as the plow and team are capable of, follow 

 in the same furrow with another plow which casts the dirt well, and throw out as much of 

 the fresh earth on top of the sod as possible or the depth of the soil will admit of. The crop 

 that follows can easily be tended without disturbing the sod, and its gradual decay will 

 greatly increase whatever crop may be planted on it and that should be a shading one, 

 corn and peas or pumpkins, -or winter oats followed by peas. Good farmers will understand 

 that heavy crops of hay cannot be removed, for many successive years, from any land, with- 

 out some return in the shape of manure. To the careful, judicious farmer, who wishes to 

 improve his land and his stock, and who does not expect to grow any crop without trouble, 

 and who uses good plows, and keeps a stout team and that in prime order, we earnestly 

 recommend to try an acre or two of this grass, in a situation where it cannot readily spread. 

 To the careless farmer we say touch it not."t 



The same gentleman writes me under date of Dec. 10th, 1846 : 



11 Bermuda grass well set, which affords the finest and most nutritious pasturage I have 

 ever seen, will keep almost any number of sheep to the acre three or four times as many 

 as the best blue-grass ! " 



Unless this is gross and willful exaggeration,^ here you have a grass 

 which is not only highly palatable and nutritive, but which will yield 

 more than double both of pasturage and hay, than the best grass or clover 

 of the Northern States ! || It has been tried as far south as New-Orleans, 

 and the climate found no detriment to it. It will flourish on dry and al- 

 most barren sands. What can the farmer on the dry lands of the tide- 

 water zone ask more 1 [ts inextirpable character I regard as decidedly in 



* Cumberland Grass Wire grass of Virginia Creeping Panic grass. 



t See Norman's Southern Agricultural Almanac, for 1847. 



j Neither of which are we permitted to suspect, from the well-known character and intelligence af Mr 

 Affleck. 



|i People here in the North sometimes talk of getting three tons of timothy and four tons of clover (at 

 Ivro cuttings) per acre, but it is not done on one acre in ten thousand, on the best meadows ! Twa tons lg 

 a gcod, and by far above a medium yield, of timothy, and three, of clover. The large amounts of Ber- 

 muda sometimes cut, which Mr. A. does not mention for fear of "straining the belief of his readers " ha 

 has stated to me personally, to be eight tons! ! equivalent to the yield of three first-rate acres c<" Mnoth/ 

 Mi the bent grazing lands of Southern New- York. 



8 Mr. AiHeck informs me he has repeatedly seen it growing w^ll w such situations. 



