3G0 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



parts of the Noitliem States, I do not contend. Some of these soik are 

 doubtless, naturally too barren to be made to produce good yields of grass, 

 witliout 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 baiTenness that the crop fell short of re- 

 pay i tig the cost of producing it, clover or giass was resorted to in the vain 

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

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

 the Fishing Creek Agricultural Society, Cliester 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 genei'ally plant cotton on fresh land four or five years in snccession — then com — 

 then wheat or oats — again corn and cott(jn ; and, after it will produce little else, we sow it 

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

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

 rately. ^Ve know this, however, that at the price of protluce 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 

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

 crops from ten to twelve years consecutively, with litth; or no manure ? — 

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

 not form meadows worth mowing, nor pastures where an acre wotild sum- 

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

 not summer five or six sheep. Take the map of New-York, Sir, and draw 

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

 — and all the region, speaking in general terms, south of this Hue and west 

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

 graaing 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 down 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 ^vhere 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 (;rops are considered sufficient by the most provident 

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

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

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

 strength or fertilizing ])ropcrties 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 ct)nvcrted into 

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

 times with stable rnanures.| The ])oorest soils, rocky hill-si-tles, 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, 



* Jd est, so fur nit conotnnt cropping witlioiil rotiirninii anvtliins; to the soil is concemoil. 

 t Sec Rulliii's Ai,M-iciiltur;il rturvcy of South Ciirolinii, lt*4H— Appomiix, p. 6. 



X It 18 not conMidcicd t-'ood economy, however, to top-dress any inendows with Etabic manures wiiick 

 CTf dry and arable, and can thus be subjected to ihe reg^ilar rotulions of the farm. 



(74.)) 



