364 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



tries, should be tried — not because they are fiom ihe North, (which in itself is a strong ob- 

 jection,) but nicrcly because their good qualilios are known, and possibly some such grasses 

 inay as well suit a more soulhern clime. And such. I trust, is red clover, the best of all 

 green and manuring crops. For although this was long held to belong to the North oidy, I 

 have fully experienced that i;-j locality and the perfection of its growth are fixed much more 

 by peculiarity of soil than by latitude. Not more than twenty years ago it was as general 

 a iKjlief in Lower Virginia, as now in South Carolina, that there the soil was too scantj- and 

 the sun too hot to raise red clover. But since marling and liming have made many of these 

 Boils calcareous, it is found that neither the simdy soil nor hot antl dry climate forbid the 

 raising excellent and profitable crops of clover. And so hereafter it will be found iu South 

 Carolina."* 



In a Report by a Comrnittee of the Milton Agrscultnral Society, (em- 

 bracing adjacent parts of Laurens and Newberry Districts, S. C.) made to 

 the State Society in 1843, they state : 



" Our native grasses, except the crab grass, are of the poorest kind, principally sedge. Of 

 the artificial grasses, some fciids have been made with red clover and herds-grass. t On rich 

 lots the first appears to succeed very well. For alternatuig with tillage crops we do not 

 know of its having been tried ; but our impression is, that without manuring more liighly 

 thcUi is customary here, it will not answer. We are not aware that it has ever been sowed 

 with gypsum. The herds-grass, as far as it has been tided, appeal's to succeed veiy well on 

 the bottoms that border our branches and creeks. "^ 



Lawrence and Newberry are not in t4ie tide-water region, but so far as 

 the effect of climate alone is concerned, their testimony has an equal 

 bearing. 



I have little doubt that red clover may be cultivated on good, rich soils 

 even in the States south of North Carolina, and mny possibly become, un- 

 der some circumstances, a profitable crop in their rotations ; but, as has 

 been already remarked, it will not do as -a first crop on very meager soils, 

 in any climate — and still less so, I apprehend, on such soils south of lati- 

 tude 34°. It is not, therefore, the crop which you need, to cheaply ame- 

 liorate yovir poor and exhausted soils, to fit them either for grazing or for 

 tillage. Grant that such soils can be fitted to produce it, as Mr. Ruffin 

 suggests, by the application of lime or marl,|| these mttnures will be found 

 expensive, can be but slowly obtained in quantit»ies sufficient to apply to 

 large tracts, and, besides, when the soil is sufficiently ameliorated to cairy 

 clover, it will carry most if not all of your ordinary tillage crops. Though 

 cloYer would aid materially in the rotation, in i^tislaimng or even improv- 

 ing the fertility superinduced by lime or any other fertilizer, it is not, and 

 cannot be made the original fertilizer on the sterile sands of warm climates. 

 When we talk, therefore, of the initiatory steps by which such soils shall 

 be brought from a state of baixenness to a state of production, clover does 

 not come within the category of appropriate agents. 



Though red clover ranks in the first class, if not the first in that class, 

 on appropriate soils, as a grazing and mamiring (aop, I have never regard- 

 ed it as indispensable — as what the lairi/crs would style a sine qua non — • 

 even in sustaining fertility anywhere except on rich calcareous wheat 

 lands, where a severe and exhausting rotation is resorted to, \Vhere 

 wheat is taken from the soil at hast every alternate year, for ten, fifteen, 

 or twenty years, without any manure, excepting the intervening crop, and 

 the droppings of animals depastured on it, clover will better sustain the 

 land in the ultimately fatal struggle, than perhaps any other green ma- 



* Ruffin'B Airricultural .Survey of .S. C, lP4n, p. 81. 



t This should l)o the Agrost'iK stricta or vidijarU — the Red Top of the Nonh. .Some writers designate it 

 tin the oik: specicH, come rb iIk! other. 



X Kuffin's Af^riculturnl Survey of S. C, 1843 ; Appendix, ji. ft. 



II Unlosn, however, the soil contains more organic raiitter than I suppose to be the cnpe with innny of 

 your sandy poils. tlicory mid pnu-licc both sliow that hine will not prove the proper ninnuiv. Thouph e»- 

 oeediniily vnlimble in its place, experience ghowB that it in no agricultural jjanacea. I phall allude to this sub- 

 ject more fully in n subeequont loiter. 

 (74P) 



