514 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



leatls to exhaustion, unless organic matter is added to the soil in proportion 

 to the waste. The theoretical and practical considei-ations which should 

 govern in the application of this fertilizer to soils are discussed more fully 

 and, in my judgment, more ably by Johnston, in his Agricultural Chem- 

 istry, than by any other writer. To him I take the liberty to refer you. 



Marl raised from pits, as it must necessarily be (except when denuded, 

 or cut through, on the beds of streams, &c.) where it occurs only as an 

 under-stratum in a flat country — where the pits, too, often require ma- 

 chinery, or much manual labor, to keep them free fiom water while work- 

 ing — must be an expensive manui'e. From its tendency to sink in the soil 

 it is not so permanent a one as would naturally be expected. On reclaimed 

 swamp lands — as, for example, on the rice lands — abounding in vegetable 

 matter, it will be found a most efficacious manui'e, and, lohen needed, will 

 repay the necessary outlay ; but I fear it will be found otherwise ultimate- 

 ly, if not immediately, on the barren sands and exhausted granite soils of 

 the South. Applied icitli swamp mud, it would constitute a fertilizer 

 scarcely, perhaps, admitting of a superior, even on the latter soils. In 

 their single effects, however, 1 cannot but believe that the best swamp mud 

 — that which is black and fetid by the long continued accumulation of or- 

 ganic substances (and especially if charged with shells, and the shields of 

 Infusoria) — would be worth more per load than the richest marl. The 

 mud, too, should be considerably cheaper than the marl, no deep excava- 

 tions being required to obtain it.* Digging and draught, and, in the case 

 of the mud, draught alone, would render both decidedly expensive ma- 

 nures, relatively to the value of the land after being ameliorated by them, 

 even assuming that amelioration to be complete and permanent. On lands 

 immediately contiguous to conveniently reached depositions of mud or 

 marl, on a scale so limited that it could be carried on at spare intervals 

 without encroaching on the regular routine of plantation labor, it might 

 be good economy to haul out mud and marl, and thus gradually reclaim 

 small pieces of land.t It certainly would be better economy than to waste 

 those intervals in idleness. But in anything like an extended and speedy 

 system of reclamation — the feitilization of thirty, forty or fifty acres per 

 annum, instead of one, two or three — the means above adverted to are, in 

 my humble judgment, utterly out of the question. The labor would ab- 

 sorb all the labor of man and beast on the plantation ; and it is exceedingly 

 questionable, in my mind, whether the land, when feitilized, would sell for 

 the cost of the manure. 



Hard would it be for many a South Carolinian or Virginian to tura his 

 back on the Lares and Penates of his race — forgetting many a proud local 

 and ancestral association — but as a question of dollars and cents, some- 

 times a necessary one, and, at all events, usually the paramount one, I 

 think it past a reasonable doubt that it would be better economy to de- 

 sert the worn-out or naturally barren soils of our South-eastern coast, and 

 purchase the virgin and fertile lands of the South-west (even including 

 the extra expense of building and fencing), than to attempt to reclaim the 

 former by means so expensive as those above indicated. 



What, then, is the resort 1 Are there any means by which those lands 

 can be projitahhj reclaimed 1 I answer, Yes ; and the resort is a mixed 

 system of green and animal manuring — the latter made attainable by sheep 

 husbandry. Experience is the best test of all theories. And we have had 



* I am incliued to think, however, that this nnid, if spread directly on the surface, wotild cont.iminato 

 the atmosphere with unhenltliy miasinn, generating agues and bilious diseases. If so, it would require in- 

 corporntion with the soil, by plowinir. 



t It soerns to me, however, that these expen-^ivc manures would be more profitably applied in keeping 

 Up the fertility of the best luiids, o"- us assistaiUs to otlier and cheaper means o* recUiimiiig the poor onus. 

 (1034) 



