THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



33i> 



Our wood lands afford good ranges Tor our cat- 

 tle and hoirs during nine months of the year. In 

 mild vviniers they can subsist on them, and keep 

 in pretty good plight wiihout any oiher (bod. 



Some pine wood is cut lor the northern market, 

 but in no great quantity. 



Under the head of "obstacles to innprovemenl" 

 I will enunieraip, first, the facility of living with- 

 out labor. Experience shows that, in this coun- 

 try, il no! in all oihera, ihe improvements in agri- 

 culture are in the inverse ratio of the lacililies ol 

 procuring subsistence. Perhaps in no part of the 

 sia;eare these lacililiesgreater than here. With fish 

 and oysiers at our very doors, a man can in one hour 

 catch enough to subsist a family a whole day. 

 The great mass of population in all countries labor 

 almost solely lor subsistence: the lear of starva- 

 tion is the strong incentive to exertion; here that 

 incentive is unknown, and unless a man looks Ibr- 

 vvard to a higher destiny than that of a mere fish- 

 erman, he will be content to live li-om day to day 

 at the smallest expense of liodily labor. This is 

 unfortunately the case with the great body of the 

 lower class of our white population. It is unpro- 

 ductive labor, and returns nothing to the common 

 stock, but rather takes from il ; lor in time ihis 

 fisherman dies, leaving his wife and children a le- 

 gacy to the public charily. The labor of the 

 county is taxed to support the family of a man 

 who never contributed one cent to the revenue ; 

 the children are brouKhi up in ignorance and idle- 

 ness, and as soon as they are large enough, lollow 

 in the Ibolsleps ol" their illustrious progenitor : and 

 thus they move in a circle, the Iburih generation 

 no farther advanced in refinement, education or 

 morals, than their great grandfather. It is this 

 Slate of things, coufiled with our injudicious sys- 

 tem of public charity, ihut has brought our poor 

 rates to 75 cents a year on each lithable. 



But this aversion to labor is not confined to the 

 lower class ; it unfortunately pervades the higher, 

 and grows out of the fact, that it is in some way 

 considered disreputable, because il is the province 

 of the negro. The consequence is, that many be- 

 come poorerjust in proportion as their families in- 

 crease. Their half dozen negroes and worn-out 

 fields afford them a living; but they get married, 

 and in a lievv years have hall a dozen children, 

 all to be supported by (he same negroes and 

 worn-out fields, which are daily getting poorer. 

 Thus no money is saved for improvement, every 

 inch of the (arm is urged to the utmost, and they 

 either descend to the fisherman state, or, if too 

 proud Ibr ihat, sell out and move to the west, that 

 golden region where people can live without 

 working. 



The law of enclosures. So much has been said 

 and written on this subject, thai it is hardly neces- 

 sary 10 do more th m to enumerate it as one of the 

 obstacles to improvement. The time which ought 

 to be devoted to manuring and improvement, is 

 employed in making and repairing (ences ; not so 

 much Ibr the protection oi' our crops against our 

 own cattle, as against those of others, who roost 

 frequently have no crops of their own to protect. 

 If you cut down a worthless tree on my land, the 

 law considers you guilty of a trespass, and you 

 pay the penalty; if your horse or cow break 

 into ray field and destroy my corn, you have only 

 to prove that my fence was one rail below the 

 legal height, and I have no redress. 



The road law operates injuriously, because it 

 operates unequally and expensively. The county 

 is laid off' into districts, and an overseer appointed 

 lor each. He receives generally about one dollar 

 a day for the time employed in supervising the 

 hands on the road. This at once is a temptation 

 wiih many to prolong the work to the utmost. 

 He can summon all the labor ol his district, when- 

 ever it may suit his personal convenience, without 

 consulting that ol any one else, or even if he were 

 disposed to do so, a convenient time with one 

 might be a very inconvenient time with another. 

 If the road is any distance from home, the parly 

 rarely gels lo work before 9 o'clock, and then they 

 are knocked off" an hour or two before sunset, as 

 the overseer wants to get home. The hands are 

 badly provided with tools; sometimes all hoea 

 when spades or axes are required; then again 

 spades or axes, and a scarcity of hoes ; and thus 

 one half are frequently idle for want of proper 

 tools. Sometimes the whole force of his district, 

 amounting to 30 or 40 hands, is required to mend 

 a bridge or fill up a hole, that might be done by 3 

 or 4, He is afraid he might be accused of partial- 

 ity, if he summoned Mr. A's negroes and not Mr. 

 B's, and so calls all out, and here is a hole filled 

 up at the cost of thirty or Ibrty days' labor, when 

 only three or four were required. The balance is 

 of course so much dead loss to the production of 

 Ihe county. 



It seems to me the object could be much better 

 effiicfed by imposing a moderate tax in money, as 

 it is usually done in the northern states. 



" Granting licenses to tippling shops, and non- 

 enforcement of the law against those who sell 

 spirits without license." This is a serious evil to 

 our county. It exercises a baneful influence, not 

 only on our negroes, but the lower class of our 

 while population. They are tempted to drink, 

 and having no money, pay perhaps four limes as 

 much fbr the indulgence, in stolen properly, as the 

 money value of the whisky. Nine-tenths of the 

 petty larcenies committed here can be traced lo 

 the influence of the grog-shops. 



REMARKS ON SOME OP THE CHEMICAL CHAN- 

 GES PRODUCED IN THE DIFFERENT MODES 

 OF PREPARING ANIMAL MANURES. 



To tile Editor of ttie Farmers' Register. 



Tuscaloosa, Ala., June 17, 1842. 



Sir : — I have just read, in the last (May) num- 

 ber of the Register, an article on urine, from 

 "Squarey's Treatise on Agricultural Chemistry." 

 It begins vvilh an extract from "Liebig's Or- 

 ganic Chemistry of Agriculture and Physiology ;" 

 and is, indeed, a pretty correct abstract of an 

 itnportant and interesting portion of that very 

 valuable work. 



There are, however, two paragraphs, in which 

 Squarey recommends a mode of employing urine, 

 which Liebig condemns as "the most injudicious 

 that could be conceived." As Squarey professes 

 to adopt and recommend the principles so ably 

 developed by Liebig — as those principles, if true, 

 must, says Professor Lindley, " be the foun- 

 dation of all exact and economical methods of 

 cultivation" — and as their truth can only be es- 

 tablished by Ihe results of numerous experiments 



