410 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 7 



them. When very wet at the time of planting, 

 your cotton will come well without covering — that 

 is, the rain will coat the seed over for you. 



The principal object intended by the bedding, 

 was to dry the land where the seed is put, so as to 

 secure an early rise of the cotton; and though in 

 dry springs you may often get a good rise without 

 bedding; yet it certainly makes it more secure, and 

 the security is worth the additional trouble. I 

 have seen a heavy shower of rain wash the seed 

 up to a great extent, by washing out the gutter or 

 trench in which it was planted, and I have seen it 

 do the same with the plants. Now you are se- 

 cure against this in a listed and bedded field, and 

 if the alleys wash, as I admit they do, they wash 

 fully to the same extent where you plough and do 

 not bed. 



Your cotton being up, there are various ways 

 of tending it, in which good planters differ, though 

 more I think in practice than in principle. I be- 

 lieve all agree in thinking that it is necessary to 

 break up lull and deep all the alleys, so as to give 

 loose earth fur the plant to push its roots into in 

 search of food, and to lessen the labor to the hoes. 

 That practice then is best, which best answers 

 these ends. With these two objects in view, sup- 

 pose you try a mould-board plough, and put the 

 led hand or bar side to the plant as near as the list 

 will let you, and throw the earth off, and with its 

 return throw it back, and split out the alley with 

 one cut of a shovel. The alleys will be completely 

 broken, and the space left for" the hoe will be so 

 narrow that the hoes will have little to do. The 

 hoes follow the ploughs, and chop through, taking 

 the cotton, the grass, (if any,) and the earth off 

 at one cut, leaving one, two, three, or more stalks 

 in a place, and drawing a hoe full of earth into the 

 same space, which earths the cotton, steadies it, 

 and pushes its growth, and preserves the shape of 

 the bed. The more usual practice here is, to 

 chop through in the same way, but not to draw 

 any earth into the space, or in any way, to the cot- 

 ton. Thisis a point of difference'between our best, 

 as well as our worst planters. The advocates of one 

 system say that no benefit is done to the plant by 

 earthing it, and that without doing so, they get 

 over more land in the day to the laborer, and can 

 see better whether it has been faithfully done, as 

 nothing is covered. The advocates of the other 

 system assert, that the plant is materially benefited 

 in its growth by having dirt drawn to it— that it is 

 safer from death and from washing up; and though 

 it takes longer, it is not at a time when there is 

 any great press of work. As an advocate, I am 

 incompetent to decide. I shall always put earth to 

 the plant the first time, or while very young, and 

 afterwards, when the press of work comes^on, I 

 shall only scrape off, and depend on the plough 

 for the earthing. You see, I think, a good planter 

 may sometimes get himself into a "scrape" with- 

 out doing wrong. 



After the first deep ploughing, the lime in the 

 land becomes slaked by the penetration of the air 

 into it, and also by the rains, and it is kept in so 

 light, loose, and friable a condition, as to need no 

 farther ploughings, except to destroy the weeds 

 and grass that may spring up. Any plough that 

 effects this object does your business, and the broad 

 sweep that cuts 20 to 24 inches at a furrow is per- 

 haps the best plough, as three times in a row-will 

 clean out the widest. It is a most faithful plough; 



it. cuts every thing, and nothing escapes, and in a 

 dry time in light lands is superior to any plough 

 that I have seen — as it leaves on the surlace all 

 thai it cuts; it may take root again in rainy spells, 

 and when such set in, it is advisable to change 

 them for mould-board ploughs, which will cover 

 over all that they cut, and more.* This plough is a 

 narrow root, or bull-tongue plough, with two wings 

 20 to 24 inches long and three and a half wide, 

 standing in such position to it as to resemble 

 the letter A, with the front edge sharp, and the 

 back edge raised 1^ inches high. You can see a 

 piate of a similar one in one of the early numbers 

 of the American Farmer, furnished by Col. John 

 Taylor of Caroline. You must cut off the heel 

 and the snout, and substitute the bull-tongue to suit 

 it to our rooty and stumpy lands. 



All the workings of the crop after the first hoe- 

 ing both for the plough and hoe is merely to kill 

 grass and weeds. 



Your working the crop closes when the cot- 

 ton limbs generally touch each other across the 

 rows, because at that time the working would 

 break the limbs, and there are innumerable roots 

 extending across and filling up the alleys which 

 would injure by being then cut. If you have done 

 faithfully all that, is above directed, you have done 

 your duty; the rest you must leave to Him who 

 gives the increase. 



I have thus, Mr. Editor, tried to point out to the 

 new settler, and the inexperienced, how he should 

 choose a plantation, and how, having chosen one 

 on the prairie, he should make his winter prepara- 

 tions, so as to continue its fertility, and how to pre- 

 pare to plant and to tend his crop; on each head 

 I have tried to give him some of the leading rea- 

 sons why he should do so. 1 consider it essential 

 ro a good planter that he should have a reason tor 

 for every thing he is doing, so that, knowing the 

 object he has in view, he will use the means that 

 are best calculated to efiect it. Planters differ less 

 in what they intend, than in the use of the instru- 

 ments with which they effect their intentions. 

 This letter has been spun out to an unreasonable 

 length, and yet I could not be shorter, and say 

 what I had to say. 



A PLANTER. 



Alabama, August, 1835. 



SEA-WEED MANURE. 



Fleets of boats, to the number of sixty or seven- 

 ty, are daily arriving at Galway, with sea-weed 

 for manure, from Cunnamara, Arran, and the 

 county of Clare, which is purchased with avidity, 

 and conveyed on carts all over the. country, in va- 

 rious directions, even to the distance of forty or 

 fifty miles into the interior. — Galway paper. 



*The mould-board ploughs that suit this purpose best 

 are such as throw their furrow-slice the farthest, as our 

 object is not how fine you can make the land, hut how 

 much grass you can cover. The mould-board should 

 be wide, and so bent, as to be more at right angles 

 with the cutting edge, than the usual cast-iron ploughs. 

 They are shaped so as just to turn what they cut with 

 most ease; we want a shape that will throw it far. We 

 finish a row at three cuts that will require five with 

 the ordinary cast-iron plough. The merits of a plough, 

 by the standard of the dynanometer, is in the inverse of 

 its merits for our use. 



