52 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 1 



unproiluctive character. We liavc already point- 

 ed out the probability that our foreign rivals, from 

 the new circumstances of the times, and most es- 

 ])ccially Irom tlie emancipation of the British 

 slaves, will henceforth be more than ever exposed 

 to those perils of insurrection and devastation by 

 which St. Domingo was lost to France. We have 

 shown how surely a successful revolt in any one 

 quarter must be the signal for similar explosions 

 in others; and by what cogent and not tardy 

 causes the region and reign of slavery are likely to 

 be narrowed. We hold if to be clear, at all events, 

 that whenever any effectual check shall be given 

 to the fresh importation of slaves, the loreign colo- 

 nies, from the insufficient proportion of their female 

 to their male negroes, and fi'om their inexpe- 

 rience in those arts of amelioration by which the 

 British planters have held their slave-population 

 together, must rapidly lose that great conimand of 

 cheap labor which at present enables them to 

 strive so advantageously agamst England in the 

 production of sugar. But if, while these defections 

 are beginning to take place in the productive pow- 

 ers of neighboring colonies, those of Great Britain 

 shall have been enabled, by the jiroposed remis- 

 sions in aid of free labor, to maintain their exten- 

 sive production at five-sixths, or even two-thirds, 

 ol its present amount, by negroes working for wa- 

 ges, our colonial industry must stand upon a basis 

 more firm and lasting than slavery could ever have 

 constructed. 



After the foregoing article was in type the following 

 paragraphs have appeared in the newspapers, which 

 are here annexed as the latest facts and evidence on 

 the subject. Concise as are the statements, they confirm 

 most of the positions assumed by the reviewer. Ja- 

 maica, and all the other British Islands, are rapidly 

 and certainly moving on to that state to which Hayti 

 has already arrived. 



" Abolitionism in Jamaica. — The last accounts from 

 Kingston, (to April 2d,) represent the affairs ot that 

 Island to be in a suffering and fast decaying condition. 

 The apprenticeship law seems to have utterly failed. 

 The Jamaica papers speak in bitter and indignant terms 

 of the present state of affairs. The sugar crop has 

 decreased, crime and vice have increased, and the short- 

 sighted philanthropists have added tenfold to the mi- 

 sery which they sought to alleviate. Free negro la- 

 bor, in that climate, amounts to nothing. [New York 

 Times.] 



" It seems, notwithstanding the efforts of the British 

 to suppress the slave trade, that the western coast of 

 Africa, below the colonies, swarm with slavers. One 

 vessel was recently taken, with a cargo of 600 human 

 beings on board, and a few months ago, twenty-five 

 sail of slave ships were lying at the port of St. Pauls." 



QUERY AS TO MAUL ON COTTON LAND. SIN- 

 GULAR MODK OF HAY-MAKING. 



Columbia, S. C, Jlpril 7, 1836. 



To tlic Editor of the farmers' Register. 



It is a long time since I have written to you — 

 but my long silence is not without a very good ex- 

 cuse, which would be uninteresting to you, or the 

 readers of your interesting Registl>r. As it is, I 



write to let you see that my regard for your perio- 

 dical continues as great as ever, than to communi- 

 cate to you matter of any worth. I learn, with 

 great pleasure, from a friend in Charleston, that 

 your Farmers' Register is now beginning to at- 

 tract some attention ; and, therefore, I hope the 

 almost certainty of its usefulness, in the lower 

 part of this State, may soon cause experiments to 

 test the value of calcareous matters in that sec- 

 tion of country that needs it so much, and has an 

 abundance of materials for them. Have any ex- 

 periments ever been made to test the usefulness 

 of calcareous earth in the culture of cotton? The 

 high price which this article bears at this time 

 would render such experiments most valuable, and 

 tend to show its great use in other articles of cul- 

 ture. Judging fi'om analogy, I am satisfied that 

 marl, or fossil shells, would much increase the cot- 

 ton crops; for it is most probable that the great 

 crops of cotton produced in Alabama are due 

 chiefly to that ingredient in the soils of that State. 

 Planters, in the iract of country where calcareous 

 earth abounds, would very greatly promote their 

 private interest, as well as that of their country 

 generall}', by making full experiments on this sub- 

 ject. 



This letter, being desultorj', very much like the 

 mind of the writer, 1 shall now change the subject, 

 and write on what I read may years since, in an 

 European book, the name of which I cannot re- 

 collect. It is on hay-making, and I was struck 

 at the time, with the plausibility of the author's 

 notion. 



He began, by asserting thafth ehay of young and 

 tender grass is sweeter, and more nutritiftus than 

 that made of grass that lias been suffered to grow 

 old and less succulent. I cannot ascertain, by my 

 recollection, whether he merely suggested a view 

 not tried before, or whether he had actually prac- 

 ticed the method of making hay which he pro- 

 posed. What I say on the subject, will, of course, 

 be taken only for what it is worth. His plan was 

 to cut his grass as soon as it is high enough to be 

 cut, to take it off the field at once, and spread it 

 thinly on the floor of a large house, prepared for 

 the purpose, by having its sides so open all round 

 as to admit a free circulation of air. Hay cured in 

 this manner, retained its green color, and its sub- 

 stance was not impaired in any degree by expo- 

 sure to rain, dew, or the sun. By the time he had 

 more grass fit to cut, that in the house ^vas dry, 

 and the new grass was deposited on the top by 

 spreading it as before. The same operation was 

 continued or repeated as long as grass could be 

 obtained during the whole summer, without dis- 

 turbing at all that which had been previously de- 

 posited in the house. The erecting a suitable 

 building, need not be expensive, though it should be 

 large ; lor it may be made in the coarsest manner 

 by the farmer's own people. It appears to me that 

 this manner of making hay has a great many ad- 

 vantages over the common mode. First, the hay 

 must be better and more palatable tor the horses 

 and cattle. Sccondlj^, it cannot require more, (if 

 as much,) than half the work. Thirdly, the far- 

 mer can better select his own time for it, and his 

 grass need never be exposed to rain, by which 

 much of the hay made in the usual way is much 

 injured, and sometimes totally spoiled. Much 

 more might be said on this subject ; but this is 

 enough tor the present, and if it be thought pro- 



