186 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 3 



The country about Fort King is called a lime- 

 etone country. The pine lands, which constitute 

 four-fitlhsof this region, to all appearances, are 

 very little more than barren sands, producing scarce- 

 ly any undergrowtii but rank grass, and interspers- 

 ed, in every direction, with what has been called 

 rotten limestone, containing the impression of va- 

 rious marine shells. Pursuing still the inquiry 

 how such immense forests of pine should grow in 

 a soil evidently calcareous, I concluded to analyze 

 ft, and to my surprise, (bund it did not contain one 

 particle of carbonate of lime. This appeared the 

 more extraordinary, as the rotten limestone was 

 all around me in large masses, as well as disintegrat- 

 ed. I then undertook to ascertain what proportion 

 of the carbonate was contained in this rotten lime- 

 stone; and to my still greatersurprise, could not de- 

 tect the existence ofthe minutest quantity. I made 

 the analysis wilh the best nmriatic and sulphuric 

 acids; besides, submitting many specimens to an in- 

 tense heat. Thefactis, it was nothing more norless 

 than an agglutinationofsilicious and aluminous mat- 

 ter, forming a specit?s of sand stone, and serving 

 as a matrix in Avhich the shells had been deposit- 

 ed. So perfect were their impressions, that no 

 one, for a moment, could hav'e doubted their actual 

 presence; but all traces of lime had entirel}' disap- 

 peared. Whether it had combined with humic 

 acid, or formed some other compound. I cannot 

 undertake to decide. 



There is one singular fact, however, in connec- 

 tion with these Florida lands; to all appeanmces, 

 they are as barren as the lands from the seashore; 

 yet, (or one or two successive years, they yield to- 

 lerable crops of corn or cotton. 



We have been made fully acquainted, through 

 the Register, wilh the value of sea ore as a ma- 

 nure. I can bear testimony to all that has been 

 said in its favor. I haveemployed it to advantage 

 on corn, but with much more success on wheat 

 and oats. My attention was first directed to it 

 three years ago, by finding on the beach bordering 

 my firm, at high-water mark, a luxuriant bunch 

 of wheat, in full head, growing out of a mass of 

 sea ore: there was no soil within ten yards of it. 

 In the spring of 1834, I covered a small part in- 

 tended for oats and ploughed it in: the oats were 

 harrowed in. They turned out decidedly better 

 than the remainder of the field. There was one 

 particular sjjot, where the growth was so rank as 

 to be a matter ofobservation to every one passing. 

 On examining this spot, I found them growing out 

 of a pile oJ" the sea ore which had apparently 

 been thrown up in the operation of harrow- 

 ing. 



About the same time I top-dressed a small strip 

 of wheat wilh sea ore. The good eflects were 

 very soon dtscemabie, and the place could be point- 

 ed out, any time before harvest, as far as the 

 wheat could be fairly seen. 



I lliink the best ^vay ot applying the sea ore, is 

 fresh troni the beach. lis iertirizing property 

 r^ems to depend chiefly on the saline and trelatin- 

 ous matter wilh which it is incorporated, and 

 these are materially changed by its decomposition 

 in the farm yard. 



The objeciion to its use in this neifjhborhood is, 

 that it makes the wire grass grow. This I conceive 

 to be its highest culogium ; (or what will make 

 grass grow, will assuredly make wheat and corn 

 grow. 



A great deal has been written, but not enough 

 yet, on the subject of making manure. No part of 

 our country abounds with greater facilities (or this 

 purpose, than ihe tide water region of our Slate. 

 We have only to say to our cartman, "bring a load 

 of manure," and it is brought; yet how (ew will 

 ever give this simple order. The excuse is, the 

 hands cannot be spared from the fields, or they are 

 mauling rails, or catching oysters. Now the re- 

 medy is a simple one: make your fields smaller, 

 and you will have more leisure for your hands in 

 summer, and fewer rails to maul in winter; or, if* 

 you are determined to be an oysterman, then give 

 up farming altogether. 



But, says one, "my fields are already so small, I 

 can hardly make corn enough to live on." Now 

 this brings us to the gist of the matter. Make 

 manure, and my life upon it, you will make more 

 corn from one acre, than j'ou did from two before. 

 It can be demonstrated, as plainly as that two and 

 two make four, that the amount of labor bestowed 

 on a twenty acre field to produce sixty barrels of 

 corn, if applied to making manure and manuring 

 ten acres, will, on these ten acres, produce more 

 the first year than the twenty acres did. Now, 

 carry out this principle, and by the time you have 

 manured your remaining shitis, in the same pro- 

 portion, and to the standard of productiveness at- 

 tained by the first, you will be enabled to dispense 

 with one half of your original labor, and obtain 

 the same results you did from the whole; because, 

 it is just as easy to plough good land as bad, and 

 a judicious system of cultivation will enable you to 

 keep your land to the point of fertility it has now 

 arrived a*, to say nothing of your diminished ex- 

 penses in tean), harness and agricultural imple- 

 ments. 



I hear some of my friends say, -'Good preach- 

 ing this, neiirhbor — but have you practiced whait 

 vou preach?" I have, and know it to be true. 

 But if you ackno^vledge the preaching good, it 

 ought to satisfy you, and you should practise it 

 whether I do or not. I have this year manured 

 all my corn land wiih good stable and (arm yard 

 manure. On eleven acres, I spread and ploughed 

 in 400 single cart loads; the remaining sixteen I 

 manured in the hill. These 27 acres received the 

 year before last, a dressing of burned oyster shells 

 at the rate of a hundred bushels to the acre, and 

 were seeded in wheat and clover. I intend, if 

 possible, always to manure every acre I plant in 

 corn. I have never seen any high land too good 

 to be benefited by it. 



I am decidedly of opinion, that the best way of 

 covering corn when planted by hand is with the 

 harrow. Besides the advantage of expedition, it 

 gives a good Avorking to the land. But there is 

 still another, paramount to these: it protects the 

 corn (roin the crows: they do not know where to 

 look for it. Now in the usual way of covering 

 with the hoe or the ibot, the hills are distinctly 

 marked; and a crow will march with as much pre- 

 cision from one to another, as a well-drilled soldier. 

 My expfcrience this year has fully satisfied me of 

 this fiict. A part of my com was planted in drills 

 and harrowed; the remainder in squares and co- 

 vered with a hoe: the first required scarcely any 

 replanting, and I was (breed to replant fully one 

 half of the latter. I found a narrow board tied 

 diagonally across the harrow to two of the teeth, a 

 great improvement: it performed the oflicc of a 



