ERRONEOUS PRACTICE IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 239 



the use of calcareous manures unprofitable ; or if already used, to 

 charge to them the subsequent deterioration or exhaustion of 

 the land which had been allowed neither sufficient rest, nor returns 

 of putrescent matters. 



In the year 1843, when acting as Agricultural Surveyor of South 

 Carolina, my most earnest effort was to induce the planters to make 

 proper use of marl } which is there more rich, more abundant, and 

 more easy of access through a large portion of that state than a 

 stranger can well conceive, and of which almost no use had then 

 been made. Gov. Hammond and a few others made the only ex- 

 ceptions to this general neglect ; which cases of exception were 

 stated in the " Report of the Agricultural Survey of South Caro- 

 lina." My failure then to persuade more than a few planters to 

 try this richest and also cheapest of means for fertilization, and 

 the neglect to use these means which still continues very generally 

 in South Carolina, were mainly owing to the required condition of 

 giving due rest and vegetable growth for manuring to the marled 

 lands. This condition I always and strongly urged as essential ; 

 and it was so contrary to the general system of tillage there in 

 use, and therefore was deemed so objectionable, that but few persons 

 were willing to make the required change for any expected benefits 

 from marling. Nearly all who before or since have there tried 

 marling, have failed to add these necessary accompaniments ; and 

 of course their early returns have not been half what they would 

 otherwise have been, and the ultimate results will be still more 

 deficient. 



The general usage in South Carolina was to take a crop for 

 market or consumption (generally either cotton or corn) every 

 year. As there was no other than tillage land (arable, and not 

 before worn out), if a planter were to spare a field, or any smaller 

 space from culture, it would be equivalent to losing just so much 

 of his usual crop and income, for that year. This was deemed a 

 sacrifice which very few were willing to make, and none to suffi- 

 cient extent. It is true that new clearings, where there was forest 

 land to clear, were added every year to the tilled land. But this 

 additional surface was required (as supposed) either to substitute 

 the older land utterly worn out, and turned out of culture, or 

 otherwise to serve for the planter's increased means for labour. 



This very bad usage of continual tillage was indeed made the 

 less exhausting, and the more tolerable, by a system of collecting 

 and applying vegetable manures, admirable for the energy with 

 which it was pursued, and for the great extent to which it was 

 carried. I have never known so much of the labour of farms to 

 be devoted to making and applying putrescent manures, nor so 

 much of the tilled surface to be so manured, as in lower South 

 Carolina. For this purpose ; large stocks of cattle are kept (in 



