Forage Plants at the South. 



the manure be thus defrayed The same ma- 

 nure will answer for the following grass so 

 that the actual cost is only the grass seed, 

 which is comparatively trifling. This result 

 as to a whole farm, with our present limited 

 means, cannot be accomplished at once. But 

 it may be done field by field. If we have one 

 hundred acres in cotton or wheat, give it such 

 a manuring as will produce a maximum crop, 

 and leave a surplus of fertility in the soil. 

 This may be held there and made the basis of 

 a steadily-increasing fertility by putting the 

 land in clover or grass. This process may be 

 annually repeated with different fields until 

 the amelioration has included the whole farm. 

 A homeopathic dose of manure in the drill or 

 hill may favorably affect the growing crop. 

 But this is not a process of renovation which 

 adds value to land. To accomplish this re- 

 sult, the whole field must be made rich, and 

 afterward kept increasingly rich by a judicious 

 rotation of which clover or grass is an indis- 

 pensable constituent. 



The inquirer desires to know how putting 

 a large portion of a farm into clover or grass 

 adds so much to its value. Why would not 

 cotton or corn answer the same purpose ? 



The great advantage of investing money in 

 banking or other secure stocks is that we get 

 our dividends without labor on our part. We 

 can get that dividend while we are giving our 

 attention to something else. Property is 

 valuable in proportion to its security and the 

 smallness of the cost and trouble of managing 

 it. If we cultivate cotton or corn largely, we 

 must hire hands and buy mules, corn, hay, 

 bacon, and pay blacksmith's bills. If at the 

 end of the year these expenses overrun the 

 sales, then the land has been worth worse than 

 nothing to us. And if this process was to be 

 repeated it would be wise in us to give it 

 away. If there should be a small profit after 

 all our expense and trouble, then the land 

 has a small value to us, to be determined by 

 our net receipt from it. But if we put down 

 the same piece of land in grass, this is done 

 for a term of years. If this land yields only 

 a ton of hay to the acre, and if its saleable 

 value be only $20 per ton, and expenses $5, 

 we have a net profit of $15 per acre, which is 

 ten per cent, on $150, the actual value of the 

 land to the owner. The only labor in this 

 case is the cutting, curing and baling the hay. 

 With a horse-mower, tedder, rake and hay 

 lifter, this expense is not more than two 

 dollars per ton. 



On a Belgian farm of one hundred acres, 

 every acre of which yields an income, the 

 steady force is not more than two hands 

 extra labor being required at grain and hay 

 harvest. The Belgian or English farm of one 

 thousand acres, under cultivation, would re- 

 quire twenty hands. The cotton plantation 

 of one thousand acres with the usual propor- 

 tion of cotton and corn would require sixty 



hands, being an excess of forty hands. In 

 addition, in the one instance, capital is di- 

 minished by exhaustion of the soil in the- 

 other its fertility, and, therefore, its value, ia 

 increased. 



A Belgian gentleman, who sold his land in 

 Belgium for $500 per acre, and bought river 

 bottom land in Floyd County, Georgia, at 

 $20 per acre, told the writer that he made 

 more on the Belgian farm, valuing it at 

 $500 per acre, under the Belgian system, than 

 he did on the Georgia land at $20 the acre, 

 under the Georgia system of cotton and corn. 

 He even believed that clover and grass would 

 not grow in Georgia, and, therefore, did not 

 attempt the Belgian system, and fell in with 

 the Georgia practice. 



What is the difference between the Southern 

 plantation and the Belgian farm ? It is this : 

 Two-thirds of the latter yields a handsome 

 return without labor, while not an acre of the 

 former pays a cent without the use of costly 

 labor. 



There are hundreds of cotton planters who 

 have abandoned their plantations and entered 

 into commercial business in the cities. There 

 are thousands who would do the same thing if 

 they could sell their lands even for a pittance. 

 Why is this ? They cannot endure the vexa- 

 tion and the expensive and unreliable labor of 

 the cotton plantation. They are disgusted 

 with it. It is not the land, or the seasons, or 

 the markets, but the labor which they think it 

 is necessary to use to excess. As a conse- 

 quence Southern cotton lands, already ruin- 

 ously cheap, are falling daily in price. 



Now, suppose a system were adopted, by 

 which, while all the open land yielded an in- 

 come, only a third of the present labor was 

 used. This would give power of selection 

 among the blacks ; character among them 

 would become valuable. The quality of the 

 diminished labor which the planter would still 

 be compelled to use would be improved. But 

 the great point gained would be that by far 

 the larger portion of the land would give an 

 annual return, with scarcely an appreciable 

 amount of labor. 



Any sensible person can see at once what 

 the effect of this change would be upon the 

 value and price of land. Men who have been 

 worn down by the anxiety of commercial life, 

 often think of retiring in the decline of their 

 years to the country. What sane man would 

 think of retiring to a cotton plantation, to be 

 burdened with the care of a great gang of ne- 

 groes? It would be retirement with a ven- 

 geance. On the other hand, to the wearied 

 business man there is something charming in 

 the thought of broad acres, a few select labor- 

 ers, green grass, cool shades, running water, 

 thrifty live stock, and all the abundance of the 

 farm. If there be poetry in this tkere is also 

 very pleasant and solid prose. A small, well 

 manured and well cultivated area of land in 



