36 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



If I were able to plant my cotton crop with the neatness 

 and order with which Col. Wade Hampton plants his crop, 

 I believe I could cultivate an acre or two more per hand. 

 Being in company with him in 1847, on a steamboa^, we dis- 

 cussed the subject of planting for hours, and he assured me 

 that all his furrows were opened out for planting with the 

 corner of the hoe, narrow and straight. If I could drop seed 

 in a furrow only an inch wide and quite straight, I think I 

 could manage two acres of scraping per day to each full hand. 

 I regard planting a crop, if done in the best manner, more in 

 the light of half cultivated, than many would believe. I have 

 scraped three acres in a day. I can dirt easily four acres per 

 horse ; and can, with the solid sweep, break out four to nine 

 acres per horse, owing to whether rows be four or five feet 

 wide thus, besides tlfe earthing furrow, it requires one or 

 two to sweep out the middle. But land has to be put in good 

 order, and seed planted in order. This matter has called for 

 many a line from my pen in the different papers I have writ- 

 ten for, and I must be pardoned for thus dwelling so long. It 

 is really no interest of mine whether planters cultivate well 

 or ill ; whether they can cultivate a fair crop easily, or not, I 

 cannot be benefited. Yet, as a citizen of this beautiful world 

 as a sojourner in this southern clime I feel an abiding 

 interest in the welfare of my fellows. Therefore, I say, if 

 planters will devote more care and attention in tilling their 

 lands, and in putting in their crops in a good manner, they 

 will be able to make more, and yet spare their servants and 

 their beasts much labor in the cultivation. 



Look at the garden. Take one bed and trench it spade 

 up two spades deep, reversing the soil even, what will be the 

 result ? But suppose the first spit be laid one side, then the 

 second spit well and finely dug up, the first returned reversed, 

 or thoroughly mixed will not that bed be more or less moist 



