58 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



verted into manure ; for the benefit and information of such, 

 who may read this, permit me to quote a single sentence from 

 Liebig's celebrated work upon Agricultural Chemistry : " The 

 bark and foliage of oaks contain from six to nine per cent, of 

 potash. The needles of firs and pines, eight per cent." But 

 it is not on account of the potash exclusively, that I prefer 

 pine straw, to all other vegetable matter, in the preparation of 

 manure, since it possesses another invaluable quality, above 

 all others, in absorbing the juices of the manure, which are 

 J thus saved from evaporation, and readily applied to the land. 

 I doubt not but a single year's experience will convince every 

 intelligent planter of the innumerable advantages of this im- 

 provement, and its perfect adaption to the culture of cotton 

 and other crops. 



I will now close this number by a very few remarks upon 

 the character and quality of the soil upon which my experi- 

 ments have been conducted. It is a high ridge-land, readily 

 recognized, and its quality distinctly understood, in our south- 

 ern country, under the name of forked-teaf, black-jack, pine- 

 barren, a deep, porous, sandy, superstratum, lying under a 

 tolerable good clay, at a distance of two to three feet below 

 the surface. A true picture of nature, and naturally poor en- 

 ough. This land, under the treatment above detailed, grew 

 my cotton, from which I have gathered a greater nnmber of 

 pounds per acre, (indeed, almost double,) that I have ever 

 seen recorded, is in its natural state, inferior to the average 

 quality of cotton land, by at least one-half. I might refer you, 

 if necessary, to more than one hundred gentlemen, planters 

 from Georgia and Alabama, who have examined my experi- 

 ments carefully, and several of them at various stages of its 

 growth, and with one general consent, pronounced it a fair 

 test, and a great improvement. I have, from several stalks 

 that grew on the three acres, in the proper places, taken three 



