SYSTEM AND ROTATION. 79 



explanation here, but I give it as my opinion, that if the same 

 land throughout the country was planted in cotton but once in 

 four years, it would prevent the insect of rust I am sure it 

 would of lice, and I think it altogether probable it would do 

 much toward relieving it from the injury of the bole worm. 



"Under this treatment the plantation is every year improv- 

 ing. From the extent of pasturage which it affords, and the 

 large amount of corn raised on the plantation, an average of 

 250 bushels per hand, there will be no manner of difficulty in 

 raising all the stock, hogs, mules and cattle, that are needed 

 on the plantation. It has been objected to this system, 

 that in the extent of pasturage afforded, prairie and clay land 

 would become too much trod by the stock, causing such land 

 to run together and break up clody. I am confident the ob- 

 jection is unfounded, as the great object of the system is to 

 accumulate on the land the largest possible amount of vege- 

 table matter, which, while it keeps the land loose and friable, 

 contributes so largely to the luxuriant and healthy growth 

 of cotton. These objections, that fail to stand the theory 

 and science of agriculture, fall to the ground as impotent and 

 futile, when we examine the same system (in principle) in 

 successful practice in the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, 

 &c., on calcareous clay lands, raising by pasturage, &c., not 

 only mules, horses, hogs, and cattle for home consumption, 

 but^r all our cotton planters. There is an incompatability 

 here certainly. The only precaution necessary, is to prevent 

 stock running on the land while wet with rain water standing 

 on it. 



There is notking more easy than to account for this false 

 alarm among cotton planters. See the sedulous care, if you 

 please, with which they have drained the vegetable strata of 

 their fields, for the last forty years ; each row is a perfect 

 drain, not of water alone, but of vegetable mold, the life's 



