COMPOST MANURES, ETC. 87 



is it, in an agricultural point of view, that the fact be distinctly 

 understood and acted on by the planters of the country. My 

 experience fully sustains this position. In a previous article 

 I have shown that this system of rotation and shift of crops 

 furnish the necessary means, in rich pasturage and abundance 

 of grain, to keep the stock of the plantation in proper condition. 

 In this condition of the stock of the plantation, I may answer 

 another one of your inquiries, as to the number of stock that 

 may be thus kept to the hand. This answer is properly in 

 place here, previous to entering upon the details of preparing 

 compost manure. Twenty head of cattle to five hands, will 

 answer all the wants of the plantation. The number of hogs 

 is to be measured by the bacon necessary to do the place. 

 Plough teams, one for every two hands, and sheep enough to 

 clothe the negroes. Of course, on large plantations the exact 

 number cannot perhaps be preserved, but about this proportion 

 will be found to answer every needful purpose. .Now then, on 

 a plantation thus arranged and stocked, as mine is, I shall 

 proceed to give in detail the plan of operations which I pursue, 

 by which I am enabled to make 2,500 bushels of good rich 

 compost manure per hand every year, and the only proper 

 mode of applying it to the land. 



In the first place, the farmer's golden rule is emphatically 

 applicable here, and, I may add, entirely essential to success 

 " a place for every thing, and every thing in its place." Each 

 kind of stock must be provided with lots and shelter, and they 

 must be induced or driven into their quarters every night dur- 

 ing the entire year. These lots, stables and shelters, are to be 

 constantly and regularly kept well littered with vegetable 

 matter, which being broken and tread up by the stock walking 

 and trampling over it, forms a most valuable absorbent for pre- 

 serving the fluid portions of the excrements. For gathering 

 pine straw, oak leaves, ancl other decaying vegetable matter 



