COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



from the forest, I have seen various plans recommended, such 

 as detailing such hand or hands and cart, for every five or ten 

 hands on the place, &c. But I have found no plan to answer 

 so well in practice as this : I have prepared for each hand a 

 good, substantial and handy iron-toothed rake ; during wet, 

 rainy weather, all hands with these rakes gather rapidly large 

 quantities of vegetable matter, which is as readily hauled into 

 the lots on large frames made for the purpose. This is a gene- 

 ral rule, and rigidly persevered in during all the year, except 

 in winter after the crop is gathered, when I have it hauled 

 into the lots as it may be needed, as we are not then so par- 

 ticularly engaged in the plantation. In the spring and sum 

 mer, after every fall of rain, all hands are engaged in raking 

 up and hauling litter into the stock lots. Under this arrange- 

 ment, a day after the fall of a wetting rain can be more valua- 

 bly employed by the hands of the plantation in collecting 

 materials for preparing manure, than by ploughing or hoeing 

 the wet soil. Every planter knows well the injury done to the 

 land by working on it while wet. The crop is not benefited 

 by work done at such time, nor is the grass or weeds so likely 

 to be subdued. But the time may be most valuably employed 

 in preparing the materials for composition manure, and when 

 the land is in proper condition for work, the cultivation of the 

 crop is resumed under the most favorable circumstances. The 

 great point gained is this : the large amount of rich, product- 

 ive manure, which being applied to the land, under judicious 

 culture secures the production of the desired crops on one-third 

 the surface required on the same land to grow it without the 

 manure. After the preparation and planting, manured land 

 being just as easy to cultivate as that unmanured, the time for 

 preparing manure while the land is wet after a recent fall of 

 rain, is most profitably employed. All decaying vegetable 

 matter about the plantation, such as weeds, grass, &c., that 



