ANALYSES OP THE COTTON PLANT AND SEED. 197 



only common to the New World, and, we blush to say it, only 

 visible in the Southern or planting States. In Europe, where 

 arable soil, compared to population, is a thousand times scarcer 

 than in the Southern States, the agriculturists find fallowing 

 a remunerative system. It is but little understood in American 

 agriculture, and we may be pardoned for giving the proper 

 details for fallowing, believing it to be the cheapest manner 

 of renovating our soils. A field intended for fallow, should be 

 deeply ploughed in mid-winter ; the deeper the ploughing the 

 better. This is simple preparation, but nevertheless necessary ; 

 and, above all things, keep every description of stock off in 

 the field. The porousness of the soil will facilitate tlie assim- 

 ilation of the natural salts of the earth, and atmospheric 

 action, with the dissolving influence of the rains, will generally 

 bring to the aid of the succeeding crop a sufficient quantity of 

 these for its production. Late in autumn the herbage should 

 be turned under. This process exerts chemical and natural 

 influences beneficial to the soil, First : as by decomposition 

 of vegetable matter carbonic acid is produced, which is known 

 to act as a powerful solvent of phosphated alkalies, Secondly : 

 those portions of the grass and weeds not readily decomposable, 

 when admixed with the soil, give it that friability so necessary 

 to easy tillage, and thus aids the agriculturist in his future 

 labors. A bastard system of fallowing might, by the aid of 

 the black and red tory pea, be judiciously adopted in the 

 cotton-growing States. Owing to their imperviousness to wet, 

 they can be sown in mid-winter, and, vegetating in the Spring 

 without the aid of cultivation, generally make, upon ordinarily 

 productive land, a sufficient crop to protect it from the sun in 

 Summer, and smother out those weeds which are such a pest 

 to cultivated crops. The constituents of the Indian pea known 

 to be in a great measure derived from the atmosphere would 

 in all probability furnish a better green crop for subversion, 



