198 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



than the natural grasses and weeds. Judicious fallowing is, 

 therefore, in our opinion, the cheapest, and by far the easiest 

 mode of renovating and preserving the productiveness of our 

 Boils, and, if adopted and regularly persevered in, would 

 heighten both the production and value of our cotton lands. 



COMPOST MANURE. Much may be effected in reclaiming 

 worn-out cotton lands, by a good system of Compost Manur- 

 ing ; the benefits of which have been forced upon our Agri- 

 culturists by the gradual accumulation of animal manures, and 

 the decomposition of wasted vegetable matter, in and around 

 their barn-yards. It is a system which should be so generally 

 understood and practised, that we deem it unnecessary to 

 make other than a few remarks respecting the increase of this 

 manure and its application. It is a mistaken idea, that the 

 planter gains by hauling into his barn-yard, the stalks from 

 his corn and cotton fields, in order to convert them into com- 

 post manure. Their elements would be returned to the soil, 

 by the certain law of vegetable decomposition, if suffered to 

 remain on the fields, and their place in the compost heap can 

 be supplied easily by litter and leaves from the forests, 

 grasses, weeds, and muck from the marshes, ditches, and 

 fence rows on the farm. Weeds, abounding in the alkalies, 

 furnish profitable vegetable matter for composting. In addi- 

 tion to these, we have the rotten wood and forest leaves, which 

 are so abundant on all hands. Muck or peat, being decayed 

 vegetable matter in mass, in this concentrated form contains 

 a large amount of phosphates and alkalies and when mingled 

 with the droppings of animals, forms a compost highly reten- 

 tive of substances thus imparted, which it yields most readily 

 to the growing crops to which it is applied. Compost when 



