56 



The most important fact in this connection, and one recognized by 

 some of the correspondents, is that the cause of washing is mainly 

 owing to cultivating the land too long before seeding down to grass. 

 Hilly land washes most, not merely because it is hilly, but also because 

 it generally contains less vegetable matter. Land containing much veg- 

 etable matter is porous, especially if plowed deeply, and allows the rains 

 to sink into it, and not accumulate on the surface and form rills to start 

 washing. 



If the tendency of rolling lauds to wash, after being in cultivation a 

 few years, shall induce deeper cultivation and the frequent laying down 

 the land to grass, it may not prove an unmixed evil. 



NEEDS OF DIFFERENT LOCALITIES. 



Wesley Webb, publisher Delaware Farm and Home, Dover, Del. : 



In New Castle County, Delaware, and Cecil County, Maryland, Timothy and Clover 

 (with rye for winter feeding) answer every purpose for hay and pasturage. As a 

 nitrogenous forage plant, we do not think anything better than Alfalfa can be found. 

 We need, however, something that will take the place of Timothy in all the peninsula 

 below Kent County, Maryland, and Central Kent in Delaware. The soil below Dover 

 is too light for grazing, and but little live stock is kept in comparison to what might 

 be kept if the soiling system were more generally practiced, as it is to a limited ex- 

 tent and very successfully. I am of the opinion that some of the varieties o± Sorghum 

 v ul g are may be grown for soiling and ensilage with fair hopes of success. 



L. W. Gentry, Anderson County, South Carolina : 



We are in great need of good permanent pastures, and also of something better 

 from which to make hay for winter use. Bermuda and Johnson Grasses might be 

 valuable if we could raise them, and especially if we could learn how to control 

 them. 



By act of the legislature, and by our own vote, South Carolina is now fencing her 

 •stock instead of her crops, and bare pastures are common all over the State and we 

 are obliged to supplement them with some kind of forage plants, but we prefer this 

 to fencing the crops. We grow mostly for this purpose Cat-tail Millet, Egyptian Rice 

 Corn, Millo Maize, and forage Corn (Indian). 



B. C. Smith, Cold Water, Elbert County, Georgia: 



Our greatest need is green pasture for the early spring season. Our shallow gray 

 soil, on close red-clay foundation, often impacted with flint or other stones, does not 

 admit of deep cultivation. Shallow plowing favors washing, and by the time that 

 we get the original forest land in good condition for cultivation the soil is mostly 

 gone, and we have barren and gullied red-clay hillsides, while the beds of the creeks 

 have become partly filled with sand, thus rendering the lowlands too wet. It is not 

 practicable to fertilize our soil by green crops grown upon the land. Any land which 

 will grow its own fertilizer will make cotton, and cannot be spared. The forests were 

 mostly cleared in t<he days of slavery, and by injudicious culture the soil is mainly 

 gone. The only redemption consists in letting the worn lands grow up in common 

 pine and lie idle twenty-five to fifty years. To ditch, terrace, fertilize, and improve a 

 farm generally would require all 'of a farmer's time and labor, without cultivating 

 any crop. Therefore the land is being exhausted and going to waste, and wealth is 

 decreasing every hour. With the present and prospective population people do not 

 consider that they can spare an acre of fertile land for grass. In former times, thirty 

 to fifty years ago, when rain in summer was more common, the "Broom Sedge " was 



