92 THE SOUTHERN 



pounds a year for your farm, and are able, in a 

 few years, to purchase it?" "The reason is 

 plain," answered the farmer, " you sat still and 

 said go — I got up and said come — you laid in 

 bed and enjoyed your estate — I rose in the morn- 

 ing and minded my business." — Selected. 



For the Southern Planter. 

 PLOUGH WHEEL, 



st A wheel is an indispensable accompaniment 

 to a good plough in sward land, or indeed in al- 

 most any other." 



True, I'll be sworn ; for in breaking up mea- 

 dow land, my plough, if set to the right gauge 

 for the firm parts, would invariably dip too deep 

 in the soft ones, and besides injuring the team 

 by the increase of draught, rendered the land 

 much more difficult of after management ; to re- 

 medy this inequality, 1 procured a gauge wheel, 

 and attached it to the plough, which had not 

 been at work with its appendage ten minutes, 

 before I saw abundant cause to wonder that I 

 had not adopted the plan all along. I now use 

 the Comb plough, gotten from Palmer, of your 

 city, which is decidedly the best for turf land I 

 have ever tried. 



Pray, can you tell me any thing- about the 

 Robinson, or Fancy grass? Has any one of 

 your acquaintance tried it, and with what effect 1 

 A hyperbolical friend is constantly recommend- 

 ing it to me, as the most valuable grass on moist 

 lands, in fact, reclaiming and making valuable 

 such as are too wet and washy for any other 

 artificial grass. I have recently obtained and 

 transplanted a parcel of the sets — for it is pro- 

 pagated only in this way — but do not desire to 

 proceed farther with the experiment, until better 

 advised in the matter. 



I am concerned to see Mr. Darracott advo- 

 cating the cultivation of tobacco. Bordley says, 

 "Houses are ungrudged for curing tobacco, two 

 to eight or ten houses are cheerfully built for this 

 crop ; but not one for live stock, not a blade of 

 hay for them, though multiplied beyond the pre- 

 sent means of keeping them, on the pretence, 

 that the more the cattle, the more the dung for 

 the tobacco." The tobacco crop and improve- 

 ment in agriculture have ever seemed to me an- 

 tagonistic in their character, of which a large 

 portion of our State is a melancholy proof. — 

 Still, there are good managers amongst us who 

 make tobacco, and no doubt, Mr. Darracott is 

 one of them ; but in the main, it does appear to 

 me incompatible with the better interests of agri- 

 culture, and highly as I respect him, I should 

 be sorry to see the doctrine established which 

 he is endeavoring to inculcate. 



Excuse me a little farther. Does Mr. Ruffin 

 in his fodder essay state the startling fact, that 

 in the gathering of this crop it takes ten persons 



PLANTER. 



to do the work of one? In this, that the aver- 

 age amount of fodder to the hand is two hundred 

 pounds, whilst an ordinary mower will get his 

 two thousand of hay by the scythe ? How 

 vast the difference ! Why not have grass lots 

 for a supply of provender instead of going to 

 the enormous expense of hand gathering ? 



Oberlin. 



EXPERIMENT WITH CHARCOAL. 



Robert L. Pell, of Pelham, Ulster county, 

 New York, writing to the editors of the Albany 

 Cultivator, says : "I mentioned to you last spring 

 that I had sown fifty-two bushels of charcoal 

 dust to the acre, on wheat, and would give you 

 the result of the experiment. In order that my 

 promise might be fulfilled, I selected a corner of 

 a twenty-five acre field of wheat, containing by 

 survey two rods ; the grain was harvested while 

 in the milk, on the 17th of July; threshed, 

 cleaned, and measured on the 2 1st, yielding 31 

 quarts and 1 pint, or 78 bushels and 24 quarts 

 to the acre. As the above fact may appear in- 

 credible to many wheat growers, I enclose the 

 survey, and certificates of two of my men who 

 measured it. 



" I have grown cuttings of the camelia japo- 

 nica, soft-wooded geraniums, cactus, wax plants, 

 &c, in pure charcoal dust, without any admix- 

 ture of earth ; likewise corn, beet, carrot, and 

 other seeds, and believe it to be the most valua- 

 ble substance now unknown as manure, being 

 pure, incorruptible, and lasting." 



NEW METHOD OF PREPARING MANURES, 

 The following is an extract from a work lately 

 published in New York, by a Mr. Heermance. 

 It attracted our attention some time since, but 

 we forbore at that time to give it circulation, in 

 consequence of a hint we received that the 

 operator under this process would be prosecuted 

 as an infringer upon the patent of Messrs. Baer 

 & Gouliart. With the manner of constructing 

 the heap in both cases before him, the reader 

 can judge for himself how far Mr. Heermance's 

 plan infringes on Messrs. B. & G.'s patent. — 

 We have been repeatedly asked if the materials 

 recommended by Mr. Heermance, are not the 

 same as those used, but not patented, by Messrs. 

 B & G. Our information having been obtained 

 in a manner wholly confidential, we must of 

 course decline answering this question. 



"I, Form your barn-yard with a gradual de- 

 scent to one side, so that the liquid formed by 

 the rains will flow gently to that side : make the 

 bottom as hard and smooth as possible, that there 



