88 



THE SOUTHE 



RN PLANTER. 



are changed to some other service, while he, 

 looking with triumph on the ruin he has wrought, 

 winds his way to the far West. 



But to be more serious. The expense of 

 clearing an acre of well timbered forest land, is 

 much greater than is commonly supposed. If 

 any one will take the trouble to estimate it ac- 

 curately, as I have done, he will find it to cost 

 him by the time he gets his ground ready to 

 plant, about twenty dollars per acre. This alone, 

 it seems to me, ought to be sufficient to deter 

 planters from adopting clearing as a system. — 

 For I am well convinced, and I appeal with 

 confidence to all who have fairly tried both the 

 clearing and manuring systems, for confirmation, 

 that a planter who has lands which were origi- 

 nally pretty good and not gullied, if he will keep 

 stock enough to consume the offal of his wheat 

 and corn crops, and haul corn-stalks, weeds and 

 leaves or other vegetable matter to his stable- 

 3'ards and cow-pens, can manure two acres with 

 less expense than he can clear one — and further, 

 that he can make, at the lowest estimate, twice 

 as much tobacco on his manured acre, and get a 

 higher price for it per hundred. These are not 

 theoretical but practical facts. The manuring 

 system is comparatively in its infancy, and none 

 of us have done one-fourth of what we might 

 and ought to do. And that man, or set of men, 

 who, by their efforts and example, should be in- 

 strumental in breaking down the clearing sys- 

 tem and establishing the manuring on its ruins, 

 would deserve to be considered the greatest be- 

 nefactors to the tobacco growing section of our 

 State. 



By the adoption of the manuring system our 

 estates, instead of being constantly cut down 

 and worn out, or (as a facetious friend of mine 

 observed) 11 Re- Pining" under our operations, 

 would be enhanced in value. Our principal 

 would be rapidly increasing, while we were at 

 the same time drawing the heavier interest. — 

 Under this system, too, all descriptions of labor 

 on the farm can be usefully employed. The 

 old and the young can collect litter and spread 

 it on the land, while only a portion can cut or 

 maul, or hill new grounds. And lastly, the crop 

 on old lands can be cultivated mostly with the 

 plough, and here we have a great saving of 

 that most expensive of all labor — hoe-labor. 



With regard to the preparation of lot lands 

 before the manure is applied, there are two modes 

 practiced by our best planters. The one is to 

 coulter the land close both ways, and the other 

 to use the turning plough. The first I should 

 consider best for high land ; where there is but 

 little vegetable matter on the surface, and espe- 

 cially where the soil is thin or exhausted. The 

 last is preferable on flat lands, which should be 

 thrown into four or eight row beds. When the 

 manure is applied the land should be thrown 

 into single beds three and a half feet apart. — 



Where we have old lots well set in the artificial 

 grasses, I think it a matter of great importance 

 to fallow them in July, or when the vegetation 

 is at its most luxuriant state. We thus secure 

 the greatest amount of vegetable matter in the 

 soil — it ferments and rots with greater facility 

 and the land works easier and produces better 

 the ensuing season. There is a difference of 

 opinion among some judicious planters whether 

 it is best to plant in hills or beds. On rough, 

 stiff, or flat lands, the hill is unquestionably pre- 

 ferable — but on light, soft, high lands, the bed 

 answers well and is a great saving of labor ; I 

 have tried both, and much prefer the hill if I 

 have time to make them, inasmuch as it ensures 

 a better preparation of the soil, and enables us 

 to plant when it would be too w r et to plant in 

 the bed. Should the season be late and unpro- 

 pitious, I would never lose the opportunity of 

 planting by waiting to hill, if I had my lands 

 bedded. 



Passing over the time of planting, priming, 

 topping, &c. on which our writer is sufficiently 

 explicit, we come to the casualties or diseases to 

 which the crop is subject. The first mentioned 

 by our writer and by far the most serious, is the 

 spot or firing, or more properly the rot. This is 

 caused by too much rain, and is more liable to 

 occur on sandy soils, and less so on those that 

 are stiff, red, or thirsty. It is of much rarer oc- 

 currence of late years than it was formerly, 

 which is ascribable, doubtless, to the improve- 

 ments in management and cultivation which 

 experience has suggested. The mode formerly 

 practiced was to cultivate the crop almost level, 

 and to keep the soil between the hills loose and 

 well broken ; under this mode of cultivation, 

 immese losses were sustained almost yearly by 

 fire. But by adopting just the reverse of this, 

 by scraping up carefully with the hoe all the 

 loose earth among the hills, as deep as the 

 plough has gone, and throwing it on the hills, 

 and leaving the ground among the hills as hard, 

 if possible, as a path, — the leaves of the plant, 

 when it is large enough to take the rot, will 

 shield the hill from the rain, and throw the wa- 

 ter off on the hard ground, which soon runs off, 

 and the crop is protected. A sufficient quantity 

 of vegetable matter turned into the soil will also 

 do much towards preventing this disease. This 

 is proved by the well established fact, that the 

 first crop on a clover and herdsgrass fallow where 

 the land is very sandy, does not fire, whereas 

 the second or third are almost certain to do so 

 unless some vegetable substance is turned into 

 the soil, and hence such lands (sandy loam river 

 or creek flats) should not be cultivated two or 

 three years in succession, let them be ever so 

 rich, without applying some vegetable matter 

 or other. These are matters of the greatest im- 

 portance, for there is no disease more destructive 

 to the tobacco crop than the one we are consi- 



