78 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



the necessity of green manures, not only as a 

 covering and shade for the soil, to protect it 

 against the scorching rays of a midsummer's 

 sun, but as an absorbent of much gaseous mat- 

 ter constantly floating in the air, and brought 

 down by every rain, as well as of Ihese and of 

 soluble saline matters, constantly more or less 

 present in the soil. Every farmer who culti- 

 vates high and dry sandy lands, (and here it 

 may be stated, as a fact of some practical im- 

 portance, that lew even of those sub-soils which 

 are reddish and appear to have a good deal of 

 ckuj, contain less than from 70 to 90 per cent. 

 silica, and many of them no more than 2 or 3 

 per cent, of allumina — the red color being due 

 to the iron they contain, which latter metal, in 

 many of the south-west mountain soils, is in 

 almost sufficient proportion to constitute them 

 workable iron ores.) Every farmer, we say, 

 knows how difficult it is often to get a good 

 stand of clover on such soils; and even should 

 he by dint of heavy rolling (the best plan) sue* 

 ceed in keeping it alive through the first year, 

 in the next, unless the season should be warm 

 and wet, it makes but little progress, and for all 

 practical purposes is a failure. So uncertain, 

 indeed, is clover on soils of this kind, that, to 

 expect to improve thera by it alone, in any rea- 

 sonab.e length of time, would be perfect folly. 

 Some green manure must be resorted to that 

 will grow and- flourish on light lands in dry 

 seasons, and this undoubtedly is the pea crop. 

 What the cultivator of these soils particularly 

 wants is, a tap-rooted leguminous plant, which 

 is constantly extending its roots deep into the 

 eub-soi! and bringing up its supplies of saline 

 nrmtters to the surface — one which affords in all 

 seasons a great deal of vegetable matter — to 

 answer the purpose of supplying the soil with 

 ample absorbent materials and soluble humus, 

 and also as a covering; and to those farmers 

 who follow corn with oats, end oats with wheat, 

 peas sown about the 1st of April, along with 

 oats and guano, would probably prove invalua- 

 ble. The oat crop is a fine preparation for 

 wheat and guano, but the former crop in dry 

 seasons is apt. to fail, unless the land is well 

 manured, and guano so often fails to pay on 

 oats, that the farmer is deterred from using it. 

 But by sowing oats and peas together,(if future 

 experiments should be as successful as those 

 already made,) the land will be completely 

 (Occupied with two sets of plants very dissimilar 

 in their habitudes, and cuano may be used with 

 the assurance that there will be sustained ulti- 

 mately no lo3s — the pev. vines while the oats 

 are growing and maturing, feeding almost ex- 

 clusively from the atmosphere — and only re- 

 quiring much food from the time of harvest- 

 ing the oats. 



One fact that should be constantly borne in mind 

 by those who nake frequent applications of guano 

 to the same land, is, that acting by its ammonia 

 as a caustic, its invar iable tendency is to lessen the 

 amount of vegetable matter in the soil, and. it is abso- 

 lutely necessary that a liberal system of green raa- 

 Burinu should be practiced in connection with gu- 

 anoing; and as the pea crop will furnish on an av- 



erage of years more organic matter than any other, 

 it is considered the very best, on light dry lands, 

 for the purpose above named. Perhaps the moat 

 profitable and judicious use that could be made 

 of that crop, would be to introduce it between two 

 successive crops of wheat — the first guanoed, more 

 freely than the last, which will have the benefit of 

 a pea fallow. Then let the land lie two years in 

 clover. This gives the land almost constant cover- 

 ing, and. the advantage of a green crop three 

 years out of four. 



One material defect in guano as a permanent 

 fertilizer is the small proportion of alkaline salta 

 it contains. For whilst, as has been seen, there 

 is probably present in most soils a plenty of these 

 salines, yet inasmuch as they exist naturally in 

 the soil in an insoluble form, their decomposition 

 and. consequent recombination, bo as to fit them 

 for assimilation by plants, proceeds too slowly to 

 render them readily and sufficiently available ; 

 and therefore, in addition to those means already 

 suggested for concentrating and. increasing the 

 amount of soluble saline matter in the soil within 

 reach of the roots of plants, it is insisted, that 

 the careful saving and applying of all the waste 

 materials about the kitchens and outhouses, and. 

 especially of all the ashes made on the farm during 

 the year, is of the highest importance. Every ne- 

 gro quarter on the farm ought to have a close pen 

 at hand, to receive all these rich compost ma- 

 terials, and in order to encourage their occupants 

 to caiefully save all the ashes, a small sum should 

 be paid for each barrel full saved, and addition suit- 

 able rewards for proper diligence in collecting and 

 preserving other waste materials. 



Let it be borne in mind by the farmer, that a 

 cord of oak wood when burnt, will yield aboil 

 three barrels of ashes, and that these contain of 

 available salts of lime, potash, and other valuable 

 minerals, from 125 to 15C pounds-— that a cord of 

 pine wood affords about one bushel of ashes, and 

 these contain of mineral matter from 30 to 66 

 pounds, one half of the whole of which is soluble m 

 rain water — that these ashes contain all the min- 

 erals necessary for the perfect development of 

 every plant he cultivates, and that their addition 

 to all cultivated soils, is indispensable to repair 

 the inevitable waste which results from tillage and 

 cropping, and if he will still permit the whole to 

 be swept away by washing rains in rills of wealth, 

 to fertilize on their exit to the ocean his neighbors' 

 bottom*, surely he could not be so ungrateful as 

 to complain, if, in spite of all the blessings of a 

 warm and genial climate, " the early and the 

 latter rain," and even after much toil of body and 

 mind, the exhausted soil should at last fail to yield 

 him her fruit in due season. 



But after all that may be said of the import- 

 ance of mineral manures, (and all agree that to 

 a certain extent they are indispensable to the 

 perfect structure and development of plants,) 

 they yet occupy but a subordinate position in 

 vegetable life and nutrition. The great vitalizing 

 and energizing principle in all Boils is Nitrogen. 

 It is this subtle gas, so abundant in Peruvian 

 suano and in all rich putrescent mamires in the 

 form of ammonia and otherwise, that imparts to 

 the barren soil a true "life force," and clothes it* 

 nakedness with verdure and beauty. It is this 

 gas that is at once the fountain and origin ©f all 

 animal existence. Without it the rich and luxu- 

 riant pasture and the golden harvest would !ev8 



