THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



bushel, and the straw besides ? By pay- 

 ing attention to the practice of others, and 

 endeavoring to make further inquiries into 

 the subject, we may perhaps see more 

 reason in the thing than at first view. 



Let us first search diligently for other 

 means of improving the soil without the 

 aid of farm stock, and see if we can en- 

 rich our lands with any thing like imme- 

 diate profit ; which immediate profit seems 

 in this country to be the only means to 

 induce us to make an effort. Shall we 

 haul at great expense lime and plaster, 

 and sow down green crops to be ploughed 

 in ? Upon this plan some lands are im- 

 proved ; others not at all. The lime has 

 imparted to the soil some properties highly 

 necessary in the production of certain 

 crops. We next try deep and subsoil 

 ploughing (which we consider a valuable 

 adjunct) with some profit, whilst the land 

 has some strength ; but without animal 

 manure that wont do. We then try the 

 four-field rotation, and now the grazing 

 system. All these, with many other 

 schemes, have been tried, and if not aban- 

 doned, have brought us to the conclusion 

 that it is next to impossible to improve 

 the soil of middle and lower Virginia. 



Now let me ask, can any other system, 

 not notoriously wrong, be worse than our 

 present unsuccessful management? You 

 certainly will advocate " tillage and pas- 

 turage, the two breasts of the State." — 

 You can't with them disjoined make an 

 amazon of it ? You must abandon your 

 motto or strongly advocate them as inse- 

 parably united. Our system is tillage, 

 altogether without pasturage or cattle 

 feeding, unless you call our barren wastes 

 pasturage. 



The plan of tillage without pasturage 

 has been pursued by us from our first set- 

 tlement, that we might derive more im- 

 mediate profit, which could not have been 

 objectionable in the first settlement of this 

 country. The large profits which our 

 fathers obtained then have tempted us to 

 pursue it so far that it has become a fixed 

 habit with us, we cannot see what can 

 be the difference between our times and 

 theirs. We are informed that the French 

 people under the union of tillage and pas- 



turage had improved their lands to such 

 a state that they would yield forty" or fifty 

 bushels of wheat to the acre. The high 

 price of wheat induced them to reduce 

 their pasturage and stock and increase 

 the number of acres in wheat. They 

 pursued it for a while, when to their as- 

 tonishment, double the acres of land pro- 

 duced less wheat for the consumption of 

 the nation. Do you perceive the reason t 

 They had no cattle to sustain the fertility 

 of the soil. They by this course dimi- 

 nished the products of the soil whilst they 

 at the same time deprived themselves of 

 the profits, of various sorts, from the cattle. 



But, sir, is the increase and improve- 

 ment of neat cattle entirely devoid of this 

 all-important requisite, immediate profit? 

 Suppose we double the number of our 

 cattle, and by only a small addition of 

 labor quadruple our supply of food for 

 them. Is it nothing towards immediate 

 profit to carry out three times the quantity 

 of manure? And as manure increases 

 manure almost in a geometrical progres- 

 sion, will it not make more tobacco, more 

 wheat, and more straw, if you like for 

 cattle food, will we not also be enabled to 

 mow a larger supply of clover hay for 

 their support ? We see that at once the 

 two great staples of our State are in- 

 creased. Is it nothing that we have, not 

 double the milk and butter, but four times 

 as much for market? that we have a 

 great many more beeves for market ? — 

 more leather and ten times the tallow ? 

 Is it nothing that we have more work 

 oxen on our farms and more for sale ? 



Mr. Webster says in his address before 

 the Agricultural Society of Massachu- 

 setts, "It is of the highest importance 

 that our farmers should increase their 

 power of sustaining live stock, that they 

 may therefrom obtain the means of im- 

 proving their farms." 



But, sir, one important consideration in 

 the adoption of such a change as I have 

 proposed is, that it requires less labor to 

 keep up a farm, particularly if the tobacco 

 crop be diminished. Robert H. Walker, 

 late a highly valuable contributor to the 

 Farmers' Register, adopted such a system 

 and asserts that with one-fourth the labor 



