THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



233 



acts so much labor in its culture and preparation 

 for market. Hence the great value of guano to 

 the tobacco grower, whose hands are so much tram- 

 melled during the winter months — the season ge- 

 nerally devoted to improvement by farmers. It 

 may at least be doubted whether guano can be 

 used profitably on lands well improved by lime and 

 the putrescent manures of the farm, and producing 

 clover kindly. In the last thirty years we have not 

 had three as fine seasons for wheat in succession as 

 the last three, and there is no manner of doubt 

 that guano has been credited with much that is 

 due to the seasons. It is a remark that is often 

 made that guano has put the poor and the rich 

 lands very much on the same level. Any reflecting 

 person, however, who will make the right calcula- 

 tions, will soon see that the gap between -them is 

 very wide still. Take a farm of five fields, and 

 suppose by the application, annually, of 200 lbs. of 

 guano per acre to the corn field and one wheat field, 

 at a cost of $50 per ton of 2000 lbs. the same result 

 is obtained that a neighbor gets on land that cost 

 $30 per acre ; and so on to the end of time. It is 

 perfectly clear that the guano is an annual tax of 

 $2 per acre on the whole arable surface, in the case 

 above stated. This is the interest on $33 33£, and 

 of course a capitalist had better purchase good 

 land at $30 per acre than incur this annual expense. 

 It must be borne in mind, too, that the poor land 

 is worth something, the value of which should be 

 an element in the calculation. It will be contended, 

 however, that the guano, though an evanescent ma- 

 nure, does leave some improvement; and this is 

 undeniably true. I admit, too, that it increases the 

 means of making putrescent manures. The supe- 

 rior advantages, however, of good land in produc- 

 ing clover and other grasses, in the profits arising 

 therefrom, would, in my opinion, be a fair and full 

 offset to all this. There is a good deal of land, 

 though, in Virginia that I doubt not, in the value 

 of all the crops raised upon it in a series of years, 

 would more than double the product of poor land, 

 when fructified, as above, by guano. I leave it to 

 others to calculate the value of such land upon 

 these data. It must certainly be worth considera- 

 bly over $60 per acre, if the above reasoning is 

 correct. 



An old farmer, well known to me, jocosely re- 

 marked, some time ago, that he felt, when a guano 

 man vaunted of his crops of wheat, and did not 

 state the outlay in guano, that he was taking an 

 undue advantage of his fellow-farmers. There 

 seems to be some show of reason in it, too, when 

 one refers to the fleeting nature of the manure, and 

 reflects that it enters so largely, as an item, into 

 the cost of production of the crop. The old fellow 

 admitted that he sometimes used guano himself, 

 but he said it was always with the feeling, or some- 

 thing approaching it, that an old sportsman would 

 experience when caught in the act of poaching 

 partridges. 



There is only one subject more that I wish to 

 touch upon, and I am done. The most defective 

 feature of our Virginia management, in my judg- 

 ment, is our neglect (for I plead guilty myself when 

 arraigned on this charge) to use the proper means 

 in making and collecting all the manure possible 

 on our farms, and preparing it in the best way, and 

 in preserving it from waste till applied to the land. 

 On my lands, well prepared manures applied on 

 clover, produce much better and heavier crops, 

 both of that grass and of grain, when broken up, 

 than straw alone. This seems to contravene the 



shade theory of that most worthy gentleman, Dr. 

 Robert Baldwin, of Winchester. My way of ac- 

 counting for the effect of shade on land is this : 

 When shaded by any substance, neither soluble nor 

 putrescent, it becomes friable and mellow to a very 

 great depth, as is admitted on all hands, producing 

 that very state of the soil that was aimed at by 

 Jethro Tull in his celebrated mode of culture, and 

 which, by-the-by, is said, for a time, to have pro- 

 duced most remarkable results. Tull rejected the 

 use of manures, and relied on breaking the land 

 very deep, and preparing the soil for the reception 

 of crops by the most perfect and thorough pul- 

 verization. In both of these cases, as I take it, the 

 earth is stimulated to do its utmost by the potent 

 agency of heat and moisture in decomposing all 

 the inert vegetable matter and any other substances 

 capable of decomposition, to be found in the soil; 

 and I cannot doubt that either system, long con- 

 tinued, without a fresh supply of vegetable matter 

 in some shape, (and both systems reject the use of 

 it, as unnecessary,) would end in producing utter 

 and hopeless sterility on any ordinary lands. There 

 may be soils, so constituted as to bear such treat- 

 ment, but I have no knowledge of them, except 

 from books. When putrescent or soluble matters 

 are used as a covering for the land I can very well 

 see how the land receives direct and very essential 

 benefit otherwise than upon the shade principle. 



The late Fielding Lewis, Esq. of Charles City, 

 who as an agriculturist was greatly in advance of 

 his age, and who had the honor, as I believe, to be 

 the first farmer in Virginia who used lime success- 

 fully as a manure, used to say that a horse, pro- 

 perly littered, would compensate, very nearly, if 

 not fully, for the grain used by him, in the manure 

 thus made. The annual loss to Virginia in the ne- 

 glect of this matter of making manures, is im- 

 mense ; but there is a spirit of improvement abroad 

 which, I trust, is destined to make our dear old 

 State blossom as the rose. Vireat semper, semper 

 jioreat. 



For the Southern Planter. 

 QUAKER MANAGEMENT OF DAIRY COWS, 



REARING CALVES, AND FATTENING HOGS. 



Mr. Editor, — Thinking the following, written to 

 me by a member of the society of Friends, contains 

 much both interesting and instructive, I enclose it 

 to you for publication in the Planter. 



Respectfully yours, D. H. Hatton, 



Nansemond Comity, Va. 



Respected Friend, — Having duly received a letter 

 from you requesting a detail of the minutia of our 

 dairy husbandry, &c, &c, I now proceed, at this, 

 my earliest opportunity, to reply. 



And 1st. Of the feeding and general treatment 

 of our milch cows in winter. As the habits of our 

 community are industrial, we rise at half past five 

 o'clock in winter, and, that chores may be done, 

 and all things ready for business, our herdsman 

 rises at half past four o'clock and feeds the stock 

 with hay, cleanses stalls and prepares for milking, 

 which is performed at six o'clock. At eight o'clock 

 they are messed, giving one peck of beets, carrots, 

 or potatoes, and two quarts of wheat bran or shorts 

 to each cow, wet to a swill. At nine o'clock they 

 are again fed with hay, also at twelve, and three, 

 and seven o'clock in the evening. About half pasi 



