180 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



You manure one field from the barn 

 yard, and much of the effluvia may pass 

 off to your neighbor's field. You burn 

 up the brush on your own cleared land, 

 and you lose something in the smoke that 

 is driven off. Some of the soot, the ashes, 

 and the salts escape to help an adjoining 

 lot. If you burn the twenty cords of 

 wood, you do not find much of the same 

 in the ashes — not one pound in a hundred. 



What has become of your twenty cords 

 of wood ? It is "burnt up." But no- 

 thing is destroyed. You cannot show 

 that matter is ever destroyed; it only 

 changes its form ; and the smoke of your 

 wood and your brush has gone to impreg- 

 nate growing vegetables, entering through 

 the leaf, or falling down, and in due time 

 enriching the roots of growing plants. 



STIR THE GROUND. 



It is a stupid error to suppose that stir- 

 ring the earth around plants will render 

 it more dry in a dry time. Earth that is 

 often moved imbibes more readily mois- 

 ture from the air and from the subsoil 

 than earth that is suffered to lie at rest. 

 Other substances are differently affected. 

 Hay dries the faster for stirring, so does 

 manure, as well as all combustible sub- 

 stances, and all vegetable matter. We 

 need not now pester our readers with any 

 philosophical reasons explanatory. But 

 we state it as a positive fact founded on 

 long experience ; and if any one doubts 

 he can quite easily satisfy himself by 

 making trial on a small patch of his 

 garden. 



But we are farther told that passing a 

 plough or a cultivator along between rows 

 of corn, &c, when the surface is dry, will 

 expose the mangled roots to the hot sun 

 and leave the plants to wither for want of 

 their usual means to draw moisture from 

 the subsoil. So also we are met with 

 the same objection when we recommend 

 ploughing, in orchards among the roots 

 of trees, cutting them off and rendering 

 them useless. 



But just cast your eyes upon fields that 

 have been regularly tilled through the 



summer, and compare the corn and the 

 trees growing there, with corn and trees 

 that have been considered too delicate to 

 be subjected to this rough usage; and 

 you cannot fail to see the difference : the 

 stirred earth will be moist while the un- 

 stirred will be dry. 



And this is by no means the only ad- 

 vantage of stirring the surface of the earth 

 in a dry summer. Weeds spring up in 

 all cases where manure has been applied, 

 and weeds are continually sucking and 

 dispersing to the winds large quantities 

 of moisture that would otherwise be left 

 to be taken by cultivated plants. 



Stir the ground then, dry or wet ; bury 

 the weeds or cut them up and let your 

 corn have all that the soil can spare. — 

 Fie who neglects tilling his corn on the 

 plea that he shall injure the roots must be 

 extremely ignorant or extremely lazy — 

 he may be both. 



THE SLABBERS. 



This is a well known and troublesome dis- 

 ease of the season among horses and mileh 

 cows. Some call it salivation; and some of 

 its effects very strongly resemble those of 

 calomel on the human system. The glands 

 which secrete saliva become diseased, and 

 the horse pours forth quantities of it from the 

 mouth. This undue secretion of saliva affects 

 his general health, and decreases his flesh, 

 his strength and his spirits. It is seldom re- 

 garded as anything serious, because in most 

 cases, it is easily removed by keeping the 

 horse on dry food, and because of itself it is 

 not dangerous. But if it runs on, its conse- 

 quences will be found to be extremely serious. 

 The horse will continue to fall off in appear- 

 ance and in power. He falls into the scours, 

 and then into the yellow water , of which he 

 dies. Nearly all the cases of these diseases 

 commence with it, and it is thus the true cause 

 of an immense loss from the aggregate wealth 

 of the country, and of a great deal of misery 

 to the most useful of domestic animals. The 

 slabbering is merely the beginning of troubles. 



In the cow the disease produces still worse 

 effects. The slabbing is not nearly so abun- 



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