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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



From the American Cotton Planter. 

 COMPOST MANURES— STOCK YARDS, &e. 



Gov. Brown, 



Dear Sir: The preparation of stock-yard 

 compost manure and its proper application to 

 the soil, as a fertilizer, in the production of our 

 important crops, cotton and grain — with some 

 remarks on the value of Guano to the Southern 

 Planter, will claim our attention at this time. 

 This species of fertilizer, the most common, 

 and cheapest to the planter, is valuable in 

 proportion to the care and attention exercised 

 by the proprietor in its preparation. This fact 

 I have clearly shown in a previous article. I 

 have given this subject much careful atten- 

 tion, and I am thoroughly convinced that too 

 much importance cannot be attached to it, as 

 an integral item in our plantation economy. 

 Compost manuring, in connection with stock 

 raising and pasturage, is the true renovator 

 of all agricultural exhaustion. Stock are the 

 inseparable companions of agriculture. All 

 the team service of the plantation they perform. 

 They also furnish quite a considerable propor- 

 tion of the food consumed by the family and 

 operatives of the plantation. In the performance 

 of all this important service they must consume 

 on their part a very considerable proportion 

 of the produce of the plantation. In this con- 

 sumption, however, of hay, fodder and grain, 

 under proper management there is really 

 nothing destroyed or lost to the plantation. It 

 is at this point the great difficulty is encountered 

 by planters in the preparation of compost 

 manures. When the range is relied on for 

 stock raising and feeding, as is almost 

 universally the case, in the planting States, the 

 penning and shelter of stock every night is 

 attended with a great deal of trouble, and the 

 food consumed — after the first month or so in 

 the early spring — is of such character and 

 procured at such toil, on the part of the stock, 

 as merely to sustai-n animal life, and their 

 excrements, of course almost valueless as* a 

 fertilizer, at least comparatively so. This fact, 

 connected with the rude and careless means 

 visually adopted on plantations for composting 

 and saving manure, furnishes the criteria upon 

 which the opinion of the planting public is 

 based, as to the value of the compost manures 

 and the importance of its preparation in the 

 plantation economy of the country. 



In an article published in the November 

 number of this journal, extracted from a pre- 

 mium essay, prepared for the " Maryland 

 Agricultural Society," the position is taken that 

 compost manures are not worth the hauling. 

 This is the result of experience in Virginia. 

 This opinion is very common all over the 

 country, and it is the effect of that state of 

 things which we have detailed above. My 

 experience for the last twelve years has led me 

 to a very different conclusion. Analysis shows, 

 that the dung of animals — the horse, cow and 

 hog— well kept, abounds in the very same fer- 

 tilizing elements that make Guano so valuable. 

 If then the proper treatment of stock on the 



plantation fit them for the greatest value as 

 teamsters, milkers and porkers, and in that 

 condition their excrements produce the most 

 valuable fertilizers, how important is it, in an 

 agricultural point of view, that the fact be 

 distinctly understood and acted on by the 

 planters of the country. My experience fully 

 sustains this position. In a previous article I 

 have shown that this system of rotation and 

 shift of crops furnish the necessary means, in' 

 rich pasturage and abundance of grain to keep 

 the stock of the plantation in proper condition. 

 In this condition of the stock of the plantation, 

 I may answer another one of your inquiries, as 

 to the number of stock that may be thus kept 

 to the hand. This answer is properly in place 

 here previous to entering upon the details of 

 preparing compost manure. Twenty head of 

 cattle to five hands will answer all the wants of 

 the plantation. The number of hogs is to be 

 measured by the bacon necessary to do the 

 place. Plough teams, one for every two hands, 

 and sheep enough to clothe the negroes. Of 

 course on large plantations the exact number 

 cannot perhaps be preserved, but about this 

 proportion will be found to answer every need- 

 ful purpose. Now then on a plantation thus 

 arranged and stocked, as mine is, I shall 

 proceed to give in detail the plan of operations 

 which I pursue, by which I am enabled to make 

 2500 bushels of good rich compost manure per 

 hand every year, and the only proper mode 

 of applying it 10 the land. 



In the first place, the farmer's golden rule 

 is emphatically applicable here, and I may add 

 entirely essential to success — (i a place for every- 

 thing and every thing in its place." Each 

 kind of stock must be provided with lots and 

 shelter, and they must be induced or driven 

 into their quarters every night during the 

 entire year. These lots, stables and shelters 

 are to be constantly and regularly kept well 

 littered with vegetable matter, which being 

 broken and tread up by the stock walking 

 and tramping over it, forms a most valuable 

 absorbent for preserving the fluid portions of 

 the excrements. For gathering pine, straw, 

 oak leaves and other decaying vegetable matter 

 from the forest, I have se*en various plans 

 recommended, such as detailing such hand 

 or hands and cart for every five or ten hands 

 on the place, &c. But I have found no plan to 

 answer so well in practice as this: I have 

 prepared for each hand a good, substantial and 

 handy iron toothed rake — during wet, rainy 

 weather all hands, with these rakes, gather 

 rapidly large quantities of vegetable matter, 

 which is easily hauled into the lots on large 

 frames made for the purpose. This is a gene- 

 ral rule and rigidly persevered in during all 

 the year, except in winter after the crop is 

 gathered, when I have it hauled into the lots 

 as it may be needed, as we are not then so 

 particularly engaged in the plantation. In the 

 spring and summer, after every fall of rain, all 

 hands are engaged in raking up and hauling 

 litter into the stock lots. Under this arrange- 

 ment, a day after the fall of a wetting rain, can 



