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114 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



live stock. That it may be seen that we are not 

 speaking at random in this matter we refer to an 

 instance, but an instance only, of English farming, 

 adduced in the very sensible address of Mr. C. P. 

 Holcombe before the Maryland Agricultural So- 

 ciety last fall. He mentions a farm of twelve hun- 

 dred acres of very superior land, which employs 

 44 hands in summer and 34 in winter, 30 and 20 in 

 the respective seasons being women — in each case 

 exclusive of harvesters — and on which 24 horses 

 are constantly worked. For this land the tenant 

 pays a rent of $15,000 and other expenses which 

 bring his annual outlay up to $25,000. Of the 

 whole 1200 acres, seven hundred, including 250 in 

 turnips, the equivalent of our corn crop, are de- 

 voted to grazing and feeding, and only a little over 

 one hundred of the residue goes in wheat. But 

 this produces forty-six or seven of our bushels per 

 acre, which, for say 125 acres, is 5875 bushels, full 

 as much as would be made on a plantation of simi- 

 lar size and soil here, where twice or thrice as much 

 is put in wheat, but still insufficient to pay the rent 

 and expenses, even at two dollars a bushel, by nearly 

 ten thousand dollars. 



" Now to keep this farm," Mr. Holcombe remarks, 

 " in the condition its intelligent and successful pro- 

 prietor desires, if he were to make grain its prin- 

 cipal product and sell that off from the farm, the 

 annual outlay for manure would have to be very 

 great, and the fifteen thousand dollars annual rent 

 probably would not be made — their idea seems to 

 be, that the profits of breeding and grazing, what- 

 ever they may be, are clear profits, while in selling 

 grain, they are selling labor and manure, or a por- 

 tion of the valuable constituents of the soil, all of 

 which have to be brought back in the market again." 

 Accordingly, as he says in another place, he keeps 

 and feeds from six to seven hundred sheep, and 

 turns 0ff about two hundred and fifty head of cattie 

 in the course of the year, that is one sheep for each 

 acre of the seven hundred, and one bullock for 

 every two acres and four-fifths of the same, which, 

 rating one bullock for six sheep, is 2200 sheep, or 

 nearly two for each acre of the farm. 



We do not, of course, expect that the whole of 

 the region we speak of, containing nearly three 

 millions of acres of improved or cleared land, shall 

 go at once up to the number here indicated, or that 

 the whole of it is so fertile as to possess the same 

 acuable capacity, but we do contend that in the 

 progress of time a proportionate number of stock 

 can be reared therein, that there will then be ample 

 room for their resulting products in the markets of 

 the world, and that the agricultural condition of the 

 district will be elevated in the precise rate of this 

 increase. There is no danger now of a surplus of 

 cattle, though every subscriber to the Planter should 

 go at once into the business. And as to wool, it 



is well known to those who have looked at all into 

 the subject, that this is, perhaps, the only purely 

 agricultural staple the supply of which is below 

 the demand. The deficiency of Great Britain alone 

 for the last year was estimated at 87,500,000 pounds, 

 and in this country the year before last we exported 

 of fine wool 538,000 pounds, and imported of all 

 sorts 5,400,000 pounds, showing a domestic deficit 

 of 4,862,000 pounds. 



As a consequence of this state of things and in 

 proof of it, we may refer to all the cheaper woollen 

 fabrics, the quality of which has greatly dete- 

 riorated, many of them being now made of rotten 

 woollen rags, which have been carded and worked 

 up a second, and possibly a third time, and all being 

 considerably adulterated with cotton. These are 

 believed to be, for the most part, the materials of 

 the cheap ready made clothing, which is well known 

 to be generally worthies^ and unable to hold either 

 thread or dye. 



There is no question that this deficit, which is 

 chiefly in the grades of fine wool can be more 

 cheaply supplied by Virginia and the South and 

 South-West than any where else. South America 

 raises nothing but very coarse inferior wools which 

 cannot be laid down here at less than thirty cents 

 a pound, and she is now at a stand in the produc- 

 tion of wool. Spain and Portugal have long been 

 decreasing in their supply. So have Germany and 

 Prussia for twenty years — France, from her pecu- 

 liar land laws, cannot continue her present rate of 

 production — Australia, which from peculiarity of 

 climate and the nature of the climate and population, 

 was never formidable to determined competition, 

 has now exchanged wool for gold, and the Cape of 

 Good Hope, containing only a narrow strip of sheep 

 country, can never, from particular circumstances, 

 become a serious rival. 



What is thought of wool growing in the United 

 States where it has been most extensively followed 

 may be learned from the case of Vermont, which, 

 with an area nearly seven times less than Virginia, 

 has almost as many sheep and much more wool 

 than the latter. But their climate is against the 

 business and has diminished it by nearly a million 

 of sheep since the census of 1840, in the face of 

 good prices. It is estimated that it costs there 

 from $1 34 to $1 90 to keep the sheep, and her 

 yield of wool is only 3| lbs. per head; so that at 

 anything less than sixty cents a pounds she loses 

 money. So, in a measure, of New York, whose 

 climate -is only a little less rigid, and whose dearer 

 lands makes the keeping of sheep almost as ex- 

 pensive as in Vermont. 



Here the cost will be a very light matter. Mr. 

 Crenshaw on his farm in Orange winter before last 

 kept 450 Merino sheep on 230 acres of land without 

 any feed except what they could pick up on a bare 



