THE SOUTHE 



a foot high before winter. Before the ground 

 freezes, the whole is turned under with the 

 plow, in the most thorough manner — serving as 

 a good green manuring. 



Early the following spring, the surface is 

 rendered mellow by means of the harrow and 

 two-horse cultivator, and the crop sown, seven 

 pecks to the acre, by means of a grain-drill. 



There is no doubt that the annual green ma- 

 nuring assists in keeping up the fertility of the 

 soil; and there maybe some kinds of soil in- 

 cluding this, that will long bear heavy cropping 

 with oats. It may be questioned however, 

 whether it is good permanent policy to pursue 

 this course instead of a more varied rotation. 

 When we have a strong fertile soil, w$ prefer 

 to keep it so, to its fullest capacity, rather than 

 to draw too hard upon it, as even the strongest 

 may ultimately fail. But cultivators of the 

 oat crop, may however derive some excellent 

 suggestions from the practice detailed above. 



The above article, which we clipped a few 

 months since from the Country Gentleman, re- 

 minds us of some curious facts which we col- 

 lected sometime ago in regard to successive 

 crops of oats. We shall give here such as we 

 remember. It will be seen that they militate 

 somewhat, not only against the general idea 

 that oats are a very exhausting crop, but, what 

 is of more consequence, against the general 

 theory of the rotation of crops as necessary to 

 repair the waste of different soils, and to in- 

 crease fertility by fallows crops. Whether that 

 theory is right, universally or generally, is not 

 the point in discussion here. We simply nar- 

 rate facts as we have collected them. 



1. Several years ago in conversation with the 

 late Peter Merewether of the county of Albe- 

 marle, whoso accuracy as to matters falling 

 within his own observation no one ever thought 

 of questioning, and whose native intellect was of 

 a high order, he mentioned that oats did not ex- 

 haust land, that he had known his uncle, the late 

 Capt. Wm. Merewether of Cloverfields — a farm 

 adjoining his own — to cultivate a crop of oats 

 seven years in succession ; that so far from ex- 

 hausting, he had heard his uncle frequently 

 say that he thought the land improved ; and 

 that the crop of wheat, which immediately fol- 

 lowed the oats, being of course the eighth suc- 

 cessive crop, was better than the land would 

 have produced at the commencement of the 

 system. 



2. Sometime after that we heard from a gen- 

 tleman, with whom we were conversing on the 

 subject of wild onion, that the practice of Mr. 



RN PLANTER 69 



Richard Sampson of Goochland was to grow 

 three crops of oats in succession on his fields 

 which happened to be infested with this pest >" 

 and that the second and third crops were gen- 

 erally better than the first, the wheat upon the 

 oat s ubble being usually as good as he should 

 have expected from the land under ordinary 

 tillage. We subsequently met Mr. Sampson 

 and conversed with him on this subject, and he 

 confirmed the statement of our informant, re- 

 marking though, that the oat crop had not en- 

 tirely eradicated the onion ; but it had so crip- 

 pled it as to make it a small grievance com- 

 pared with what it had been before. 



What was the treatment of the land, as it 

 lay in oat stubble in these cases was not sta- 

 ted ; nor did it then occur to us to enquire. But 

 we were so struck with their contradiction to 

 the ordinary opinion, that we sought some 

 neighbour of Mr. Merewether, he having died 

 shortly before, to get a particular statement of 

 what he might have said to any of them on this 

 subj ect. 



3d. The first of his neighbours we met with 

 was Mr. Geo. L. Williams, then living in sight of 

 Mr. Merewether, but now a resident of Fluvan- 

 na. He knew, he told us, nothing of what Mr. 

 Merewether had said, but he could give us a fact 

 coming within his own knowledge that might 

 answer our purpose as well. This fact was that 

 his father had cultivated the same field in oats 

 eleven years in succession, grazing the stub- 

 ble each year into the ground, with what stock 

 he had, turned on always- as soon as he could 

 secure the oats. The land was poor — of the 

 quality of that around Lindsey ; s Turnout in 

 Albemarle, which it adjoined — so poor] that 

 no one would have thought of putting it in to- 

 bacco without a good manuring. But at the 

 end of the eleven years' oat cropping it was put 

 in tobacco by his father with none, or a -very 

 slight manuring, and made a good crop. 



4th. Mentioning these facts to N. F. Cabell 

 Esq., of Nelson, he mentioned a case that had 

 been reported to him of a farmer in Bucking- 

 ham County who had improved part of his land 

 by a similar procedure continued through a 

 course of several years ; but he had heard, or 

 presumed — which is not recollected — that it 

 was effected in. that case by permitting the 

 stubble of each year to grow up in weeds. 



5. About the same time we stated these facts 

 [to our friend H. P. Poinclexter, Esq., of Spoti- 



