532 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



them to consult the commercial travellers 

 who collect orders for the manufacturers 

 of artificial manures, to talk them into 

 replenishing their worn out implements 

 from the mart of the great makers, to 

 prevail on them to visit the annual shows 

 of the Roj^al Agricultural Society, to throw 

 them, in short, in the way of seeing the 

 products of advanced husbandry, and of 

 hearing the ideas of enlightened cultiva- 

 tors. By some or all of these means they 

 may be put upon the high-road to improve- 

 ment, and when they have gone an inch 

 there is little fear, unless they are afflicted 

 by a hopeless incapacity, that they will 

 refuse to go the ell. He who lives within 

 the diameter of a little circle has ideas as 

 narrow as his horizon, but the influence of 

 numbers and skill together is irresistible, 

 and no impersonation of ignorance or bigo- 

 try has probably ever visited a single great 

 agricultural exhibition without returning a 



wiser and a better farmer. 



# # # # # 



If it be asked what has been practically 

 gained within the last twenty years by the 

 investigations of the agricultural chemist, 

 we would answer, certainty. We knew 

 years ago that farmyard manure was ex- 

 cellent; by the light of chemical science 

 we learn why it is ' perfect universal ma- 

 nure,' we learn how to manufacture and 

 employ it best, and we learn why on clay 

 soils it may be safely, nay advantageousl3% 

 left for weeks on the surface before be- 

 ing ploughed in. Chemical science again 

 teaches us why lime, which is not an active 

 manure, although valuable as a destroyer 

 of elements hostile to fertility, produces 

 great effect for a series of years, and then 

 ■not unfrequently ceases to show any profi- 

 tabl-e results ; it teaches us to what crops 

 guano, to what superphosphate of lime, to 

 whart farmyard manure may be most ])rofi- 

 tably applied, and when a mixture of all 

 three. Cliemistry settles the comparative 

 value of linseed cake, cotton cake, and 

 karob beans ; shows when pulse should 

 be used for fattening pigs, and how to 

 compound a mixture of Indian corn and 

 bean-meal which shall produce fat bacon 

 neither hard nor wasteful. The conclu- 

 sions of science were previously known 

 empirically to a few, but their range was 

 limited and their application accidental. 

 They have been reduced to order and 

 irendered universally available for the use 



of plain farmers by the investigations of 

 men like Lawes and Voelcker. As the 

 latter observes, * there are too many modi- 

 fying influences of soil, climate, season, 

 &c., to enable us to establish an}' invariable 

 laws for the guidance of the husbandman ;' 

 but the more we can trace effects to their 

 causes and ascertain the mode in which 

 nature operates, the nearer we are to fixed 

 principles and a sure rule of practice. 

 * * # # # 



[Description of Three Farms in different 



districts of England, one consisting of light 

 self-drained land, another of clay, sand and 

 good iiasture, and the third of stiff clay. '\ 



To give some idea of the modern system 

 of Engli.^h agriculture, we subjoin a brief 

 description of three farms in three different 

 districts of England — the first, a light land 

 self-drained ; the second, clay, sand, and 

 good pasture ; the third, stiff clay; and all 

 cultivated by tenants who have not ex- 

 pended money to purchase glory, but who 

 have invested capital in order to earn a 

 profit. 



Mr. Jo'in Hudson, whose name is famil- 

 iar to all English, and many French and 

 German, agriculturists, began farming half 

 a century ago. In 1822 he entered upon 

 his now celebrated farm of Castle Acre, 

 which consists of self-drained land, and is a 

 fair specimen of the Norfolk light soil. 

 At that period the only portable manure 

 was rape-cake, which cost about $65 a ton, 

 and did not produce any visible effect upon 

 the crops for a month. The whole live- 

 stock consisted of 200 sheep and 40 cattle 

 of the old Norfolk breed. He adopted 

 what was then the new, now the old, and 

 what is perhaps destined to become the 

 obsolete four-course Norfolk system — that 

 is to say, 250 acres pasture, 300 wheat, 

 300 barley; or, in dear years, 600 wheat, 

 300 roots, and 300 seeds, the rest being 

 gardens and coverts. On these 1200 acres 

 he at present maintains 10 dairy cows, 36 

 cart-horses, a flock of 400 breeding ewes, 

 and fattens and sells 250 Short-horns, 

 Herefords, Devons, or Scots, and 3000 

 Down sheep. The crops of swedes ave- 

 rage from 25 to 30 tons, the mangold-wurzel 

 from 30 to 35 tons per acre. Flis wheat 

 had,, in 1855, averaged, for the previous 

 five years, 48 bushels per acre ; the barley 

 56 bushels. Of the seeds, the clover is 

 mowed for hay, the trefoil and white clover 



