THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



89 



cream (which by this time is in the shape and 

 consistency of pudding-) into a bowl, and by 

 stirring it, with a wooden spoon, the butter quickly 

 separates from the butter-milk, and it is said to 

 be sweeter than that produced by the ordinary 

 method. — Massachusetts Ploughman. 



DROUGHT. 



We have received another very lengthy and 

 learned article upon this important subject from 

 Mr. Rice. We hope this gentleman will not 

 take it ill that we are compelled to abridge and 

 condense his communications — perhaps in doing 

 so we are striking out some of his most learned 

 views, but the nature of our work is thoroughly 

 practical, and to this character all our commu- 

 nications must be made to conform. In the fol- 

 lowing extract we think our readers will find 

 something of instruction, and something of no- 

 velty : 



Our subject, you will remember, is an inquiry 

 how we may best provide against the principal 

 evil of our climate, a drought in the middle of 

 summer. 



In the first place I would advise that we 

 cherish an aversion to the idea of growing corn, 

 or even any thing else, in poor land. Under 

 the most favorable circumstances and seasons 

 we could expect but little remuneration for our 

 labor, and in a dry summer, none at all. Much 

 better, in general, to commit such land to the 

 slowly ameliorating hands of time, broom-sedge 

 and old field pine, until we can give it manure* 

 But the principal reason for proposing this dis- 

 position of our poor land is, that it will not well 

 admit of deep ploughing — a measure I am about 

 to propose as one of the antidotes against drought. 

 Deep ploughing applied to such land, without 

 previous manuring, would intermix a minute 

 portion of fertile earth with such a dispropor- 

 tionate mass of caput mortuum as to render 

 the whole too poor to support any thing but 

 pennyroyal or hen-grass. Corn is by no means 

 a squeamish feeder, but it would scorn such a 

 meager diet as such earth could afford, and for 

 the same reason that the stomach of a drunkard 

 would repudiate a mixture composed of a tea- 

 spoonful of alcohol and a gallon of water. 



That the deep and thorough culture of corn or 

 any other hoe crop, is the best preparation for a 

 drought, is a fact which few will deny, but it is 

 one on which many of us do not bestow merited 

 attention. Suppose you work one field of corn 

 four inches deep, and another eight ; a drought 

 supervenes, and of sufficient intensity to dry the 

 ground in general four inches below the surface : 

 now consider the relative condition of the corn 

 in the two fields; in one, all the loose wrought 

 Vol. V— 12 



earth is entirely dry, and, therefore, incapable of 

 affording the least nourishment to the crop ; and 

 the unbroken earth below is so hard as to be 

 scarcely, if at all permeable to the roots of the 

 corn; whilst in the other field the roots are 

 luxuriating in four inches depth of moist, well 

 pulverized soil, and at the same time in a great 

 measure protected by a superstructure of dry 

 earth from the excessive and evaporating heat 

 of the sun. There really seems to be a differ- 

 ence of life and death between the situation and 

 probable destiny of the two corn fields. 



But we should greatly err in supposing, that 

 deep winter ploughing would always, or even 

 generally, answer the purpose. For if great 

 rains should intervene between the last deep 

 ploughing and the first of July, and a drought 

 should occur in that month, the soil would, 

 during the progress of desiccation, become as 

 coherent and hard and the crop suffer as much 

 as if it had not been deeply worked at all. July 

 is the month in which the occurrence of drought 

 is most to be deprecated by the corn planter. — 

 And his mode of culture ought to be much in- 

 fluenced by a reference to that fact. 



Dry weather in May and June, approximating 

 even the dignity of drought, by affording more 

 time for cultivation, has a favorable, rather than 

 injurious, influence on the ultimate proceeds of 

 the crop. 



If by the first of July the corn crop be in 

 good order in all respects (several of which, how- 

 ever, remain yet to be indicated,) the planter 

 may then lay aside his tools, and with hands 

 and eyes devoutly upraised, exclaim, with the 

 poet, 



"Be gracious Heaven, for now laborious man has 

 clone his part." 



From the preceding considerations I have 

 long suspected that there was much labor as 

 well as horse feed, aye, and horse flesh too, 

 wasted in deep winter ploughing ; and the re- 

 sults of my own experience have tended to con- 

 vert suspicion into firm belief. Labor consti- 

 tutes a large item in the price we pay for the 

 productions of the soil; and he makes the best 

 bargain in this respect, who for a series of years 

 exchanges the smallest amount of labor for the 

 greatest quantity of produce. 



Some who begin to doubt the expediency of 

 the practice, under reprehension, have proposed 

 to discriminate and apply deep ploughing in 

 winter to such land only as might have on it a 

 thick covering of undecomposed litter. But it 

 ought not to be forgotten, that free access of at- 

 mospheric air is one of the indispensable requi- 

 sites of vegetable decomposition, and lhat the 

 partial exclusion of air will retard, as its total 

 exclusion will entirely prevent the decomposition 

 of any vegetable substance. Who in ditching 

 flat land has not seen the trunks of trees lying 



