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THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



dissolved. We wish, however, to be understood, 

 as neither recommending nor disapproving so 

 much as one bushel of salt per ton to hay ; all 

 that we ask of our readers is, to settle the matter 

 for themselves by carefully experimenting with 

 four quarts per ton up to thirty-two ; we shall 

 then know which is best." 



It has been asserted that the use of salt in 

 curing hay was injurious to the animals fed 

 upon it, and it has been as stoutly denied. The 

 question is an important one ; for the salted hay 

 is cured with much greater facility, security, and 

 ease, than any other method affords. Moreover, 

 there is no other plan that preserves as well the 

 juices of the straw, as is evidenced by its green 

 and succulent appearance. In short, as far as 

 the mere curing is concerned, the salt is a most 

 important and valuable auxiliary. Nor do we 

 believe that a moderate quantity of salt, suffi- 

 cient to secure its preservation, is at all injurious, 

 but we confess except for the purpose of increas- 

 ing the weight in market when it was to be fed 

 to other people's stock we should be a little dis„ 

 trustful of using a bushel to a ton. 



For the Southern Planter. 



SMALL FARMS AND THOROUGH CULTI- 

 VATION. 



The anecdote of the boy carrying a stone in 

 one end of his bag, to balance the corn in the 

 opposite end, because his father had done so, 

 shows in some degree the force of education and 

 habit. This stone-carrying system is of broader 

 application than may be at first imagined. To 

 exemplify. A father has a field of one hundred 

 acres of land which he cultivates because he 

 has laborers and team to do so ; perhaps fifty 

 acres of this yield something like two bushels 

 per acre, a little more than enough to feed the 

 laborers and team whilst engaged in the culti- 

 vation ; the son inherits it, and forsooth, because 

 his father had done so, he continues the practice, 

 until he finds it expedient to remove to some 

 new country. To arrest a course like this, so 

 destructive to lands and fortunes, 1 propose a 

 few remarks. All who have noticed any thing 

 about farming operations in Eastern Virginia, 

 cannot fail to have observed the thirst for exten- 

 sive cultivation, irrespective of the quality of 

 land and its productiveness, and those engaged 

 in it have found at harvest time that their crops 

 have mostly been gathered from a few patches 

 of land in tolerable heart, whilst the greater por- 

 tion of the field required oxen in pretty good 

 keep to collect a load of ears, more resembling 

 awl handles than corn. In view of this fact, 

 and in view of the immense products of the 



small northern farms highly improved, it is pass- 

 ing strange the course should be persisted in. I 

 suggest the following one to remedy this evil: 

 Say a man has a field of one hundred acres of 

 land, half of which is nearly unproductive, 

 which will require eight hands to cultivate it; 

 let him take three of his hands from his field, 

 and commence early in the year to haul from 

 his woods, leaves, mould, swamp mud, walls of 

 ditches cut through his swamp land, and any 

 vegetable matter he may have, and apply it to 

 the unproductive part of his field so far as it 

 will go; and I will venture to affirm that the 

 product of the part of the field in cultivation, 

 will far exceed the product of the whole field in 

 any previous year, seasons and cultivation being 

 alike. When these sources of improvement are 

 exhausted, let the hands above employed in im- 

 provement, remove the ground works of fences 

 that have been standing for years, and take the 

 soil from under them and apply it as manure, as 

 it really is, and the product of this process will 

 astonish any one who has not experimented in 

 this way, and will leave your fences cleared of 

 shrubs and briers, which yearly consume much 

 time and labor in clearing, and so much injure 

 fences by obstructing the wind and sun from 

 them. This source of manure having been ex- 

 hausted, if you have light or sandy land, take 

 from your adhesive clay subsoils, clay to cover 

 it, say about twenty-five or thirty loads to the 

 acre, scatter the same so soon as it is deposited, 

 so that it may have the frosts and freezes of the 

 winter to pulverize it, and turn it under in the 

 spring preparatory to planting corn. This will 

 give tenacity and fertility to this kind of soil, 

 and one experiment of the kind will embolden 

 you to a continuance of the practice. As re- 

 spects manuring, from repeated experiments, I 

 am fully persuaded a surface application is the 

 most beneficial on sward or fallow. I w 7 ould 

 prefer applying it on the sward in August for 

 the ensuing year's crop of corn. When there 

 is great scarcity of manure, a quart of stable 

 manure, or a pint of ashes dropped on the corn 

 hill after planting, will produce a result in the 

 crop, that no one would anticipate who had not 

 thus experimented, and I incline to the opinion, 

 that it will be the most speedy way to cover 

 over a large surface, and make a good crop at 

 the same time. It is true that this application 

 at first is too limited for a small grain crop, ne- 

 vertheless, you have applied the quantity of 

 manure over double or treble the surface you 

 would have done, if it had have been applied 

 broadcast ; you will have obtained double the 

 quantity of corn you would have made from a 

 broadcast application of the same, and I believe 

 you will make as much small grain from this 

 extended surface. On the second cultivation of 

 a corn crop, with the beds reversed, and a like 

 application of manure, it will have diffused itself 



