THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



343 



which the owner's observation has taught him 

 crumble down into fine pulverization under the 

 action of frost, there is no operation more im- 

 portant than a winter or fall ploughing. To talk 

 of manuring a whole cornfield at the South — 

 where large breadths of land are annually culti- 

 vated — with all the accessories the most fortu- 

 nate or most skilful can command, is an 'absur- 

 dity: it cannot be done. But on pulverulent 

 clays remunerating crops may always be had in 

 tolerable seasons, if an early ploughing and a 

 favorable winter shall operate to produce the 

 finest tilth. Without going into the question, 

 which Jethro Tull is said to have raised, as to 

 whether proper culture would not supersede ma- 

 nure, we may assume as within every practical 

 clay farmer's observation that it is almost equal 

 to a manuring, at least for the time being, of his 

 whole field, to get it thoroughly disintegrated. 

 This afi'ords an infinitely multiplied extent of 

 superficies in the pulverized mould to the chemi- 

 cal action of the gases we call " the air. If 

 this be true, then it is plain that ploughing may, 

 to a certain extent, substitute manure. 



But this is only one of the benefits of winter 

 ploughing clay lands. "When they are properly 

 bedded, and gripped, and ditched, it drains 

 them; and each judicious repetition of the pro- 

 cess is a step towards this important object. 

 We were somewhat surprized to see lately in the 

 Genessee Farmer, — a paper whose editor is gen- 

 erally a safe guide — and always reliable — an ex- 

 tract from an address of a Mr. Denton, an Eng- 

 lish draining Engineer, in which he said that 

 land could not be drained by water furrows and 

 grips, inasmuch as he had seen water standing 

 some few feet from one of these surface drains. 

 So he might : and so have we ; but on land 

 drained in that way, we have also seen some of 

 the heaviest wheat crops at harvest, and some 

 fine corn at midsummer. We have also seen 

 water enough running from a few grips to turn 

 a mill, on land that but the ;^ear before was so 

 ponded that boys could skate on the ice that was 

 formed ; and we have seen the growth on this 

 same land changed from broomstraw, hengrass, 

 and running briars to hog-weed, (or carrot-weed,) 

 careless, and, in a few places, Jamestown weed, 

 without the application of any other manure 

 than two hundred pounds of guano to the crop 

 of wheat which followed the first draining and 

 ploughing. Now if taking off a two inch fall of 



TERMS. 



OxE Dollar and Twenty-fiye Cents per 

 annum, or One Dollar only, if paid in advance. 

 Six copies for Five Dollars ; Thirteen copies 

 for Ten Dollars — to be paid invariably in ad- 

 vance; and to them we mean strictly to adhere, 

 with this variation only, subscribers who owe 

 for two years, or $2 50 and remit, $5 will be 

 credited for two years of arrearages and three 

 years in advance. We think no one who intends 

 to pay can object to this arrangement. 



WANTED 



January and September numbers of the Plan- 

 ter. Subscribers who do not preserve their pa- 

 per's for binding, and who have either or both of 

 the above numbers will confer a great favor 

 upon us by forwarding them to this office. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER BOUND. 



In reply to numerous enquiries on the sub 

 ject, we state that we can furnish the " South, 

 ern Planter" bound, at $1 50 per volume, post- 

 age included. 



FALL PLOUGIIING. 

 There are some sorts of land that do not re- 

 quire to be ploughed in the fall or early winter. 

 Sands or sandy loams that crumble under the 

 operation of the plough, are of this character. 

 So are undrained clays ; especially those pipe 

 clays that " run together," as it is termed, or 

 become glazed after every spell of freezing and 

 thawing. In the case of the sandy soils, their 

 free, open texture is supposed to expose them to 

 the injury of leaching rains on the one hand, and 

 to the ill effects of evaporating winds on the 

 other. In the case of the undrained clays, the 

 water penetrates and bakes them, at the same 

 time that it is more easily admitted through the 

 ploughed surface to the subsoil, where, below the 

 reach of evaporation, and only capable of being 

 removed by the slow process of capillary attrac- 

 tion, and the still slower one of filtration through 

 an almost impervious medium, it remains until 

 a late period, keeping the land moist and cold, 

 retarding the spring's operation^ — including a 

 second ploughing, — and inviting late frosts. To 

 plough this latter soil undrained, is in fact to 

 increase the labour of cultivating it, and dimin- 

 ish the amount of crop it may be capable of 

 yielding. 



But on well draino 1 clays, or on clays which 

 require no draining, on all lands, in a word, j rain in sluices like mill tails is not draining, we 



