402 



It is truly very general — but there are 

 numerous exceptions, of which it is not my 

 purpose to treat. My present business is 

 with the errors and defects of southern agri- 

 culture, and not w^ith its points of admitted 

 excellence — as, for example, the elaborate 

 system of rice culture, and, for other tillage, 

 the very general and commendable attention 

 paid to the collection of materials for putres- 

 cent manures. Nothing has appeared to me 

 more remarkable in the agriculture of this 

 region, than the close neighbourhood, (often, 

 indeed, seen on the same property,) of the 

 best husbandry, in some respects, and almost 

 the worst in most others. 



The great error of exhausting the fer- 

 tility of the soil is not peculiar to cotton 

 culture, or to the Southern States. It be- 

 longs, from necessity, to the agriculture of 

 every newly settled country, and especially 

 where the land before being brought under 

 tillage, was in the forest state. When first 

 settled upon, forest land costs almost nothing, 

 and labour is scarce and dear. Even if 

 labour is more abundant, it still will be long 

 before enough land can be cleared to allow 

 changes of culture and rest to the fields; 

 and for some years after each new clearing, 

 it would be even beneficial to continue the 

 tillage of corn, tobacco or cotton, so as ef- 

 fectually to kill all remains of the forest 

 growth. But as soon as enough land can 

 be brought under culture, and has been put 

 in clean condition, so as to allow space for 

 change of crops and due respite from con- 

 tinued tillage, the previous exhausting course 

 will no longer be best even for early profit. 

 Even in a new country, while land is yet 

 fertile, it is cheaper to preserve that fer- 

 tility from any exhaustion, than it is to re- 

 duce it considerably. And in an older agri- 

 cultural country, like South Carolina, hav- 

 ing abundant resources in marl and lime for 

 improving fertility, it would be much 

 cheaper, and more profitable, to improve an 

 acre of before exhausted land, than it is to 

 clear and bring under culture an acre of 

 ordinary land from the forest state, allowing 

 that both pieces are to be brought to the 

 s:ime power and rate of production. 



New settlers are not censurable for begin- 

 ning this exhausting culture. But they 

 and their successors are not the less con- 

 demnable for continuing it after the circum- 

 stances which justified it have ceased. The 

 system was first begun in Eastern Virginia, 

 because it was the first settled :part of the 



i 

 i 



[July 



present United States, and it continued to 

 prevail almost universally, until since the 

 course of my adult life began, and only has 

 partially ceased since, because the country 

 was nearly reduced to barrenness and the 

 proprietors to ruin. From this erroneous 

 policy, so long pursued in Virginia, and the 

 manifest and well known disastrous results 

 in the general and seemingly desperate ster- 

 ility of the older settled portion of the State, 

 the younger Southern States might have 

 taken warning, and have learned to profit 

 by the woful and costly experience of others. 

 But it seems that every agricultural commu- 

 nity must and will run the same race of ex- 

 hausting culture, and impoverishment of 

 land and its cultivators, before being con- 

 vinced of the propriety of commencing an 

 opposite course — after the best means and 

 facilities for making that beneficial change 

 have been greatly impaired by the lapse of 

 time, and progress of waste of fertility — if, 

 indeed, these means are not then irretrieva- 

 bly forfeited. 



If, at this time, the work of improvement, 

 with the aid of marl and lime, were pro- 

 perly begun and prosecuted, there would be 

 found here incalulable advantages over those 

 of the pioneers in the like work in Virginia. 

 These advantages would be — first, a tenfold 

 better supply of far richer and cheaper marl 

 than is found in Virginia; second, much 

 more remaining orga:iic matter, or original 

 fertility of the soil, as yet unexhausted ; third, 

 full information to be obtained of the ope- 

 rations and opinions of thousands of expe- 

 rienced and successful marlers to refer to, of 

 which advantage there was almost nothing 

 existing thirty years ago. In South Caro- 

 lina more marling could now be done in a 

 year, and in a proper manner, than was done 

 in Virginia for the first twenty years ; and, 

 though judging merely by analogy, I infer 

 that the benefit would be fully as great in 

 this region as in my own. 



And now I will state, from unquestiona- 

 ble official documents, something of what 

 has been effected in Virginia, not merely in 

 cases of particular farnis, and those entirely 

 marled, which might show tripled or quad- 

 rupled products and market returns, and 

 tenfold intrinnic value, compared to their 

 former low condition, but cases showing the 

 bearing of the comparatively few marled 

 and limed farms on the aggregate assessed 

 value of all the lands in lower Virginia, and 

 upon the receipts of land tax from the same^ 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



