I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



525 



ing, even under flush or flat culture, and 

 without guard ditches. But as the chief 

 crop here is necessarily cotton — and that 

 (though not necessarily,) is repeated on the 

 same land year after year — and as that crop 

 (like tobacco) requires the most perfect tilth 

 or pulverization, and cleanness of the soil — 

 it has followed every where that the soil has 

 been greatly washed off, and enough so to have 

 been as destitute of fertility as formerly in 

 middle Virginia and recently in middle 

 Georgia, if there had not been much greater 

 depth of fertile soil here to be so wasted, as 

 well as much greater power of resistance in 

 the composition of the soil. Still, bad as 

 have been these effects, the peculiar consti- 

 tution and qualities of the calcareous soil 

 strongly resist washing ; and if cotton was 

 not the great crop of the country, I believe 

 that even the safeguard of graduated ditches 

 might be dispensed with, without more loss 

 than benefit being thus induced. 



It has been long and generally asserted by 

 many residents, and still is by some, that the 

 fertility of the " cane-brake" land, is inex- 

 haustible by continued cultivation. The 

 grounds assumed for this opinion were the 

 great depth of the soil and its extreme rich- 

 ness. If the very large proportion of vege- 

 table matter stated to be in the twelve spe- 

 cimens of soils of Lowndes, are common in 

 the calcareous or black soils generally, then 

 there was a still better ground for this opin- 

 ion than its advocates knew. But it is use- 

 less to argue against this doctrine, or with 

 such reasoners as those who maintain it. 

 There can be no land that is not exhaustible 

 by continual tillage and cropping, unless it 

 receives, to replace the waste, new supplies 

 of fertilizing matters, either from natural 

 sources, or from artificial manuring of some 

 kind. The valley of the Nile, and many 

 other alluvial bottoms, possess inexhaustible 

 fertility, because the rich soil is added to, or 

 renewed, by every flood. And all rich and 

 well constituted soils require but little man- 

 ure, in addition to what the atmosphere fur- 

 nishes, to maintain forever their early pn> 

 ductiveness. But however small, this aid is 

 absolutely essential for the continued produc- 

 tion of the land without diminution. The 

 richest cane-brake lands possibly may yield 

 successive crops for twenty or forty years 

 without perceptible decrease — or for sisty, 

 or possibly more than one hundred years 

 Without very considerable decrease. But, 

 however long pbstponed, such exhaustion 



must come at some future time — and. in a 

 much longer time, utter sterility, if no rest, 

 or no return of fertilizing material, is afford- 

 ed. And whenever this shall occur on these 

 excessively calcareous lands, (for reasons 

 that I formerly urged,) their sterility will be 

 the most complete, irremediable, and hope- 

 less. 



It would have been both useless, and a 

 foolish waste of me.ms, to give either rest or 

 alimentary manures to this land during its 

 early and most exuberent productiveness, 

 and as long as no diminution of productive- 

 ness had been induced. But, as a general 

 proposition, I maintain that it is cheaper, 

 and more profitable, on any land, for the 

 proprietor to preserve than to diminish or 

 exhaust its productive power. And such 

 preservation is especially easy to effect on 

 these lands. From some of the more judi- 

 cious planters, who admit that actual and 

 considerable exhaustion of some of the best 

 lands has already been realized, I heard it 

 stated that any putrescent manure, (as cot- 

 ton-seed, or stable manure,) produced very 

 remarkable and unusual benefit, when ap- 

 plied, even in small quantities, to the redu- 

 ced or partially impoverished ground, such 

 as of the former bald prairies. Yet very 

 little attention has been given to preserving 

 and properly applying even such amount of 

 putrescent manures as must necessarily be 

 made on every plantation. And such small 

 supplies have made almost the only excep- 

 and usage of unre- 

 With but small 

 aid of manure, (and mostly of that which 

 might be furnished in the growth of the 

 ' land, or in manuring crops,) and of rest, and 

 with the alternation of crops (which will be 

 recommended for another object,) these 

 highly favored lands might indeed deserve 

 that character, which is now falsely claimed 

 for them, of their being inexhaustible in fer- 

 tility and production. 



Putrescent manure is only needed on these 

 best lands where the original abundant stock 

 of vegetable (or organic) matter has been 

 much exhausted by propping. But there 

 are other great defects in the soils, which so 

 far as rare circumstances may permit, it 

 would be very advantageous to remedy. 

 Besides the want of draining in many cases, 

 (elsewhere adverted to,) there is a general 

 excess of lime, an universal excess of clay, 

 and an universal and great deficiency of 

 sand. The evils of excess of lime and of 



tion to the general ruh 

 mitting exhausting tillage. 



