62 



THE SOU THE 



success in making- this and other crops; also in 

 improving a large and worn-out farm. Land 

 ploughed wet is left in a situation which pre- 

 vents its retention of moisture ; if stiff, it will 

 not in twelve months become friable, and if sandy, 

 the injury will not be so great ; yet the differ- 

 ence in crops, and the situation of the land after- 

 wards, may be plainly observed. 



I have made a pen of manure under cover, 

 twenty-five feet long, fifteen feet wide and twelve 

 feet high on the lower side, not so much on the 

 upper; a load of leaves, do. ditch bank or rich 

 dirt, do. stable manure, then plaster, about a half 

 gallon ; it has been up some time, and on ex- 

 amination, more than meets my expectations. 

 There has been no visible evaporation from the 

 heap, which would have been great from a pile 

 of such size, made of stable litter alone. I be- 

 lieve we can from twelve horses make at least 

 two such heaps per annum. This manure will 

 be used on tobacco land ploughed last fall, har- 

 rowed in February, shovelled as soon as the 

 weather will permit, again harrowed, run off 

 three feet eight inches wide with a shovel plough, 

 (in March or April,) by dropping half a gallon 

 (about) three feet four inches apart, hill made 

 over each deposite. All our tobacco land is now 

 sufficiently rich for wheat, and we shall manure 

 no more broadcast except new lots. Every one 

 should make a new lot each year, until his es- 

 tate becomes a unit, or sufficiently rich for to- 

 bacco from end to end. My farm-pen has a 

 much larger amount of manure than on any 

 previous occasion ; we put several hundred loads 

 of leaves in last spring and summer after clean- 

 ing up; the cattle are kept on this every night 

 in the year, and day and night from 1st Novem- 

 ber to 1st May ; the milch cows and work oxen 

 are fed with the others on stalks, shucks, chaff, 

 straw, &c, besides, they have in stalls, chop 

 mixed with cut shucks or chaff: they are all in 

 good order, plenty of milk and butter, and for 

 sale ! The idea that cattle penned in summer 

 don't do well will be found fallacious if they are 

 grazed on good pastures, and well littered. 



Our corn is cut off at the ground and stacked 

 in piles from half a barrel at first to one barrel 

 when others are pulling fodder and cutting tops. 

 The feed thus saved is fine for mares and colts, 

 cattle, &c. The shucks from corn thus saved 

 are very nutritious ; we usually haul large quan- 

 tities home, and plough the land ready for seed- 

 ing wheat ; thus when we begin, our wheat 

 crop is sowed in a short time ; the stacks are 

 tied at top with a split to prevent their tumbling. 

 Our horses are in fine order, and have had no 

 hay or oats to speak of; the chop is one- third 

 wheat bran, one-third ship-stuff, and one-third 

 corn meal mixed with cut shucks ; the horses 

 work hard and they have three gallons of the 

 above mixture per diem. All grain should be 



ground for stock of all kinds ; the saving is 

 great, and the health of the animals better. 



Randolph Harrison, Esq , Sr., who was one 

 of the first men of his day, as well as one of the 

 most successful farmers and planters in Virginia, 

 said, that good hauling and ploughing were two 

 of the first requisites; there is nothing surer; 

 w r e often see poor starved horses or oxen tugging 

 an affair almost a load for them if in order, no 

 room for a load on top, &c, and as for the 

 ploughs in common use, a Northern man would 

 not have them as a present : not one man in a 

 hundred can tell whether or not his plough be 

 in or out of pilch ; this every man should learn. 



I have a fine chance for a corn crop this year, 

 and wish you to see it several times from 1st 

 May to 1st August. In the February number 

 of the Planter I find some one speaking of thick 

 planting, says he planted three and a half feet 

 each way and had two stalks in a hill (high 

 land.) Now my idea is, that corn on common 

 high land should not be planted closely ; but 

 when you have rich bottom land, go it ! I shall 

 try several acres this season at various distances; 

 four feet by eighteen inches, two stalks to the 

 hill, made here, in 1845, more than some three 

 feet by eighteen inches, two stalks per hill; the 

 latter was greatly injured by chincji bug, so I 

 will try it again, and let you see, or know the 

 result. Mayo Cabell, Esq., of Nelson, had a 

 great crop in 1844 and 1845, also; he did not 

 take account, I believe, of the quantity made in - 

 1845, but in a number of the Planter, in 1844, 

 he stated his crop on a lot at twenty-two barrels 

 and some bushels, as well as I remember. I 

 saw both crops, and think the last beat the for- 

 mer : they were each two and a half feet by 

 from six to eight inches. There is little danger 

 of planting first rate, moist low grounds, loo 

 thick, but take care, on ordinary land, flat, or 

 not, you had better make a little less every year 

 than have a feast than a fast. 



We have a large crop of tobacco on hand, 

 and I will give you the outlines of the manage-' 

 ment, if we get a good price*. 



W. W. Gilmer. 



Leigh, Feb. 20, 1846. 



CHURNING BUTTER. 



As your paper is intended as a medium to 

 spread abroad every thing useful lo farmers, and 

 ladies, or dairy women, in their several occupa- 

 tions, I am led, through it, to communicate a 

 fact, accidentally discovered by me, relative to 

 the churning of butter, which I have heretofore 

 found a laborious job in winter. I set some 

 frozen cream in a tin vessel on my fire-frame one 

 night — the next morning I found the cream full 

 as warm as milk when first taken from a cow. 

 On first placing it in the chum, it required not 



