£56 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



give to the atmosphere. The essential 

 difference between good and sterile soil 

 consists in the abundance or paucity of 

 the elements which constitute the proper- 

 ty of self-recuperation. A legitimate in- 

 ference from this view, observation has 

 established as a fact — that soils originally 

 sterile do not retain manures, and from 

 any ordinary degree of artificial fertility, 

 rapidly relapsed to their virgin poverty, 

 this they will fall to without the aid of 

 cultivation. All our domestic manures 

 contain much undigested materia! (some 

 more, some less) that avails nothing for the 

 ^ first crop, but is left in a process of prepa- 

 ration for after help to the soil. Hence 

 these manures get the credit of more per- 

 manence, merely because a large portion 

 was not sooner available for the sustenance 

 of crops. 



What is new in the experiments report- 

 ed in the last Planter by a citizen of Buck- 

 ingham? Is it not evident, that in the 

 case of the two lots where the guano was 

 applied before planting, the supply was in- 

 sufficient to meet the demands of the over- 

 grown stalk, and ear too, and in the last 

 case, the supply was afforded just in time 

 to meet the wants of the ear, and was ex- 

 pended on that instead of the stalk ! It is 

 feared that this report may lead some to 

 the erroneous conclusion, that it is best in 

 all cases to apply the manure at the time 

 of laying by. The writer iias applied 

 guano and other manures to corn and to- 

 bacco during the late workings with very 

 satisfactory effect, and cheerfully testifies 

 to an assurance of profitable results if the 

 season be sufficiently moist. Any quantity 

 short of a full and thorough supply, will, 

 with a moist season, accomplish more 

 if applied at the last working than before 

 planting ; but if the season prove dry, it 

 will avail but little at best and will often 

 prove injurious. It is no new thing that 

 partial manuring of corn is likely to pro- 

 duce a large stalk and small ear, and this 

 it will most certainly do, if the early sea- 

 son be a very pushing one. If regard is 

 had to the greatest certainty of a crop and 

 improvement of the land, a full supply, 

 broad cast and thoroughly incorporated 

 with the soil is the best mode of applica- 

 tion. This holds good with guano as well 

 as other manures. In using guano, with re- 

 gard the amount of crop, especially, it may 

 be good economy to retain a portion of the 

 amount designed to be pplied ; say one 



third, for a late application to corn or to- 

 \ acco. This has been tried by the writer 

 with very satisfactory results. 



Your Buckingham correspondent should 

 have stated the character of the season in 

 which his experiment was made. It may 

 not occur to all that Ihe early season must 

 have been abundantly moist — giving the 

 vigorous stalk and thereby exhausting the 

 manure, and the latter season must also 

 have been moist, or the late application 

 would not have given the larger corn. 

 About as profitable results may be expect- 

 ed from turning a beef into a barren pas- 

 ture for the summer and fall which had 

 luxuriated all the spring in a rich clover 

 field, as from a partial manuring in the 

 hill or trench, with the early season, moist 

 and pushing, and the late dry and back- 

 ward. B. 



Cedar Hill, Charlotte Co., July 21. 



[For the Planter.]. 



NICHOLAS LANDS, SHEEP, &c. 



Mr. Editor. — Being on a tour through our 

 Western counties, I cannot resist the oppor- 

 tunity to speak of the lands of Nicholas county, 

 their fertility and peculiar adaptation to sheep 

 husbandry. I would premise by saying, it is 

 singular that persons desiring a change of loca- 

 tion should have overlooked this healthy and 

 desirable section, where lands are not only 

 cheap, but of surpassing fertility ; but, I pre- 

 sume, this has been chiefly owing to its being 

 cut off, as it were, from the main channels of 

 communication, and from erroneous impressions 

 which have gone abroad in relation to the 

 poverty of the county. The sparseness of popu- 

 lation has been owing to the lands being held 

 in large surveys, and the uncertainty of title; 

 this state of things is fast passing away. Sett- 

 lers of the right stamp are rapidly coming in, 

 chiefly Eastern Virginians ; forests are falling 

 before the woodsman's axe, valleys becoming 

 clothed "with living green," and roads and 

 means of communication extended. I am in- 

 formed that lands have advanced from one to 

 two hundred per cent, in Ave years, though now 

 nominally very low (unimproved three to five 

 dollars, improved eight to twelve dollars). I 

 left Gauley bridge and travelled up Gauley and 

 Peters' creek, by the Gauley Bridge and Weston 

 Turnpike, to Summersville, the county seat. 

 The road, on each side, is hedged with what 

 appear steep and rugged mountains, though the 

 land on the stream was of unsurpassed fertility 

 for corn, grass, sweet potatoes, &c; but wher- 

 ever a stream descends, you find coves of well- 

 laying fertile lands, of from two to two thousand 

 acres, clothed with sugar-maple, pawpaw, &c, 

 with but sparse undergrowth, when not cleared ; 

 but many of these coves have been converted 



