94 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



ing fermentation, and then distilled off. Hence 

 it is chiefly valuable fur the albuminous com- 

 pounds it contains, and ought to be conjoined 

 with some substance rich in starch or sugar, 

 such as the locust beans, which have just been 

 described. 



A new plan for ploughing fiat land, in aid 

 of drainage. 



BY EDMUND R UF FIN. 



On the borders of the Atlantic tide-water 

 rivers, and for more extended spaces near the 

 mouths of these rivers, there are many and 

 large bodies of low-land and of surfaces near- 

 ly level, or but slightly undulating. All such 

 lands, naturally, are more or less wet, and re- 

 quire drainage for their good tillage and pro- 

 duction. And whether drained effectively, or 

 ever so imperfectly, such lands, under culture, 

 usually require, and have, a number of open 

 ditches, to collect and carry off the streams, and 

 the excess of rain and surface water. In for- 

 nix publications, I have offered my views at 

 length in regard to the proper modes of drain- 

 ing, and the subsequent tillage, (in very wide 

 beds,) of lands of this class — and therefore 

 these important and main branches of the gen- 

 eral subject need not be here discussed. Nor 

 will either be mentioned, except incidentally, 

 and as necessary for explanation of the later 

 and auxiliary improvement by the manner of 

 ploughing, which I design now to set forth, and 

 to recommend. 



Whether any field, or farm, of the flat sur- 

 face in view, is drained properly or improperly, 

 there will he many ditches running in differ- 

 ent directions. Where the lands are most 

 level (as in large spaces of interior lands of 

 lower Virginia and North and South Carolina,) 



Note. — In this report of a particular drain- 

 age operation, it has been the design and effort 

 of the writer to make it as concise as could be, 

 so as to exhibit, generally, the causes of wet- 

 ness, the means used for remedy* and the re- 

 sults produced. If any reader should desire 

 move extended information on the general sub- 

 ject, either in reasoning as to causes, or in- 

 struction and directions for the practical labors 

 of draining, and in various circumstances, such 

 particular information may be found in two 

 other of my previous writings, viz : the article 

 " On Draining," in my published " Essays and 

 Notes on Agriculture," (1855) and a report on 

 the ''Agricultural Features of Lower Virginia 

 and North Carolina," first and recently pub- 

 lished in De Bow's " Southern and Western 

 Review," and since communicated, with addi- 

 tions, to the Virginia State ^Agricultural So- 

 ciety. 



the ditches may be placed almost anywhere, 

 and, in any direction, to operate as designed. 

 But more generally, and especially on the bor- 

 ders of rivers, the surface has so many and fre- 

 quent, though it may be but slight undulations, 

 that the open drains, for rain or surface water, 

 must be placed precisely in the lowest depres- 

 sions, and directed in the courses of these de- 

 pressions. As these latter circumstances are 

 the most usual, and are the most difficult, I 

 will suppose them to exist, when making the 

 following remarks. Then, in a field of this 

 kind, w T e may suppose there to be many slight 

 and mostly narrow depressions, running in va- 

 rious directions, between the somewhat higher 

 and very much broader intervals of dryer land, 

 but still not dry enough for draining to be dis- 

 pensed with. Through all these depressions, 

 (even where there are no springs to collect, or 

 permanent stream to vent,) there pass open 

 rain-ditches, which are impassable by ploughs 

 and teams — or smaller grips, which perhaps 

 are ploughed across, and therefore require 

 cleaning out, and almost renewing, after every 

 ploughing of the ground. In either case, these 

 open surface-drains, of whatever sizes, are great 

 sources of trouble, and great impediments to 

 tillage. 



Further — as the depressions are usually but 

 very. little below the level of the near adjacent 

 ground — and the line of the ditch is not at all 

 lower than its borders — it follows that the 

 earth thrown out in the first digging, must 

 raise the margins — perhaps to be raised still 

 higher by every subsequent cleaning out of the 

 ditch. These banks, even if spread as far as 

 to be thrown by shovels, still raise the margins 

 — and even if but two or three inches higher 

 than the ground farther off from the ditch, this 

 slight elevation seriously impairs the proper 

 draining effect of the ditch. Further — when 

 the ploughs have to stop and turn at the sides 

 of the ditches, they always bring there and 

 leave some earth on the margins — and this 

 serves still more to counteract drainage, and to 

 cause future labor. 



Such would be existing evils, even when 

 great and unusual care is used to remove the 

 first-raised banks of ditches, and to prevent 

 subsequent accumulations of earth there. But 

 it is much more common, and far worse, to let 

 the ditch banks "remain to raise the margins — 

 and further, to add to them by the. subsequent 

 ploughing, (if flush,) being so ordered that 

 every furrow-slice, cut near to the ditch, is . 

 turned towards its banks. 



Within the last tw r o years, I have introduced 

 a new manner of flush ploughing, which serves 

 from the beginning to moderate the evils in 

 question ; and which, in the course of time, 

 will have the best effects, in adding to the 

 draining operation and effects of open ditches, 

 of all kinds and sizes, and also in lessening the 

 future labors for maintaining their proper ope- 

 ration. 



