THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



103 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER- 



RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 



Surface Manuring. 



"Who layeth on dung ere he layeth on plow 

 Such husbandry useth as thrift doth allow: 

 One month ere ye spread it, so still let it stand, 

 Ere ever to plow it ye take it in hand." 



[Timer's February Husbandrie. 



Professor Voelcker, of the Agricultural Col- 

 lege of Cirencester, in England, has recently 

 advised the application of manure to the soil, 

 as a top dressing, in all cases where it is prac- 

 ticable. He proves, very satisfactorily to our 

 minds, that the manure loses but little am- 

 monia by this mode of treatment — less than 

 by the ordinary plan of piling up and heaping 

 it, and much less than the value of the labour 

 employed to handle it as much. as it js often 

 recommended it should be. 



The reasonings by which Professor Voelcker 

 supports his position are scientific, and we 

 shall publish them in full when we can get 

 sight of the Journal of Transactions of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society, in which his Essay 

 is contained. Meanwhile we have only to say 

 that there is nothing new in the practice ad- 

 vised, and everything to commend it in the ex- 

 perience of those who have tried it. It is only 

 the plan of what is called surface manuring, 

 and is at least as old as the earliest " Book of 

 Husbandrie," Tusser. 



Several years ago, one of the most observant 

 farmers we ever knew, as well as one of the 

 most judicious, pointed out to us the error of 

 ploughing up cowpens as soon as- the pen was 

 moved. He had observed that the land was 

 better for a number of years where the surface 

 was left undisturbed. We have often noticed 

 the fact since in that gentleman's practice, 

 in our own, and in other cases. In his case 

 especially, we remember that his cow pens, 

 trod perfectly bare, always covered themselves 

 with the richest sod of Kentucky blue grass — 



which, by the way, is the June grass, Poa 

 Angus ti folia, and not the Poa Compress-a, Mr. 

 Cassius M. Clay to the contrary notwithstand- 

 ing — in two or three years without any seed- 

 ing. Here was a successful application of Prof. 

 Voelcker's theory, which we will show to any 

 gentleman who will go with us to Albemarle 

 in Winter or Summer. As the land was per- 

 fectly bare, and manured only with dung and 

 urine, there was no mulch in this case. 



Having heard from the graziers of Loudoun 

 and Fauquier, and other sections, that their 

 lands were enriched by feeding straw in "the 

 fields to their cattle, we determined to try it, 

 and selecting the poorest and naturally "the 

 thinnest piece of land at Shadwell, a pretty 

 bare hill-side with some healed up gullies in 

 it, we fed cattle there one Winter with straw 

 and corn-stalks. That land improved faster 

 than any other piece of land we ever manured, 

 its condition being considered. 



The farmers of the South Branch of Poto- 

 mac, who send the brag beef of Virginia to 

 market, feed them in two pens with the corn 

 upon the stalk unshucked. They feed them in 

 one pen to-day and the other to-morrow ; their 

 hogs alternating in the same way, after their 

 cattle, to consume the undigested corn in their 

 dung. Their lands are probably equal to any 

 in the State. 



The farmers of Southwestern Virginia do the 

 same thing. 



The largest wheat and tobacco grower in 

 Halifax county, we learn, does not even manure 

 his tobacco lots in the usual way, but he puts 

 the straw and stalks on the land and runs the 

 cattle over -them. And his nett profits for the 

 amount of surface tilled are the largest we 

 know. 



Several years ago Mr. Edmund Ruffin, in an 

 elaborate Essay in the Southern Planter, re- 

 commended the application of all manure as a 

 top dressing to clover. He attributed much of 

 the fertility of his land to that circumstance, 

 and he had been practising it for a number of 

 years, and does so still. 



So do the best farmers on lower James River, 

 such as Mr. R. M. Taylor, Mr. Ro. Douthat, 

 Mr. Selden, and Mr. Carter. And their lands, 

 though hard grazed, are improving every year. 



We have by no means exhausted the panel of 

 practical farmers known to us, whom we could 



