110 



For the Planter. 



A Manure-spreader Wanted— Subsoil 

 Ploughing in Clarke. 



White Post P. 0., Clarke Co., Va. ) 



January 16th, 1858. j 



Mr. F. G. Ruffin : 



Bear Sir. — Since I have become a regular 

 user of slaked lime, in compost with plas- 

 ter, salt, and ashes, or by itself, or sim- 

 ply mixed with plaster, I feel the want of a 

 machine that will enable me to spread it quick- 

 ly, at the rate of five, ten, or fifteen bushels 

 per acre. If any of the readers of the Planter 

 can recommend a machine from actual experi- 

 ence, I shall be glad to hear from them through 

 the Planter as to price, and where manufac- 

 tured. I also wish to know if the same infor- 

 mation can be had in relation to a Hay Bai- 

 ling machine. I wish to put some of the Val- 

 ley hay into market by way of competing with 

 Northern hay. I am sorry to* say that the 

 charges on the Manassa Gap Railroad, especi- 

 ally for hay, are so enormous as to almost for- 

 bid at present prices the farmers marketing 

 anything. 



As you are aware that I am a confirmed be- 

 liever in sub-soil ploughing all land for corn, 

 I will tell you that this is the fourth season I 

 have persevered with it. The first season I 

 determined I would sub-soil twenty-five acres of 

 my usual crop of corn, which is one hundred 

 acres; the second season I sub-soiled upwards 

 of forty acres ; the next and past season eigh- 

 ty-six for corn, and four for sugar cane and 

 Wyandotte corn. And I have now underta- 

 ken one hundred acres more for corn. I com- 

 menced in November with one three-horse sur- 

 face and one two-horse sub-soil plough, and 

 more than half of the one hundred acres is 

 now well ploughed and sub-soiled to an aver- 

 age depth of not less than fifteen inches, and I 

 think it likely a large proportion will average 

 eighteen or nineteen inches in depth. 



I have been much gratified to find our soil 

 in Clarke averages much deeper than "I had 

 supposed. In the flats between the small hills, 

 which are from twenty to fifty yards in width, 

 when the sub-soil plough runs eighteen inches 

 below the surface, it generall} T does not bring 

 up any clay. No farmer can have an idea of 

 the compactness of the soil immediately below 

 the average depth it has been ploughed for the 

 past fifty years, until he commences the use of 

 the sub-soil plough. The effect of all surface 

 ploughs upon the soil at the bottom of the 

 furrow for two or three or more inches, is to 

 render it sleek and compact; the effect is very 

 similar to that of the plasterer's trowel and 

 good mortar pressed upon a brick wall, or, as 

 is often the case, upon the earthen floors of j 

 basement rooms. I have often observed that 

 the furrow, after the sub-soil plough had pass- 

 ed along, had the appearance of being filled! 

 with pieces of unburn t brick. Any farmer j 



will admit that corn roots, or any other sort of 

 roots, would make but slow progress in a soil 

 in the condition I have described. Such is the 

 condition of most of the sub-soil I have ob- 

 served within the past twenty-one years. I 

 have always found great difficulty in getting 

 my surface ploughs much below the average 

 depth of those who had ploughed before me, 

 which close observation has proven to me 

 was not over four inches. Although this has 

 been my experience, I am aware that most 

 farmers deceive themselves ir^to the belief that 

 they plough eight or ten inches deep ; and 

 from a slight observation of the ploughing done 

 around them, they console themselves that 

 they plough deeper and better than their neigh- 

 bours, when the fact is, the average depth of 

 ploughing in Virginia does not exceed four 

 inches. I am satisfied that the imperfect sub- 

 soil ploughs used heretofore in Virginia, and 

 the imperfect work done with them has been 

 the cause of the unsatisfactory results of the 

 few experiments that have been made. Every 

 farmer and gardener, I should suppose, is wil- 

 ling to admit that the garden, the truck-patch, 

 and the young orchards are all greatly bene- 

 fited by sub-soil ploughing, or trench -digging. 

 If this be the case, I ask why it is that " what 

 is sauce for the goose is not sauce for tite gan- 

 der?" Most persons "will contend that the 

 horse-power and number of hands upon a farm 

 must be increased to enable them to double 

 plough their land. In answer to such, I can 

 say, I have not increased the number of either 

 above the number heretofore employed upon 

 the same farm for the past ten or fifteen years. 

 All that is necessary is the will and a little 

 more horse feed, aided by a little more fore- 

 thought and management. 



Yours very respectfully, 



Isaac Iryine Hite. 



For the Planter 



Preserving Wood by Steeps. 



Montgomery, Ala., Dec. 10th, 1857. 



Frank G. Ruffin : 



Dear Sir. — In my lute hasty passage through 

 Richmond, I did not find time to call upon our 

 friend Mr. Secrctarj^ Williams, in explanation 

 of your enquiry upon the subject of rendering 

 timber indestructible by a cheaper process 

 than Kyanizing. 



The new and more economical process is 

 called Burnettizing, from the name of the dis- 

 coverer. — and is carried on upon a large scale 1 

 at Lowell in Massachusetts ; and by using the 

 chloride of zinc in place of the corrosive subli- 

 mate in the Kyanizing process can be done at 

 about one-tenth of the cost. 



I have received information from the Rev. 

 Joseph Tracy, of Boston, — a gentleman of ac- 

 curate information and high standing, — that 

 Messrs. Flint & Kent of that city will under- 



