THE 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



BtitoWb to culture, Jgortfculturt, auti the ^ouselioU! flrts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. — 

 Xenofhon. 



FRANK: G. RUFFIN, Editor. 



Vol. XIV. 



For the Southern Planter. 



ESSAY ON ENRICHING AND IMPROVING POOR 

 LAND. 



BY BENJAMIN F. DEW. 



And he gave it for his opinion, " that whoever 

 could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass 

 to grow, where only one grew before, would deserve 

 better of mankind, and do more essential service 

 to his country, than the whole race of politicians 

 put together." — Swift. 



Had this renowned sentiment made its due im- 

 pression in Virginia fifty, or even twenty-five years 

 since, the discouraging and apparently hopeless 

 poverty of her soil which has driven thousands of 

 her most talented and energetic sons either from 

 her borders, or from agriculture into other more 

 attractive professions, would now have yielded to 

 rich fields and plenteous harvests, under the judi- 

 cious management and scientific skill of her farm- 

 ers. But unfortunately, until within the past few 

 years, agriculture has occupied a second rate po- 

 sition among the higher professions of life — as a 

 sort of menial employment requiring no talent to 

 conduct, as supposed, its mere mechanical opera- 

 tions, and therefore better suited for the ignorant 

 and stupid, than for men of talents and education. 



As might be supposed, under such circumstan- 

 ces, the art and the science of agriculture through- 

 out the State, have been generally, and to a great 

 extent neglected, while profits have declined in a 

 corresponding ratio. 



Still, however, by the persevering and masterly 

 labors of Edmund Ruffin, Esq., to whom Virginia 

 owes her highest debt of gratitude, aided by the 

 Newtons, Carters, Braxtons, and other prominent 

 farmers of our State, a new impulse has been giv- 

 en fro her agriculture — art and science have thrown 

 around it their charms 5 and now, instead of being 

 second among other professions, is indeed be- 

 hind no other, either in the pleasures it offers, the 

 profits it yields, or the talents it demands for its 

 successful pursuit. 



With a view, therefore, of adding something to- 

 wards this noble object, and of presenting, as I 

 humbly conceive, a rapid and economical method 

 for improving and enriching poor land, I offer the 

 following suggestions and rules for directing the 

 management of a farm. 



I remark, then, in the first place, that the high- 

 est order of skilful farming, as directed to the im- 

 Vol. XIV.— 6. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of the 

 State. — Sully. 



P. D. BERNARD, Publisher. 



No. 6. 



proving and enriching of poor land, is that only, 

 which, with team and laborers, preserved in good 

 health and condition, will in a series of years, with 

 a given number of laborers, a given outlay of ca- 

 pital, soil and area of land, produce the largest ac- 

 tual increase of capital, as estimated in the in> 

 provement of the land and the other farming pro- 

 fits combined. Thus a farmer may judiciously 

 manage all his agricultural operations on the best 

 and most scientific principles, and yet materially 

 come short of the highest farming profits, by over- 

 action, exposure, or bad feeding, or all, with team 

 and hands — thus lessening the actual value of 

 these two essential farm-items,. and producing, ul- 

 timately, as it always does, increased expense and 

 diminished labor. Again — whilst every other de- 

 partment of farming may be properly and judi- 

 ciously managed with the utmost scientific skill in 

 all the details of improving and enriching land, 

 the mere mechanical operations of the farm — the 

 planting, sowing, working and saving the crops, 

 may be so slovenly and badly executed, as again 

 materially to lessen the highest farming profits. 

 Farther — the farming implements, team and la- 

 borers may be kept in good condition — the opera- 

 tions of sowing, planting, working and saving the 

 crops, may all be well executed, and still the farm- 

 er may come short of the highest farming profits, 

 for the want of scientific skill, or that knowledge 

 which will enable him properly to understand the 

 wants of his soil, the peculiar manures adapted to 

 those wants, and the time and mode of applying 

 them. Thus, for example, upon a poor, acid sandy 

 soil, we sometimes find an industrious farmer haul- 

 ing out pine leaves from an equally poor pine 

 thicket, to improve his land, not knowing that the 

 acid which forms the poison of his soil, is but in- 

 creased by this application, whilst the extremely 

 small per cent, of potash which the pine leaves 

 contain can never pay for the expense and damage 

 in their application to such a soil ; or, as has of- 

 ten been the case, mixing fresh stable manure 

 and lime with a view of improving the effects 

 of each on land, not knowing the chemical afiini- 

 ties which control the changes that take place in 

 such a mixture, by which the most valuable ele- 

 ment of the stable manure, the ammonia, is lost, 

 whilst the lime is rendered less efficient. Still 

 farther — a farmer may combine all the various re- 

 quisites to which I have referred, fitting him for 

 the highest order of farming, and yet come very far 

 short of the highest farming profits, for want of 

 what Mr. Ruffin would term administrative skill or 

 business tact — the power of judiciously and econo- 



RICHMOND, JUNE, 1854. 



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