312 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Now, sir, if you cannot prove your asser- 

 tion, don't be quite so presumptions in promul- 

 gating it, nor so pugnacious when you are 

 asked for some facts to sustain you. Mr. Tay- 

 lor, but for his u pecuniary means," is willing 

 to risk $100 if Dr. B. will prove the converse 

 of the proposition. If the converse cannot 

 be proved, as Mr. T. lustily asserts over and 

 over again, where is the peril to his pecuniary 

 means Y And besides, he would have the satis- 

 faction of putting the doctor in a corner — 

 which Mr. T. knows well is not easily done 

 with a truly philosophic writer, who follows 

 strictly the Baconian method of building his 

 theories on facts. 



Mr. T. in his last paragraph complains that 

 Dr. B. has never once " condescended to no- 

 tice any objections or inconsistencies," &c. &c. 

 Now, my dear Mr. Editor, I 'ask you, for the 

 love of the brethren, would it be in good taste 

 for a man who thinks before he writes to spend 

 his time, so valuable to a physician in full 

 practice, in answering writers, many of whom 

 evidently write before they think ? Dr. B. i 

 presume has no time to teach any body the 

 difference between putrefaction and decomposi- 

 tion. He has no time, and from what I have 

 heard of him, no taste to bandy back such a 

 sentiment as that quoted from Cobbett by Mr. 

 T. The truth is, sir, that the old fogies in 

 agriculture must back out. Dr. B. started 

 with declaring the 11 science'' 1 of agricultural 

 chemistry a humbug; and after he said so the 

 Agricultural Society of Maryland, in a solemn 

 resolution, reiterated the same opinion. He de- 

 clares that nothing applied to vegetation feeds 

 plants but that which has in some form under- 

 gone the putrefactive process ; that whilst de- 

 composition precedes putrefaction it is not ne- 

 cessarily followed by it, and unless so followed 

 it yields no nutriment. Now all this is very 

 simple. If any man can find anything applied to 

 the root of a tree or vegetable in an exhausted 

 sod, which will make it grow, except what has in 

 some form and to some extent undergone the 

 putrefactive process, let him print it. The Dr. 

 says he finds by actual experiment that if an 

 exhausted soil is covered, or as he chooses to 

 call it, is shaded, that the surface of the earth 

 so covered or shaded becomes rich and fertile, 

 and he thus infers that the same chemical ac- 

 tion has taken place, which does take place 

 when you apply manure or any matter which 

 is putrefactive. He finds by experiment that 

 it does not matter what the covering sub- 

 stance is — although the effect produced depends 

 much upon its being done right, as in all other 

 cases the way - in which you do a thing is al- 

 most as important as doing it at all. He 



tells his brother farmers to take their straw 

 and cover their knolls and spots, and that it 

 will manure, or rather enrich ten times as 

 much ground as it would do if reduced by the 

 putrefactive process to 'manure, and then 

 spread. This is all very simple — and all he 

 asks is for them to try it. If he is right, he 

 has made a great and sublime discovery. He 

 has got clear of the jargon of the schools, and 

 the Don Quixotism of chemical agriculture. 

 He has doubled and tripled and quadrupled 

 the products of the soil, and thus swelled the 

 individual and aggregate wealth of the coun- 

 try ; and if no other man bless him, my 

 blessing shall be on his head. 



A Jefferson Farmer. 



For the Southern Planter. 



Gentlemen of the Virginia 



Slate Agricultural Society : 



The precarious state of my health and the 

 pressure of private engagements require that I 

 should decline a re-election to the honorable 

 post to which your partiality has hitherto 

 assigned me : and I therefore give this timely 

 notice in order that you may be prepared, at 

 your approaching annual meeting, to^fill that 

 honorable office. 



I shall, ever gratefully remember the kind 

 and constant support of my "numerous friends 

 in the society, as well as their hearty co-opera- 

 tion and generous efforts, whilst we have' for 

 three years past labored together to establish 

 the prosperity and usefulness of our State Ag- 

 ricultural Society. 



Philip St. Geo. Cocke. 

 Retreat, Sept. 8, 1855. 



For the Southern Planter. 



Mr. Editor : 



Dear Sir, — I have wished to inform you? 

 that I gave last spring a fair trial to gas-tar 

 as a means of preventing the depredation of 

 the bud-worm. My crop of corn was planted, 

 as recommended in the Southern Planter, and 

 in no preceding year have I suffered • more 

 from the worm. The season was an unfavora- 

 ble one for the germination of the grain, the 

 spring being very dry until the 1 9th of May, 

 up to which date corn came up badly and 

 grew very slowly. I used, too, a small quan- 

 tity of guano in the drill to force the corn to 

 be strong enough to resist the worm. My de- 

 cided opinion is, that gas-tar produces no bene- 

 fit whatever. 



Very truly yours, 



Ed. T. Taylor. 



