SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
agricultural results they seem to be almost incredible. 
Yet they are verified, independantly of the sworn state- 
ment before a justice of the parties themselves, by a 
Committee of the Society, the Chairman of which is B. P 
Johnson, than whom there is not higher agricultural au 
thority in this country. 
It worthy of remark that there is not a single farm pro- 
duct, with the exception of wheat, which is estimated at 
a higher price than that which we are accustomed to ob- 
tain. The item which makes up the largest sii^le 
amount (hay) is put down at less than half its ordinary 
price with us. 
Neither is the yield per acre greater in any one product 
than we are accustomed to obtain under similar treatment. 
Nor is there any one product which we are not accustom- 
ed to grow. 
We are struck* with the amount of stock kept upon the 
farm in proportion to the number of acres. Take, for 
instance, the last mentioned farm, of 180 acres of rolling 
land. Five horses and forty-tw'o head of cattle, and such 
cattle that from ten of the cow's 1250 pounds of butter and 
1000 pounds of cheese were made in one year. This 
amount of stock enables the farmer, Mr. Sherrill, to 
manure all the land he cultivates with forty loads of ma- 
nure to the acre. The accumulation of such a farmer is 
two-fold. His interest is compound. He makes money 
by the sale of his stock or their produce, and he makes 
money through the annual increase of his capital in the 
improvement of his land by means of his stoek. 
The proportion of land plowed for corn, wheat, &c., 
is very different from that which exists on a Southern 
plantation. No. 1. Fifteen acres plowed out of 165 acres. 
No. 2. Fifty out 150. No. 3. Eighteen out of 150. No. 
4. Twenty-eight out of 160. No 6. Sixty five out of 180 
acres. All the rest of the land, besides the tillage ground, 
yields an annual income without labor, except during the 
hay harvest. When we consider the small proportion of 
plowed land, our wonder at the low estimate for labor 
ceases. But our astonishment at the greatness of the 
gross results does not cease. 
Under our present system at the South, ifa young man 
has inherited a tract of land without negroes, he does not 
dream of becoming a farmer. He does not ask, what is 
done by the rest of the world who have no negroes 7 He 
thinks it absolutely necessary. that he should carry the 
"green bag," or compound pills, or handle the yard-stick ; 
and, in view of our present practice, he is right, Ji is 
impossible, unless in exceptional cases, to hire hands at 
the present rate of wages to cultivate cotton and corn, ac- 
cording to our usual methods, without loss. But if he 
has the means to hire help to lay a own a good portion of 
his land in pasture and meadow, so that after the first 
cost, annual cost comparatively ceases, he may then hire 
hands to cuilivatea em-'U portion in cotton and grain; 
and, pursuing tnesysten* indicated in the instance before 
us, he will soon begin to accumulate. This is what 
thousands have done in the inhospitable cl mate of the 
North. Much more can it be done in tne genial climate 
32g 
of the South. It will 1 jq ^ before he will 
cease to hire and wi own his own negroes. 
Our chief purpe^g citing tlie above instances is to 
induce thought, on the part of our planters. We wish 
them to stud^y the anomalies of our agricultural position. 
We hear'^^j a short time since, of one man offering to give 
anotV.era plantation, if he would work it and allow him 
th-i; first crop, and the offer was refused. We heard of 
another buying a plantation at one, two and three year’s 
credit. Jt was paid for by a draft on the factor, the 
amount of which was realized from the first crop — one 
crop selling for more than the purchase money of the land. 
Surely there must be something radically wrong in such 
a condition of affairs. We can account for ft cnly by re- 
calling the great cost of labor in the production of what is 
called a full crop, either of cotton or corn. 
If a planter owns 1000 acres of land, 200 of which is 
in woods and the rest under cultivation in cotton, corn 
and small grain, it will require a gang of at least fifty 
negroes to cultivate it, worth, say, ^25,000. His land 
may be worth, say, S5,000, which is more than the aver- 
age price of land at the South. The labor, in this instance, 
is worth five times the cost of the land. 
Suppose he were to modify his system, and instead of 
800 acres under cultivation, he should reduce the amount 
to 500 acres, and place the whole of the re.st, whether 
woodland or cleared land, in meadow or pasture. At the 
same rate of labor as in the first instance, he would re- 
duce the cost oflabor to the amount of Sl0,000. He would 
still be employing a rnuch larger amount of labor than was 
employed in the farms we have been considering, and 
would be cultivating more land in plowed crops. 
In these Premium farms the gross returns per acre are 
as follows:— No. 1, about $35 per acre. No. 2, about 
$20. No. 3, about $40. No. 4, about $52. No. 5, about 
$30. No, 6, about $20. If we put these farms at an 
average of gross results of $30 per acre, and ifa Southern 
farm of 1000 acres, with 15 hands, under the same general 
system, substituting cotton for someone of their cropsj 
should yield tlie same results, the gross income would 
amount to $30,000. 
There are probably Southern plantations of 1000 acres, 
rich and fresh, which produce an equal gross result. But 
with what an investment in labor! and at what cost 
to the land 1 It is the beauty of the system developed 
by the New York Society, that while these large annual 
returns are exhibited, there is an annual and rapid im- 
provement of the soil. 
We see nothing to prevent such a modification of our 
system of Agriculture as will enable us more perfectly to 
accomplish these results than is possible at the North, 
We can raise the amount of stock necessary to keep our 
lands in a constant elate of improvement at rnuch Jess cost 
than is practicaolc there. Climate gives us this advant- 
age. It is expensive to provide food for d feed animals 
which are housed six months c: the year, As an illus- 
tration of this point, it may not be unbecoming to men- 
tion that we have now a lot ot young grade Ayrshire 
cattle *18 months old, perfectly fat and now sold at $25 
