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SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
THE EFFECTS OF FKOST, SHADE AND SHELTER 
ON FERTILITY. 
The very respectable freezing which the ground has 
received the past winter, renders a few remarks on this 
disintegrating force not out of place at this season of the 
year; while the benefits of shade and shelter deserve to be 
better understood than they now are.' Every particle of 
water that freezes in the earth expands a little, and by so 
doing se-parates the solid particles of soil the one from its 
fellow. Hence, a good sound freezing mellows the ground 
more thoroughly than any plow, harrow, or hoe can pos- 
sibly do. It is to secure the full benefit of this congelation 
by the roughness and greater surface exposed to the ac- 
tion of frost, that We prefer to plow in autumn all the stiff 
ground which is to be cultivated in any crop tlie summer 
following. Before any element of fertility can be avail- 
able to nourish a crop, it must be soluble in rain water. 
Nothing can well be plainer than the fact that if these 
elements were soluble like snow and salt, they would soon 
be washed into branches, creeks and rivers, and thereby 
inflict enduring and hopless sterility on the whole face ol 
the earth. By locking up in sand, clay, compounds of 
iron, lime, &c., the precious atoms which sustain the Veget- 
able Kingdom, and rendering them only partially soluble 
in the water that drops from the clouds, their durability 
in the the surface of the earth is perpetuated, where man 
does not interfere with the laws of Providence. The pul 
verization of any large solid greatly promotes its so- 
lution, as is seen when coarse salt is ground, lumps of 
sugar are crushed, or when corn is made into meal, wheat 
into flour and dry bones and gypsum are ground before 
put upon land to make it more fruitful. -In view of these 
facts, every cultivator should make the most of the pro 
digious pulverizing power of frost in winter. 
Shade has more credit with many farmers than it de- 
serves. It is not the shade, but the material that causes 
the shadow, or that intercepts the sun’s rays which im 
proves the soil. By the shading any considerable area, 
the evaporation of water, and dissapation of moisture are 
checked, so that the decay of vegetable and animal sub 
stances is accelerated by this increase of humidity. Where 
fence rails retain moisture, at the places where one lies 
upon another, there they rot much faster than elsewhere 
Dry meat and dry wood decay so little that they can hard 
ly be said to decay at all. Shade, by rutting the organic 
substances on the ground, not only increases its mould, 
but indirectly dissolves the before insoluble food of plants 
Carbonic acid and ammonia, evolved from plants and ani- 
mals in the process of decomposition eliminate solublt 
flint phosphates and other constituents of crops. 
All 7iiulchi/ig and shelter of whatever kind, as applied 
to the soil to augment its fruitfulness operates in the man 
ner we have indicated. A few yards of gauze, like a 
mosquito-bar, placed some feet above the ground will so 
check the radiation of heat under it as to [)revent a frost, 
while tender plants outside of the net will be killed by 
frost. All screens, whether forest trees or any artificial 
contrivance, are truly chemical agents, and affect humid- 
ity as well as temperature. They promote important 
chemical changes, and thus increase the fertility of land. 
Irish potatoes, in particular, should be mulched with a 
covering of straw or forest leaves to cool and moisten the 
earth where they are expected to grow, L. 
HINTS FOE STOCKS-GROWERS IN GEORGIA. 
The State of Georgia contains thirty seven million one 
hundred and twenty thousand acres of land — an area 
which exceeds that of New York by nearly eight million 
acres. In 1650, New York I;ad 12,408,908 acres under 
improvement ; Georgia about half that number, or 6,378,- 
479 acres. The value of Live Stock in New York in 1850 
was ^73,570,499. In Georgia it was S25,728,416. 
We feel confident that the last named State has greater 
advantages than the former, in climate and soils as well 
as in territory for the large and economical production of 
of all domestic animals. To this..remark a cotton planter 
may reply : “That may be true ; yet, if cotton-culiure is 
more profitable than stock-growing at the South, why 
should we produce more cattle, horses and mules, and less 
of our great commercial staple I” 
Suppose the same amount of capital, the same degree of 
pains, care and skill now applied to planting were exteKd- 
ed to Stock Husbandry I Who can furnish satisfactory 
evidence to the public that the breeding and rearing of 
superior Live Stock would not pay even better than plant- 
ing! 
The writer (who has been no indifferent observer of the 
relative profits of tillage, stock-growing and feeding) be- 
lieves that, if either department of rural industry should 
predominate over the other, planting should yield to graz- 
ing; in order to save the land from the scourge of the 
plow. 
In 1850, the owners and cultivators of tlie soil of Georgia 
reported themselves as holding 51,759 farms; and, we are 
sorry to add, they also held 16,412,900 acres of old fields 
and other “unimproved land.” To have sixteen acres of 
worn out land to six acres in crops and the latter none of 
the richest soil, but fast becoming part and parcel of ex- 
hausted and abandoned fields, shows an unwise system 
of agriculture. A remedy is wdiai we ai e aindng at ; and 
in that connection, attention is asked to the fact, that a fat 
steer which will weigh a thousand pounds, live weight, 
now brings ten dollars more in the city ofNew York than 
a thousand pounds of good cotton. The writer was in 
that city a few days since, and saw cattle sell at from nine 
to twelve cents a pound on foot, and at an average of a 
cent a pound more than cotton was worth in the great 
commercial metropolis. Good meat has been steadily ad- 
vancing in London, Liverpool, Paris, New York and 
other important markets for several years, with slight 
variations. 
How long will Georgia enterprise sleep over these un- 
deniable facts ! The more populous parts of the globe 
need fat cattle, fat hogs, and fat sheep to feed their hungry 
inhabitants; while we in Georgia have millions of acres 
of land admirably adapted to both grazing and grain cul- 
ture, which now yield nothing. Before the Revolution, 
and down to 1810, Meat was one of the staples exported 
