SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
32 i 
mucoso-saccharine mattei* being in abundance, the bunch, 
as a dissolvent, must be left to remain with it, or the wine 
would: easily become ropy — lastly, when the fruit is well 
ripened, the stem must be cut as near as possible to the 
grapes. 
{^Concluded in our next. ^ 
“W. E.’S” RESPONSE TO THE EDITORS AND 
’ ‘ BROOMSEDGE ’’-DEEP PLOWING™ 
MANURING, &c. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — I am a Farmer, 
and nothing else — my interest and thoughts are in that di- 
rection. In your May number I selected Deep Plowing 
and Manuring” for some remarks, by way of calling 
these two most important subjects to the notice of your 
writing contributors. 
I have come to the notice of “Broomsedge,” in your 
July number. He is a “go-a-head” sort of a writer, and, 
I expect, a sort of Davy Crockett in his practice. I like 
the character. He difters with in every particular. This 
is all right — what I wanted — neither of us can possibly 
know everything about which we write, and 1 have de- 
sired to hear others taking the opposite side. 
Your paper furnishes to Southers farmers a book, in 
which to record their notions in farming. We all, I dare 
say, write in the dark, but we expect to profit by compar- 
ing opinons. experiments and reports made for general use. 
“Broomsedge” says in answer to “W. R.” in your May 
number, ’TYhy cut the roots of plants'? If the grass can be 
killed and the soil kept open without it T’ Headds : “that 
common sense would approve it.” 
Again he says : “ ‘ W. R.’ is the first individual we have 
ever heard advance the opinion that corn and cotton pro- 
duced most in the hill — roots cut both sides.” 
Again, when he answers “W. R,” on “Manuring,” he 
says; “Our experience of fourteen year's manuring has 
satisfied us that manuring, without deep plowing, is labor 
thrown away.” 
“Doctors truly disagree.” I planted my first crop in 
1806, and in hills, because that was the common mode of 
planting either corn or cotton, and I here state the fact, 
that very few adopted the the drill culture until it was 
found necessary, in preparing our lands for planting, to 
horizontalize our rows to^keep our lands from washing — 
say in about 1820. The drill culture was not adopted to 
make more, but to save our lands from washing away. I 
have, various times, since adopting the drill culture, plant- 
ed my level fields in the hill, being convinced that plow- 
ing corn or cotton both ways was easiest, as well as the 
most remunerative cultivation. Now, when I go on to tell 
“Broomsedge” that deep culture, as well as deep breaking 
up of land, is necessary to make the most (try it — an 
ounce of experiment is worth a pound of reasoning or 
theory) we shall see that the roots must not be cut one way, 
as in the drill, but that they must all be cut, by plowing 
both ways, as in hill culture. But are there no reasons re- 
lating to vegetation — cotton and corn — going to show up 
the usefulness of cutting roots — nothing to prove, that 
though we kill we yet make alivel Reasons in abundance. 
It is said that trees, shrubs and plants resemble, in the 
ramification of thin roots below, their own outward ap- 
pearance, by limbs above the earth. Now, it has been 
well established in orcharding, that if you would enlarge 
your tree and make your fruit larger, you must “trim 
back” — cut off the ends of far running limbs. Now, if 
topping off the distant ends of limbs adds strength to the 
stalk and creates other new limbs, may we not conclude 
that by cutting off the very mouths which, “Broomsedge” 
says “ nature has given plants to absorb food,” we should 
multiply new and more vigorous helps — roots reaching 
out in new and in all the other ways in search of nutrition. 
Moreover, if we find that cutting roots one way, as in 
drill cultivation, adds to the activity and life of the plant, 
does it not become pretty clear, the roots ought to be 
cut on the other side, as in hill culture, if we would profit 
the whole amount of the topping off, or the trimming 
back principle. It is strange that those who believe in 
the doctrine of thorough and deep preparation of land 
(which I believe my self) should contend that the land 
ought not be cultivated deep after each preparation. 
I take occasion to say, here, to “ Broomsedge,” to our 
editors, whom I think have been led into this error, and 
for the examination of all farmers that the doctrine will not 
be found to be good: 
1st. Because the very usual heavy rains of the spring 
run together our lands almost as hard as ever and shallow 
plowing in cultivation would only give that same shallow 
depth for the roots of plants to penetrate. 
2nd. Because, shallow cultivation, in and sort of prepared 
lands, does not reach and raise the moisture, or prepare 
the soil so that the roots might penetrate to it, nor does 
it cut the roots, which (not to mince it) I contend is abso- 
lutely necessary for greater health and vigor of the plant; 
but is that very particular which “Broomsedge” and others 
would avoid. 
In this connection, “Broomsedge,” says : “My experi- 
ence is that plowing deep and cutting roots (always giving 
more weed) pushes the formation of weed ; but at the ex- 
pense of fruit” — doubtful reasoning ! If it were true, it 
would appear that the good tilth, necessary to enlarge the 
wood, was not wanting to give us the fruit — that it 
took less to make fruit than to produce weed. I think it 
will be found that whatever of manure or good land, 
which is favorable to the enlargement of the stalk, is pro- 
portionably suitable for the production of the fruit. 
Now, in all this (as “Broomsedge” said to himself) “am 
I chasing a delusion or asleep I” I can’t answer the ques- 
tion myself. I don’t think “Broomsedge” was asleep. I 
expect he is as much the Davy Crockett in practice as he 
is the fast and “go-a head” writer ; but Davy himself was 
sometimes wrong, and once said ; “be sure you’re right 
and then go ahead.” I think “Broomsedge has been in the 
dark — he Ij^as not (not one of us has) found out all the facts 
in farming. We are at points on deep culture and cutting 
roots, and also on the best mode of apply manure. I con- 
sider we have opened the discussion of the very two most 
important particulars in farming. 
Let correspondents and our Editors, pursue the subject ; 
and will not some old farmers — old men who have lived 
long enough ago to know something of the hill as well as 
the late mode of drill cultivation — speak out and say that 
while cotton and corn are both revived when plowed one 
way only in drills, they make larger stalks, larger ears 
and bolls when plowed both ways, as in hills'? Again will 
not some of our energetic farmers say whether, in manur- 
ing, they have not found more profit from shallow appli- 
cation (certainly not below the soil of the land to be ma- 
nured) of all manures, than by turning it under the soil 
you would enrich, to receive your grain'? I say incorpor- 
ate all manures in the soil where we plant the grain and 
not place below the plowings given in the cultivation. I 
think, however, all any of us know on most of these sub- 
jects we only know with doubts, so let us all talk together 
and learn the best way to make “ too blades grow where 
only one is now to be seen.” W. R. 
Culloden, July, 1856. 
The Present and the Future. — It is strange that the 
experience of so many ages should not make us judge 
more solidly of the present and the futui'e, so as to take 
proper measures in the one for the other. We doat upon 
this world as if it were never to have an end, and we neg- 
lect the next as if it were never to have a beginning, — 
Fenelon. 
