354 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
FEEDING KOUGH FORAGE— A GOOD PLAN. 
Editor, Soutdrrn Cultivator — The distressingdroutli 
has cut short all rough provender, and unless the greatest 
economy is used in feeding, all our horses, mules, cows, 
&c., will have to suffer, yea, perhaps starve to death. 
Allow me, therefore, through your columns, to draw 
attention to a method of feeding, whicli has been adopted 
in Europe. 1 have tried it myself for many years and can 
recommend it from long experience. It con.sists simply 
in giving the forage in a fer'inenlcd slate. 
The rough lorage, of what kind ic may be, even corn- 
stalks, is cut short in a cutting machine whi' h easily can 
be arranged so as to be worked with horse power. Three 
boxes are made, each of them large enough to hold as 
much forage as will be fed in a day. The cut forage is 
sprinkled with salt and water, in order to go quickly into 
fermentation, pressed firmly into one of the boxes, and 
covered up. If some turnips, carrots or other roots or 
green crops could be mixed in with it, so much the better. 
In about two days it will take heatand go into the sugary 
fermentation; and on the third day it will be fed. Thus 
one box is filled every day, and one emptied. Should it 
be found that the time is too short for the forage to come 
in full fermentation, a fourth box must lie added, and a 
day more allowed. All cattle will soon become exceed- 
ingly fond of this fermented food. 
The doctrine, that “Red clover will not do where the 
soil is deficient in lime” has made its round through out- 
agricultural journals, and “Dick” has so often repeated 
what “Harry” told him without trying it for himself in a 
proper way, that everybody now thinks it a fine excuse 
for not trying to grow clover. I was raised in a clover 
growing country, and I can assure you that I have seen 
beautiful fields of clover on land tliat did not contain any 
lime ; particularly on rich alluvial soil. But clover re- 
quires a deeply worked and finely pulverized soil. The 
way, of starting a clover field, however, may not be known 
to many of your readers, and you will, therefore, allow 
me, I hope, to give a short description of it. 
When a field is sown in the fall in wheat, rye, or any 
other grain, and well harrowed over, the clover seed is 
.sown very thinly broadcast ; eight pounds to the acre is 
sufficient. It needs no covering, as it easily will work 
itself down into the ground. By next spring the clover 
will grow up beautifully in the shade of the grain crop, 
and when the latter is mown off the clover will be found 
from six to twelve inches high, and may be used for pas- 
ture that autumn. The main crop will be produced the 
following spring and summer, and continue for several 
years. Any person that will try this way, will undoubt- 
edly succeed perfectly. 
All leguminous plants, to which the clover belongs, are 
always greatly l'‘'nefitted with a sprinkling of Plaster of 
Paris over the h nvcs, when wet from dew or rain ; and it 
will, therefore, Im very beneficial on the clover. 
When clover, vetches, peas, and other hay crops 
are raised in a moist clinriate, where shov/ers are 
frequent in the summer, a peculiar way of cuiing such 
crops is resorted to, it is : “ Matins:; hroioii and con- 
sists in causing the green crop to ferment. The process 
is this: When the hay crop has been mown off in the 
morning, and allowed to wither a little during the day, it 
is toward evening put up in a large stack, holding 3 or 4 
large two-horse loads, and a long iron bar put through it 
right across to serve as a thermometer. In about 8, 10 or 
J‘2 hours, according to whether it is sultry or windy, the 
stack will have taken its heat, which can be ascertained 
by the iron bar, as it will fry, when you spit on it. In 
fact, a person might fear that the stack would take fire. 
All hands must then be in readiness, and spread out the 
hay, which then will be perfectly dry in a few hours. 
Such crops as the above-mentioned, which by the com- 
mon method of curing would require a week or more, can 
thus be perfectly cured in 24 hours, and will never again 
take heat. It is true, .such liay looks very dark colored, 
almost black, but smells very sweet, and all animals, wfoen 
used to it, will devour it greedily and thrive well on it. 
Robert Nelson. 
Macon, Ga., Oct., 1856. 
SOUTH WESTERN GEORGIA. 
Editor.s Southern Cultivator — In these days of rest- 
lessness, when planters in old Georgia seem determined 
to move, it is important to inquire what is best to be done. 
To my mind, this important and difficult question is easily 
an.swered. First, do not move at all, if you can help it. 
Secondly, if your negroes have increased, and your land 
deteriorated so that you cannot afford to keep them on 
the old red hills, you can, with your white family, and a 
few of your servants, remain at the old homestead, enjoy 
and beautify it, and remove your surplus servants to South 
Western Georgia, which gives advantages possessed by 
no other country. First and foremost, you need not quit 
the comfortable old place, with its many advantages — for 
as a place of residence, no country is more pleasant to live 
in than Middle and Upper Georgia — while South Western 
Georgia, since the extension of the South Western Rail- 
road to Albany, is at the door of all the middle and upper 
portions of the State. It is the only good cotton country 
need that you can plant in, with convenience, to which you. 
need not move. And then, if you make more cotton than 
you can save well, which is very probable, you can send 
an accession of hands to pick the crop. 
There may be countries where, some years, more cotton 
is made to the acre, but, one year with another, there is 
no cotton country in which there is as much made to the 
hand. A failure in South Western Georgia would be a 
good crop for Middle Georgia. There never has been, 
during the twenty-five or thirty years that that country 
has been settled, what would be called a failure in Middle 
Georgia. There are some good reasons for believing tliat 
such a failure never will happen there, as Middle Georgia 
has experienced this year of our Lord 1856; 
1st. The land is about fertile enough for cotton — as it 
is not the richest land that is the surest for it. And where 
you may find richer lands, you cannot cultivate so much 
of it as in South Western Georgia. 
2nd. The beautiful friable and level lands of that coun- 
try admit of such large cropping to the hand, as to make 
up forany deficiency of fertility. So they make large crops, 
without the failures incident to very poor or very rich 
lands. 
3rd. Those soft, friable lands do not need as much rain 
as the old red lands, and again it is so porous that water 
percolating through it, makes it stand wet weather as ad- 
mirably as dry. 
4th. The crowning advantage is that it rains more there 
in summer than in Upper and Middle Georgia. Such a 
thing as the extensive drouths of 1854 and 1856 in Middle 
Georgia, has never been known as far South as Lee or 
Dougherty counties. And there are some good philosophi- 
cal reasons, as well as experience, for this. The country 
being more moist, attracts the rains. It is near enough to the 
equator to be affected by the periodical wet ol the tropical 
summer, as Florida manifestly is. Vapors rising from the 
evaporations ofthe Gulf being fully charged while passing 
over the contiguous country of South Western Georgia, 
often become exhausted before reaching the remote regions 
of Middle andUpperGeorgia, Alabaraaand South Carolina. 
For several years, and particularly the last, I have 
noticed when soft clouds have been flying over Middle 
Georgia from the South with an appearance of, but a fail- 
ure to, rain, that within a few days thereafter we have 
heard of rain in South Western Georgia. 
