12 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
find it wise to let his stock pick up most of their living in 
forests and corn-fields during the winter. They must 
range far and wide, and drop their manure where their 
owners will never find it, To avoid this, many farmers 
at the North make large stacks of corn stalks on their 
■poorest land wdiich being fed out to cattle they leave their 
dropping near the stacks and where manure is most need- 
ed. ^This arrangement saves ail the expense of hauling 
out dung in the spring when other v/ork presses hard for 
the toil of man and beast. To have as little outside hay 
to the weather as possible, we have seen sixty tons put 
into a single stack, which when fed was hauled on an ox 
sled and scattered over the poorest part of the meadow. 
It is bad economy to make little fodder stocks. If you can- 
not afford a barn for shelter, do not damage half your fod- 
der by exposing it on the surface of a dozen or more small 
slacks. Give all your cattle the benefit of at least a good 
shed to sleep under nights, and have that well covered 
with dry leaves to keep them warm. Cows should be 
stabled. L. 
HAY MAIONG IN THE SOUTH. 
A Brief Essay ^ read before ike '■'■Beech Islo.nd Farmers’’ 
Clubf at the October Meeting. 
To the Members of the Club : 
Gentlemen — As it is expected that each member of 
this Club shall make a report of some experiment, I take 
this opportunity to present the following, on Hay 
Making : 
About the first of May, I had a ten acre lot of good 
river-bottom land plowed up, with double plows, from 8 
to 10 inches deep ; the land was then well harrowed with 
a good two-horse iron-tooth harrow, across the plowing, 
and then rolled with a ca5t iron two- horse roller, in order 
to make the surface as smooth as possible. The land vras 
soon covered with crab-grass. In consequence of the hot 
dry weather, I had almost despaired of realizing a crop : 
but after the heavy rain which fell about the first of Sep- 
tember it revived and grew off rapidly, and continued to 
improve until the latter part of September, when it was 
from two to three feet high, at which time I cut it with 
scythes. The plan I adopted for curing, was, to have 
what was cut in the morning turned over and stacked up 
about four or five hours after it was cut, and that part of 
it that had from 4 to 6 hours sun on it was then pat into 
common size shocks, and remained until the next day 
about ten o’clock, or until the dew was entirely off, at 
which time they were again opened and the hay again 
spread, and remained so until evening, vr hen it was put 
into shocks again, and remained so until the dew wms off 
the next day, when they were were opened and spread 
as above stated ; in the afternoon, such as wms sufficiently 
cured I had packed in the barn. 
I measured one acre and obtained from that 7,675 lbs 
of well cured hay, which I sold for 75 cents per cwt., in 
Augusta ; it was v/eiglied at the City Scales, and at that 
low price amounted to S57 56. At per hundred, the 
amount would have been S’76 75; at ^1 25 per hundred, 
^95 93; and at 50 per hundred, $115 12. These 
prices are not unfrequently paid for an article in no way 
superior. I think there were three or four acres in the lot 
as good as the one I measured; the balance not more than 
two-thirds as good. At the rate sold, the Vi^hole lot would 
amout to $460 : and of course still higher at increased 
rates, as shown above. 
1 would simply call the attention of the members to the 
fact that this crop has been made under unfavorable sea- 
sons, and if sold at the average price that Northern hay 
commands in Augusta, which is about $T ■ 50, it would 
amount to $920. or $92 per acre. 
My impression is that two crops may be taken from the 
same land by commencing earlier in 'the season, and there 
is no crop more profitable with the same amount of 
labor. 
All of which is respectfully submitted, 
Jonathan M. Miller. 
Goodale^ near Avgusta, Ga., Oct., 1856. 
EEVEE CUETUKE— LETTER FROM COL. H. J. 
C'aimoii. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — Engagements of an 
I unyielding nature have, for some time past, and until 
very recently, prevented an earlier notice of the many 
communications received And the numerous articles read 
by me in relation to the System I do so earnestly and ar- 
dently advocate, as agriculhirally soiiQdi to this section of 
country ; that is, to run every row — every furrov: — (and 
were it practicable, I would say, every foot-path — every 
scratch made by a plow, in going to or returning from 
work — and every rut made by a wheel, regardless of 
length, upon a dead level. I can truly say '‘Eight yards 
of uneven ground is three score and ten miles with me” — 
in this connection at least. 
This, I find, has recently very generally been alluded 
to, as “Col. Cannon's plan of leveling land ;” “Col. C.’s 
system of level rov/s and culture,” &c. This is all wrong. 
While I am, and ever expect to be, ready, if not fully able, 
to defend it, no claim of creator is put up by me in re- 
gard to it. It is not mine, and for aught I know, it may 
date back to, and before, the days of Babylon, 
In theory, even here, I know it is not new, and, if any 
credit comes to me, connected with it, it can only be that 
I have, to some extent, simply performed the humble part 
of a pioneer, in proving its positive practicabitity, its easy 
accomplishment, and its admirable adaptation to the pre- 
sent condition, the urgent, daily increasing, and gulliedly- 
glaring wants of South Western Tennessee and Northern 
Mississippi. 
“The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more ” — 
Ten years ago I met with the first and only man in this 
section of country who advocated level rows and culture. 
He was a plain man, and 1 do not know v/hether he knew 
what the horizon was. I am quite certain he did not in 
this connection. From daily seeing our soil washing away 
and sometimes even sloughing off from us, (and this pre- 
disposition is constantly inereasing) my attention was at- 
tracted and thought \vas aroused. It seemed to me, theo- 
retically and philosophically, that the plan was correct, 
But, like others are doing now, I doubted, for some time, 
its practicability, paving determined to try it, and being 
compelled to leave home I hired this man to “level a field,” 
as he called it, in contradistinction to “circling with a 
fall.” But whether from a doubt of his own theory, or 
w'ant of success in reducing it to practice, or from wdiat 
cause I cannot say, I found, upon my return home, he did 
all of my work with a decided and easyly detected fall. 
This, in many instances, was anything but an improve- 
ment on the old straight up-and-down hill mode of run- 
ning the rows. The worst washes I have ever seen, on 
land, have been met v/ith where a “little fair ' was given 
the rows. 
Thrown, thus, upon my own resources, I went to work, 
determined, fully and fairly, to test this system ; to prove 
its truth or demonstrate its fallacy, and you have the re- 
sult, so far as my experience at Melton is concerned, in a 
complete and triumphant success. 
With me it is a thing accomplished. Euclid contains 
