14 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
late color— varies in depth from 2 to 6 inches ; does not 
pack or frost up to any great extent. Underneath this we 
come to a loose, quite porous stratum, from 2 to 5 feet 
thick, on ordinarily level land, of what is here commonly 
called “yellow dirt,” which by exposure becomes greatly 
changed in color, and, as is very generally contended, 
ameliorated and productive. We then encounter the clay 
proper, if there is any pure clay in this country, of an 
impacted, but, as I think, of a positively impervious char- 
acter, greatly varying in depth. This, too, becomes, pro- 
ductive by exposure and admixture. 
Our very eminent State Geologist has promised me a 
visit this winter, when I hope to get a reliable analysis of 
all three strata. 
The general surface of the country is of an undulating, 
or rolling character ; so much so, at times, as to be pro 
iperly called “broken.” 
Now, with this description of our county and soil, if 
Mr. H. finds his differing so much as to call upon 
him to make side hill ditches as a necessity or as an ad- 
ditional means of security, all I have to say is, that that is 
a question he and I must each determine for himself, after 
a full survey of all the points involved. There are doubt- 
less sections of country whose surface and soil may ren- 
der them necessary, and I was not aware of the extent of 
my innovations until reminded by Mr. Harmon when he 
says : 
“As to the utility and absolute necessity of hill side 
ditching there has, so far as 1 know, been but one opinon 
up to the time of Col. Cannon’s address. And there 
should be but one still, and with the planters of the cotton 
growing regions, there is or cannot be but one opinion, 
and that is, without it the country is ruined.” This 
sounds a little dogmatical, but doubtless Mr. Harmon 
meant simply to apply it to the “cotton growing regions,” 
thus shutting down upon our very clever corner of Ten- 
nessee. 
Here, however, with the very sliglrtest emphasis, I will 
just say, my experience, based upon practice, too, enables 
me to dispense safely and profitably with the time, labor 
and land devoted to them, and that I simply regard them 
as a mere temporary safe-guard against imperfect work 
in our part of the country. 
So much for the ditch itself. Another and much more 
serious difficulty presents itself to my mind, in the direc- 
tion Mr. Harmon would and does give them. I under- 
stand his plan to be to run his rows level and give his 
ditches a fall. Within my knowledge the strongest ob- 
jection ever urged against level rows and level culture, 
has been the gresd; number of short rows and short, turns it 
necessarily gives you in filling in between the unequal 
widths of your level guide rows. 
And I freely acknowledge that there is some force in the 
idea, so far as the quantity of land you can plow in any 
given length of time is concerned. The two single points 
I would particularly present as fully answering this ob- 
jection is, whether the improvement in your lands and the 
necessary increase in your crops upon even a smaller cul- 
tivated area would not well warrant this course of pre- 
paration and culture, in comparison with the wretched 
system of more rapidly running over a larger though con- 
stantly wasting and more impoverished surface, with 
straight rows up and down hill. And next, the great bene- 
fit of level culture, not only in retaining the very hasty 
and sometimes very heavy and washing summer showers, 
but also of keeping and returning to the soil every leaf, 
every boll, blade, twig and stalk that grows, and every 
atom, of manure that is put upon the land. With this sys- 
tem, my poor gullied hill sides are actually becoming my 
best land and especially so for wheat and clover. 
'^Vit^WeveTwns anos moutons.^^ I dislike parenthesis or 
digression, and do not usually indulge in either, But, 
writing rapidly and without revision, you must now ex- 
cuse me. 
Then I ask if Mr. Harmon’s plan of level rows and 
ditches with a fall, will not almost indefinitely if not un- 
necessarily, add to this the only forcible argument against 
the system we both advocate, of level rows and culture, 
by cutting them in two wherever the ditches do, as they 
must invariably cross them '? 
In ar, ,ver to “B.C.,” of Texas, I will say, so far as my 
plan of work is concerned, that nearly the whole of my 
plantation was laid off by the old fashioned common raft- 
er level and a plumb. 
I would recommend, however, the substitution of the 
spirit level for the string and plumb. Three pieces of 
timber, 2 for the two legs and 1 for the cross piece are all 
that are necessary. The size of the timber or plank as 
also the length of span to be selected to suit the taste, size 
and strength of the operator. Twelve feet span and plank 
3 by 1 inch are sufficient. I prefer the rafter level to the 
table system, as being more accurate, though pos.sibly 
somewhat slower. Each foot of ground passed over and 
each slight inequality ofsurface is, by that plan, seen by the 
person harrying the level, and advantage can be taken of 
each. Never span a break, no matter how small. When 
necessary, move the feet back and always let the front foot 
rest on its edge, on a dead level. No additional water is 
thus thrown into it, and it only has to dispose of what 
falls perpendicularly on it.- Never fail to level the entire 
field, and on no account trust anything to the eye. The 
spirit level is to be attached to the cross piece or the string 
and plumb to the apex, if you use the plumb. The num- 
ber of guide rows, to depend on the character of the land 
and surface ; more numerous, as it is most broken. I 
generally make a hand, with a plow, follow the level so as 
to make no mistake in the guide rows, then a small chap 
with sticks or a hoe to mark the row, will answer and 
save some time and the labor of the mule. One of the 
best levelers I have ever met with learned under me, and 
I know him to be as ordinarily gifted, mentally, as one in 
a hundred. It is painstaking particularly that ensures 
success in this system, and any man of common sense can 
accomplish it. 
With all the condensation I could hurriedly convey into 
this hastily written communication, its length admonish- 
es me to stop. The field I have had to go over has been 
a broad one and I feel and freely own it has had but a 
feeble gleaner in it. Much has been omitted it might have 
been proper to have put in. Among other points I was 
anxious to compare the fall of the streams around us and 
especially of the Ohio and Mississippi, with the fall we 
give our corn and cotton rows, and thus show that, mak- 
ing every hydraulic and hydrostatic allowance, the ex- 
pression I used in my address, that “a fall of 1 inch to 12 
feet (the least ever given here — many double it) gives a 
fall of 36 feet 8 inches to the mile. Over such a fall a 
thousand rills course along your cotton beds at a speed, 
compared with which the current of the mighty Missis- 
sippi would present the appearance of eddy water,” was 
not too strong, but too painfully true. 
For the purpose of directing attention to this point, and 
without going into details, I will here simply furnish a few 
facts, which, I have no doubt, will strike many with as- 
tonishment, as they did me. The three miles of fall, at 
Louisville, is but a fraction over 8 feet to the mile, and the 
Ohio, from Pittsburg to Cario — including falls at Louis- 
ville — has but a fraction over 4 inches to the mile, and 
from Evanville to Cairo, but a small fraction over 2 inches 
to tbe mile, and the entire “mighty Mississippi,” from its 
source to its mouth, has but a little over 6 inches fall per 
mile, and I have no idea that at Memphis the fall is over 
1| inches, if that. And yet hundreds here are cultivating 
land, even where they have, so they say, “taken a great 
deal of pains and put a heap of work on it to save it,” 
