SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
139 
everythin" possible from cultivated fields, and giv- 
ing very little or nothing in return. Commerce is King, 
and is pretty sure to push and enlarge his dominion, re- 
gardless of any damage that may be done to the planting, 
grain-growing and grazing lands of continents and islands. 
Commerce rarely looks beyond immediate profits; and, 
consequently, it does much to foster a hand-to-mouth prac- 
tica of agriculture. Intelligent commercial men ought to 
consider the future wants of their calling, and co-operate 
with those far-seeing cultivators and land-holders, who 
seek to augment and perpetuate the natural resources of 
the farming interest. But instead of this, commerce every- 
where urges planters and farmers to give the largest pos- 
sible quantity for export, without bestowing a thought on 
the sad consequences of covering whole States with bar- 
ren, and deserted old fields. Few have the courage to 
commend this desolating work; and yet, strange to say, 
'fewer have the higher courage to labor earnestly to re- 
move the popular mistake. 
A reft)rmation is most likely to ensue if we can intro- 
duce a diversified agriculture into districts now distin- 
guished for the growth of one staple, and for their general 
dependence on buying nearly all the other articles con- 
sumed. 
When the favorite staple is high, and the year favor- 
able to its production, of course they make heaps of 
money ; but they take great risks, and in turn are com- 
■oelled to pay high prices for mules, negroes, provisions, 
groceries, and other plantation supplies. ’The same Di- 
vine law that covers a plantation with many kinds of 
forest trees^ and many species of smaller plants, in a state 
of nature, adapts it to the economical production of differ- 
ent crops, whose aggregate value is considerably larger 
than that of any one crop, for a series of years, possibly 
can be. Hence, the most thorough study of the latent re- 
sources of arable land serves only to confirm the wisdom 
of having winter wheat, rye and barley, and winter grass- 
es, to grow in winter and early spring, as well as cotton 
and corn to grow in summer and autumn. Every advant- 
age of climate and of soil deserves serious consideration ; 
but this is never done by men of one idea. To accumulate 
the food of their staple in the earth w’here it is expected to 
■flourish, is a refinement on planting a little beyond their 
sphere of thought and action. 
And yet, all winter growing cereals and grasses can 
easily be made to yield valuable manure, and on that ac- 
count, if no other, they deserve attention. A wool-grower 
in New Hampshire recently sold his staple crop for 
$15,000, and at something like sixty cents a pound. His 
advantages for keeping sheep will not compare with those 
•of some thousands of our readers. The profits of sheep 
husbandry are little understood at the South, or the busi- 
ness would be more practiced, and encouraged by legal 
restraints on the depredations ofdogs. Rightly managed, 
sheep will do much to enrich a farm. In what way they 
do this on the best wheat-growing farms in New York, 
Pensylvania and Ohio, we will explain in another article. 
Hogs, horses and cattle will effect the same renovating 
purpose, where one fully comprehends both the means, 
and the objects sought. As no animal produces some- 
thing from nothing, at first view, it v/ould appear absurd 
to say that the mere existence and growth of domestic 
animals on a farm could add to its fruitfulness ; and with- 
out good husbandry, such is the fact. 
By the terms "good husbandry” we mean a thorough 
knowledge of the principal ways and means by which 
soils are both improved and deteriorated, and the careful 
avoidance of the one, and adoption of the other. Almost 
all farms have living springs of water upon them ; and 
on all arable land, water that has passed into the ground 
and appears again in a running fountain, brings with it 
in soluUon both the mineral and organic food of plants. 
Stock of all kinds drink daily of such water, and in the 
course of a year, drop in their solid and liquid excretions, 
over the fields where they are kept, many pounds of fer- 
tilizing matter derived from water alone. These elements 
of fertility never would get out of the spring, branch or 
river and upon distant uplands, without the aid of the live 
stock in question. 
Again : almost all low grounds more abound in the food 
of plants than uplands, for the obvious reason that water 
is ever passing from the latter to the former, and quite as 
much beneath the surface as above it ; and in both cases 
water conveys the raw material of crops from the higher 
to the lower soil. Grasses, cane-brake, and all other food 
for stock being uniformly more abundant along the banks 
of rivers, creeks, and smaller streams, and in low grounds 
generally, all graminiverous animals go to these grand 
sources of kixuriant herbage to fill themselves, and then 
often seek higher and drier land on which to^ ruminate 
and sleep. Hence on the latter much of their valuable 
manure is deposited. In this way nature gives back to 
uplands, a part of the essential elements of vegetation 
which she had removed in the water that percolated through 
the earth to form a living spring or branch. Can man 
learn nothing from these interesting facts 1 Yes, he may 
learn much. 
1st. That so far as plants ofany kind are formed of ele- 
ments brought to them in moving water, or air, the land 
whereon they grow never can be exhausted. 
2ad. Such crops or plants, like those of the irrigated 
parts of the Nile valley, may all be exported without in- 
jury, or be made into the very best of manure to enrich 
any other cultivated earth. 
3rd. Live stock, having the natural power of cheap lo- 
comotion, can be driven by hundreds and thousands from 
parts where their food is scarce to those places where it 
most abounds, and back again, partly to transfer the 
cheapest possible manure from one place to another, and 
partly to produce a full supply of working horses, mules, 
and oxen, of milch kine, wool and meat. 
4th. This plan of drawing fertility from all running 
water, and all low ground where water largely evaporates, 
co-operates admirably with that feature in good husband- 
ry which draws largely on the subsoil both on uplands 
and lowlands, to increase the fruitfulness of the surface 
soil All green crops grown and plowed in are of the 
latter character ; it is, however, often unwise to depend 
exclusively on the subsoil and the atmosphere. Manure 
of some kind is needful ; and the question is how to pro- 
duce it at a moderate and reasonable cost! 
Our advice is, examine your low grounds carefully in 
that connection. Whether they shall be in good pastures 
meadows, corn, or cotton, your local circumstances, and 
professional knowledge can best determine. If drainage 
is necessary, you will practic it. All we venture to say 
is, that good bottom lands are under-valued at the South 
for their capacity to enrich the adjoining uplands, as 
well as yield the great staples of the country. There is, 
however, more difference in the quality of low grounds, 
from one extreme to its opposite, than in arable uplands. 
This diversity affords another argument in favor of a truly 
diversified system of tillage and husbandry. In this way 
one 'S able to make the most of any local advantage, 
whether by irrigationd-rainage, breeding and rearing 
stock, or simply planting in connection with wheat-cul- 
ture. L. 
Death from Snuff. — The Intelligencer, pubKshed at 
Austin, Texas, notices the death of a little girl some 5 or 
6 years old, from the effects of taking snuff. She was so 
adicted to its use, child as she was, that she literally ate 
it and lived on it. Let this circumstance be a warni#g^ 
all snuff-dippers. 
