214 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
CI^EARIAG SWAMP EANDS. 
Editors Southrrn Cultivator — It seems that the most 
of your correspondents take position in favor of clear- 
ing up and cultivating the swamp and pond lands, and it 
is my honest opinion that if the commenders of this im- 
portant subject were to give it a calm and dispas-sionate 
consideration in all of its ramifications and not depend so 
much upon imagination and supposition, they would find 
that much hard labor and money is disbursed for that 
which has never returned, nor ever will return ample 
recompense. Ido not write from imagination or suppo- 
sition on this subject, as the most of your correspondents 
do; but I write as an individual who has had full expe- 
rience in the cultivation of swamp and pond lands. My 
father has got just as good swamp and pond lands as 
there are in the State of Georgia, and has taken just as 
much pains in clearing it up, ditching, and subsoiling it 
as any man could have taken, and notwithstanding he 
has had his pond land in cultivation, particularly for the 
last five or six years, it has never paid him for the money 
and time which he consumed in ditching it ; and except 
through contingency, it never will. There are two 
things particularly to be taken into consideration in re- 
gard to the clearing up of swamp and pond land, and two 
things, I have no doubt, if they had their practical bear- 
rings among the people, would cause a great many who 
are now involving themselves head and ears in debt to 
Irishmen for cutting moats to dry their lands, to re- 
frain from doing it — the first is, the amount of money and 
time that is to be consumed in putting it in the right 
plight for cultivation ; secondly, the precariousness of the 
crop after you get it in the right plight for cultivation. 
And I know of individuals in my own neighborhood who 
have immerged themselves into their swamps from the 
want of forethought or common sense, I know not which, 
and have been broken totally and absolutely forever by 
not having the means sufficiently to pull them out And 
I would advise every individual, as well as myself, who 
has to exercise dubiousness of the weight of his purse, to 
keep out of those swamps and ponds. J. W. 01. 
Jefferson County, May, 1857. 
ROTARY DIGGERS, SUBSOIEING-CONCRETE 
HoHseg»-Greea Manure, &c. 
Editors Southern Cultivator— In your May num- 
ber of the Southern Cultivator I find, as usual, many use- 
ful hints and statements. Among those I remarked Mr. 
Nelson’s brief notice in regard to Gibb’s Rotary Digger. I 
have seen that Digger in operation, and I agree with Itfr. 
Nelson on all points. Subsoiling even if it could be done 
by that machine, isvery good, but will never make a per- 
manent deep soil. The subsoil can be broken and thus 
answers for one crop or season. However, nothing makes 
an actually lasting deep soil, but mixing and assimilating 
the substrata with the vegetable soil. I would not ad- 
vise any farmer to bury the top soil deeply under, all at 
once, and bring up the inert clay, but to do it by degrees 
two inches of red clay or any other dormant subsoil 
with the exception of pebbles or coarse gravel, mixed with 
6 or 8 inches of the cultivated upper soil will not affect its 
fertility; on the contrary, it will give new strength to the 
old crust and bring in it some of the potash or lime usual- 
ly to be found in our subsoils, where they are deposited 
by their specific gravity. Three years of such a treatment 
in succession would make a good bed for the roots of all 
the farm ptoducts ; it would add six inches of new soil 
containing new and vi^jorous elements to the old soil de- 
prived of most of the substances to be found in virgin 
soils; afier that, subsoiling would prove more effectual 
In the Oid Country w'here land is scarce and population 
thickly settled, thorough cultivation of the soil is a neces- 
sity. I have often witnessed the wonderful results of deep 
cultivation on rather poor soils, and I can safely recom- 
mend it. 
One of the very best methods is the following: — A fur- 
row is made with a one or two horse team, according to 
the quality of soil, (clay or silicium,) using a plow with a 
mould board which throws the sod over fairly. In the 
same furrow follows an ordinary plow with two horses, 
and if the first furrow is opened wide enough, all the sod 
or ill weeds will be buried deep enough so as to be cover- 
ed partly by two or three inches of the subsoil. The Mi- 
chigan Double Plow does it well enough, but it' requires 
four horses or mules ; and I think those two separate 
double teams accomplish the work better and with a great 
deal less traction. 
This result cannot be obtained by Gibb’s Digger, which 
as, Mr. N. remarks, does the work of a mole, and is al- 
together too heavy, too complicated, and too high in price 
to be used extensively. Complicated machinery, clogging 
easily or getting out of order at a great distance from the 
black smith shop, should be avoided on large farms. But 
the best results of double plowing is the burying of 
the ill weeds and their destruction by a fine growth of the 
next crop. 
In some parts of Belgium, where pine woods are sown 
and planted as regularly as cotton or sugar crops, the 
heaJh can only be subdued by turning up the subsoil, poor 
as it is, and covering the heath sods, so as to let the pine 
seed have the start, before the heath can make its way to 
the surface and destroy most ot the young pines, very 
weak in their first and second years growth. Absence of 
ill weeds is, in most cases, as good, if not better, than 
manure; and to prevent their baneful influence on any 
crop, deep burying of the plants and roots is the cheapest 
and best remedy. 
In regard to your at tide upon Concrete Rock walls and 
their durability I will only state that I have known a large 
and fine residence built in that way, perhaps some hun- 
dred and fifty years ago, four stories high, in perfect state 
of preservation. I allude to the conspicuous residence of 
Col. Nightingale on the Southern point of Cumberland 
Island, Ga. This buildingis in close vicinity to the ocean, 
and exposed to all kinds of storms from the main deep, it 
is built on the same principle, with nothing but oyster 
shells in a mortar of the same burned oyster shells and 
white sand. It has stood there for more than a century, 
and shows no sign of decay. If oyster shells, will do I 
guess rock or granite will do much better. 
While I was with you, I heard many complaints about 
the scarcity and high price of manure. I believe a plant- 
tation could be benefitted a good deal by turning undev 
green crops; for instance in planting corn could you not 
find some rank growing herb or plant to be sown in the 
empty space between the rows of the corn ; as your cow 
peas or any other fast growing plant I If that could make 
a growth of 4 or 5 inches with thick stems and spreading 
foliage as tUe pea, before the first plovving of the corn. It 
could be buried, and bring by its decomposition potash 
and other principles for the use of the corn plant. Albeit 
I would strongly recommend a late crop of such kind of 
plants after the corn is removed to be turned under late in 
November, before any frost would kill it, and diminish its 
f-riilizing properties. In my country sperguta (a good 
food for cattle on light soils) is often used as the only ma- 
nure for rye and with a very good result. 
I am aware that the objection to my plan of a green 
crop among corn would be the difficulty of the operation. 
It would, of course require a deep furrow.^ in the middle, 
while ill the ordinary way there is only two light furrows 
for the corn and no middle plowing; but I will try it as 
soon as possible. Yours, &c., B. 
