THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
73 
see the crowds that are continually thronging the 
Northern cities and places of amusement. 1 
have heard the number variously estimated at 
from 40 to 60 thousand m one summer. Taking 
the lower estimate of the two, and allowing for 
the expenses of each individual S300, (and this 
is certainly below the mark,) we shall have 
S12,000,000 transferred yearly from the South 
to the North, by absenteeism. As bad off as we 
know South Carolina to be, yet we are cer- 
tain she furnishes her full quota of this immense 
sum. Go where you may, in the city or out ol 
it — in what direction you please, and you can 
scarcely set your foot into a railroad car, in 
which you will not find some half dozen persons 
froin this State. The register book of every 
fashionable hotel that I visited, exhibited a large 
share of names, with South Carolina aUached 
to them. Nor are our people remarkable for 
their economical habits, as the bar-keepers will 
inform you, that their wine bills exhibit liberali- 
ty even to wastefulness. You may see them, too, 
flying around cities, in the finest and most costly 
equippages that money can procure, and while 
a. millionare of New York is content to ride in 
an oT/inibuSj from AVall-strect to the upper part 
of the city, many of these persons, not worth 
ten thousand dollars, would be ashamed to be 
seen in such vehicles. With tailors, .milliners, 
mantua-makers, &c., these persons are consider- 
ed to have gold without measure, and it is a per- 
fect windfall for them to meet occasionally with 
one. You cannot step into a furniture store, 
carpet warehouse, or dry goods establishment, 
where fine silks and laces are sold, without 
meeting persons from our State, making lavish 
expenditures and purchasing thousands of arti- 
cles of wearing apparel, which are not worn 
until they return home, where the same articles 
can be obtained in stores of our own tradesmen, 
at cheaper rates th3.n those at which they were' 
purchased at the North. 
“Atone tailor’s establishment in Boston, I 
was informed by the proprietor, that his sales 
for the last year, to Charleston alone, amounted 
to upwards of 850,000, and this year he expect- 
ed they would reach S80,000. How much trade 
others in Boston in the same business receive 
from Charleston, and what amount falls to the 
lot of the fashionable clothiers of New York 
pd Phdadelphia, cannot be estimated, but there 
is little doubt, that the amount wmuli be found 
quite sufficient to support three or four fashion- 
able establishments in our own citv.” 
Subsoil Pioiving. 
We cannot impress too strongly on the minds 
of our readers the importance of subsoil plow- 
ing. In the Southern part of the United States, 
so liable, of late years, to long and parching 
droughts, it may be set down as being very 
nearly the first element of success. Manure is 
essential— just as essential to the well being of 
plants, as are corn and hay for animals. Yet, if 
there is anything that will enable us to do with 
less manure than would otherwise be necessary, 
it is subsoil plowing; simply because, by loosen- 
ing the soil to a greater depth, it furnishes to the 
roots of plants a more extensiim range, in which 
to collect their food, and gives them a power of 
resisting drought which no one will believe pos- 
sible until he shall have seen it. 
We cannot get subsoil plows here except at a 
very heavy and unreasonable expense for trans- 
portation, there being no manufactory of the 
article at the South yet, so far as we know ; and 
perhaps those made for Northern soils, even il 
we could get them readily, would not suit our 
purposes, in our light and exhausted soils. The 
best substitute will be to use a good turning 
plow to the depth of the top soil. In the bottom 
of the furrow run two or three times, as deep as 
it can be made to go, what is usually known as 
a coulter, turn the next furrow of top soil on 
to the subsoil thus loosened; then use the coul- 
ter as before, in the bottom of the new furrow 
and so on, through the whole field. So great is 
the benefit of thus loosening the subsoil, that we 
have seen it confidently stated that the produce 
of any soil would be doubled by this process, 
without a particle of manure. 
If any one would like to see subsailing, as 
we have described it, effectually and neatly done, 
he has only to visit the plantation of Judge 
Dougherty, near Athens, 
“ By cultivation,” says the American Far- 
mer, from which we quote what follows, “the 
potash on the surface, originally existing in 
most soils, is taken up by the growing plants, 
and unless such soils be periodically ashed, in 
the course of a series of years, that portion of 
the land within the reach of the roots, must be- 
come deprived of this necessary element of its 
fertility, and hence it is, that soils which were 
once renowned for their wheat-producing quali- 
ties, cease to yield that grain in such quantities 
as to render its culture profitable. Without 
potash be present, the sand of the soil cannot 
be dissolved, and as that is the essential princi- 
ple in the formation of the outer c/ust of coim- 
stalks,as well as that of all the families of small 
grain, as wheat, barley, rye, &c.,the exhaustion 
of cultivation must either be supplied by the 
application of ashes, or some other alkaline sub- 
stance possessing the attribute of di.ssolving the 
sand, and forming the compound called the 
silicate of potash, or the culturist must draw 
upon the subsoil fov a supply. Hence, then, it is 
obvious, thatihere is no other way left, of pro- 
curing such supply from beneath the surface, in. 
the first instance, but by breaking up the subsoil, 
and bringing it within the indirect chemical ac- 
tion of the solai and atmospheric influences, 
and ultimately of turning portions of it up to 
be directly acted upon by the same powerful 
agents; thereby not only commingling an im- 
jJortant ingredient with the theretofore exhausted 
surface soil, but deepening the bed of the plants, 
and thus enhancing the range whence they de- 
rive their sustenance. 
“ If the subsoiling of land wms productive of 
no other good effects than those we have alluded 
to, it would be worth four times the cost it may 
occasion. But there are other beneficial result- 
ing effects. In moderately moist lands, by-the 
process of percolation, which it encourages and 
augments, subsoiiing serves to relieve-the roots 
of the superabundance of water which, in tena- 
cious clays, always abounds, and imparts to 
them the medium of healthful existence. We 
mention in this connection ‘moderately moist 
lands,’ because where they may be what is tech- 
nically called wetlands, subsoiling might prove 
not to be an effectual means of draining, and it 
might be found necessary and proper to drain- 
such lands by covered or open drains, prior to the 
operation of subsoiling. But even in wet lands . 
it would be found highly efficacious, because, 
although the operation might not be sufficient of 
itself, yet it would prove of infinite service. By 
deepening the soil, moisture, in times of drought, 
would be much longer maintained than in shal- 
low tilth, as it is a well established fact, that its 
tendency is upwards, and that that tendency is 
encouraged by the voltaic action of the roots— 
therefore, as a necessary consequence,the plants 
wmuld draw a supply from the subsoil long after 
the moisture in the surface soil would have been 
abstracted by the sun and air. 
Having thus briefly stated our views ol the 
goodeffects of subsoiling, we would be permitted 
to ask some of our agricultural friends, to make 
experiments to test the efficacy of subsoiling. 
This may be done by subsoiling an acre of corn 
ground, and simply plowing the adjoining acre, 
manuring and cultivating both alike, and meas- 
uring the product of each. We do not profess 
to be a prophet, but we will venture the pro- 
phec}^ that the subsoiled acre would yield one- 
third more than the one which was not — and 
surely if an operation which will cost no more 
than the ordinary plowing of an acre will add 
so much to the production of the soil, no man 
should hesitate to make an experiment, because 
his interest — fhai great lever which propels man- 
kind onward to exertion— will be inevitably pro- 
moted by it.” 
The Alpaca. 
-^llcn, of the American Agriculturist, 
says. Keeping Alpacas on the mountain 
ranges of the Southern States, would yield the 
plante.rs large profits, and compensate them for 
the low price of cotton on the seaboard.” Mr. 
Hatch, of the Western Cultivator, says; “In 
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Geor- 
gia, there are mountains and highlands enough, 
if converted into walks for the sheep of the 
Andes (Alpacas,) as wquld, in a very few years, 
add a million to the annual income of those 
States.” 
We have here, from two remote and widely 
different quarters. New York and Indiana, at 
the same time, an indication of a new pursuit 
for the people of the South. That the intro- 
duction of the Alpaca would be attended with 
very great advantages, if it should succeed, we 
have no doubt. The wmol is in great demand 
for the manufacture of the very fine and pecu- 
liar cloth so much prized by the ladies, three and 
an bail millions of pounds having been import- 
ed into England last year. 
The Alpaca is represented to be a very gen- 
tle, docile and graceful creature, living and 
thriving on coarser food than commonsheep re- 
quire, and enduring the winter better. Indeed, 
the principal difficulty attending the attempt to 
introduce them into England, is thought to arise 
from the excessive luxuriance of English pas- 
tures. But even with this disadvantage, the 
animal is found to come to maturity sooner, by 
two years, in England, than in the Peruvian 
mountains; and the fleece is increased from ten 
to seventeen pounds. Their flesh, when young, 
is eatable— the carcass weighing about 180 lbs. 
But the wool is the chief article of value, being 
fine, soft and silky, and commanding high prices 
and ready sales. 
Alpacas can be bought of the Earl of Derby, 
near Liverpool, fur about two hundred dollars 
per pair. But they can be brought from their 
native country at less expense. The first cost 
and e.xpense of transportation to the shinning 
