I'HE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
(ffitiginal Commitnicntions. 
Manures. — Do they Sink or Evaporate ? 
Mr. Editor In the last number of the Cul- 
tivator, you invite planters and farmers to write 
■out their experience for publication, not stilting 
themselves on “big words” from the dictionary, 
but in plain language, such as would be used in 
talking with each other, you kindly promising to 
correct errors in spelling and grammar. Embol- 
dened by the invitation and promise, and holding 
you to the latter, I address myself to the work 
proposed, and although I give no experiments of 
hty own, I hope to make some useful remarks on 
the experiments of another, to wit: a brother far 
mer (at least I suppose he is one) living over in 
South Carolina, who writes for the Temperance 
Advocate, (an excellent paper that, I know from 
its name,) and whose essay you republished on 
page 7Q and called it “ excellent.” Now, I am a 
farmer, and want to talk to friend “ Coatswood” 
(the writer referred to) as if we were neighbors, 
and had just met and were sitlingonthe dividing 
fence between our farms, or just out of the field 
on a log in the shade. But as I can’t write a di- 
alogueri must do all of the talking myself, and 
beg your indulgence, Mr. Editor, if I write in a 
discennected and desultory manner. 
Every farmer will concur with the South Car- 
olinian in advising that manures be so applied as 
to secure their most lasting benefits, as well as 
in the caution to guard against waste. But in 
determining as to the best means of doing the 
one, or avoiding the other, many things must be 
kept in view, such as the kind of soil and subsoil, 
the sort of crop, the mode of cultivation, &c. — 
points on which I shall say but little or nothing 
now, only so far as aiay become necessary in d's- 
cussing the question, “does manure ever sink?" 
or rather, in reviewing certain experiments made 
to sustain the negative of that question. 
Coatswood denies that it can sink, and proceeds 
to the proof on this wise : He fills a cider barrel 
nearly to the top with clean sand, then pours on 
the sand the “ most impure liquid manure 5 ” af- 
ter which he is able to draw off “nearly pure 
watei-” from a hole in the lower end of the barrel. 
He says, too, “the impurities which constitute 
the manure will have been detained by the sand, 
by filtration, within a short distance of the top of 
the barrel'” Right curious, this! If C. econo- 
mises no better in other things than he does in 
labor-saving, he will net de tor a teacher in agri- 
culture. Two and a half feet of sand in the bar- 
rel, and the manure detained by the sand within a 
“ short distance” of the top ! Now, it seems to 
me that a “ short distance” of sand in the barrel, 
say six inches, would have saved two feet of la- 
bor, i. e., the labor of putting in the two feet of 
unnecessary sand. For I suppose he will admit 
that six inches, perhaps less, is a “ short dis- 
tance” of sand. But peradventure he had some 
apprehensions that with less than a barrel full of 
sand, the water might not have been so pure 
as it was; and he says it was “ nearly pure,” 
net perfectly. Next I would inquire what does 
C. mean by impure liquid manure? He certain- 
ly does not mean v/ine, for in filtering that arti- 
cle, “ I guess,” he would not have found much 
of the impurities about the top. 1 suppose 
something from a Bommer vat, or perhaps a buck- 
et of water brought to the consistency of unboil- 
ed mush by due admixtures from the stable, or 
cowpen, or henhouse, would make the liquid ex- 
perimented with. A.t all events either of these 
will do, on the score of impurity, for such an ex- 
periment; and we (repeating the experiment) 
take some and throw it up, the water sinks, the 
fibrous, earthy, and such like parts constituting 
the chief bulk, remain on top ; the finer parts of 
decomposed matter sink deeper, and the still fi- 
ner deeper still, until the water gets to the bottom 
and is dravrn “ from the spigot (he means the 
hole) nearly pure water” — that is, freed from all 
the grosser animal, vegetable and earthy impu- 
rities, but still holding in solution or suspension 
some organic matter and all the soluble salts 
which the manure contained — salts highly prized 
now-a-days for their fertilizing properties — and 
he will not deny, “in this day of enlightenment,” 
that they possess such properties. But, if he 
does, I wash my hands of his agricultural heresy 
and turn him over to Liebig to be better instruct- 
ed. _ Salts can’t be separated from water by fil- 
tration. Distillation and evaporation, which arc 
nearly the same in principle, are the only means 
by which it can be done, (except some little 
things in this line that chemists sometimes do, 
and w'hich are entirely irrelevant ) No, friend 
Coatswood, you can’t do it; at least this is my 
opinion. But if you can, your fortune is made. 
“All that a man hath will he give for his life.” 
Let mariners know your success. Let all cum- 
brous water casks be given to the waves, and 
your filter be used in their stead, and then fam- 
ishing at sea for fresh water will never happen 
until the ocean dries up. 
C. next says it is upon this principle that far- 
mers clarify cider, grocers purify wine, and con- 
fectioners do something, thatisnot printed for our 
edification. But 1 guess the cider remains sw^eet, 
and the wine alcoholic, after the process, each 
retaining every essential quality and constituent, 
otherwise it would be a losing business to them, 
and proof against me. 
“If we look at the operations of nature,” says 
C., “ we shall recognise it there. If the impuri- 
ties on or near the surface of the earth w'ere car- 
ried down by rain, we should never be able to get 
a palatable drink of water.” Now, that is a fact : 
just the thing I am trying to prove. If you will 
come down here, friend C., into our fiat piney 
woods country — where the whole face of the 
earth is too level for water to run off, and as po- 
rous and sandy as that barrel you “fixed” — and 
drink some of our best water, from gushing 
springs and wells, as you poetically call them, 
you will conclude with me, that you never wrote 
or uttered a truer sentiment in your life, for the 
best is bad indeed, from the cause above stated, 
and the bad, though strained of wiggle- tails, is 
yet decidedly “unpalatable.” 
The next experiment i notice is a bottomless 
box, filled with manure, and put on a stone, ex- 
posed to sun and rain. In reference to which 
our writer says, “ a method which I select as 
rendering it certain that no part can sink” — a 
sentiment in which I most heartily concur with 
him. But he will find that there is another way 
of “ escape” besides “ at the top,” if he will go 
to the box the next rainy day, and see the rich 
looking ooze (tobacco chewers know the color) 
that fiows from it. An ooze that hundreds of us 
misguided and ignorant country people use to 
water and enrich our plant beds, imagining it is 
the strength of the manure, so far as decomposi- 
tion has disengaged its strenath, and roundly as- 
serting and -pertinaciously maintaining that plants 
grow faster, get bigger, and look better by its use 
than those in the next row that receive no such 
attent'km. 
Friend C. next says, manure exposed “to sun 
alone will in a very short time become entirely 
inert.” If this be so, Mr. Editor, you, as a bene- 
volent man ought to give extensive publicity to 
it, a, id save from unnecessary labor and exposure 
the thousand mariners that frequent the sunny 
little island of Ichaboe to procure that worthless 
stuff Guano, which has been accumulating there 
since the days of our great grand father Noah. 
Our essayist says manure is sooner lost on 
sandy than on clayey land, and accounts for it by 
the greater heat of the former producing increas- 
ed evaporation- I admit there is more or less 
lost in any kind ofland by evaporation, and more 
in sandy than in clayey lands. This is partly 
owing to the greater heat, and partly to the want 
of tenacity in the former, facilitating its escape 
upwards or downwards, as rain or sunshine may 
favor the one or the other, By leaching ashes we 
get ley, the water percolates (allow one dictiona- 
ry word) the ashes, dissolves the potash, and 
comes out ley, or potash in solution, and in this 
solution are many impurities. Is it any more 
strange or unreasonable that the strength of ma- 
nure should sink more or less in any land, but 
especially in sandy lands which have not a good 
clay or “ stone” foundation 7 If manure don’t 
sink, how happens it that corn i? so much bene- 
fited by it when thrown on the top of the ground 
around each hill, and that too before the manure 
is covered ■ndtli earth 7 Why is the water “un- 
palatable,” where there are large districts of very 
rich land, esp.-^cially level land, whatever may be 
the nature of the undersoil or substratum, if salts 
can be filtered out, and organic matter never 
sinks 7 Why the deterioration of water in cities 
and even in some of our country towns, which 
have been long built and densely populated? — 
How does a meathouse near a well injure its wa- 
ter? Let C. answer these, audit will be an an- 
swer to a hundred kindred questions that misht 
be propounded. Professor Brandesays, he “fre- 
quently found the wells of London contaminated 
by organic matter,” and Dr. Clark, professor of 
Chemistry in Maiischal College, Aberdeen, states 
“that the organic matter which passes i”.to the 
water from sewers is not separable by filtration.” 
The analysis of other waters would show the 
same result. Indeed, for some water no chemi- 
cal test or apparatus is needed. The tongue and 
the nose decide the question. 
Mr. Editor, that abominable tyrant. Fashion, 
rules in other things besides dress, furniture, 
equipage, &c. ; he invades our ancient, honora- 
ble andinderendent province. I deny his right, 
and abjure all allegiance to him. He now says, 
every thins like manure exhales or evaporates. 
What will he say next 7 
One interpolated extract from friend Coats- 
wood and I shall be done for the present. “ I 
have shown that manure does” sink as well as 
evaporate, and does both “more rapidly from 
sand than from clay. What is the necessary in- 
ference? Is it not that the practice of makinga 
shallower deposit in sand than in clay” should be 
continued where there is not a good clay founda- 
tion. May, 1945. Salamander. 
Bermnda Grass. 
Mr. Camak : — I have seen in the v’arious peri- 
odicals of the day, a number of communications 
upon the subject of Bermuda Grass; and as I 
have, perhaps, had more dealings with that grass 
than any man in the country, permit me to give 
you the result of my experience with that “ crit- 
ter.” I have had the Bermuda grass on spots of 
my land for seventeen years or more, and 1 have 
tried all reasonable ways to destroy it, hut I have 
found only one plan to succeed ; and that is, to 
plow it up in the winter, two or three times, deep 
and well; in the spring, afterit puts up, with the 
aid of a mattock under its roots, pull up every 
living particle that can be found, shake the dirt 
well out of its roots, and expose it to the hot sun 
for several days, then turn it over and expose it 
again in like manner; plow the ground again ; 
let it lie until what grass is left comes up tolera- 
bly well ; treat this crop as before, and repeat. 
This course, in two j'ears, will effectually destroy 
it. Never disturb it with the plow or hoe only 
expressly to destroy it. 
The idea of destroying it by covering it up, or 
by sowing the ground in small grain for several 
years in succession, or by cultivating the ground 
in any other way, is all a notion founded on inex- 
perience. I have covered it over with green pine 
brush, cut small, laid close as possible, and pack- 
ed hard, waist deep, and have adopted various 
other plans to destroy it, but none have succeed- 
ed at all, at all, but the plan before mentioned. 
Covering it over well with brush, green or dryu 
and letting it remain there a month or two, arid 
then burning it off, or burning log heaps upon it 
in order to destroy it, I know, from experience, to 
be labor lost. Planking it over, as some have 
suggested, and breaking the joints, to say noth- 
ing of the expense of the project, is all nonsense. 
The idea has gone abroad that it will not grow in 
the shade, in briar beds, nor in the woods. This 
idea is partly true. It does not grow so well un- 
der these circumstances, nevertheless I can show 
it growing under all these circumstances. I can 
show it growing in a briar bed that reminds me 
of Fall’s thicket, so dense “he could not stick a 
butcher knife in it;” and yet it grows luxuriant- 
ly, and is now from knee to waist high, and thick 
as grass gets to be. 
It is said to enrich land. This may be true, 
but I have never reaped any benefits from it in 
this way. All the profits that I have ever realis- 
ed from it, in any way whatever, have come to 
me “ over the left shoulder.” Some say it makes 
first rate pasturage. My experience upon this 
point is this : I have an acre of ground in front 
of my house covered with it, and another acre at 
the end of my house that has but little of the 
Bermuda grass upon it. On an average, I find 
ten head of stock grazing upon the acre that has 
but little of the Bermuda grass upon it, to where 
I find one head of stock feeding upon the Bermu- 
da acre, notwithstanding the Bermuda acre is 
well matted and always affords good grazing, 
whilst the other acre is kept fed to the ground. 
I have a calf pasture of about ten acres, tolera- 
bly well spotted over with Bermuda grass, and 
the balance of the ground is covered vith broom 
sedge and other spontaneous productions. The 
Bermuda is often suffered to head whilst the oth- 
er grass is kept cropt to the ground. 
