THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
7 
ting and improving this too long neglected 
branch ot industry. With these remarks, gentle- 
men, lest I weary your patience, I leave this 
paitot my subject. I do so the more cheerful- 
ly from the fact that you have already intrusted 
it to abler hands. At a very full meeting in Ju- 
ly last, this club unanimously passed resolu- 
tions declaratory of its views upon this subject. 
A committee was also appointed to wait upon 
and petition the Legislature to make an appro- 
priation for this purpose. That committee, I 
am happy to say, is composed of gentlemen ev- 
ery way qualified to discharge this important 
duty ; ana I have no doubt they will place this 
subject in such a light before the Legislature 
as will secure for it that careful consideration 
which its importance detnands. 
The greatest obstacle now in the way of im- 
provement of land in this county, is the unac- 
countable pertinacity with which our people 
continue to grow cotton at the present low pri- 
ces, to the utter neglect of almost all other 
crops. 
There is nothing clearer than that the grow- 
ing of large crop.s of cotton is incompatible 
with the imorovement of land. The amount of 
labor requisite to prepare the land, plant, culti- 
vate and save a full crop of cotton to the hand, 
is so great as to leave no time to devote to mak- 
ing and applying manure, without which there 
can be no permanent improvement. 
That any system of agriculture which im- 
poses upon the people of a country the necessity 
of buying a large portion of the necessaries of 
life, will finally lead to impoverishment and 
ruin seems to be so plain and self-evident a pro- 
position, as not to need demonstration. The 
policy therefore of being dependent upon other 
States for any portion of our pork, flour, horses, 
mules, and many other articles which we might 
easily and profitably raise ourselves, becomes 
doubly doubtful, when vie consider the low price 
of cotton, and the vast amount of labor it lakes 
to raise a sufficient amount of this commodity 
to purchase these articles. Now, if we can so 
diversity the agricultural labor of the county as 
to raise an ample sufficiency of these indispen 
sable tiecessaries to supply the countv, and 
could realize in the way of saving w’hat we 
should lose by cutting down the crop of cotton, 
it would be a great gain to the county, because 
it would enable us to substitute a system of 
cultivation which, so far from exhausting and 
wearing out our lands, would give us ample 
opportun ity to improve them. It behooves us, 
therefore, to weigh well the propriety of cur- 
tailing our crops of cotton; to rely as much 
as possible upon our own resources, to live 
within ourselves, and to raise enough and to 
spare of everything in the way of .necessaries, 
which can be profitably raised on our farms. 
One of the most mischievous and mistaken 
notions w'hich has ever taken bold of the minds 
of the farming community, is the nlea that good 
farming consists in the greatest number of cot- 
ton bags produced to the hand. This is not 
true; for it is too often the case, that thin is 
done at the e.Tpense of everything else. Good 
farming is the very opposite of this. It consists 
in a steady, piogressive improvement of land, 
negroes, stock, farm buildings, fences, and eve- 
rything that pertains to farm economy, combin- 
ed wdth fair remunerating profits from the pro- 
ceeds of crops. This principle is clearly ex- 
emplified in a majority of instances, by those 
who have accumulated fortunes in this county 
by farming. 
One of the greatest defects in our mode of 
farming is the want of a proper system of ro- 
tation of crops. The practice of planting land 
in corn or cotton for a series of years in succes 
sion, cannot be too nighly condemned or too 
readily discarded on every well regulated farm. 
The better plan would be to divide the farm in- 
to four fields, and to plant one-fourth in corn, 
one-fourth in cotton, sow one-iourlh in small 
grain, and let the remaining fourth lie at rest, 
and by alternating so as to plant cotton and 
small grain after corn, combined with a judi- 
cious system of manuring, our land so far from 
wearing out and becoming poor, would gradu- 
ally improve and become rich. This system, 
whilst it would tend todiminish the cotton crop, 
would more than make up for the deficiency in 
the surplus of small gram, and the increased 
facility it would afford in producing pork, cattle 
and horses — a surplus of which could always 
be sold at prices corresponding to the price ot 
cotton. 
Whilst we cannot appreciate too highly the 
importance of the wheal crop, and the proprie- 
ty of extending its cultivation and improving 
its quality, yet it is upon the corn crop that we 
must mainly rely lor our bre idstuffs, and to 
furnish tood lor our stock. This has become 
to us of the older parts of this country, 
the greatest and most valuable of all crops. 
There is probably nothing within the whole 
range of agriculture of such vital importance 
to our farmers as a proper understanding of the 
best modes ol planting and cultivating this 
crop. I cannot, therefore, belter improve this 
occasion than by directing your attention to a 
few praciical suggestions, the result of my own 
experience in relation to the cultivation of this 
important crop. 
My plan, whenever it is practicable, is to 
plant corn alter cotton, sow small grain after 
corn, and to plant corn alter stubble. 1 prefer 
the drill sys’em lor corn ; I think it has many 
advantages over the old method ol hill cultiva- 
tion. I endeavor to have all my upland-and 
especially il it is tolling— well loriified against 
that grei test ot all scourges in this Southern 
climate, heavy washing rains, by cutting the 
proper number of guard drains, or hillside ditch- 
es in every field. 1 then lay off my rows hori- 
zontally, and as near upon a level as 1 can get 
them. This I accomplish by first laying off 
a guide row with a level ; and by this gUjide 
row a smait, active plowman, wiih the aid 
of a guide stick, commences the business o! 
laying off" the field into rows. It will he seen, 
that every subsequent row serves as a guide 
rov.?; but where the field is very undulating, 
having a number of saddlebacks and nobs, it is 
impossible to keep on a level without laying off 
with the level again, at frequent intervals, other 
guides, and filling in between the old and new 
guides with short rows. This plan should in- 
variably be followed by farmers ju>i commenc- 
ing this sys em. A better mode, however — one 
wdiich is attended with much less trouble and 
loss of time, and is sufficiently accurate for all 
practical purposes — when you are varvingfrum 
a level too much, instead of laying i ff a new 
guide row, is to commence on or near the high- 
est part of your row, if you are descending the 
hillside; and if ascending, on the lowest part, 
and run on, or butt up short .•’ows until you again 
bring your rows upon a level. This may be 
done, in most instances, by the eye, without the 
use of the level. This, however, should not be 
attempted unless by an experienced and prac- 
ticed eye, as there is nothiug about which one 
is more liable to be deceived than in levelling 
and grading by the eye alone. The guide stick 
is a very simple though a very useful imple- 
ment in this business, It is nothing more than 
a reed or hickory switch, which serves as a 
measure by which to regulate the width of the 
rows, which the plowman should keep con- 
stantly in his hand, and at the end of every row' 
should lay it down as he would a stake to mea- 
sure the next row. He should stop frequently 
while laying off rows, and measure to see that 
he is keeping his rows the proper distance apart, 
especially at the ends and curves. By paying 
strict attention to this at first, he will soon be- 
come so expert as to lay off his rows more uni- 
formly of the same width, and have few’er wide 
and narrow places in them, than by the ordina- 
ry method ol laying ctf with slakes. 
But it may be asked, where is the advantage 
to he gained by all this trouble of laying off 
guide row's — running rows upon a level — hav- 
ing so many short row’s, and so much turning 
and twisting. 1 answer that twelve years expe- 
rience and observation has convinced me that 
it is the only practicable method in this climate, 
and with our system of cultivation, whereby our 
deeds can be made to bold our arable uplands. 
It has been handed down to me as a maxim, 
that land was the safest and surest property 
which a man could hold in this country; that it 
did noteat or drink, and that it never dies nor 
runs away. Now, this may be true so far as 
the land in the forest is concerned, but 1 am 
sure it does not hold good when applied to bro- 
ken arable land ; tor there is no species of pro- 
perty with which 1 am acquainted, that requires 
more, and that pays better for high feeding. 
And most farmers in Georgia, 1 apprehend, espe- 
cially those who did not plow deep and prepaie 
well, have been made toleeithis year thatdnnk 
is indispensable. As to the running away part, 
I knov/ to my cost, that it is the easiest thing in 
nature to run away, and the hardest thing in na- 
ture to bring back again. 1 therefore conclude 
that the old maxim which says that an ounce of 
prevention is worth a pound of cure, is a much 
truer and safer maxim to be observed. Six 
years experience and observation has also con- 
vinced me that it is perfectly practicable by culti- 
vating land according to this method, to prevent 
it from losing b'U very little ol’ its original fer- 
tility, other titan that which results Irom our 
exhausting system ol cultivation, viz : exces- 
sive cropping and no manuiing. 
But hill-side ditches and horizontal rows are 
objected to by some, on account ol their taking 
up and causing too great a waste of land. Now 
these objectors seem to forget that a ditch takes 
up much less land than a gully; and they need 
only travel over some of the counties in the 
middle parts of Georgia, to be convinced that 
on many plantations the gullies have appropri- 
ated by "far the largest share of the land to them- 
selves; whereas, the ditches would have been 
pertecily content to have occupied the space of 
a few corn rows. I am certain that so far as 
taste and beauty are concerned, all will agree 
that the gentle curvature of a ditch is a far more 
comely sight than the yawningchasm ofa gully. 
Where a field has been ditched, the rows 
must not be so laid off as to make it necessary 
to plow across the ditches ; because, by going 
across, the ditches are continually liable to be 
filled up by the horses w’alking over them ; care- 
less negroes suffering their plows to drag across 
them, tearing the embankments to pieces, there- 
by making them liable, in heavy rains, to break 
over and ruin the land below. The better plan 
is to lay off the rows betw'een the ditches, as 
though each ditch was the boundary of the 
field; and by running the rows upon a level, 
there w'ill be no more turning than in any other 
w'ay ; for if there are more short rows, there 
will also be more long ones. The whole philo- 
sophy ot guard drains and horizontal cultiva- 
tion consists in this; each row is intended to 
hold its own water, which it w ill do in ordinary 
rains, where due care has been taken to keep 
the rows upon a level by throwing up high beds 
and by keeping the water furrows in each row 
well open. But to guard against excessive 
floods ot rain, such as would fill the water fur- 
rows and break over the beds, guard drains are 
cut at proper distances on each hillside, to inter- 
cept the water and carry it off gradually belore 
it can accumulate in such quantities as to do 
serious damage to the land. But there are other 
advantages independent of these, which I think 
would go very tar towards recommending this 
system ol cultivating upland to the favorable 
consideration of every farmer in Hancock, 
who has not already adopted it. 1 give it as my 
deliberate opinion, founded on several years’ 
practical experience, that broken lands which 
have been well ditched and cultivated upon the 
horizontal plan, will yield from 2i> to 25 per 
cent, more in the way of crops, than when culti- 
vated according to the old method of planting 
in hills, and up and down hill plowing. This, 
I think, I can demonstrate to the satisfaction of 
every gentleman present, as clearly in theory, 
as I have demonstrated it in practice on my own 
farm to my own satisfaction. 
In the first place, the plow work upon a 
arm can be much more thoroughly and effect- 
