18 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
be imparled to the plant, because of me long 
and lingering existence it had to undergo be- 
fore it could reach that point which was favora- 
ble for it, and which nature intended for it. 
None of these difficulties happen to wheat sown 
on a well pulverized surface, harrowed and rol- 
led, because it is immediately within the reach 
of the atuiospheric air and the sun’s rays, and 
having the earth compressed about it by the rol- 
ler, germination takes place at once, and a 
healthy plant springs up and grows vigorously, 
because it is just in the element that nature in- 
tended it for ; its position in every respect being 
favorable, the young roots runout vigorously in 
search of food for the support of the plant, and 
necessarily, a healthy and vigorous plant is the 
result, by which the chances are greatly increas- 
ed for a favorable result in the crop. 
Your Committee are therefore of opinion, 
that the wheat crop is quits as certain as corn, 
and for the labor necessary to raise and save 
the two crops, decidedly a cheaper crop to the 
farmer, and that its yield per acre, though not 
so many bushels, when you compare the labor 
and the value of the two grains, is fully com- 
pensated for. It is true that the saving and har- 
vesting of a wheat crop is very much in the way 
of the cotton crop, and so is the corn crop, and 
many other things that are absolutely necessary 
which contribute to the happiness and comfort 
of a people; and if the cotton was made to yield 
to these very necessary things, w'e would not 
have to complain of the low price it bears, and 
the scarcity of corn, wheat and pork in the land. 
Your Committee would therefore urge the ne- 
cessity of increasing the quantity of wheat, not 
only because it enters largely into the bread 
stuff of the country, and is a cheap crop and 
equally certain as corn, but because, in a year 
like the present, when the earth has been parch- 
ed with drought, and the usual supply of corn 
failed to be raised, it comes in as a most valua- 
ble substitute. And last, though not least, to 
keep our money at home paid out yearly for the 
article of flour that we can raise cheaper than 
to purchase it. 
Next in order is oats; and your Committee 
regret that this crop is not so extensively raised 
as in former years. The reason alleged is the 
uncertainty of the crop and its exhausting qual- 
ity to the land. It is admitted that the oat crop 
sown in the spring is precarious, because of 
drought in the spring which frequently occurs, 
and when sown at that time, may be a greater 
exhauster than other small grain crops; but they 
have not seen the evidences of its exhausting 
quality, neither are they willing to admit either 
of the objections as well founded, if the crop is 
sown at the proper time and in the proper way. 
Although it is considered a spring grain, there 
are several varieties that stand the winter well, 
and even the little black oat, the tenderest of 
them all, will, nine years out of ten, go through 
our winters unhurt. The experience of your 
Committee is, that oats sown from the 15th of 
November to the 1st of January, nine years out 
of ten, go through the winter unhurt, is very 
slightly affected by the spring droughts, and 
most generally makes a lair crop for the land, 
and if the winter and spring are favorable, a 
very abundant one. Therefore, taking the ca- 
sualties of the fall sowing, and then of the 
spring, and the difference oi the product in favor 
of the fall sowing, and the average is greatly in 
favor of the fall sowing. 
Your Committee have no facts at hand by 
which they can show that the crop of oats sown 
in the fall does not exhaust land as much as 
those sown in the spring, but from the greater 
length f'f time that the one has to grow and ma- 
ture than the other, the fall preparation of the 
land for the reception of seed, thereby admitting 
the gasses of the fall and winter months, forces 
on us the conclusion, that the fall crop is not as 
great an exhauster as the spring; and from ac- 
tual experience they can state That the chances 
for quantity is fifty per cent, in favor of the fall. 
Admitting then, only for the sake of argument, 
that the crop is an exhausting one, the question 
to be determined is, whether the exhaustion of 
the land is equivalent to the crop, and whether 
the land is not more restored from the crop of 
weeds that spring up after the crop of oats is 
taken off, and the preventing of the washing of 
the land through the summer months, than it 
would be if a crop of corn had been grown on it. 
This position none, we think, will doubt. — 
Then, if we are correct, that oats sown in the 
fall do not exhaust the land equal to a eorn crop 
— that the crop sown at that time succeeds well, 
nine times out of ten — that the crop is much 
less ex.pensive to the farmer than corn— that it 
is capital food for horses, mules and cattle, and 
affords good gleaning to the farm stock after the 
crop is taken from the field — that it materially 
aids a abort crop of corn in the way of food for 
horses and mules while engaged in the culture 
of the crop, are facts which your Committee 
deem sufficiently established. Therefore, they 
can see no good reason why this particular crop 
should not be extended, that in the event of a 
short crop of corn, help may heat hand. 
Rye, the next grain in order, is very limitedly 
grown in the State, and so far as your Commit- 
tee are informed, less now than in years past. 
We are aware that this grain is considered of 
great value in some countriesars food for horses, 
as being better adapted to their health and vigor 
than corn ; that horses fed on this grain, by cut- 
ting the straw and sprinkling the ground rye 
meal over it, are capable of performing better ser- 
vice, and far less subject to the various diseases 
common to them when fed on corn. It is known 
to your Committee to be a hardy grain, grows 
well on their land, and is well adapted to win- 
ter grazing for mares and colts, cattle, sheep, 
and sows and pigs; and if your Committee are 
correctly informed relative to its quality as food 
for horses, they cannot too strongly recommend 
it to the notice of farmers, espeeiadv when they 
take into the account its adaptation to, and lux- 
uriant growth on poor land, and the great re- 
turn that it makes to the land, in straw and 
stubble. 
Last, though not least, is barley. YourCom- 
mittee have very little hope of being able to ar- 
rest the attention of farmers, and place tliis im- 
portant grain before them in such a light as Us 
merits will justily. For grazing, nothing is its 
equal ; all animals are lond of it, from the horse 
down to the hog; for soiling purposes it has no 
superior; when the grain is formed and the 
straw begins to yellow, it is not equalled as food 
for horses; and v hen ripe and the grain thresh- 
ed out, it stands unrivalled as food lor horses, 
giving them a finer and more glossy coat than 
any other gram, and as for production per acre, 
no grain equals it, save corn. It may be ob- 
jected to, on the ground that it requires very rich 
land to produce it profitably, eiiher for grazing 
or quantity, which objection is valid; but your 
Committee contend that any farme’- can afford 
to make land rich when he can have an assu- 
rance of raising seventy-five to one hundred 
bushels of good grain from one acre that he 
makes rich and sows in barley, as one of your 
Committee has fully proven, aside from the ad- 
vantage that he will receive by winter grazing 
from the same land. Your Committee there- 
fore cannot too highly recommend it to the at- 
tention of farmers. 
. Flavinggone through with what your Com- 
mittee intended on each of the particular grain 
crops of the State, they would again remark, 
that corn is very properly considered Ifie most 
important grain. Notwithstanding, if more im- 
portance was attached to the other grains, so 
that corn would not have to be resorted to as 
the food (or men and animals so entiiely as it 
is, all may be supplied at a cheaper rat-e, for no 
one will contend that it costs as much labor to 
raise a bushel of wheat or oats as it does corn ; 
and as for barley, there is no comparison. As 
for the casualties attending the various gram 
crops, your Committee consider them about 
equal, ana are of opinion that the cause of fail- 
ure is more frequently the fault of the operator 
or manager than otherwise. 
Yonr Committee, in conclu-sion, regret that 
Georgia has no statistics by which they can ar- 
rive at anything like the yearly deficiency of the 
grain crop in the Stale, therefore they can only 
assume as the probable deficiency, the amount 
that the money expended for flour, pork, mules 
and horses, would purchase in grain, takins it 
for granted that said amount, if applied to the 
rearing of those things, would be fully adequate 
to supply the deficiency. What amount this 
would decrease the cotton crop is impossible to 
tell unless we knew the amount expended, but 
certain it is, that the amount would be suffi- 
ciently great if extended to all the cotton grow- 
ing region, to so diminish the quanli y as ma- 
terially to affect the price. Although Georgia 
cannot expect to exert such influence as to effect 
anything beyond yer own border, save by ex- 
ample, may she not materially benefit heiselt 
by adopting such a policy as will raise her own 
consumptions in those articles which she has 
been in the habit of purchasing from other 
States In the opinion of your Committee, she 
can, and the principle will not only hold good 
in a State, but in an individual. For which 
opinion, they offer but one simple and plain 
reason, viz: he who makes everything he con- 
sumes, and sells all that he has to spare, never 
fails to be prosperous. Respectfullv submitted, 
R. S. Hardwick, Chairman. 
Report of the Committee oii Stock. 
The Committee appointed by the Agricultu- 
ral Association of Georgia, to which” was re- 
ferred the subject “what kind of plantation 
stock would be most conducivejo the interest of 
Gei.rgians to cnliivate, and the best mode of 
improving the .same,” have had the same under 
con-sideiation, and beg leave to submit the fol- 
lowing as their report : 
It cannot be expected that the report will con- 
tain much valuable information, when it is con- 
sidered that the quality of farm or plantation 
stock has heretolore depended entirely on indi- 
vidual judgment — or it may he, caprice ol the 
farmer or planter. There have been few pub- 
lic exhibitions of stock by which comparative 
values might be determined, and the Committee, 
thus confined to the immediate range of neigh- 
borhood observation, are not qualified to make 
an enlightened report on the varieties of planta- 
tion stock which are to be found in different 
parts of the State. The Committee in this re- 
port, have confined their observations to six 
kinds of stock, which they believe the most 
common, and certainly the most valuable. And 
contrary to the general opinion in regard to va- 
lue, they begin with 
Thn Cow — which they consider as of supe- 
rior importance to the horse. This humble 
beast, (the cow,) which contributes so largely 
to the comforts and necessitiesof civilized man, 
in its wild or nati ve stale, seems to lu ve a wide 
range of existence. Some one of the eight va- 
rieties has been found in the frozen regions of 
the North, as well as the tropical regions of In- 
dia, America and Africa ; and thus it appears 
that the genus Bo.s, (or Ox,) stretches across all 
climates, and with an exception or two, is redu- 
ced to universal slavery or domestication. 
Of lli& Horse . — This noble animal, so called, 
probably, from his qualities — so befitting war, 
and which is in truth sagacious and generous, 
IS admitted universally to be native in Asia, 
somewhere about Lake Aral and the Caspian 
Sea; he is found there now in the wild state, 
and especially in the desert regions of Tartarv, 
also in the extensive uncultivated parts of South 
America — the latter are no doubt descendants of 
the Andalusian horses used by the Spaniards 
in the conquest of that country. The wild 
horses of Tarlar}'^ and South America are said 
to have larger heads, longer ears, longer and 
thicker legs proportionally, coarse wavy hair, 
and in South America of diminished size, com- 
pared with the original Andalusian. There 
are no black or pied horses in Tartary, and in 
South America the number ofehesinut bays are 
abut 90 percent. — scarcely a black in 2,000, and 
few of any other color ; it is therefore believed 
that chestnut bay is the natural color, and here it 
may be stated as a remarkable fact, that the wild 
