' ^1 U ir i ll TT 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
35 
much larger. AnJ our proportion of this im- 
mense outlay of capital is incurred solely to 
allow our stock the benefit of a proverbially 
poor range. Tne amount thus invested in len- 
ces equals perhaps the *’ull value of our stock; 
and it the labor of splitting rails and repairing 
fences were withdrawn and applied to lue crop, 
it would increase it sulticiently to purchase the 
larger part of the meat for the entire plantation 
consumption, while, it the necessity of keeping 
up extensive fences no longer existed, we might 
dispense wdth our immense reservations of 
lands lying idle, otherwise than to supply tim- 
ber tor rails. 
In addition to the above sources of manure, I 
must not fail to allude to night-soil as the most 
valuable of them all, and which might be more 
readily collected and applied to use by planters 
than is generally supposed. It is nearly as good 
as guano, without costing as that article does 
the transportation of 5,000 miles. Prejudice, 1 
kfjow, will preclude its general use among us 
for a while, bat when we fairly begin the 
scheme of manuring, and acquire, as we cer- 
tainly will do, a sort of enthusiasm in the ac- 
oumiiiation and preservation ot all lertilizers, 
learn that this one is universally save.! and 
^^lied with the greatest results, in the best 
agricultural countries, I am sure that it will be 
as carefully kept, and be far more highly ap- 
preciated than stable manure is now. 
But besides manuring, other means must be 
employed in order to loosen and lighten up the 
soil on our level lands, packed down by tillage 
and the tread of man and beast for a series of 
years. Marl or lime will answer this purpose 
on the surface, but to stir it to a proper depth we 
must resort to the subsoil plow. This plow, 
counted, the great discovery of modern agricul- 
ture, was invented in England many years ago, 
but revived in Scotland recently, to serve The 
double purpose of loosening stiff soils from 12 
t'> 20 inches deep, and to drain off their surlace, 
which in this kind of land, especially in cold 
climates, retains too much moisture, its suc- 
cess has been complete, both there and at the 
JNTorth, and in some instances a double and even 
triple yield, has followed a single application. 
We have a good deal of clay land, damp and 
consequently sour, cold, and comparatively un- 
productive, and this is the implement required 
to drain it. All lands, those the most worn es- 
pecially, would be vastly benefitled by the use 
of this plow. From what I have observed, I 
am inclined to think our lightest sandy soils 
would amply repay its use. If there are any on 
which it will fail in the long run, they are per- 
haps only the most compact and the finest pipe 
clay, which would run together again at the 
first heavy rain. By making it porousand light, 
we would permit air and heat to penetrate and 
warm and fertilize the land, while the loosened 
soil would enable the roots to extend wider and 
deeper in search of nutriment. The subsoil, 
iso, as asserted by high authority, contains an 
inexhaustible quan ity of earthy salts, used by 
plants, locked in the embrace of chemical affi- 
nity, which would be realized by exposure to the 
pulverizing and decomposing action of the ele- 
ments. An application of manure to these soils 
afterwards, and judicious treatment siibsequent- 
■ ly, would insure and prolong their restoration. 
On our rolling land, looking f ideous w'iih its 
deformities of naked ridges and gullies, the lat- 
; ter of which have carried away so much fer- 
I tilityand threaten to extend tar into the plains, 
( we must resort to hill-side ditchine. It has 
^ been practiced in the up-country with decided 
t advantage, and at whatever cost, rules should 
be procured for its use here before our broken 
t lands are utterly destroyed. Common sense 
I has governed some in the invention of a suc- 
cessful method, but if we lack energy to think 
' for ourselves, or patience to experiment until 
' crowned with success, let a special committee 
' be named to examine and report, or a premium 
' be offered lor an essay on the test plan of ope- 
ration. 
I We have extensive swamps and count'ess 
ponds in our county, most of them vastly rich. 
The period has arrived w'hen our attention 
should be seriously directed to their drainage. 
For the most part this may be done with ease, 
the fall and outlets being abundantly sufficient; 
the commonest levelling instrument will an- 
sw-er to regulate our operation.s, and with som- 
instrucliou, our slaves will ditch faster than 
w'hite men, which w'ill greatly diminish the e.x- 
pense to us. Instead of requiring manure, 
these swamp soils coul 1 furnish a large amount 
of peal and mud for our poorer land, and retain 
afterwards a thickness of vexeiable matter 
which agesof proper culture could not exhaust. 
They are equal, large portions ot them, to the 
best lands of Louisiana and Texas, and their 
yield on ihe second year’s cahivation would re- 
pay all the labor ot draining and clearing. 
[concluded in cur next.] 
iiittie Tilings. 
From the North Carolina Farmer. 
Mr. Editor; In travelling through N. C., I 
am frequently amused at such expressions as — 
“ Mr. A. is one of ourgreatest farmers; he owns 
1000 acres of good farm land, and runs 20 
plow's.” Now go around Mr. A.’s fence, look 
at his farm ; you w'ould say instantly that an in- 
telligent man had nothing to do with that farm. 
The fence is out of repair — the Ian I about half 
plowed — the stock in bad order, the corn un- 
even, the plows good tor nothing, the horses 
poor and galded— bushes growing on the ditch 
bank, in the middle of the field and all about the 
fence — the negroes are ragged and filthy — the 
master going like a madman all over the prem- 
ises, complaining of the diso'^der here, there and 
every where. And now, w'hat is the matter? 
All the difficulties grow out of the want of a lit- 
tle more contrivance in “ Master’s head.” He 
wants to cultivate too much land tor his force ; 
wants the Iffnd to improve itself without his 
trouble; is mad w'iih the hogs because they 
won’t fatten with less food; and nothing goes 
right. Now, the difficulty lies here; Mr. A. 
thinks that good farming consi>ts in the number 
of plow’s a man has, the number of horses, 
hands, stock, &c. He never once thought 
about attending to liUle 1hins,s. This is the cry- 
ing sin ot farmers generally. A w'ant of s)'s- 
tem, and attention to the smaller circumstances 
of the farm. They forget that the great Archi- 
tect of the world has made himself as great in 
minuteness as in magnitude, since the legs of a 
fly have been fitted up with all the perfection of 
an air-pump, and this too, done by that hand 
that formed those vast globes of light that float 
in w’ide fields of immeasurable space. A friend 
called on M ichael Angelo, who was finishing a 
statue; some time afterwards he called again; 
the sculptor was still at his w’ork; looking at 
the figure, his friend exclaimed. “Have you 
been idlesince I saw' you last?” “Byno means,” 
replied Angelo, “I have retouched this part and 
polished that; I have softened this feature and 
broughtout that muscle; 1 havegiven more ex- 
pression to this lip, and more energy to that 
limb.” “Well, weil,” said his friend, “all 
these are trifles.” It may b- so’’ replied An- 
gelo, ’’but recollect irijl.es make yerfection. and 
that per feet ion is no trijle.” Let farmers think of 
that. How much happier our farmers would 
be to restrict their labours to a smaller space, 
and bringihatspace to perfection. There w’ould 
be much pleasure in looking at the scene — more 
real profit in the end — and less aggravation in 
attending to the labourers. Then, let no farmer 
think it a trifle to have all the woeds carefully 
wed from about the yard, and thrown into the 
hog-pen— have the milch cows curry-combed, 
the horses well rubbed, the ditch banks trimmed 
down, the clearings of the ditches hauled into 
the lot for manure, shrubs cut from about the 
fences, pig pens daily supplied with trash for 
manure, all the ashes carefully saved, soap-suds 
all poured on the manure pile, manure piles kept 
shaded as much as possible, see that the menure 
is spread the minute it is carried into the field, 
&c. &c.; always remembering, “that, trifles 
make perfection, and that perfection is no Lrijle." 
Bladen County, N. C. By the IVay. 
From the American Farmer. 
To the Young Farmers of Maryland, ou 
Practical Agriculture. 
Six teeth out of my threshing machine, and 
the consequent delay in my operations, enables 
me to devote a few moments to a subject, on 
which I have long contemplated addressingyou, 
but until the present, prevented by various caus- 
es— that of PraclicoA Farming — more especial- 
ly as applying to young Maryland Farmers, 
like myself on old lands. 
The recent chattge in the form of our venera- 
ble and useful agricultural journal, keeping 
pace as it does, with the “lights” as they are 
discovered beaming above the mists of by-gone 
ignorance, has suggested the spirit of these pa- 
pers; or, if you w'ill dignify them with the 
term, essays — and it is my special aim, so far 
as consistent with fact, to avoid all the techno- 
logy of pedantry ; the ‘schools,’ and the meta- 
physical theorist. 
Succeeding the management of an old estate, 
at a period when mercantile pursuits presented 
more pecuniary attraction than agricultural, 
my first experiment in the latter, was to let my 
farm on shares, by the advice of my friends, to a 
working man ; the consequence was, that at the 
end of two years, I was heartily glad to rid my- 
self of a vampyre, who exhausted w'hat little 
‘blood’ there was left in the old ‘turnip’— his 
last boast on quitting m.“, being that '■hehad 
skinned my place in two years,’ and thought by 
rushing ii, (a favorite phrase of his,) to be able 
to ilo the same, where he w'as going. Hence, 
you can readily imagine theccndiiion in w-hich 
I found matters, on assuming sw'ay in person. 
My first efforts at restoration were, to repair 
and have made several hundred pannels of out- 
fencing ; discarding entirely, and using the ma- 
terials on it, all innerorcross lines, save a good 
sized, paled barn-yard ; a five rail feeding and 
milking yard, and a poultry yard- designingto 
pursue the soiling and excise system, and study 
the economy of manure, ot w hich, more anon. 
Ot course the eyes of all our old neighbor- 
hood w’ere upon me, and their aged wives spoke 
wonderously wise as to what ‘I would not do,’ 
not what I would — ‘to make a living off that old 
place.’ ‘Your meadows have all run out,' 
quoth one; ‘you’ll have to spend many a dollar 
to repair your houses,’ quotha — and so on, un- 
til at last, had I not at least possessed the nega- 
tive merit of obstinacy, I should have beaten 
any plowshare into a sword, and taken the road 
to Texas for a livelihood! 
‘ It’s a pity,’ said a person who was burning 
blue lime, ‘you do not lime that bare-looking 
field- why, it w’on’traise</ao’s/iaA.’ Now gen- 
tlemen, with your leave, it is of that very field I 
intend treating in this, my first agricultural pa- 
per. My on shares workingman, not leaving 
until late in November, no time could be found 
to flush a piece of sod for my corn, having to 
sow my w’heat, some as late as 25lh Novem- 
b'^r; so, the only spot ’■clean enough’ the next 
spring was ‘ that bare looking field.’ Now, by 
the order of retrospect, you shall have the his- 
tory of this field. A neighbor had it somesiic 
years ago on a lease; his last cropping was 
wheat, to bind w’hich, he was compelled to haul 
out old straw, its own being too short to tie 
around a sheaf. My brother then worked it in 
corn, manuredin the hills; the crop w'as scarce- 
ly worth saving; his wheat succeeding that, no 
yield ; next, my working man planted it in cOiD, 
panially manured in the hills, and then neelect- 
ed— so that you will perceive the only place I 
had for this voracious crop, had been planted 
in it the previous year. After having it plow- 
ed, harrowed and rolled in March, 1 had it cross- 
plowed, harrowed twice and rolled in April; 
marked off in checks 3 feet by 4, without spa- 
ces, running north and south, or nearly so- 
hauled out t'A o hundred one horse cart loads of 
wood-pile stuff, and sand and mortar, from an 
old wall, composted, about equal parts, putting 
two shovels full in each hill. Now thesoil na- 
turally, is what we term a white oak, clay bot- 
tom, with a few traces of iron ore, in particles 
