36 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
— a stiff unmanageable soil it plowed when 
wet, and impossible to be worked whet) dry. 
The season, you will remember, was very 
drv ; notwitiistanding this, after the hoeing, 1 
ordered the cultivator to be passed through it in 
both directions, until countermanded. I was 
assured by all the old hands, ‘ it wfll all fire, 
sir.’ I persisted, however; laid it up about the 
21st ot July, with a small ore horse plow', 
plowing about lour inches deep ; cultivated it 
down level again ; cut it off down to the ground 
on the 15th of September, and hauled off to 
shuck, a fair yield of heavy corn. The next 
day 1 put in a Wiley 56 plow, (a good imple- 
ment where there is no sod,) cross-plowing the 
last spring furrow, and following it with a Sin- 
clair & Co. No. 8 subsoil plow, obtaining by 
this a depth of 16 inches, 9 of old and 7 of new' 
soil— the subsoil retained in its original bed, but 
pulve'ized and lightened up, so that an addition 
of some inches to the general surface w'as ap- 
parent, besides securing a deposit for the ab- 
sorption of all surplus moisture, if a w’et, or in 
a dry season, a reservoir of water to be evapo- 
rated by the sun, through the pores of the super- 
stratum of old earth ; thus gradually incorpora- 
ting the whole mass, which is completed by a 
deep plowing with the ordinary plow, w'hen 
next broken up, and nourishing the crop. But, 
to return, having finished plowing and harrow- 
ing, it was seeded in w'heat on the 15th of Sep- 
tember, the soil appearing to be a mellow, fine- 
ly pulverized loam — the rain falling in torrents 
belore we finished, prevented the lands from be- 
ing opened, the water furrows marked off oi be- 
ing rolled in ; yet w'e succeeded in gettinv the 
timothy seed sown, depending upon the rain to 
set it. The ground began to clog and betray 
symptoms of the ‘‘old leaven” — nor did it dry 
till the April following— one acre was harrow- 
ed in with 100 bushels of old leached ashes, two 
acres were broadcast with the same quantity, 
one in February, while frozen, and one in 
April; the other (there being lour in all,) re- 
mained unaided— 25 bushels the first yielded; 
15 the second; 20 the third, and about 14 the 
fourth, now threshed and measured. 
The timothy now looks green amid the stub- 
ble, and stands so thickly, that, I think, “ ill 
weeds” dare not usurp its place, and promises 
a fair swarth of full mowing for corn hay. 
Yours sincerely, Cincinnatus. 
Ballimore Co., July bth, 1845. 
Georgia Cla5'. 
At a meeting of the New York Brooklyn In- 
stitute, on the evening of the 12ih ulL,Mr. 
Bailey, to whom was referred a specimen ofClay 
from the soil of this State, m.ade the following 
report : 
This specimen ol Clay was brought by a 
Mr. Hardee from Georgia, and handed to Mr. 
Partridge to ascertain whether it was Fuller’s 
Earth and what was its probable value. Mr. P. 
tested it and found it was not Fuller’s Earth.— 
He showed it to me, and I immediately found 
it was good China Clay, very liiile (if any) in- 
feriortothe Devonshire Clay used in making 
the best earthen ware in the Staffordshire Pot- 
teries. I divided it into two pieces, and sub- 
mitted it to a strong heat, sufficient to calcine 
crbakeitinto (what the Putters term) the bis- 
cuit state, as it appears in iheunglazed piece, 
which is the state iti which the pattern is al- 
ways put upon earthern-ware. I then took the 
other piece (which was in the biscuit state) and 
dipped it into potters’ glaze, and submitted it 
to a sufficient heat to vitrify it, as it appears in 
the piece that is glazed. I was under the neces- 
sity of using the common yellow glaze that is 
used by the manufacturers of stone ware here; 
but if it had been glazed with fine, white glaze, 
such as is used forglazingthe best kind of earth- 
en ware, it would have been quite white, m 
stead of yellow— the white glaze for earthen- 
ware is composed of dry white lead, decom- 
posed granite or Cornish stone, silex, and 
glass. 
I consider the discovery of this China Clay 
to be very important, for it has hiiheiio been 
thought that a fine description ol earthen-ware 
could not be made in the United States lor want 
of proper clay ; but this proves that clay suffi- 
ciently good can be found, it potteries were es- 
tablished lor making it into earthen-ware. 
From the North Carolina Far.mer. 
To make Poor old Land Good, and the good 
Better. 
Mr. Editor : — Having had near twenty years’ 
experience in doing here as above stated, with 
a good degree of success, 1 have concluded to 
offer an outline thereof for the “North Caroli- 
na Farmer.” 
I premise, however, that without both skill 
and industry, the above cannot be done; or, as 
you stated lately, in the piece on “book larm- 
ing,” knowledge is power in farming, full as 
much, at least, as in any other business of life. 
And without knowledge there can be no skill; 
and let any one be everso knowing and skillul, 
industry is indispensable to crow'n allwiihcom- 
phte success. But how, I ask, is the farmer to 
acquire enlarged practical knowledge of his 
pursuit 1 All but the ignora'it and prejudiced 
must acknowledge that reading on the subject ol 
agriculture is one excellent and principal means 
ol acquiring particular as well as general 
knowledge of farming business. For instance, 
ot what avail to the lawyer and physician to 
inlorm themselves generally on urofessional 
subjects, without also an intimate’ knowledge 
ot porlicular instances or cases, gained also by 
reading. But without pursuing general read- 
ing to prove the great utility of book or .’-eading 
knowledge in regaid to skillulness m healing 
mother earth ol the sterility of worn-out soil, I 
go at once to stubborn fact.s, w'hich speak vol- 
umes on the subject. And one grand fact, that 
none but the ill-informed will dispute, is, that 
wherever in our own or other countries great 
improvements in productiveness oi old lands 
have been made, the reading and diffusion ol 
agricultural periodicals have been intimately 
connected therewith. True, agricultural socie- 
ties and other means often contributed thereto; 
but the spirit ot improvement has ever been got 
up and kept up by agricultural reading. By 
gradual improvements, through tlie above sta- 
ted means, old, unproductive lands. both in Eu- 
rope and America, have become abundant in 
yield, and very profitable; indeed, garden spots, 
compared to former yield; and whole sections 
of country greatly and more permanently pro- 
ductive than newly cleared lands. And it may 
be said, in given instances at least, this im- 
provement has been made at less expense or 
outlay than that of clearing thelorestsof the 
wildernes.s, or that of felling and clearing a way 
heavy timbers and the like. ~ O ! that our State, 
in view of such facts, Mr. Editor, would wake 
up from her Rip Van Winkle agricultural 
sleep! and, for her own best interests, would 
become a reader ana extensive patronizer of the 
Nortji Carolina Farmer and other agricultural 
periodicals ! From experience a'd inlorma- 
tion, I, lor one, am bound to say, that thereby a 
surprising renovation ol soil would ere long be 
manifest, and far fewer of the sons and daugh- 
ters oi the good old North State would be forced, 
by a wretched system of wearingout old lands’ 
to pull up stakes and remove west from the 
home ol their fathers. 
\Vhen 1 purchased here, the farm was pro- 
verbially poor, and considered worn our, 'and 
wasdearal a dollar and a halfan acre. But 
it is now quite productive, and, not to sneak -ol 
some acres ol vineyard yielding 30 or40 barrels 
of vvine,otherimpfOved land is w'orth more than 
quadruple per acte. But I began impn.vement 
by taking the Auterican Farmer, (the pioneer 
ol American agricultural periodicals,) at Ftvn 
dollars a year. But whtle diligent in acquir- 
ing the requisite inlormation, both to guard 
against errors and to gain the power of know- 
ledge, as to agriculture, or to obtain the science 
of the most important of all arls, 1 by no means 
neglected the attention to details and manual 
labor, to crown all with desired success. For 
instance, while some, at the leisure season, af- 
ter crops laid by, were spending their time, (as 
precious as money,) in attending election treats, 
fish-fries and the like, to listen to artful dem.a- 
gogues talking about hard times, while helping 
to make such times through encouragement of 
idleness and dissipation, I was taking the'pains 
to make a crop of rutabaga, at the rate ol 600 
bushels per acre, as 1 communicated to the 
American Farmer. The first steps, then, I con- 
sider, to make poor old lands good, and the good 
better, are reo.ding, information and indAtstry. 
Several other steps to this most important end 
I would fain detail here, but the limits ol a sin- 
gle essay forbid. At present! -close with some 
general remaiks. 
1. As husbanding and judicious application 
ol manures are of the utmost importance to- 
wards improvement ol old lands, 1 by no means 
neglected attentionihereto. The horse and cow 
stables well littered; the hog-pen, the trash re- 
servoir near the kitchen, and the like, were all 
put in requisition to accumulate manure as the 
farmer’s gold mine or secret of wealth. For 
eight years past 1 have applied manure in such 
way as to always do good, and never harm. 
It is that of burying it a due depth in the drills 
and never disturbing it. or the principal roots of 
plants therein, by after culture. For instance, 
corn drilled 7 feet wide, the manure taken fresh 
from the stable and buried by plowing each 
side, in a large and deep furrow. Corn, so 
soon as up, coulterad deep each side of the drill, 
and afterwards worked by plow or cultivator. 
Peas drilled between the rows, and in the fall or 
winter deep fur.'ows made where peas grew, 
and corn stalks pulled up and laid in the 
furrows, and covered slightly by the plow, 
as part of manure for next year's crop, and peas 
to alternate where corn had stood, and so on, it 
a field be improved in this way by a continued 
corn crop. 
2. But unless as an exception, as above sta- 
ted, a judicious rotation of crops I have found 
of very great importance. An anecdote here I 
cannot forbear relating: Some years since, in 
obtaining subscribers lor the “ Albany Cultiva- 
tor,” I solicited a gentleman farmer to take it. 
His reply of rejection was, that he had as much 
knowledge as he wished on agriculture. A lew 
minutes after we walked out together to view 
his farm, and he showed me a field he had ruin- 
ed as to fertility by sowing oats thereon several 
years in succession. ! observed that if he had 
only had the knowledge the “Cultivator” im- 
parted, as to the injury of successive crops of 
small grain, he might have saved in this single 
instance tne damase of a number oi dollars. 
Fie had nothing to reply as sell-convicted of the 
loss by ignorance in that particular at least. 
It may be re-narked here, that the reading 
knowledge of farming, like that of religion 
through the Bible, and the acquisition, by read- 
ing, ot any knowledge in the range of the Arts 
and Sciences, can be duly appreciated only as 
to the nameless advantages h}' those who fiist 
try and experience the benefits. The ignorant, 
commonly cavil, because they know nothing 
thereof and are too proud to learn even what 
may be for their best good 
3. Once more, 1 observe ere 1 close, that one 
most effectual means, as I have found by years’ 
experience, lo make land bdter, is thatol cover- 
ing small grain immediately alter sowing (but 
II whea', when up and at leisure in winter) with 
pine leaves r r straw, from the old fi --Id or woods, 
an inch t r so deep, spread ever evenly. 1 have 
ifequently doubled my cia ps ol oat-', wheat and 
rye in this way. Or th i part of a field thus 
covered and shaded at least twice as good as 
the part not covered. Besides, the ground by 
the after decomposition ol that \ egetable mat- 
ter is gradually improv: d. An-J one grand ad- 
vantage of this covering of small grain is, that 
even sandy land, (il sufficiently rich, at least,) 
may have a clover crop thereon sown with or 
after the small grain (il wheat, in spring after 
covering in winter,) without the usual danger 
ol being burnt out by the hot sun and dry wca- 
