88 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
®l)c 0outt)eru CultxDator. 
AUGUSTA, GA. 
VOr.lV.. NO. 6 JUNK, 1846. 
Marl. 
Gov. Hammond's letter on Marl, we commend 
to the especial attention of the readers of the 
CuLTivATOH. We can assure them that they 
have not had such a treat in a long time. 
The Grain Crop. 
Up to this day (May 20th) accounts, from near- 
ly all parts of the Southern country, represent 
the prospects of the grain crop as promising be- 
yond anything that has been seen for many 
years. In the Cherokee counties of Georgia, and 
in Virginia, we hear complaints of the wheat 
crop being injured by the fly. 
American Plowing. 
The very high praise bestowed by Mr. Col- 
maw on English and Scotch plowing, has set our 
Agricultural editors to looking into the manner 
in which this most important operation is per- 
formed in America. The consequence is, that 
though good plowing is by no means so com- 
mon here as in England, yet there are many in- 
stances in which it is just as effectually done as 
in any case England can boast of. Mr. Botts, 
in the April No- of the Southern Planter, says: 
“ It is very probable that, as a general rule, the 
English Farmer gives more attention to appear- 
ances than wedo, butin all the essentials of good 
plowing we doubt whether some of the work 
done upon our James River plantations is excel- 
led any where. If Mr. C. had seen, as we have, a 
large four- horse Davis plow whirling the dirt over 
to the depth of ten or twelve inches, complete- 
ly subverting the earth, and hiding weeds as tall 
as the plowman’s breast, we are inclined to think 
he would have witnessed the exhibition of a 
higher degree of the plowing art than any he has 
seen in England, or than any that the nature of 
the country could afford. We can tell Mr. Col- 
man a secret that will surprise him and many of 
his countrymen — there are thousands and thou- 
sands of acres in Virginia so deeply and thorough- 
ly cultivated that the largest and best Northern 
plows are looked upon as mere toys and play- 
things. There is no subject on which more er- 
roneous opinions prevail at the North than as to 
the character of Virginia Agriculture.” 
Mr. Allen, editor of the American Agricultu- 
rist, next, gives us an account of plowing which 
he lately saw on the farm of Mr. E. J. Woolsev, 
near New York : " Mr. Pate, the manager, is a 
Scotchman, and having several Scotch plow- 
men, with Scotch plows at work, to gratify our 
curiosity he Invited us to see them operate. The 
work was not done for show, but was such as 
characterises the every day operations of good 
plowmen in Scotland, and if all were not as well 
done at home, they would be dismissed by their 
employer for awkward workmanship. The field 
in which we found the men at work was about 
40 rods long, of a rich loamy soil, and coated 
with a tough old sward. Here the men set in 
and run their furrows from end to end, as straight 
as one could draw a line, turning them 6 inches 
deep, and 11 inches wide, slightly lapped, and 
packing them up, one after the other, all day 
dong, with a single pair of horses, each plowman 
driving his own team, and not varying through- 
out their work, as we could discover, a single 
inch in the thickness or width of their furrow 
slices. We have seen as good plowing in Great 
Britain, but never anything like it before, as a 
whole, in the U. States, though vre have often 
been present at the most celebrated plowing 
matches. There were no snake trails, or ram’s 
horns here, or half turned sods, or untouched 
ground, or skipped places, but the whole was as 
thoroughly and evenly done as it would be possi- 
ble to accomplish with the most careful spading, 
and when harrowed with the fine double harrow, 
the surface of the field had the appearance of a 
■well dug and fine raked garden. 
“People may say what they please, yet we 
contend that good plowing is not only the first, 
but the most important part of the operations on 
the farm, and without it nothing else can be tho- 
roughly well done for the crop. It would be well 
for our farmers if they would take lessons on 
plowing, at least so far as to enable them to draw 
straight lines (for these are rarely seen in the U. 
States,) and stir and pulverize the soil well.” 
The Right Spirit. 
If those who are connected with the Agricul- 
tural press in the Southern States are compelled 
to submit to the disgust produced by the public 
apathy here, there is yet left for them a very high 
gratification derived from the knowledge of the 
fact that Agriculture and Agricultural papers are, 
in other parts of the U. States, properly appre- 
ciated. 
A gentleman of Wyoming, N. Y., writes thus 
to the editor of the Albany Cultivator ; 
I have taken your paper for three years, and 
would not now do without it for three times its 
cost. In 1844, I raised 229 bushels of ears of 
corn on an acre of land, and I do r ot think 1 
should have done it, if I had not taken the Culti- 
vator.” 
A young man in Vermont, who had interested 
himself in getting subscribers for the same pa- 
per, writes r 
“ I am a boy of only 18. The interest I take in 
agricultural improvement is great. I should be 
glad to be one of the best farmers in the United 
States, and I mean to be, if Providence smiles 
on my efforts and grants me the blessings of 
health and strength, although I am without capi- 
tal, and am situated in the midst of the Green 
Mountains,” 
That’s the sort of boys, who, v/hen they be- 
come men, are to save this country from ruin, if 
such salvation belts destiny. We wish our South- 
ern boys v/ere, more of them, like this Green 
Mountain boy. We would then have less de- 
mand for Prince Albert coats and long-toed boots, 
but a higher appreciation of the moral and intel- 
lectual qualities that make a man of the right sorf 
So too is it in Ohio. The editor of the Ohio 
Cultivator of 16th May, says : “ We received a 
letter a short time since from J. W. Putnam, of 
Centre Belpre, Washington county, Ohio, en- 
closing payment for the Cultivator for himself 
and three others, and stating that all four of the 
subscribers are young men not yet out of their 
minoiity ; but, the writer adds, we are determin- 
ed to be fiarmers, and we wish, in addition to the 
benefits of uur fathers’ exiierience, to obtain a 
knowledge of the improvements that others 
have made in the art of cultivation.” 
Thereupon the editor remarks: — “Let this 
spirit become generally diffused among the 
farmers’ sons of Ohio, and in ten years time we 
challenge any other State in the Union to equal 
her in agricultural wealth and prosperity.” 
Morgan Horses, 
The editor of the Albany Cultivator is alto- 
gether wrong if he supposes the article in the 
March No. of the Southeen Cultivatoe was in- 
tended to throw doubt or discredit on Mr Weis- 
singee’s account of the Morgan horse, which we 
had copied in our February No. By no means. 
It was intended, as was distinctly staled, as a 
sort of counter-blast to the article of February — 
not to discredit it, but that if any one, by it, 
should be induced to think about getting a Mor- 
gan horse, he should look sharp with whom he 
is about to deal. That was ail. Our caution 
was not against alleged misrepre-entarions about 
the existence of this celebrated stock, but against 
the tricks of jockies, who would sell the veriest 
jackass for a Morgan horse, to any one who would 
allow himself to be thus cheated, and then make 
a boast of it, especially if the sale were mado to 
a Southern green-horn. 
Southern ludepeudehce. 
The lime sent from the Conasena Kiln, in Cass 
county, by Mr. Brown, we have received, ex- 
amined it carefully, and tried it sufficiently to 
satisfy us that, for all the purposes of the build- 
er, it is just as good as lime need be. Such, too, 
we understand, is the character given to it by 
every one who has tried it. In Augusta, we 
have heard it pronounced to be equal to the best 
Northern lime, in all respects ^ and in one great- 
ly superior, that is, in its freshness, owing to the 
short distance it has to be carried to that market, 
compared with the other. 
Some one has suggested, on the authority of 
Dr. Teoost of Nashville, that the rock of which 
Mr. Beown makes his lime is an inferior variety 
of limestone, known by the name of oolite. This 
is an error, both in Dr. Thoost and those who 
rely on him as authority. Mr. Brown assures 
us that his rock is not an oolite, and any one who 
chooses may satisfy himself by examining the 
small pieces of imperfectly burnt rock, that 
are sometimes found in this lime, that Mr. 
Brown’s limestone has nothing of the oolitic 
character about it. 
Figs. 
Surely we may have as good — nay, better — 
dried figs of our own growth and preparation 
than can be produced any w'here. The world 
does not produce finer figs than these same 
Southern States ; and they can be prepared for 
keepi ig and for export, just as easily as in Asia ; 
and thus we can have an article that we know to 
be clean. We can’t look upon an imported dried 
fig without a feeling of nausea. Why, the pro- 
cess of preparing them for market is tenfold more 
abominable than that used in making Foreign 
Madeira or Port Wine,, of which we gave an ac- 
count some time ago : 
