190 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVAl’OR 
^griaxlUiral ilUetings. 
Monroe and Conecuh Agricultural Society. 
Mr. Camak: — In accordance with a resolu- 
tion of the Monroe and Conecuh County Agri- 
cultural Society, I send you a report of a Com- 
mittee that was appointed at our last meeting 
to investigate the nature of our soils and the 
best means within our reach of ameliorating 
them, with a request that you have the report 
published in the Southern Cultivator. 
Respectfully yours, &c,, 
John Green, Corr’g Secretary. 
Burnt Corn^ Ala., Oct. 10, 1846. 
The Committee to whom was referred the 
subject of ‘^investigating the nature of our soils 
and the best means within our reach of ame- 
liorating them,” beg leave to submit the follow- 
ing 
REPORT: 
Asa full knowledge of soils can be derived 
only from arralytic chemistry, which requires 
not only the chemist but the laboratory, we do 
not suppose that any such thing was contem- 
plated as a presentation to the Society of a re- 
port upon the various ingredients, as well as 
their relative proportions which enter into the 
composition of soils. Your Committee there- 
fore will be content to present to you such gen- 
eral views pertaining to the nature of soils as 
they have been able to collect from limited ex- 
perience and observation, aided by a partial 
knowledge ot chemistry. In the infantile state 
of our Society we believe that some general 
and practical observations will be more likely 
to prove acceptable and useful than a minute 
scientific account, embracing, as it necessarilv 
would, many of the technicalities ot science, 
which might prove unmeaning, terms to plain 
practical planters. 
All soils possess three piincipal ingredients, 
namely: sand, clay and lime. These are not 
only required to be present, but they must be 
combined in certain proportions, and the more 
thorough the comminution and intermixture, 
the better. These fhree earths- are generally 
found in nature in a state of binary compound, 
having had their several bases, silicum, alumi- 
niu-'^ icd 2 iljium, acted upon by oxygen, and 
coijsdtuting what are termed oxides. Many 
experiments have been instituted by different 
men for the purpose ot ascertaining those pro- 
portions best suited to vegetation. According 
to Tillet, the most fertile mixture he could pro- 
duce consisted of three-eighths clay, three- 
eighths finely pulverized limeston-e, and two- 
eighths sand. 
In the analyses of natural soils which we 
have examined, made by men whose attain- 
ments in science entitle them to much credit, 
we do not often find so large a proportion of 
lime as three-eighthsj and even the alluvial 
soil of the river Nile, which must be regarded 
as {he ne plus ultra of fertility, does not contain 
so much, according to the analysis of Silliman. 
Your Committee think, however, as a standard, 
■we should not err widely in taking the above 
proportions. Prom the best examination of the 
subject we have been able to make, we think 
the soils of Monroe and Conecuh counties 
abound too largely in silex or sand for the clay 
and lime they possess. This excess of sand 
gives to them too much porosity, which causes 
vegetation upon them to suffer much during 
dry weather, and detracts much too from their 
susceptibility of improvement, as the elements 
of manures put upon them rapidly descend and 
are in a great degree lost. On the other hand, 
if clay exist in excess (which is rarely the ease 
in the opinion of your Committee, in these 
counties, as most of our clays are largely mixed 
with sand,) the soil is found to have too much te- 
nacity, not sufficiently friable, is too retentive of 
moisture and consequently cold. Such soil is 
necessarily unproductive from the fact of two 
of the most powerful agents of vegetation being 
in a great degree excluded, namely, heat and 
atmospheric air. We are aware of the great 
repugnance existing among many planters to 
clay, and especially red clay, from the fad, we 
suppose, of associating with it the poverty ot 
worn out and gullied hill sides, which are usu- 
ally presented to us in a scarlet garment, but as 
an ingredient of good soil it must be regarded 
as indispensable. Much clay too contains, be- 
sides alumina, a considerable portion of lime 
and sumetiires some of the fixed alkalies, or 
perhaps the volatile alkali, ammonia, supplied 
probably by rain water, all ol which tends to 
render it fertile. When clay is exposed to the 
action of the atmospheric air it becomes fria- 
ble and pulverable, and ceases to be of that co- 
hesive, unwieldy nature which it is first found 
to be. The fact is evinced by examining the 
clay which has been, brought to the surface by 
the roots of trees that have fallen. 
Having stated the three principal earthy com- 
ponents of soils, and, as nearly as we are able 
to arrive at it, their relative proportions, we pro- 
ceed to the second and most important part of 
our subject, namely, a consideration of the best 
means within our reach of amelioration. By 
agriculture we understand not only the prepar- 
ing and cultivating the soil, but the application 
to it of such chemical agents as give to it the 
highest degree of fertility, and consequently en- 
able us to reap the largest rewards for the labor 
bestowed. He who has learned only the first 
or mechanical part is but a novice, notwith- 
standing his head may have grown gray in the 
tillage ot his fields. 
The amelioration of soils by the application 
of manures, or “chemical agriculture,” is ac- 
complished by two different sets of agents; the 
first are those which increase productiveness by 
imparting an additional amount of nutritive 
matter; the second are those that develope and 
call into action such substances as are already 
existing in the soil, and which, having done all 
the good they are capable of effecting in their 
old combinations, require further decomposi- 
tion, from which result re-combinations, and 
thus they again become operative. It is not un- 
frequently the case that the same article is 
found productive of both these effects. This is 
true of animal manures generally. Vegetable 
manures on the contrary appear to act almost 
exclusively as aliment, exerting but little influ- 
ence as renovators of those substances which 
have been previously incorporated with the 
soil. To mineral manures belong the last 
named office ; they operate by improving the 
texture of the soil, and by their solvent powers, 
bringing into use all the insoluble humus; and 
by favoring and accelerating decomposition 
they make those substances yield up their nu- 
tritive matter, which would either forever lie 
dormant or else be so slowly parted with as to be 
productive of Iktle or no perceptible good. 
Most of the lands tilled in our counties have 
been subjected to a long course of wasteful cul- 
tivation, and so sterile have they beeome that 
some attention to their improvement is now im- 
periously demanded, or else they must be aban- 
doned as no longer capable of giving us sup- 
port. ’Tis true from their brokenness in many 
places locality discourages the effort to reclaim, 
but in many o'.hers position highly favors. The 
earthy components and their proportions, as 
well as the action of the three different classes 
ot manures described, being known, every 
planter should inquire what it is his soil needs. 
If he find it in want of new alimentative mat- 
ter, let him immediately proceed to raising sta- 
ble and cow-pen manures, and with them make 
a compost heap. It is, indeed, surprising how 
these things are neglected by most planters. 
The large amount of forest lands accessible to 
most of us renders it quite an easy matter to 
raise compost manures, especially if we are 
convenient to a pine forest, as many of us are, 
as pine straw answers a better purpose than al- 
most any other vegetable litter furnished by the 
forest. ’Tis true it contains much acid, and 
consequently is slow in undergoing decay by it- 
self, and from this circumstance is actually pro- 
ductive of injury very often when used alone, 
‘^ut if thrown into our farm pens and trodden 
by animals, as well as mingled with their ex- 
crements, its acidity is corrected, its decompo- 
sition hastened, and it becomes an excellent in- 
gredient in the compost heap, adding largely 
both to the quantity and quality of the bulk. 
In the same manner oak leaves, corn stalks, 
oat straw, w.heat straw, and indeed everything 
bearing the name of vegetable may be convert- 
ed into highly useful matter. Our counties fa- 
vor much, as well as our climate, the raising 
of cows, which might be made very profitable 
by raising manures from them, to say nothing 
of their value in other respects. If, on the 
other hand, the planter should find upon exami- 
nation a sufficient quantity of aliment already 
existing, but wanting a chemical agent to bring 
it out, or in common language, his land is rich 
but tired, let him go to work in hunting lime or 
marl, for such is ihe agent for his purposes; and 
your Committee feel confident, irom the few ex- 
aminations they have made, it will be quite an 
easy task to find it in many places in great quan- 
tities and of superior quality. The article 
found so abundantly on Burnt Corn and Lime- 
stone Creeps, ot which no other use has as yet 
been made than to build chimneys, we think is 
one of the most valuable marls we have ever 
seen. Upon analysis it is found to contain a 
fraction over 81 per cent, of carbonate ot lime 
mixed with sand, thus constituting what is call- 
ed by writers sand-marl. Clay-marl, another 
variety, would be lonud to suit our sandy soils 
better if it could be found as rich in carbonate 
of lime. The lime, which is the principal 
agent sought after, would be the same in both 
instances, but the clay itself would make the 
clay marl answer a better purpose, because it 
would impart a greater degree of consistency to 
such soils as are too loose. Again, if the soil 
is too close the sand-marl will be found best. 
We wish to call attention particularly to this 
chimney rock, believing it will be found upon 
trial to serve most valuable purposes. It will, 
we believe, be found very available, as we learn 
the rains and freezes of o?ie winter, when 
pounded or broken into small lumps, will re- 
duce it to a powder. We earnestly request and 
hope that no article existing in such quantities, 
and from its chemical composition promising 
so much, will be passed by another year with- 
out many practical tests of its value. Your 
Committee might say much on the subject of 
applying marls, but they do not think it fairly 
comes within their sphere of duty and they re- 
frain. We cannot withhold an expression of 
the opinion that much benefit might result from 
curtailing the quantity of land cultivated, and 
making that which we do cultivate better. 
Muefilabor we believe might be saved, and u 
better yield to the hand. We have often beard 
it said that a man must plant largely to reap 
largely, but it is a saying fraught with error, if 
by planting largely is meani that a man must 
task himself, if his land be powr, with a large 
amount of surface, thereby hoping to- make up 
in quantity what his land may lack in quality. 
Let us work less and make it richer. 
Though the means ot amelioration embra- 
ced by mechanical agriculture are neither few 
nor unimportant, we shall be content with a 
few remarks only on this head. This is a part 
of the subject to which planters .have devotad-. 
themselves chiefly, and aware of the difficulty 
of removing them from the beaten paths of their 
grandfathers, to which many seem to cling with. 
almost the tenacity of the dying man to life, it 
is with diffidence we approach the subject of 
mechanical amelioration. The system ol cul- 
tivation adopted here we cannot regard in any 
other light than as highly defective. If our- 
planters could but be taught the important fact 
that the treasures they are in search of lie a lit- 
tle deeper in the earth than they have been ac- 
customed to regard them, and deeper too than 
they were in the days of their grandfathers, 
much, improvement, we think, would accrue to 
our mode o-f cultivation. Thesuperficial plow- 
ings and hoeings which we are in the habit of 
giving to our land, in many instances never 
