SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
m 
THREE SOUTH DOWN BUCK LAMBS, 
Sired by the noted Buck, “Young York,” and owned by Lewhs G. Morris, Esq., of Mount Fordham, Westches- 
ter Co., New York. These Lambs won the 1st prize at the New York State Fair in 1851. 
TEE EENOVATIOE OE SOU, &C. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — As T have been a sub- 
scriber to the Cultivator for the last five years, and expect 
to continue so as long as I have a surplus dollar in my 
purse, I hope I may be pardoned for troubling you with a 
question or two, relative to the best mode of renovating 
or rather keeping up the virgin fertility of my soil with 
peas as the principal fertilizer. Is it best to sow them 
broad-cast and turn under whilst green and in bunch] or 
let them mature and rot on the ground] If best to turn 
under whilst green, at what season ought they be sown ] 
and how should land be treated after the peas have been 
plowed under to protect it from the rays of the sun ] 
This place is in latitude 33 1-2^. I am a young farmer; 
have very little “book laming,” but have adopted “book 
farming ” as preferable to going it blind. When I com- 
menced farming, some six or seven years ago, I thought | 
it better to subscribe for one or two good agricultural jour- 
nals, and to adopt the plans and opinions of others, as 
given in those “books” than to consume time unnecessarily 
in trying to find out for myself the same things, by a long 
life of toil — to say nothing of the disappointments, vex- 
ations and losses — to which I might possibly be subject- 
ed ; and I have no cause ofTegret for sticking to my reso- 
lution. 
Tii,e quality of rny land is tolerably good it is callable 
of producing 800 to 1,000 Lbs., of cotton per acre, and 20 
to 25 bushels of corn. Soil, a fine, dark sand, with a deep- 
yellow clay substratum. I cultivate but 12 acres to the 
hand — 8 acres in cotton, and 4 in corn — v/ith patches of 
potatoes, pindars, \yater melons, pumpkins, and lastthough 
not least, a vegetable garden which supplies an aban- 
dance of vegetables for white and black. In ray garden 
are two beds of strawberries, 12 Ijy 40 feet, which give 
my white family (there are only five of us) a bountiful 
supply of berries for five or six weeks ; and a row of | 
raspberries GO yards long, which keeps up the supply of 
berries on our table until wliordeberries and blackberries 
come in, and then we feast on pies, until the apples are 
ripe enough for dumplings. But I am probably taxing 
your patience with what does not interest you, and must 
desist. I beg an answer to my questions at your earliest 
convenience through the columns of the Cultivator. 
With much esteem, I am, respectfully, 
J. B. R, 
Luda^ Ouachita Co., Ark., April 9th, 1855. 
Remarks. — As a general rule, it is better to have peas, 
clover and manure rot in the ground than it ; and 
we should plow in peas to enrich land rather than let them 
decay on the surface. When plants decompose on the 
surface, much of their carbonic acid and ammonia escapes 
directly into the atmosphere, and does not benefit the 
soil. 
The depth at which renovating crops ought to be turn- 
ed uncer is a matter of some importance. Suppose the 
present staple of the soil is four inches, and the owner 
wishes to make it eight inches. How shall he operate ? 
Having seen clover plowed in to recuperate wheat fields 
for the last thirty years, and studied the point under con- 
sideration with some care, experience teaches us to plow 
in green crops on light sandy land eight inches at once ; 
but on cold, heavy clay soils, plow at first only one inch 
below the usual depth of plowing, and of course one inch 
into the compact clay below the staple. The vdgetabla 
matter rotting in cohtact with the subsoil, effects useful 
chemical changes in its minerals, mingles valuable mould 
with the same, and thus at once deepens and fructifies the 
surface soil. The ntxt time one plows in a crop of peas, 
\ let the turning iron run an inch deeper; and so on from 
year to year, allowing a good coat of vegetation to an 
inch of clay until the available staple is ei^it or ten inches 
in depth, instead of four or five. 
As to the time of sowing peas, that is the best which 
promises b;^ rain and snnshin*e to giye the largest growth. 
Weight of organized matter is what is sought; and the 
cultivator should endeavor to so arrange and advance his 
other operations as to put seed peas into* the ground 
when his chances of a good crop are best. When the pods 
begin to form is the right time to bury the plants in the 
earth, to yield the maximum of gain to the land. If one 
could purchase ground gypsum at two or three dollars a 
