SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
211 
BOEIZONTAL TILLAGE AND GUAKD-DRAINS, OR 
HILL-SIDE DITCHES. 
This is a subject upon which, we had supposed, the 
Agricultural world of the South was already pretty well 
informed, and that though Guard-drains were not yet 
very generally employed for the protection of hill-lands, 
horizontal tillage was everywhere practised. Our aston- 
ishment may then be guessed at, when we found but one 
plantation in Texas, during a somewhat lengthened excur- 
sian in that noble State during the past spring, upon which 
the rows were not run without a thought as to the lay of 
the land! Guard-drains had been successfully made up- 
on the same place. Those beautifully undulating Post-oak 
lands, and magnificent rolling prairies were all alike be- 
ing ruined, aye utterly ruined. It was really painful to 
behold. The excuse was, an entire want of knowledge 
as to how to lay off horizontal rows, and guard-drains. 
We explained the process there to all who seemed to de- 
sire the knowledge ; and will now do so, again and still 
more clearly through these pages. In nearly all of the 
older Southern States, a vast proportion of the best lands 
are already worn, washed and gullied to such a degree, as 
to be nearly ruined for further cropping in cotton or corn ; 
though yet reclaimable by the regular system we are 
treating of, aided by Guano, Clover and Plaster, Bermuda 
grass and Sheep. Plow far this can be profitably done, 
depends much upon location, cost of labor and Guano, 
and the price of cotton. The friable nature of the soil of 
our hill-lands, the heavy rains with which we are so fre- 
quently visited, with the continued course of clean tillage 
crops which we pursue, renders a system of horizontal 
tillage indispensable. It is found, however, that this 
alone is not sufficient to prevent the formation of numer- 
ous washes and still deeper gullies, which are cut out 
upon long hill-sides during heavy rains — to the ruin not 
only of the hills, but of the bottom lands, upon which the 
poorer subsoil from the gullies is carried in vast quantities 
covering up the richer soil of the bottoms to a depth in-' 
accessible to the plow and ruinous. Guard-drains are al- 
so needed, by which the accumulated waters may be car- 
ried off gradually, and discharged at selected points where 
they will effect the least injury. 
Where the subsoil is at all porous and the land has 
been broken up to a proper depth, the water that falls up- 
on the immediate surface of any hill- side, will rarely cut 
it into deep gullies, unless the distance it has to run is 
very considerable. It is its accumulation on the gentle 
slopes above, that is the cause of the damage. There the 
horizontal furrows fill up with water, which runs over at 
some low point, and cutting through each ridge as it goes, 
gathers strength and weight by the added contents of 
every furrow ; until, by the time it reaches the brow of 
the steeper hill, there is water enough rushing down to 
cut a gully that cannot again be stopped, without a great 
expenditure of labor. 
So long as the soil contains a fair proportion of fibrous 
vegetable matter, it washes but little. When this becomes 
exhausted by continuous tillage, the soil loses what ten- 
acity it had, and literally melts in the rain ; the sliallow 
plowings, which, even in breaking up, so rarely stir the 
ground to a greater-depth than from three to four inches, 
greatly aiding in the process: so that it is not at all un- 
frequent to see large spaces from which the entire surface, 
plowed shallow, has been washed off down to the hard^ 
van. 
It is a fair inference, that if means are used, before 
the land becomes exhausted of its leafy fibre, to carry 
gradually off the surplus rain-water over what the soil, 
loosened in plowing, can hold in suspension ; and to re- 
place the original vegetable matter, as it becomes broken 
down and disappears from constant tillage, we may keep 
our hill sides from deterioration, and even improve upon 
their original condition. 
The latter improvement must be effected by a judicioua 
rotation of crops, which shall include green-fallows. The 
former by the means of hill-side ditches, horizontal row* 
and deep plowing. 
Hill- side ditches cannot be laid off without a level of 
some kind for determining the fall to be given. Various 
instruments' are employed for this purpose. The spirit- 
level is the one we have hitherto used. It is home-made, 
cheap, simple and effective ; consisting of a tripod, to sup- 
port the level at a convenient height ; of a fixed immov- 
able frame which sits firmly on the tripod ; a triangular 
frame or sight-table, by means of which the level is regu- 
lated. It admits of a greater extent of levelling being 
done from one spot, than any other we have seen ; but 
requires more judgment in regulating by it the fall of 
ditches, winding along the hill-sides than the one we now 
use; 
The Rafter level is the one most commonly employed, 
and, though somewhat laborious in the using, is easily 
made and tolerably effective. It must have a ten feet span, 
and be as light as possible to have sufficient strength, 
and with substance enough to prevent warping. The two 
main pieces may be about seven feet long. When made, 
its correctness may be tested by placing the instrument 
on a level floor; suspend the plumb, which should be of 
lead, and as large as a hen’s egg ; mark the spot where 
the line crosses the lower bar; reverse the position of the 
feet, placing each one on the spot where the other stood 
and again mark where the line crosses ; the centre be- 
tween the two marks shows the dead level. When on a 
perfect level, raise one foot of the, instrument half an inch, 
and make a permanent mark where the string crosses; do 
the same at an inch, an inch and a half, and two inches. 
Bring the instrument again level, and repeat the same w’ith 
the other foot. These marks show the fall — half inch, 
inch, and so on — in every ten feet. By far the greatest 
extent of leveling and laying off of guard-drains, in the 
Southern country has been done with this instrument. 
And though upon the whole, doing the work slowly and 
by no means perfectly, its simplicity is yet no slight re- 
commendation. 
Other instruments have been recommended, but, with 
the above, are all more or less defective. We have, after 
