100 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
ion with potash: and ior clover, that sulphur 
should exist in the soil in the condition of a so- 
luble sulphate. In confirmation of the above 
theories, 1 will relate a few facts that have come 
under my immediate observation. In 1837, I 
came into possession of an old farm that had 
not a furrow plough on it for 20 years. In one 
of the fields there were 12 or 15 acres that had 
been yearly mow ed all this time, and did not av- 
erage 5 cwt. of hay to the acre. Many of the 
rocks and stones in the soil were of the ‘brim- 
stone order.’ That spring I ploughed about an 
acre and a half; being, as lar as I could judge, 
the best land of the field, manured with about 20 
loads ol manure; something over an acre was 
planted with potatoes, the rest with com. From 
the friable appearance of the soil, and the long 
time it had lain in grass, I expected to have rais- 
ed a good crop, but in July and August, I ob- 
served many of the tops wilted and dead. Up- 
on examination, I found the stalks from the sur- 
face of the ground to their roots, entirely corrod- 
ed or rusted off by some cause to me then inex- 
licable. I think the crop was less than eighty 
ushels per acre. The part planted with corn 
amounted to nothing except for fodder. The 
next year (’38) all except one-tenth of an acre 
was manured with about lour cart loads of 
coarse manure, ploughed twice, and sowed with 
ruta baga about 20ih June — harvested 1st No- 
vember, trimmed close, and accurately measur- 
ed, atid the yield was 100 bushels— of 1000 per 
acre. In ’39, the produce of turneps was very 
good. The years '40 and ’41, in consequence ol 
drought, the tumep seed mostly failed to vege- 
tate, and what lew did, the insects destroyed. — 
The past season, ( 42) I planted three small 
pieces of land with squashes and pumpkins. 
They were destroyed by the black bug: one of 
the pieces was set out with ruta baga plants in 
July; several very warm days succeeded, and 
the tops were killed to the surface of the ground; 
and it was many days before they showed any 
signs of life. When they were harvested in 
November, many of them were the largest tur- 
neps 1 ever saw. The other pieces were sowed 
late in July with English turnep seed by merely 
hoeing them in, and nothing farther was done 
to them till they were harvested. The product 
was nearly twenty bushels of as fine turneps as 
ever I saw. I cannot doubt but the sulphur in 
the soil exerted a beneficial influence upon the 
growth ol the turneps.” 
My experience ol four years in cultivating 
clover upon this kind ol land, fully confirm 
Mr. Chatterly’s statements; but from the length 
of this paper I must forbear to go into particu- 
lars. 
The opinions I have expressed in this com- 
munication I trust are correct; what I have stat- 
ed as lacts, I believe are so, but if I am in error, 
I shall be happy to be set right, as I have no la- 
vorite theories that 1 wish to establish at the ex- 
pense of truth. L£VI BARTLETT, 
Warner, Feb. 1843. 
Mr. Bartlett’s Agiicultural Essay, which will 
be found in this paper,, is a masterly production, 
distinguished alike for sound sense, science sim- 
plified, and practical knowledge. It should be 
studied as well as read. — Amer. Farmer. 
New Reaping Machine.— The editor of the 
Richmond Compiler was present a lew days 
since at an exhibition of a Reaping Machine, 
Invented by Mr. McCormick, of Rockbridge, 
Virginia, the operation of which he thus de- 
scribes. in a recent number of his paper 
The machine, placed on small wheels, was 
moved by two horses around the rye field in 
which the exhibition took place, at a quick 
pace, making a clear passage through the grain 
as it moved, about five feet wide. This it did 
with a completeness which it is impossible for 
the cradle to accomplish. This machine would 
effectually destroy the vocation of the “Glean- 
er,” who has been in times bye-gone, the subject 
of many a pretty story or pleasant poem. The 
wheels of the machine keep in constant motion 
a saw, with edge and teeth not unlike a reap 
hook, which saws down the grain as it is bent 
and forced against its edge by a revolving appa- 
ratus, resembling a seine reel. The grain falls 
upon a bed or platform just behind the teeth, 
whence it is raked by hand. This raking of the 
grain away is the most laborious part of the 
process — so rapidly tioes it accumulate that it is 
difficult to keep it properly cleared. 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Mr. Editor — I discover in your paper ol the 
20th ult., that, after giving some account ol the 
Agricultural Fair of Adams county, Mississip- 
pi, you suggest the propriety and importance of 
organizing an agricultural society for Morgan 
county. I thank you for the suggestion, and 
hope that your efforts to promote this most im- 
portant branch ol industry will be tangibly ap- 
preciated by thepuolic. 
I have long wished to see some movement 
made by which our people might be awakened 
upon this subject.. I have, therefore, concluded 
to submit a few reasons in support of the sug- 
gestion you make. Morgan county once sus- 
tained double her present population, and sup- 
ported it profitably to the occupants of her soil. 
Why is this? Her territorial limits have not 
been contracted. The answer is an easy, though 
a very melancholy one: one acre of her soil 
would then produce what three will hardly do 
now. The consequence is, that our population 
is yearly decreasing — manjuif our most valua- 
ble citizens are leaving iS, and are going in 
search of more productive land. 
Can these things be remedied?: I answerjhat 
what has been done in other places is, at least, 
worth the effort with us. We know that in ma- 
ny portions of the world, so far from exhausting 
lands by cultivation, they actually enrich them 
yearly. The truth is, we have been spoiled by 
having had allotted to us by the Almighty a 
rich freehold — well adapted to the culture ot the 
great staple of this country. Like a profligate 
heir, we have been reckless of our inheritance, 
till we begin to find, like him, that the best es- 
tate may be ruined by perpetual drafts on and 
none in favor ot it. Let us then profit by ex- 
perience, and begin to husband our remaining 
resources, and try to regain by a well organized 
system, what we have lost by the reckless pro- 
digality of our soil. We have every induce- 
ment to improve our lands; in the first place we 
have a soil highly susceptible of improvement — 
our lands being mostly based upon good clay 
foundations; and again, our county occupies a 
position in the State in point of locality, which, 
with its health, temperature and good pure wa- 
ter, will make it at all times a desirable place 
of residence, and will not only induce ourpopu- 
lation to remain, il properly cultivated and im- 
proved, but will induce others to come amongst 
us. These are reasons ol a local character. I 
might, if I did not fear of trespassing too far 
upon your limits, give many more of a general 
character. I will, however, submit but one or 
two: I think it could be demonstrated that, by 
adopting a system of cultivation, by which we 
retain what soil we have, and augment and im- 
prove the same by the proper collection and ap- 
plication ol manure, we shall not only add 
yearly to the value of our lands, but produce 
more profitable crops. 
4.gain, it is melancholy to look upon any 
thing, animate or inanimate, in a state of de- 
cline — hence, you will always find m^re of en- 
ergy and vigor in a newly settled community. 
Every thing there has a tendency to buoy up and 
give elasticity to the spirits. Well, if this be 
true, what must be the effect produced upon the 
mind of the way-farer, who jogs up and down 
our high way (and especially if he had travers- 
ed the same path some twenty four years ago,) 
where once stood the poplar, the walnut and the 
red bud, he beholds now the deep- washed gully, 
with here and there a patch of br 0 om-sedge,and, 
per chance, a bunch of the blackberry-bush, that 
has taken sustenance from the decaying roots of 
some Ifiendly stump, or that of some vagrant 
^ug. No wonder you hear so much complaint 
of “blue devils.’^ But lastly, the system of cul- 
tivation (or of land butchery) hitherto pursued 
in the country, has been such as to hold out but 
one solitary inducement to embark in it, to wit: 
the profits in dollars and cents, and that is now 
pretty well over. How often have you heard 
the young man say, “1 can’t think of planting 
— I’ve taken too much pains with my enucaiion 
to busy myself in that way.” Hence the learn- 
ed professions are all overstocked, and loalers 
“abound in the land.” The truth is, that a 
young man of cultivated mind can find nothing 
tf) lacinate in our farming, because we have 
neither science nor sy.stem in it. The most ig- 
norant Afiican could have the advantage of 
him, for he would have some experience. How 
desirable, then, so to improve this, the support 
of all other prolessions, as to allure the talented 
and enterpri.-ing to its embrace; to sweeten la- 
bor by converting drudgery into scientific exper- 
iment, and so stamping mind upon the laws of 
nature, as to bring up, out of our present con- 
fusion, the most beautiful system. I will not 
extend this article by way of giving reasons 
why an organized society will be necessary to 
the promotion ol the objects here spoken of — 
they must be obvious to every one. I will sug- 
gest a meeting of the planters of the county at 
some early day to take the same into considera- 
tion, that a society may be organized; and I 
think of no time more appropriate than the An- 
niversary of our National Independence. 
PLANTER. 
Mr. Editor — Your correspondent “Planter” 
suggests the importance of an Agricultural 
Society for Morgan county, and gives us some 
of the reasons that should influence our people 
on this subject. I most cordially agree with 
him in the views which he has taken, and would 
now add a lew additional remarks. That the 
subject of agriculture is one of importance, de- 
manding our first attention, and our best efforts, 
is a truth as palpable as it is of piofound inter- 
est to our well being in society. The first em- 
ployment of the first man was the cultivation 
of the earth, and his first descendants were not- 
ioo proud or too Zazy to imitate the example of 
their great progenitor; nor have some of the 
first men of our day deemed the subject of agri- 
cultural science too litde and grovelling to engage 
brains that teem with scientific lore. 
If the importance and utility of the subject 
would then command our first attention, why 
not secure every and all the means that shall 
lead to the most triumphant results? If agri- 
culture be purely practical, then let us lend our 
physical energies to its attainment; but if it be 
both theoretical anl practical, why then let us 
collect the various theories and practices of men 
of diversified acquirements and varied locations 
of country, as well as a difference of soil and 
climate. I ask, now, how can all this be e& 
fected better than by the formation of an Agri- 
cultural Society? Here we occasionally meet 
and tell over our enterprizes with our dear old 
mother earth — we recount to one another our 
fraternal kindness, and tell of the food with 
which this mother was fed — how artfully we 
succeeded in the preparation of her nutriment — 
how we regaled and electrified the old matron 
when we dosed her with our gaseous compounds, 
and made her joy so extatic that even heaven 
poured smiling tears upon her, and she, in the 
exuberency of her joy, bestowed upon her sons 
the golden treasures ot corn, and cotton, and 
wheat, and all that could fatten and make alive 
the animate creation. 
It is, thus, by mutual interchange of opinions, 
that we form conclusions and arrive at truths 
that are of practical importance to mankind. 
It is in this way that the agriculture of England 
and Scotland, Germany and France, have at- 
tained its present elevated and enviable state. 
It is by knowledge diffused through Societies, 
in this way, that processes once considered dil* 
ficult and mysterious are now made familiar to 
all. We hold converse in an Agricultural So° 
