188 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
MANAGEMENT OF FARMS. 
There are far too many in oar cominuuily 
who, relying .solely on the present returns oi their 
larins, plant nothing but cotton anti corn, and 
plant uith the behet that it is cheaper to buy 
ana clear new laod.s, than to improve or keep in 
good heart their present cleared lands. In mak- 
ing our remarks on this subject, we write not 
I'rom theory, nor from our limited practice, but 
could make a relerence, known to many ol our 
readers, that is as strong in proof of the grounds 
we take as any thing could be. VVe hold, what 
we have oft times repeated, t„at the farmer who 
can show a clear gain in a series of lO or 20 
years the greatest, when especially if there be 
much of it in his real estate, is the best farmer. 
We furthermore believe it is a subject more im- 
portant to our friends than any other we could 
call to their attention, as it includes the -vvhole 
subject of good farming— excepting due econo- 
my in his expenses, and the proper education of 
his family. This subject not only includes fair 
crops, good plowing, clean and perfect cultiva- 
tion, rest of land, rotation of crops, manuring,, 
but tue proper care of stock, as to feeding and 
preparing an abundance of food for every thing, 
and making quantities of manure. We cannot 
give the hundredth part of all the minutim of 
plowing and hoeing, planting and gathering, 
&c. &c.; but will touch on the outlines of a sys- 
tem, chat IS acted on, which is perfectly compati- 
ble with a cotton farm, and the only feasible one 
that we can think of, and we do profess to have 
given the matter our thoughts in every possible 
bearing. There is one thing we b^ig lo say, 
with the wish that our interest should be so con- 
strued in our favor, as that our readers will give 
it their thoughts at least. We read no political 
work of any description, and seldom talk on po- 
litics. Our friends, knowing we are “Berkshire 
mad,” indulge us with conversing on this sub- 
ject, and we read every day more or less on ag- 
riculture, and think on it all the time. 
We will take a farm of any dimensions, sup- 
posing it be well cleared, with good fences, hav- 
ing enough stock of every description, with 
tools, &c"., and plow horses for one half the 
hands, which is about usual. Suppose the farm 
to be 100 acres of cleared land, it being in round 
numbers and easily divisible. This 100 acres 
will require 7 hands to cultivate it as is frequent- 
ly done — 9 acres in cotton and 4'in corn, which 
gives a crop of 6 to 7 bales, and about 125 bush- 
els of corn per hand— 4 or 5 horses on the farm. 
We would advise that the farm be divided into 
4 fields of 25 acres each — one planted in cotton, 
one in corn, one in grain — the fourth to be at al- 
most perfect rest, which will be belter explained 
after awhile. 
Three hands, with a hoise each, can cultivate 
this land, and will make the same per hand crop 
of cotton, with nearly double of corn, and a 
large per hand crop of grain— place the other 
hands to clearing, which will enable the farmer 
lo bring into his field one or two more of his 
hands the second year, and so on until he gets 
all seven in the field. In the mean time he will 
nece.ssarily lose a portion of his crop; but as his 
provision department is so much more ample, 
he will make more than his crop calls for, as he 
has been accustomed to. The second year he 
will plant his rested land in cotton — cotton land 
in corn, corn land in oats, and his oats land will 
rest, and .so on through the rotation. 
By feeding his slock so much better, as his 
provrsion will enable him so to do, he will be 
enabled to manure his corn yearly, at least in 
the hill. Thus in four years he will have added 
a little lo his permanent improvement. By 
planting peas in his corn, there will be another 
addition to his farm every four years; the peas 
will come up in the spring on his oats field. — 
This, with the s'ubble and grass, will be anoth- 
er addition: the rest, together with grass and 
weeds on this last quarter, will be another addi- 
tion. Thus we have three-fourths of the farm 
well manured yearly. 
We would, after gathering our corn, turn 
stock into pea field — say October 1st; herd them 
nightly in lots, and feed with cotton seed and 
shucks. They would thus do well until say 
middle of De.jember — then use the better food 
at night, and give them access to grain field un- 
til 1st ol March, by which time the field in rest 
might, if a favorable season, be used for two 
months, always removing them in time, that a 
growth of grass and weeds sufficient to protect 
the land should be on it before the heats of sum- 
mer injure the land. The stock may soon be 
turned into the grain field, or it might be prefer- 
able to turn into range, it good, or if nor, to feed 
lor a month or so — then, in August and Septem- 
ber, back on the rested land. We would thus 
have dropped in the fields or in the lots all the 
manure, thereby returning to the land nearly 
every thing taken off; and if we consider the 
agency ol the atmosphere and gases, carried 
into the earth by the rains and plowing, we do 
absolutely give to the land more than we take 
away. If an individual be out of debt, we hold 
that before the fourth rotation comes round, he 
will have made more dollars and cents out of 
the land, besides having improved his land and 
stock in value, full 50 to 101) per cent. 
We could name a larmer who, in following 
in the main this system, made last year 130 bales 
of cotton, and 1500 bushels of corn that he has 
not been able to consume with twelve hands. — 
Can this be beaten in the length and breadth of 
our land'7 He sells pork, and has the finest and 
fattest cows we have seen in many a day. Bear 
this in mind, he has a work horse to every hand, 
and in a push turns out his cook and follows 
the fourteenth plow himself. He has more im- 
plements than some of our friends who may 
work twenty-five to thirty hands. Is this not 
true economy? He, making many of his tools 
at home, not only feeds double the number of 
horses, but has as much corn to sell as many 
make v ith the same number of hands, and with 
all this turns his stock into an hundred and fifty 
acre field of grain, not having cut more than 
will give him seed, gathers peas enough to plant 
not only his corn field, but to sow down 40 or 
50 acres of pa.sture land, with i bushel per 
acre. We rejoice more in ferreting out this 
brother of ours, than we have for a length of time 
at any thing — as we have a living witness that 
we are not half so “Berkshire mad” as many of 
our shovel-plow, hoe-working good folks of the 
“ancient regime” would have us be. We know 
full well that were we to give all we saw and 
heard in spending at that place a fewhouis, 
that many cross masters u auld lay down their 
rod of dignity, and begin to learn. We have 
thought this matter to be so plain, “that the 
wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err 
therein;” it appears to us to carry a demonstra- 
tion with it, as self-evident as that a straight 
line is the shortest distance between two given 
points, or that two sides of any triangle is great- 
er than the third. But as evident as this appears 
to us, there are those who believe to the con- 
trary, and are putting good farms into the very 
condition ol those they left in their native land — 
which farms are now being improved at a cost 
far exceeding the value of ours. Will they not 
learn a lesson ere it be too late. Will they con- 
tinue to rob their children, and drive them to 
distant lands, as they have been driven by their 
forefathers, who had not the same lights that we 
all have now? We trust not, we hope not, we 
believe not. ’ Tis for this that we now labor, 
while many, probably all, of our industrious 
readers are in bed . — Southwestern Farmer. 
Hc.^ves — Do you know of any effectual re- 
medy for heaves in horses? If not, perhaps 
you may consider what follows as worth nothing. 
I have a valuable horse — one of a pair — which 
threatened, more than a year ago, to become 
utterly useless in consequence of this complaint. 
At the expiration of the last grass season, I was 
induced to try top-stalks instead of hay, and the 
result has been that the animal is entirely reliev- 
ed, nor have I the least expectation that the dis- 
ease will recur to any extent, so long as this diet 
is adhered to. Permit me to add, that I have 
for years been in the practice of giving my hor- 
ses each an ounce of fine salt every other day; 
and that I have good reasons for believing that 
their health is greatly promoted by it. In refer- 
ence to stalk fodder for horses, I should like to 
inquire through your paper, of southern gentle- 
men, whether in that pari of the country where 
hay is not made, they ever have heaves among 
their hoises. If they do not, I shall consider 
my experiment conclusive . — Albany Cult. 
TRANSPLANTING TREES. 
Success in transplanting trees depends much 
on the treatment they receive in that operalhn. 
On removing the trees from the nursery, care 
should be taken to prevent the roots from,drying 
previously to planting them, otherwise they may 
receive considerable injury; and when they are 
to be transported to a distance, particular care 
should be taken to preserve them from drying 
winds before packing. Immediately on their 
receipt the bundles should be unpacked, the 
roots well waatered and “laid in” until the ground 
in which the}" are lo be planted be ready to re- 
caive them. By laying in, is to be understood 
the making of a trench sufficiently large to ad- 
mit the roots, into which they are placed; the 
earth having been previously made fine is then 
filled in around them and a gentle watering giv- 
en, in which situation they may remain with 
safety until planted. 
The holes in which it is intended to plant 
them, should, for an ordinary sized nursery 
tree, be from 2r to 3 feet in diameter, and about 
the same depth; the eaith from the bottom should 
be thrown aside, the place filled up with good 
compost or black mould, fno fresh stable ma- 
nure should be used in the compost.) Tne tree 
should be planted one or two inches deeper than 
it stood in the nursery, the roots and fibres being 
spread out horizontally, and during the process 
of filling in the earth, the tree should be shaken 
several times to admit the soil between the roots, 
and also to fill up any cavities that might olher- 
wi.se remain. The earth should then be trodden 
down and gently watered; in a short time it will 
have settled, and any hollows that may have 
formed, should be filled up — finishing by form- 
ing a basin around the trench to receive the 
rain or w’atering which it may be necessary to 
give it, if the ensuing season should prove dry; 
to prevent the winds from loosening the earth 
around the roots, the tree should be secured to a 
stake by bands of straw. 
The proper season lor transplanting trees in 
this latiUide, is from the middle of October to 
the first or middle of May. Trees transplanted 
in autumn should have the roots a little protect- 
ed during the first ard most trying w'inter. This 
protection may consist of a few inches of litter 
from the stable, placed around their trunks and 
over their roots. Moss from the meadows or 
evergreen boughs are, however, preferable for 
delicate plants, as these substances, being al- 
most incorruptible, never injure what they were 
designed to protect. 
“We have observed,” says the Genesee Far- 
mer, “in regard to transplanting fruit trees, that 
we have rarely lost one that stood in cultivated 
ground, where the hoe was introduced several 
times in the course of the summer; but on the 
contrary, where the trees were set in grassy land, 
or where the cultivation was neglected, our loss- 
es have been conside.i able. We therefore ad- 
vise, in order to secure the safety of such aa 
have been planted out, either in the last autumn 
or spring, to have the ground well hoed round 
them once a month; and if it be done eveiy 
fortnight, it will be still better. The labor will 
not differ very materially from hoeing a hill of 
corn. It is worthy of notice, however, that the 
oftener it is done the easier it is to do — because 
the soil w'ill be kept loose and mellow. 
“To water trees in that condition may some- 
times be useful; but we are not free to recom- 
mend it very highly. A loamy soil that is 
much watered soon becomes hard; the surface 
is glazed, rendered in a great measure imper- 
meable to the air, and is consequently no longer 
