THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
18 
ADUR. SS 
Delivered before the Hincock Planters’ Club, by 
Eli H. Baxter, Esa , Nov.'S, 1813. 
Concluded from page 11 . 
Blow few planters know how much corn can 
be raised from one acre of land, well manured 
and well cultivated. In some sections of the 
United States they raise 100 bushels ot corn, 
and 35 bushels of wheat per acre. In Han- 
cock, there are some planters that do not g-ather 
100 bushels of corn from 20 acres, and lour or 
five bushels of wheat per acre. It is not sur- 
prising then that we have a decaying popula- 
tion. The State makes investments in stocks 
and internal improvement, with the view of re- 
alising intere.st. What interest, I would ask, 
has she received upon her bank stock and works 
of internal improvement? Millions would not 
cover her losses. Twenty-five thousand dollars 
expended annually in the way of premiums to 
agricultuie, wonld treble your productions and 
population. Your taxes would be trebled with- 
out increasing its burden. Whose money do 
you ask for? Your own. Who pays the tax? 
Every cent of it comes out of the planter; lor 
the profits of the mechanic and merchant are 
but profits upon the labor ol the husbandman. 
Do not be put off with the hollovv pretence ol the 
politician, that the State is in debt, and injus- 
tice will be done the public creditors. It is the 
most efficient step that the State can take to fill 
her treasury and pay her debts. If the Legisla- 
ture refuses this pittance, make it a question at 
the elections. If you would take half the in- 
terest in this matter that you do in the paity 
questions ol the day, which are of little or no 
interest to the public welfare, success would be 
certain to attend your efforts. 
Agricultural papers and periodicals have 
been considered, by all intelligent men, as a 
means well calculated 'o bring about a reforma- 
tion in agriculture. We patronize, with a libe- 
ral hand, the political papers ol the day, that 
cost three times as muchperannum as the Cul- 
tivator and Farmer’s Register, but which do 
not afford half the instruction. One of the 
benefits arising from the circulation of these 
papers is, the increase of the public taste for 
the business of agricultuie. The student will 
make but little progress in the sciences, if he 
has no relish for them; the student of law and 
medicine had better abandon them, if they take 
no delight in the study, their minds will doze 
and wander, while their eyes and lips drag la- 
zily over their text books; the rich, successful 
and enterprising merchant takes as much plea- 
sure in selling a yard of tape as the costly cash- 
mere — to make a successful farmer, we must 
delight in the bleating of the lamb, the lowing 
of the cow, and the neighing of the horse; we 
must delight in the collecting and applying of 
manures, and in the growing crop. These pa- 
pers are lull of instruction that is substantial 
and profitable. To the cultivator of the soil 
they are of incalculable benefit; they come la- 
dened to you, at a cheap rate, with the learning 
of the chemist, the botanist, geologist and philo- 
sopher; they bring to you, in a condensed fprm, 
the experience and lea ning of ten thousand 
heads, upon all the subjects connected with ag- 
riculture; they lay before you the agricultural 
experience of every age, climate, soil and coun- 
try; they contain intellectual treats for the scho- 
lar as well as the illiterate farmer; they contain 
fine specimens of eloquence, in the addresses to 
agricultural societies, by the most distinguished 
men of Europe and America; they are a valua- 
ble dispensatory, without the unintelligible tech- 
nicalities of the profession; they contain valua- 
ble and instructive matter for the housewife; in 
fine, they are literary omnibuses, well ladened 
with all the choice productions and discoveries 
of the age. These papers want patronage; thev 
are not conducted by their proprietors with a 
view of personal benefit; they are the disinter- 
ested labors of the philanthropist for the benefit 
of his fellow creatures. No family should be 
tyithout one; they are the cheapest; and most 
valuable periodicals of the age; no one will 
ever look back wiih regret to the money expend- 
ed for the Southern Cultivator or Farmers’ Re- 
gister. 
I come now to the discharge ol the most im- 
portant and interesting part of my duty — and I 
regret that it has not devolved upon one moie 
skilled and experienced — the improvement and 
cultivation of our soils. I shall not fatigue 
your attention with suggestions as t- the best 
mode of planting and cultivating our lands, 
only so far as it is calculated to improve or de- 
teriorate. We could all make enough if w'e 
had good soils to do it upon. The question 
about which we all feel the deepest interest is, 
the practicability of renovating and restoring 
our old wmrn out lands to more than their origi- 
nal fertility. If we can, then it is clear that w^e 
occupy the most valuable lands upon the Amer- 
ican continent; and the oldest of us will see the 
day w'hen the waves of emigrati.m that have 
been so long rolling from us, will set back to 
the.se abandoned lands. That i can be done, I 
feel as confident as that we .shall have day and 
night, spring and summer, seed time andharvest. 
The agricultural statistics of this country and 
Europe, are full of the most encouraging facts. 
Many portions of Europe that have been in con- 
stant cultivation for more than a thousand years, 
instead of being exhausted, have increased in 
fertility. Flanders, which is represented to l e 
a sandy beach, has been so much improved that 
it is astonishing the woild with the quantities of 
its products. Judge Buel, of New York, has 
imparted to a pine barren a fertility that is sur- 
passing in its productions the lich lands of Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky. Lands that some years 
si' ce could have been bought at fourdollars per 
acre, cannot now be bought for one hundred and 
thirty -five dollars per acre. But we need not go 
to Europe or New York to be satisfied that we 
can improve our lands. You can be convinced 
of it in your own State, and in your own coun- 
ty. Mr. Thos. Whaley, a successful and intel- 
lisent farmer, is manuring annu illy every acre 
that he plants in com and cotton. From fie.ds 
that twenty years since were turned out as ex- 
hausted, he is now gathering luxuriant crops. 
We have only to commence the work, and suc- 
cess will attend the effort. We must make it a 
business, and be as faithfkil in attending to it as 
m planting and cultivating our crops. The first 
thing to be attended to in improvment is, to pre- 
serve our broken lands from beins; washed by 
the heavy' rams. The first step in this part of 
the business is, to arrest the gullies and clay 
galls, which may be aptly compared to a can- 
cerous affection upon the human system; they 
will, unless arrested, continue to dilate and wi- 
den, until the whole field is denuded of soil. — 
Ditching, when done upon correct princij les, 
will effectually prevent their lormation. But, 
unfortunately, all our fields are already gullied. 
Before we proceed to ditch, these gullies should 
be filled up and leveled. This can be dona with 
little labor. The pine brush answers an admi- 
rable purpose for this object; and if they are not 
convenient, the fence row and tne swamp will 
furnish you with an abundant material. 
Ditches usually cross the gullies at right an- 
gles, and if they are not filled before the ditch 
is made, the water that they collect in times of 
heavy rains, will form such a body 'hat it will 
breakover the embankment of the ditches op- 
posite the mouth of the gully. 1 have found it 
le.ss difficult to fill up these gullies with brush, 
than to make the embankment high and strong 
enough to resist the volume of water that col- 
lects in them. Every farmiT in this part of the 
State, should set about ditching his plaptation. 
Appropriating one week with all hands, with 
horse power and the necessary implements, and 
you would ditch the whole plantation. They 
afterwards require but little attention to keep 
them in order. The ditches should be wide but 
not deep, with desirent enough to carry off the 
water, without washing them deeper than they 
were made. Two inches every 12 or 15 feet, ac- 
cording to the length, is sufficient. They should 
nererbe made b\ the eye; the level and plumb 
should indicate the cour.se and fall. 
The clay galls, those ofiensive looking ulcers 
upon our fields, can only be arrested by being 
coated first with sand. To apply manuie tj 
them without sand, is a waste of labor and of 
manure. To restore them to sufficient leriility 
for cultivation is, in my opinion, too cosily to be 
profitable; but a small quantity ol sand scatter- 
ed upon their surface, and then covered with 
brush, will arrest their further expansioi;, and 
nature will soon set them out with pine, v\hich 
will become valuable for timber or fuel; or you 
nay set them out with the plum tree, which will 
soon re.store them to their original fertility. 
In manuring there is a great wmnt of system. 
We shall never do much at it until we make it 
a regular business; setting apart so much time 
of each year, with all our liands, to this branch 
of the business. If w^e will but economize our 
materials for making manure, we should have 
an abundance, not only to manure cro; s, but to 
keep in progress a permanent improvement of 
our lands. I am clearly convinced, that if we 
would but econumize our cotton seed, and apply 
them jukiciously, every planter who makes 
four bags of cotton to the hand, would have a 
a plenty to manure in the hill, his entire ciop of 
corn. This valuable manure is wasted in j.lant- 
ing and in application. They should never be 
applied to wheat, as it takes too many to the 
acre to do much good. We loose immense 
quantities of manure lor the w'ant of fencing our 
sheep, hogs and cattle. The most of f aimers 
pen their cattle, but there is no regularity about 
it, and instead of changing them at regular pe- 
riods, they are permitted to occupy the same 
spot for the entire year, when by moving them 
ten times the quantity of land could be as pro- 
fitably manured. Vast quantities of valuable 
material for making manure might be saved by 
thiowing obstructions across the bottoms and 
small branches, to catch, at particular places, 
the vegetable matter and alluviums that are 
carried down in times of hard rains. The ma- 
nure made by sheep and swine is as valuable 
as that made by the-cow; yet there is not one 
farmer in an hundred that makes any manure 
from them. 
We plant too much. Every man should re- 
solve not to plant a line of coin unless he ma- 
nures it; f .rone acre well planted and well cul- 
tivated, will make twice as much as an acre of 
the same quality ol land badly planted and halt 
cultivated; and a little manure will treble the 
products. 
Every planter should have a meadow or pas- 
ture ground, so situated that his plow horses 
may feed upon it at night. I have ascertained 
that a plow horse will do better when he can 
have pasture every night, with two-thirds food, 
than he will do kept up all the time with corn 
without allowance. With this pasture we can 
do with one half of the corn; for when the horse 
is not at work he can do without any corn. 
Too little attention is paid by planters in this 
State, to the character of their soils in planting 
their crops. Upon every plantation there is 
some poition better adapted for cotton than oth- 
ers. Such fields or spots of land should be re- 
served exclusively for cotton; alternating them 
with crops of small grain instead of with cot- 
ton, corn and then small grain. The same 
course should be observed w'ith lands favorable 
to corn. Land should never be planted two 
years in succession in cotton, unless they are 
level lands, which should always be taken into 
consideration in setting apart particular fields 
for cotton. The surface of the cotton field be- 
ing bare all winter an^ summer, it is much 
more subject to be washed by hard rains than if 
in corn. 
There being but little forest and no swmmp 
land, it has become very costly to raise pork. 
To superscede the necessity of feeding so much 
corn to hogs, I -vyould advise the sowing of rye 
and oats for them in winter and spring; and as 
an additional substitute, I would recommend 
every corner ol fence that is permanent upon 
