VoL. II. 
AUGUSTA, GA., APRIL 3, 1844. 
No. 7. 
COMMUNICATIONS. 
For the Southern Cultivator. 
'’Mr. Editor— Enclosed I send you one dol- 
lar, which I see, from your Prospectus, is the 
price of a year’s subscription to the Southern 
Cultivator, This is what I should have done 
long before this, but tor the belief, which I en- 
tertained from the first, that your truly valuable 
paper would not live out one year’s subscrip- 
tion — that is, was destined, like many other 
works of a similar character, which have been 
gotten up at the South, to come still-born from 
the press, and perish for the want of patronage 
to sustain it. In this, I have been agreeably 
disappointed; tor it seems I had greatly under- 
rated the spirit and good sense of iny brethren of 
the plow ; and, by way of making both you and 
them some amends tor past neglect and injus- 
tice, I now send that which alone, in my hum- 
ble opinion, can render an agricultural paper 
profitable to the publisher, and useful to its pa- 
trons, viz; an addition to your subscription list, 
an I to your list ot contributors. 
1 have been a regular and attentive reader of 
the Far.ner’s Regi.ster and Albany Cultivator, 
from the period oftheir commencement ii p to the 
time when the Farmer’s Register, (to the ever- 
lasting shame and disgrace of Southern planters, 
be it said,) was permitted to languish and die 
for the want ot patronage — and of the Cultiva- 
tor to the present; and, as a farmer and a 
man, I can say, truly, I have been signally bene- 
fitted by them. I shall always entertain the 
highest gratitude and respect for the memory ot 
the distinguished founders of those twm works. 
I have, how’ever, long since se^-n and felt that 
the Albany Cultivator, ably conducted, and 
eminently practical and useful, as it is, is not 
everyway suited to the circumstances and con- 
dition of Southern Agriculturists : tor, although 
the Albany Cultivator is all that thegreat mass 
of its readers could desire it, yet it must, and 
does, necessarily contain a great deal ot matter 
which is altogether inapplicable to our husband- 
ry, and consequently of no practical utility to 
us. It is, therefore, with great pleasure, that I 
welcome the permanent establishment of an ag- 
ricultural paper in Georgia; and I shall hail it 
as the harbinger ot a higher and brighter im- 
provement in the agricultural prosperity of our 
State. Dififerent latitudes give rise to "different 
climates, soils and productions, and consequent- 
ly to different systems of husbandry. Hence, 
a system of agriculture which, in all its details, 
would be perfectly applicable to New York and 
the Eastern States, would not be at all suited to 
Georgia and other Southern States. There are, 
to be sure, certain great and leading principles, 
(which it is needless now to enumerate,) that 
are applicable to the well regulated agriculture 
of every country; yet, it is perfectly manifest to 
every intelligent farmer, that the carrying out ; 
of those principles in detail must be regulated 
by, and depend jointly upon, soil, climate, and 
the kind of produce most in demand, and which 
is rendered most profitable. It is precisely for 
this reason that it strikes me, every State should 
have an organ ot its own agricultural interest, 
and that tire farmers of Georgia should use all 
the means in their power to foster and sustain 
a work which is calculated to exert such a salu- 
tary influence in the agricultural reformation of 
our State. 
The fact is, Mr. Editor, there is a large por- 
tion ot Middle Georgia — and, indeed, I may say, 
ot all the old counties in the State — that is com- 
pletely worn out. The lands have been, by a 
succession of hard cropping, shallow up-hill 
and down-hill plowing, and other impruden- 
ces, denuded of a large portion of the richest soil, 
of which any country of similar extent could 
boast; and we are now reduced to one of three 
alternatives, either to be content with scant 
crops, poor returns lor our labor and capital; 
and, in the end, with poverty; abandon our 
homes, and emigrate tothe/ar, far West; or, to 
commence, in right good earnest, the wmrk of 
improving our lands. 1 think a tew facts will 
serve to show which of these three alternatives 
it is obviously the interest of every planter of 
Middle Georgia to adopt. Taking it tor grant- 
ed, that no sensible and industrious planter will 
be content with the first, I shall endeavor to 
point out, in this article, some of the objections 
and difficulties which lie in the way of choosing 
the second. In the first place, there are now no 
wild lands to go to. The Indian title to all the 
land, lying within the limits of the cotton grow- 
ing States, has been extinguished. It has been 
the policy of the General Government, ever 
since it went into operation, to extinguish the 
Indian title to the land occupied by them, with- 
in the different States, as speedilv as possible — 
and the consequence was, there has never been 
a time, wdthin my remembrance, when there 
were not almost yearly acquisitions ot Indian 
territory, in some one oranotherof the Southern 
and Western Stales. Good land was conse- 
quently very abundant and very cheap ; and the 
effect of this abundance and cheapness of land, 
was to beget a careless, slovenly, sHmdng hab- 
it offarming. Indeed, the system of husband- 
ry, which the first settlers of our country adopt- 
ed, has often reminded me of the practice of 
hunting wild cattle, on those extensive Pampas 
in South America, by the Spaniards — where 
they slaughter, annually, hundreds and thou- 
sands ot the finest, fattest cattle in the world, 
purely for the sake ot the hide alone. And, as 
tne skill and dexterity of these Spanish hunts- 
men is estimated by the number of cattle which 
they slaughter, and the quantity ot hides wffiich 
they take; so it would seem that the skill and 
abilities ot a Georgia planter ot the old school, 
was measured by the quantity ot land which he 
wore out: for he w’ho wmre out the most land, 
was the hardest worker, and consequently the 
greatest skinner. The efforts of both are direct- 
ed, with especial reference, to the skin, without 
any regard to the carcass. This skinning busi- 
ness, combined with the extended cultivation of 
cotton, the most exhausting and destructive to 
land, (when not skil uRy managed,) of ail other 
crops, has resulted most disastrously to the lands 
in the old settled parts of Georgia ; and I hear- 
tily rejoice that the time has come, when these 
GQOTgxaLland-fiayers will be necessarily compell- 
ed to desist from their skinning operations, and 
employ a portion of their skill and their efforts 
in curing and healing the wounds which they 
have so industriously inflicted. And I would 
here take occasion to recommend to the favora- 
ble notice of all whom it may concern, a certain 
patent salve, invented and prepared by Dr. Bom- 
mer, which is very highly spoken ot by those 
who have tested its virtues, and is said to have 
a charming effect on all vibrated land. If this 
should fail, it would be well to try a poultice of 
muck, which is highly recommended by Dr. 
Dana. One impediment in the way of agricul- 
tural improvement is now happily lemoved, tor 
we have not now the comfortable assurance that 
a few more years will bring about another Land 
Lottery ; and when our land is worn out, that 
just over the Oconee, the Oakmulgee, the Flint, 
or Chattahoochee Rivers, there is still a fresh 
country in reserve, waiting to te distributed by 
that most unjust, unequal and immoral, of all 
the modes of portioning out the public domain 
— a Georgia Land Lottery. The time is past, 
when land can be had without money and with- 
out price; and he who now comes into thepos- 
session of a landed estate, must expect either to 
inherit it, or to pay for it. If, then, wm make up 
our minds to emigrate, the question forces itself 
upon ns immediately. Where shall we go d 
Shall we go to Southwestern Georgia, New Ala- 
bama, Misffssippi, Texas or to Oregon d Now, 
before we decide to take so important a step as 
that of breaking up and abandoning our homes, 
the country of our nativity, and of severing 
those ties which bind men together in a stale of 
society, we should weigh well the inducements, 
we should count up all the cost, we should enu- 
merate all the sacrifices, and be very certain 
that the balance is largely in favor of removal. 
If our inclinations lead us to Western or South- 
western Georgia, we will find that the land in 
those sections has long since pas.-ed from the 
red man into the possession and occupancy of 
the white man — that pretty much all of the good 
land and choice situations are already occupied, 
and those good lands and choice situations can 
now be had only by paying the highest sort of 
prices tor them — prices ranging from twenty to 
thirty per cent, higher than lands in the old set- 
tled parts of Georgia. We shall be driven to the 
necessity, then, of paying higher prices for land, 
than land of similar q^uality can be bought for 
in our own immediate neighborhood — or, we 
must content ourselves with settling the poor 
land, which has been refused and rejected by all 
who have preceded us. Now, these difficulties 
will apply with equal force to every other cot- 
ton growing State, Florida and Arkansas ex- 
cepted. As for Texas, I leave that out of the 
question; tor I presume no prudent planter 
would risk the safety of his family and his pro- 
perty in a country so liable to revolution as 
Texas, unless it should be annexed to the Unit- 
ed States. 
To pay the prices lor which good land has 
been selling in those sections, at the present 
prices of produce, would be ruinous. To break 
up, and eneoumer the expense of moving, the 
hardships and inconveniences, incidental to all 
new eountrie.s, to cultivate poor land, when we 
can get thousands of acres of poor land around 
our own doors for less money, would be foolish. 
The obvious conclusion, then, to which we 
must come, seems to me to be this: If we are 
compelled to have land, and prefer to pav ahigh 
price for good land, it is better to purchase 
here ; for, even in these old counties, there are 
still to be found extensive tracts of good land; 
or, if we choose to take the cheaper and poorer 
land, it is belter to have it Aere—here, in this de- 
lightful reg on, where we can breathe a whole- 
some atmosphere, drink pu e v ater, enjoy as 
good health as the people who live in the moun- 
tains; where we have good society, good 
