THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 67 
ly to cotton. I remember noticing the great 
productiveness ol the bottom land of a neighbor- 
ing planter on our river, and in conversation 
with his intelligent Overseer, recollect his at- 
tributing his success mainly to the advantages 
of good tall ploughing. 
Allow me to bring to your notice some of the 
obstructions to the improvement of our lands. 
First — temporary fencing for enclosing our 
fields, which wastes much valuable time in re- 
pairing them and making them over ; the ne- 
cessity for which so often occurs, at a time 
when the planter should be collecting and pre- 
paring his manure, and his fields for planting. 
Second — planting too large a cotton crop to the 
hand. One acre well pr pared, and skilfully 
and diligently managed, will produce more than 
two acres otherwise. Besides, it will be more 
easily picked, the picker having to go over less 
ground, as the bolls will grow larger and thick- 
er. With a moderate proportion ol cotton in 
cultivation, in a fair season, the planter can 
produce as much cotton as he can conveniently 
and comfortably save and harvest, and he will 
be enabled to make a larger and more bountixul 
provision crop, to the comfort of his .slaves and 
slock:; and he will not be driven into the dead 
of winter, to run over his scattering cotton, when 
the weather is generally inclement and cold, and 
he can find more suitable employment ol his 
hands to more suitable purposes. Third— the 
neglect of draining his lands in low places. 
Water may not always appear on the surface, 
but when not drained, if the season is not exces- 
sively dry, water will lodge under the suriace 
destructive to vegetation, in those spots, and 
aroun ' them. Wet lands are unfit for cultiva- 
tion, and the cotton plant particularly requires 
a dry soil. 
In winding up, feltow citizen farmers, for I 
have already trespassed too long on your pa- 
tience, let as come to the conclusion of the 
whole matter. Let the farmer study to have a 
large compost, give due diligence to manuring 
and preparing his lands; let him carefully put 
his seed into the ground, and let him take an 
early start with the young and tender plant, be- 
fore the grass and weeds begin to rise, and then 
let him look up to his Heavenly Father, trust- 
ing in his promises to leward skill and industry, 
and bow with submission to his will. Although 
the race may not always be to the swift, nor the 
battle to the strong, diligent perseverance in his 
business will not fail to meet its merited reward, 
and eventually to crown his labors with success. 
Gentlemen of the Agricultural Society — Allow 
me to congratulate you on the i.aerest manifest- 
ed in our community, on the important subject 
of Agriculture — the result of your persevering 
efforts — which, while they redound to your cred- 
it, will, I trust, afford the farmers and planters 
in our county increased means of comfort and 
independt'nce. 
Could our beloved Washington, the anniver- 
sary of whose birth-day is so appropriately the 
Anniversary of your Society, but witness the 
great improvements in that soil which his valor 
defended, what would be his feelings I For 
you all know he was a scientific and'practical 
farmer, and took great delight iu the business of 
his farm , and, like Cincinnatus, always regret- 
ted to leave it for public employments, although 
always obedient to the call of his country, and 
ever ready to sacrifice his private and domestic 
happiness to the good of his country. Unlike 
the great Captain of the age, who so overwhelm- 
ed with a boundless ambition, and insatiable 
passion for glory, as to forget the rights of men 
and nations; who displayed gi eater mental 
power than any man who ever drew a sword or 
wielded a sceptre — who disposed of Crowns and 
Kings, as children with their toys — who “ had 
given him the necks of his enemies, and the 
hearts of his subjects” — who threatened and as- 
pired with glory to become the world’s conquer- 
or and master. Our Washington, possessing 
no ordinary abilities, with the best practical 
good sense, and the most exalted virtue, stands 
*Mr. Crow at the plantation of Preston & Nellums. 
pre-eminently distinguished over the great Na- 
poleon — for the honesty ol his intentions, the 
purity of his motives, the sublimity of his pa- 
triotism. 
“His feelings— thoughts — and acts united ran 
To one grand point — the happiness of. man. 
No blemish stained the escutcheon which he bore. 
If he loved glory — he loved virtue more.” 
When the French Revolution closed, Napo- 
leon, from being the Republican First Consul, 
assumes the Royal purple, and with great pa- 
geantry and show, is crowned Eniferor. 
When the American Revolution was closed, 
Washington retires trom the head of the army 
to his farm, with the benedictions of a grateful 
people; the one was distracted by the cares of 
arbitrary Government, and aspirations for uni- 
versal empire — whilst the other was devoted to 
rural pursuits, cultivating those finer sensibili- 
ties of the soul. Napoleon seemed commis- 
sioned by Providence a scourge to his race ; 
whilst a Washington, a blessing to his country 
and mankind. 
Let us ever fear in grateful remembrance the 
Farmer of Mount Vernon — the Father of his 
Country — by endeavoring to imitate his exam- 
ple as a farmer and 'patriot. 
From the Mississippi Valley Farmer. 
THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF NATURE. 
The powers of nature to create vegetable pro- 
ductions appear never to diminish; the process 
goes on year alter year with increasing energy, 
and brings forth an increase of vegetable mat- 
ter to be again decomposed and returned to the 
soiL This is the natural process by which the 
decomposing vegetable matter which we find in 
the soil is formed; and there has been a contin- 
ual succession of production, decay, and re- 
production, of vegetable matter, going on ever 
since nature first sprung into existence, produ- 
cing vegetables which, when dead, are decompo- 
sed into the elements of which they were ori- 
ginally formed. 
No loss is sustained by decomposition of vege- 
table or animal matter in the soil; all is redu- 
ced to the first elements ol plants, which give 
fresh energy to vegetation by again entering in- 
to vegetable composition. 
Thus, the process cf the growth and decay of 
vegetable matter goes on in a continual succes- 
sion, and the decay of one crop becomes the 
nourishment of the next. 
When nature is left to herself, the accumula- 
tion of decomposing vegetable matter on the 
suriace becomes great; and if the soil is not pos- 
sessed of the property of hastening their decay, 
the vegetable matter is merely increased on the 
soil, without adding to its productive powers. 
On a careful examination, we think, it will 
be found that the production of vegetables never 
exhausts any soil; the yearly growth of grass, 
with its decay, adds yearly to its productiveness; 
and even a plentiful crop of woods, when allow- 
ed to decay on the land which produced them, 
has the same effect ; and thus it is that land, 
which has been worn out by cross chopping, is, 
by slovenly farmers, left for nature to improve. 
When the natural pasture is consumed by 
stock, it is converted into animal food for man ; 
and the excrement of the stock being left on the 
soil, forms a rich decomposing animal manure, 
which gives to the soil increased energy to re- 
produce an increase of vegetable food for an ad- 
ditional quantity of stock. 
Pasture land is full of vegetable fibre, from 
the surface down as low as the roots of plants 
descend. Some are the recent roots of grasses, 
others are those of every stage of decomposition. 
In arable land, scarcely any vegetable fibre is to 
be found ; this circumstance should teach us, 
that to form a good pasture, we should fill the 
soil with vegetable fibre as a manure, where we 
convert arable into pasture land. 
The very small proportion of vegetable mat- 
ter which is contained in the most productive 
arable soils, would almost seem to indicate that 
their richness does not depend on the decompo- 
sing vegetable matter, but on something else; 
for, if all the stiaw or refuse of the crops it pro- 
duced was returned to it after it had passed 
tnrough the stomach of some animal, this would 
scarcely be equal to one-third of what the earth 
produced. 
A judicious succession of crops, and a profit- 
able consumption of the produce by sheep on 
the ground, returned to the soil such a quantity 
of manure as to give an additional means of in- 
creasing its productiveness. 
“ Water is necessary:' to the growth of plants. 
It is essential to the juices or extract of vegeta- 
ble matter which they contain ; and unless the 
soil, by means of commutation, befitted to re- 
tain the quantity of water requisite to produce 
those juices, the addition of manure will be use- 
less. Manure is ineffectual towards vegetation 
until it becomes soluble in water ; and it would 
even remain useless in a state of soluiion if it 
so absorbed the water as entirely to exclude the 
air ; for, in that case, the fibres or mouths of 
the plants would not be able to perform their 
functions, and they would soon drop off by de- 
cay.” — 179, Stewaid. 
It is necessary that the animal and vegetable 
matter in the soil should have this decomposing 
disposition, and the soil have it in proportion to 
the proper admixture of the materials of which 
it is composed. 
A certain degree of heat, the influence of the 
atmosphere and water, are necessary to carry 
on the decomposition of animal and vegetable 
matter in the soil. The best constituted soil, 
therefore, has the power of imbibing, -retaining, 
and giving up to the plants a proper degree of 
heat, air, and moisture. When the atmosphere 
is warm, moist and sultry, vegetable life is in 
the greatest vigor, which would indicate these 
to be necessary to vegetable life, if not the very 
principles on which it depends. 
Soil should not only have an affinity for the 
moisture of the atmosphere, but it should also 
have the property of readily transmitting it to 
the vegetables which grow in it. 
The soil, therefore, which it is best adapted 
for retaining and transmitting, in all circum- 
stances of wet and dry weather, the necessary 
quantity of moisture to growing plants, may be 
reckoned best and most productive. 
If we impart to any soil that which induces 
vegetation, Ve improve it, and increase its pro- 
ductiveness; but if we in any way withdraw 
from it that which tends to produce vegetation, 
we injure it, and make it sterile. Barrennessin 
soil is produced when the component parts of it 
are so firmly united, that air, water, and the in- 
fluence of the sun, cannot enter into combina- 
tion with it. When a soil is pure clay, it is 
sterile and worthless, and so is that which is 
pure sand. The former resists effectually the 
enriching influence of the rains and dews, which 
merely fall on its surface, and either run off or 
lie there, without penetrating into it. The sun 
and wind also may beat on it and blow over it, 
but they can never penetrate its mass to awaken 
up the dormant energy that lies within ; they 
only have the effect, by their repeated attacks, to 
dry harden the surface, crack it into irregular 
portions, and more firmly to lock up any lan- 
guid and dormant principles of vegetable life 
that may be within the mass. The latter is so 
porous and loose in its texture, that the rain and 
dews no sooner fall on it, than , hey pass through 
it rapidly, like water through a sieve ; the rays 
of the sun and the wind evaporate and dry up 
the last particles that remain, producing only a 
transitoiy effect on vegetation, and because they 
have no regular supply of moisture, the plants 
soon wither and decay. 
The energies of the soil are frequently held in 
bondage by some pernicious quality inherent in 
it, or imparted to it, which, if neutralized or ex- 
tracted, the soil would become productive. 
When light, sandy, and vegetable soils, are 
artificially made lighter, they possess little of 
the principles of vegetation. The mechanical 
disposition of a clayey soil is also deiangedby 
improper treatment, such as trampling or 
ploughing it in wet weather; and although the 
soil has a full supply of animal and vegetable 
manure in it, yet the mechanical derangemen 
