70 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
bery, or flu were; yet a residence (d two years at 
Philadelphia, one ol' the most lavored Northern 
locations I'or iruits, will enable me to speak ol 
the comparative excellence of Northern and 
Southern fruit with sotno confidence. The best 
peaches, melons, and fi?s I ever saw were in the 
South; the first and last in Mississippi, and 
with a single exception, the best of melons also. 
The best pear I ever ate was in the house ol 
“ Harry of the West ;” the best apples were Irom 
Northern regions. 1 have found as good sum- 
mer and lall apples South, as 1 ever did else- 
where, and excepting that one pear, the sugar, I 
have seen no finer than in Carolina; whil-t the 
plums, 1 think, could hardly be beaten any- 
where, that I ate in South Carolina. And flow- 
ers — here is the land lor this beauty ol all beau- 
ties — a woman and a horse excepted — and they 
only because the noble intelleci governs. The 
pride of the lorest, the Magnolia, grows here in 
all its majesty; many flowers that with you re- 
quire protection, pass out ol doors our winters — 
many that require considerable tact with you to 
propogate, can be cultivated here by any liale 
urchin. But to return to fruits; there are too 
few fine varieties of fruits in this region. I 
know of no gentleman who has any varieties of 
grafted apples or pears that are in bearing save 
one or two. One gentleman near Vicksburg 
has some fine pears, and Mr. Hatch assured me 
they are equal in quality to the same variety at 
the North, but they ripen much earlier. I have 
now some twenty-five or thirty varieties of the 
apple and pear, and shall put out this season at 
least fifty more. My reason lor going so exten- 
sively into variety, is to be certain ol some that 
will do well. I have some ten varieties ol the 
cherry, five of the strawberry, three of figs, and 
three of raspberries. Of peaches 1 know not 
yet what 1 shall have, as, besiues budded and 
Northern Iruits, I have some two hundred and 
fifty seedlings three years old, and two hundred 
more 1 shall put out this spring.” 
LETTKR FROM THOMAS, AFFLECK, ESd. 
We give below some extracts from a most in- 
teresting communication received from our friend 
Mr. Affleck, ol Ingleside, Miss. The extracts 
relate to topics of interest at the North as well 
as t^ South, and will aid in throwing light on 
the productions and modes of culture in that 
fertile section of the Union. The doubts which 
have existed as to the capability of the South to 
produce its necessary provisions, or to grow the 
principal varieties of Northern fruits, doubts 
which had arisen more from the neglect of the 
planter, than any other cause, will soon be dis- 
sipated by the example of a lew such men as 
are nov engaged in enlightening that section of 
the United States as to its capability and true 
policy. 
Mr. Affleck has transmitted to us two speci- 
mens of cotton in the seed; one a specimen of 
good Mexican, and the other a specimen ol that 
shown by Dr. Lovelace, at the Adams County 
Fair, Mi., and supposed to be a hybrid between 
the Mexican and some long stapled cotton. Dr. 
L. not having completed his experiments, did 
not disclose the manner of its production, bui,, 
who can say, that a more beautiful sfiecitnen of 
cotton than the improved, has never met our eye. 
and shows most conclusively, we think, what a 
field is open tor the well-informed and scientific 
cultivator, in the improvement of this national 
staple. 
“ There is but one difflculty as lo pastures and 
that is none are made. No one attempts to lorm 
pastures in any other way than by turning out 
fields alter they will no longer produce cotton or 
corn, and being satisfied with the scanty crops 
of sedge and Natchez grass, and of briars which 
they may yet be able to support. Within the 
last year or two, however, better things are at- 
tempted. I have seen very promising woodland 
pasture ol orchard grass ; and winter pastures ol 
Egyptian oats and rye are becoming common 
on well managed plantations. The cane swamps 
afford tolerable grazing; at all events the swamp- 
cattle manage to grow and even latten on the 
abundant browsing they find there, and make 
pretty good beef and capital work-oxen. These 
are the rams-horned, brick-colored cattle, known 
as Piney woods, swamp, Opelousas, or Attaka- 
pas cattle — descendants ol the original Spanish 
stock, and yet found in those regions uninjured 
and unimproved. During the winter, we have 
no lack of abundance of leed for all kinds of 
stock, and, in summer, we have only to have 
recourse to Bermuda grass, to keep every thing 
seal fat. This is the most nutritious grass I have 
ever seen, and where exposed, the most closely 
grazed. It resembles Nimbkwill, (Triticum 
repens,) but is more delicate in its appearance, 
leaves much more numerous and narrower, 
stems small and solid, growth rapid, and when 
in meadow, it does not attain a height of over 
twelve or iourteen inches. Yet I have seen this 
delicious looking grass afford, at a second cut- 
ting, between five and six tons to the acre of 
dried hay. The first and third cutting not so 
good. It stands so thick en the ground, and 
its numerous lateral leaves so closely interlock- 
ed, that a good hand cannot cut over more than 
half an acre per day, and has to cast aside the 
swarth with his foot, at every second or third cut, 
the scythe blade passing under and cutting the 
grass, without laying it over. It is a trouble- 
some grass in the cotton field, but can be got 
under by a crop of corn and pumpkins, or oats 
followed by peas; it can bear little or no shade. 
It is invaluable for coating enbankments, and is 
of incalculable benefit on the levees of the Mis- 
sissippi. L is stated upon good authority, to be 
“the Doul grass of the middle provinces of Hin- 
dustan.” Whoever brought it to this country, is 
aS deserving of a monument to his memory, 
here, in the Souh, as is Parmentier in France. 
“Within some three or four years, another 
creeping grass has made its appearance here, 
said to be a native of and abundant in Cuba, and 
is rapidly spreading; that suits theirupland, and 
thrives better there than Bermuda, and is green 
and grows all winter, whilst the other is cut down 
by the first Post. I am now using it in my gar-* 
den and grounds for edgings, grrss plats, &c. 
and think it will answer well, as being easily 
kept within bounds, of a dwarfish growth, farm- 
ing a close sod, and remaining green summer 
and winter From the reports of Dr. Philips 
and others, it would appear that in the Musketo, 
a Texian grass, we have another valuable re- 
source, particularly for winter pasture. Dr. P. 
presented me with a small quantity of seed, 
which is in the ground.” 
“You see how 1 ramble along! I will now 
return to my forgotten text, Sheep in the South. 
You are right. — “the old notion of the impossi- 
bility of growing good wool at the South, is giv- 
ing way to the evidence of facts.” The doctrine 
that ail wool-bearing animals, except the negro, 
have their wool, in a very short time, turned into 
hair in the South, is also exploded. True, the 
common sheep of the country, bred in-and-in 
for generations, and ranging now in miserable 
burnt-up pastures, and again in the cotton fields, 
where they become excessively fat on the tender 
winter grass ; the one season shorn, and the next 
allowed to surrender their coats to the briars — 
such sheep have thin, scanty, hairy fleeces. But 
they form no criterion. Are there no such ani- 
mals elsewhere, ‘ bred by, and the property of 
nobody in particular, the United States over?’ 
Why is the coat of the black-faced sheep of the 
mountains of Scotland, so coarse and hairy, 
whilst that of the Merino of Spain and of New 
South Wales, where they scarcely ever see frost, 
so fine in its staple 1 I feel satisfied of one thing, 
that the finer and more spiral the staple, and the 
closer and heavier the coat of w’oel, and the great- 
er the abundance ofyotk, the better will the wool 
on the sheep’s back resist the injurious effects of 
the sun. Sheep are kept by the planter, in almost 
every instance, for the mutton alone ; some few 
manufacture the scanty crop of wool. The mut- 
ton is very fine, almost equal to that of the moun- 
tain heather fed sheep of my native country — 
and that you know, is a great deal for a Scotch- 
man to say ! The native sheep of which I speak, 
are remarkably full and broad in the loin, and 
the saddle is of course proportionably good. — 
Sheep seem to me always to be ingjood health 
here — one never hears of the half of a large flock 
dying off within a few days, as is by no means 
unusual in colder countries, where numbers have 
to be penned together for a considerable length 
of time. 
“We have thus, you perceive, no scarcity of 
beef and mutton. Many planters in Mississippi 
are now making their own pork, or are exerting 
themselves to do so. In the neighboring County 
of Jefferson, this is more particularly the case. 
I know of several there, who last season killed 
and cured from 100 to 200 head; one who killed 
350, and another over 700 head, all for their own 
home consumption. The gentleman last alluded 
to, assured me that all his hogs were fattened en- 
tirely on peas, which were planted between the 
corn rows at the last tending, and the hogs turn- 
ed in on them after the com is gathered; finer 
bacon I have ne^/er eaten. This gentleman has 
killed his own pork ever since the second year of 
his farming, some thirty years ; tans his own. 
leather, makes his own shoes, harness, &c., 
wagons and farming utensils; iianufactures 
much of his winter clothing, and this without 
allowing himself to be influenced by the high or 
low prices of cotton , though, of course, when 
cotton brought 15 to 25 cents, he was, to all ap- 
pearances, sinking money in employing his 
hands any where else but in the cotton field. — 
However, the best proof that his system was the 
true one is, that he is one of the wealthiest men 
in the country, living in the greatest comfort, his 
family settled round him, and his negroes com- 
fortable and happy. 
“You speak of being ‘anxious that some one 
of your Southern friends would try the experi- 
ment of sowing corn broadcast, as an article of 
food for animals, to be used for soiling during 
the summer, and cured and led, after being cut, 
to them in the winter, and ascertain what the 
practicability and expense of keeping animals in 
this way would be.’ Corn leaves, you are aware, 
are now used extensively; but would not the 
stalk cured and cut into chaff”, add much to the 
ability of the planter to feed stock, without ma- 
terially adding to his expense? It would; and 
in my own case does do so. At ‘ Ingleside,’ I 
feed nothing else. My farm here, only consists 
of forty acres of old field, which the small force 
I keep here, enables me to improve very slonly, 
the more, as to it is added five acres of garden, 
&c., requiring much manure. Ts I keep five 
head ol horses, two mules, two yoke of cattle, 
irom two to six cows and their calves, and some 
twenty to thirty head of hogs, I was forced to 
try some such means of making fodder, or have 
blades to haul from one of the plantations. In 
1842, I sowed some corn broadcast, but the dry- 
ness of the season and the poverty of the land, 
prevented it doing much. 1 did not cut it, but 
the stock, when turned into the field, grazed on 
that patch of corn as long as there was a stump 
of it left. That winter I fed principally on crab 
grass hay, and corn cut and shocked Kentucky 
fashion — which does not do well. This last 
season I drilled several different patches of corn 
at different times during the spring and summer, 
drills from two and a half to three feet apart, 
and the stalks almost touching in the drill. It 
all did well ; so well that though I had not more 
than an acre and a half in all, I fed my stock on 
it during the whole summer, passing the green 
corn through the cutting- box, with a proportion 
of one-third or one-fourth of dry fodder; cutting 
down and curing what was left of each patch, 
when the next sown became ripe enough to feed 
out. I have thus sufficient fodder to do me, I 
think, or nearly so, until oats are ripe, and my 
drilled corn comes in again. It must be in tas- 
sel, or tasseling, before cattle and horses at all 
relish it; and hogs, though they eat it greedily, 
fall off on it-, for the reason, I think, that they re- 
ject all but the juice, and hang round the fence 
all day waiting lor more. I have tried the 
Egyptian millet and Guinea corn, but prefer the 
maize. 
“Pulling corn blades to make fodder, I con- 
sider the most unhealthy and unprofitable work 
done on the plantation.” 
