94 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
one word to what has been already written. 
Very poor and very dry land will bring ir, if 
managed properly. It should be sown with 
oats or at the time of laying by your corn ; turn 
in the product next year, and follow the plow 
with a roller; then harrow lightly, and sow timo- 
thy and roll again • then add a little top-dressing 
in the fall or early in the spring, and you will 
cut a good crop of grass. Our grasses do not 
penetrate deep enough to get the benefit of the 
soil on account of the dryness of the climate, 
and they, therefore, sufer much from the 
drought ; but when the surface is inverted and 
the sod is kept unbroken, the grass puts up back- 
wards, and the growth, even without manure, 
would astonish any one wdio saw it. If you are 
sceptical, just come out about the 10th of June, 
and you will then see lor yourself. Let there 
be no mistake about the time the grass is plow- 
ed under ; this should be done, if the grass is to 
be cut, immediately after the scythe; otherwise, 
when the heads are dry, and when the stalks are 
green, but ripe. 
Timothy is a different thing from herds-grass; 
it is a complete bulb or root, of the shape of a 
wild onion. When it is cut, this strong root, if 
left to itself, sprouts promptly and sends out two 
or three shoots. If, in this sprouted, green and 
growing state, it is turned under so deep as to 
be beyond the influence of the sun and air, it 
must rot, of course: but if it is turned under on- 
ly two or three inches deep, it comes through, 
and is greatly strengthened. I am now certain, 
that any land that will bring broomstraw, will 
bring good grass. ^ 
The farm 1 live on had not one thousand 
spires of good grass on it four years ago, and 
now, although no manure was ever put on a 
blade of grass, I cured 40,000 lbs. last year, not- 
withstanding I lost from five to ten thousand 
weight for want of hands to save it. This year 
1 hope to reach 60,000 lbs. If the Farm Com- 
mittee of the Agricultural Society will call on 
me from the 5th to the 20th of June, and will 
award a premium for “the most made from the 
least spent,” I shall be happy to see them. 
In my next, I will furnish you with a plan to 
enable poor farmers to make poor lands rich, 
which has forced itself on my attention, as it af- 
fords more, m my opinion, for the amount ex- 
pended than any other plan I have seen recom- 
mended. 
Yours, respectfully, 
J. H. D. Lowndes. 
Brookland, Aprils 1844. 
From the American Agriculturist. 
THE COW-PEA. PEACH, &c. 
The Cow-Pea as a Feriilizer, its Culture and 
value for Fodder. — I am convinced, from the 
limited experiments I have as yet had it in my 
power to make, that the cow-pea is one of the 
very best, and certainly the cheapest fertilizer 
that we can employ in the South. By some it is 
looked upon as an exhausting crop, nor is it to 
be wondered at ihat it should be so. Land that 
is tolerably poor is of preterence selected, as 
there the pea goes less to vine, and pods more 
abundantly; and just before frost, the entire 
plant, root and all, is pulled up and cured for 
fodder! I was forced to do this once, but will 
not try it again. Even then, however, the land 
was somewhat improved, as the leaves had all 
dropped before I felt forced to skin so deeply, by 
the "prospect of being short of fodder, and the 
ground was so effectually shaded all summer. 
I will now suggest some experiments, which, 
if I live another year or two, 1 shall try. I am 
unfortunately situated like too many of my 
brother planters, and have little leisure for any- 
thing but cotton-making. Where a planter aims 
at producing, to as great a certainty as possible, 
as much cotton as his hands can pick, up to 
Christmas day, he has no time for other occupa- 
tion. If we could be satisfied with as much as 
could be saved before the 1st December, some- 
thing could be done in the way of improvement. 
The making of sufficient manure lor a large 
plantation, and hauling it out when made, seem 
]:ieavy tasks, and they are so. Yet it would cer- 
tainly be just as easy to ,jnake and apply three 
times as much manure on a plantation working 
thirty hands, with of course teams in propor- 
tion, as on one often hands. The waste of val- 
uable manure on plantations is very great, and 
it will be many years before much improvement 
is effected. 
I propose to select ten acres of poor land, 
which I will have well plowed, and as early as 
1st to 15th March planted in cow-peas suffi- 
ciently close to give a good and early covering 
to the ground. Peas planted early produce 
more vine and fewer seed than when planted 
late. So soon as they begin to blossom freely, 
I shall have them turned completely under, and 
another crop of peas immediately planted. The 
second crop I intend shall stand to ripen, when I 
will turn hogs upon them, but no cattle, so that 
the leaves and vines will be almost all returned 
to the soil. One half of the lot I will haveturn- 
ed over deeply in the fall, the other half in the 
spring, planting one half of each five acres in 
cotton, and the other half in corn. It was my 
intention to experiment in this vmy this season, 
but circumstances render it impossible to any 
extent. That such a course will do more for 
our land here than the turning under of a crop 
of clover will in the north, is obvious. The 
quantity of vegetable matter on the ground, oth- 
er things being equal, is vastly greater — I should 
say some three fold ; the roots are few, one long 
tap-root only, with a few slight fibres ; the vines 
and leaves large and extremely succulent, com- 
pletely .shading and protecting the soil from the 
sun ; and the plant is of but a very few weeks 
growth. The cow-pea requires little or no cul- 
ture, which is in favor of its value for this pur- 
pose — a bull-tongue plow run along each side of 
the row will suffice, though even this may be 
dispensed with. I would not wish to have it 
thought that I am advancing what I suppose to 
be a new idea, in advocating the value of this 
plant lor this purpose. It has already been dis- 
cussed in all its bearings, but has been but little 
tried. My object is to induce a few such trials 
as that I have proposed. If our agricultural so- 
cieties would give prizes lor the best conducted 
and most successful experiments of the kind, 
they would do infinitely more good than by the 
course they at present pursue. 
As a fodder-making crop, the cow-pea is in- 
valuable. It is, like clover, difficult to save, 
but when saved, of greater value. This I have 
tested. 1 had a plan for gathering and saving 
pea-fodder, suggested to me the other day, that 
is well suited to the cotton plantation, and which 
I shall practice when the vines are sufficiently 
matured, andplentifully covered with their long, 
well-filled pods; namely, run a heavy, iron- 
toothed, two-horse harrow over them, and as the 
harrow becomes loaded with vines, lift it up and 
pass on. By this means, the vines are rapidly 
gathered into piles, with a Itttle dirt perhaps 
among them, which will shake out in curing. 
They are then put up in rail pens in the usual 
way. You must bear in mind, when you see 
such a mode recommended for harvesting a 
crop, that to cradle the cow-pea is impossible ; 
to cut them with scythe or sickfe, a slow, trou- 
blesome business ; and that the most convenient 
and common practice is to pull them up, root 
and all, by hand. Tbeii growth resembles that 
of none of your northern peas, but is rather that 
of a gigantic clover, with vines of any length 
under sav 8 to 15 feet. The pods are very nu- 
merous, generally in pairs, and contain each 
some 15 to 25 peas, v/hich afford most excellent 
and nut-’ilious food for man and beast. One of 
the most extensive and experienced planters in 
the adjoining county of Jeferson, killed upward 
of 700 head of hogs for the supply of his own 
family, (and had not enough then,) which were 
fattened entirely in the pea-fields. 
Peach and Fig Orchard. — 1 have just com- 
pleted the planting of a small peach and fig or- 
chard here, embracing 350 trees of the former, 
and 50 of the latter ; and three hands, besides 
what assistance 1 gave myself, have been busily 
occupied three days in doing it; two more fol- 
lowing up and giving each tree a couple of buck- 
ets of water. I would certainly prefer that they 
had been planted last fall, but if rained so inces- 
santly, that it was impracticable. The peach- 
trees are one year’s growth from the kernel, and 
will be budded where they stand this summer. 
I would rather have had the kernel dropped 
where the trees now stand; but that, too, was 
impracticable. I shall cultivate the ground this 
season in Irish potatoes and early corn, both 
followed by peas and sweet potatoes ; some of 
it will be in pindars, and some poor .spots in 
peas, to be turned under green, followed by peas 
again, turned under. Each tree shall receive, 
during the summer, a good barrowful of pure 
marl, placed immediately around it. 
The Yellows. — From what I see in various 
papers, the disease called yellows is rapidly 
spreading among the peach-trees all around you. 
Opinions as to its nature and origin .seem” va- 
rious enough, but I see no plausible method of 
cure or prevention. From what I have seen of 
it, I have no doubt ofitsbeingadisea.se sui gen- 
eris, and if occasinned by an insect, certainly* not 
by the Mgeria Exitiosu. So far as I can learn, 
the yellows is altogether or nearly unknown 
here, while the segeria is sufficiently trouble- 
some. The peach-tree dies, with us, only of 
old age and neglect. Such extravagant crops I 
have never seen anywhere— so heavy that the 
trees are seriously injured thereby. This is the 
worst kind of neglect. The fruit, when so very 
numerous, should be thinned out when as large 
as pigeon’s eggs, both to improve rhe quality 
and to favor the tree. You will find a short ar- 
tide on “ the causes of decay in peach-trees, 
and their prevention,” in a little almanac I pre- 
pared in 1842, which contains the results of my 
experience and observation on this subject.* 
Some one suggested at a recent meeting of 
your excellent New York Farmer’s Club, that 
young trees produced from Mexican peach- 
stones, were free from yellows. I have no doubt 
that those from this part of the country would 
be equally so ; and if it would be any object to 
some of your friends, sufferers from this disease, 
(and subscribers to at least two agricultural pa- 
pers — you know my rule !) to try whether or no, 
I should take pleasure in saving some pits for 
them this summer, as we have so far this sea- 
son, the prospect of a full crop of every kind of 
fruit, which, however, might be blasted by a late 
frost Peach, plum, pear, and fig-trees, are all 
in full bloom, and have been for two wmeks past. 
It is rare, indeed, that our peach-trees repudiate 
the debtihey owe the careful cultivator ; so that 
even your fastidious New Yorkers need not mis- 
trust them, though they do come from Mississ- 
ippi I 
Migration of Birds. — They must have had a 
moderate, open winter north, and northwest of 
us, to what thev had during that of ’42 and ’43, 
if we may judge from the movements or migra- 
tion of the birds, a subject which is deserving 
of more notice from farmers, and of record in 
farming papers, than it receives. During tfie 
winter preceding this, the open commons, pas- 
tures, and cotton-fields, were frequented, for sev- 
eral weeks, by large flocks of a plover, which I 
am inclined to think is the golden-plover, {cha- 
radrius pluvialis of Wilson,) though differing 
slightly in its markings and size. I’hey afford 
capital eating, as I proved to the extent of sun- 
dry dozens. The same birds are to be found in 
vast numbers on the prairies of Illinois, during 
an open winter or early spring, and I presume 
w^ere driven thus far South by the severity of 
that season theie. The robin ( T. Migraiorius') 
and the cedar-bird (^Ampelis Americana') w'-ere al- 
so unusally numerous. This past winter, neith- 
er robins nor plovers have been seen, and but 
very few cedar-birds. Th i sand-hill crane is 
also but poorly represented this season. 
Tho.vjas Afflece:. 
Ingleside, Adams Co., Miss., Alarch 5, 1844. 
’Note. — F rom the date of this letter, our readers will 
see, that Mr. Affleck, when he wrote, could not have 
yet seen the able article on the Peach-Tree, by S. S., 
which appeared in our February and March numbers 
for this volume. In that, the yellows is attributed tc 
the aphides or plant-lice. — Ep. 
