VoL. II. AUGUSTA, GA., JULY 24, 1 844. No. 15. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
For the Southern Cultivator. 
OVERCROPPING. 
Mr. Editor — Since you have published my 
first essay, 1 shall try again. Your readers, no 
doubt, ielt alarmed when the destruction of lands 
at the South was attributed to so many causes, for 
fear all the subjects would be treated at once: they 
were relieved when the last subject was com- 
menced first, just as we commence plowing a 
field on the far side first, and finish at the gate ; 
so that we may not have to pass over the plow- 
ed ground, but have it all smooth and even. If 
my subjects are not treated as your regular wri- 
ters and book-makers do theirs, (lor I do not 
profess to understand their arts,) I shall drive on 
steady as we do when plowing, and try to do my 
work well. 
^ The next subject to improper implements of 
tillage, was over-cropping, or planting more 
than can be cultivated in a proper manner. My 
brother farmers often remind me of the child, to 
v/hom Dr. Franklin continued to give apples, 
and who, in trying to hold all that were given to 
him, let fall nearly all he had received. We 
are all children of a larger growth, in our dis- 
positions, and often lose what we have, by 
reaching after more than we can hold. And, by 
attempting to cultivate too ranch land, we make 
less than if we had cultivated a smaller quanti- 
ty in a neater and better manner. If the far- 
mers can be convinced, that they can raise 
more produce on less land, and with less labor, 
it will be their interest to try the experiment. 
There is a pleasure, a beauty, and independence 
in farming, which no other calling or profession 
can claim; by over-cropping, all these are sacri- 
ficed. Everything has to be done in the rough- 
est manner; the grain is planted when the 
ground is only half prepared to receive it. 
Over-cropping necessarily leads to over-tasking ; 
requiring more of the working hands than they 
can perform well. They become careless, 
.slight their work, and injure the growing crop. 
The hands become prematurely old and decre- 
pid, the horses and mules are soon reduced to 
poverty, and are able to perform only halt work ; 
the lands become less productive every year, 
making it appear necessary to plant more, in 
order to produce a given quantity. Such a sys- 
tem, if continued, will lead to utter ruin in the 
end; or compel a man finally to abandon his 
home and his country, and remove to the “far 
west.” 
A farmer should not’ make his calculations 
for one year only, but should look forward to 
the end of several years to future profit. We 
cannot become suddenly rich; and, if we can 
make a support, and improve our lands, our 
stock, &c., and gradually increase in wealth, or 
even hold our own in such times as the present, 
we shall be doing well. Many men have fail- 
ed from too great an anxiety to gel rich quick, 
not being willing to wait and content themselves 
with small and regular profits. After making a 
plentiful supply of all kinds of provisions, and 
making all the clothing necessary for his family ; 
raising his horses and mules, and raising a 
number of sheep equal to the whole number of 
his family, white and black; then every farmer 
should plant as much cotton every year, as he 
can cultivate neatly, and no more. Facts and 
well attested experiments alone, can convince 
most of the farmers, and often the experiments 
have to be tried by each one individually, be- 
fore he is satisfied with the result. Let eveiy 
farmer in the State, then, manure such a sized 
piece of land as his means will allow — say one 
acre, or five or ten acres — prepare it well, and 
plant it at the proper time, in corn or cotton ; 
cultivate neatly, and measure or weigh the pro- 
duction, and then make a calculation for a num- 
ber of such acres sufficient lor his force, and he 
will at once see the difference between such 
cropping, and skisning over a farm, and wear- 
ing it out. If as much can be made from one 
manured acre, as from three unmanured acres, 
It will be less labor to cultivate one acre than 
three, and then the one acre is ready manured 
for the next year’s crop. But I already hear 
them say, “ VVhat does one acre proved We 
may manure one acre, but that proves nothing, 
because we can never find manure enough for 
one-tenth part of our whole farms.” Manuring 
a plantation is a new and untried business to 
most of the Southern farmers, who generally 
have found barely enough manure for their gar- 
dens. All science is progressive; we cannot 
expect to reach perfection at the first or even se- 
cond attempts — but, by perseverance, we may 
leave our children with more knowledge of ag- 
riculture than we commenced with. Some men 
are now living who recollect when cotton was 
thinned with hands, the open bolls pulled and 
carried into the house, and there picked out, and 
then the seed separated from the cotton with the 
fingers. Who would have thought, then, that a 
hand now would be able to make five bags of 
cotton in one yeard Some years ago, it con- 
sumed three or four month’s of time to cross the 
Atlantic ocean, now it is crossed in 12 or 15 
days. It once took 3 or 4 weeks to go from 
Georgia to New York; it is now travelled in3i 
da 3 ''s. And so of equal improvements in 
many other arts and sciences. Some whole 
countries are highly manured, that were once 
as b*arren as the worn-out fields of Georgia. 
Shall we despair of improving our farms, in 
sight of such vast improvements 7 Shall we 
sit still, and acknowledge ourselves less energet- 
ic, less active, and less enterprising, than other 
people and other professions. The intellect of 
the South has always compared favorably wdth 
other sections of the country. Let us, then, not 
despair. If one acre can be made to yield as 
much as thre^j acres, one hundred acres, by the 
same process, may be made to produce as much 
as three hundred acres. The sum can be work- 
ed by the rule of three; and, w'hile they are all 
cyphering it out, I will tell them where and how 
we can get, at least, some of the manure, which 
will obviate the apparent necessity for over- 
cropping. 
Yours, &c., Plowman. 
For the Southern Cultivator. 
EXTRACT. 
Imagine the greatest General, after the most 
glorious victory recorded in history, the dead, 
wounded and dying, the widow’s lamentations, 
and the orphan’s tears, and the amount of misery 
inflicted upon the human race, in consequence 
thereof. — Imagine tfie wily politician, urging 
his tortuous way to high office, covered with the 
mantle of private friendships broken, with hy- 
pocri.sy, cunning and corruption. — Imagine the 
scientific agriculturist, directing, encouraging, 
counselling and assisting his co-laborers in the 
management of their farms, until the wdiole 
State shall attain the highest degree of agricul- 
tural improvement, “ The fields shall blossom 
as the rose,” and peace, happiness and abund- 
ance, shall bless the land. 
Which is the greatest benefactor to mankind 1 
which most likely to receive the approbation of 
Divine Providence 7 Philos. 
For the Southern Cultivator. 
Minerva, Ga., 4th July, 1844. 
Mr. Editor— With a few honorable excep- 
tions, I see that most of the original communica- 
tions in your very useful paper, contain no fail- 
ures of crops, but a series of the most success-^ 
ful plans and efforts, with the greatest amount 
of production per acre. At a very slight glance, 
all this would appear unexceptionable. But I 
am compelled to believe, these authors of ori- 
ginal communications have succeeded far be- 
yond anything which comes within the reach ot 
my experience — or else they have given us the 
bright side of the picture to admire, while they 
keep the other side in the dark. I wish, for the 
general good of agriculturists, that these gentle- 
men would deal fairly with us (jmur readers) 
upon the broad principle of their systems, and be 
particular in giving us, in detail, their account 
of failures, as well as success. Such a mode of 
procedure would accomplish more in setting us 
on the right plan, than any partial description 
which gives a very high coloring only to a part 
of their mode of agriculture, while nothing is 
said concerning, perhaps, nine-tenths of the 
general system. The moralist may lecture me 
a month on the evils of intemperance, and the 
good effects of a life of virtue, without produ- 
cing much effect. But when I behold the drunk- 
ard in rags, wallowing in filth, my senses are 
struck with his degraded condition in the keen- 
est manner ; lamina moment convinced of his 
error by contrast. Not so with these gentlemen 
farmers; all their deductions are specimens of 
perfection — they give us one side of the picture 
only, and we have no foundation afforded us by 
them, of the good and the bad plans by which to 
form the contrast. It is by contrasting a bad 
and ruinous course of husbandry with a good 
one, that we are enabled to see the beauties, and 
appreciate the advantages of the latter. And, as 
I have some considerable more experience in ^ 
ruinous system of planting than any other, and 
also as an offset to the other communications, for 
the purpose of a contrast, | propose to offer — a 
The vjaij to make a li§U crap of cor?t,--=March 3 
