THE SOUTir'’RN CULTIVATOR. 
115 
SELECTIONS, EXTRACTS, &.C. 
~ OBSERVATIONS 
On the Action of Calcareous Alanures, and iheir 
Practical A.pplicaiion and EJjecfs. 
Previous to :he commencement oi’my^exami- 
nation of'tlie marls of South Carolina, there had 
been but very few attempts to proht by their ap- 
plication as manure. It would be both a need- 
less and ungrateful task to inquire into the 
causes of this strange and general neglect of 
such wide-spread and easily available resources 
for fertility and riches — and of dis.''egard and ig- 
norance ol' truths generally known and acted 
upon in other regions far less blessed in these 
resources, and in the capability of profiting by 
their use, than lower South Carolina. It is 
enough here to state, that such was the general 
neglect of calcareous manures, and general 
want of efficient inlormalion as to their value. 
Many individuals, indeed, had made very small 
and mostly improper applications of marl, and 
a few of lime, and which were as loose and in- 
accurate as experiments, as they were ill-direct- 
ed to obtain the best results as manure. And a 
lew individuals presented more marked and 
meritorious exceptions, in having within the 
last few years made much larger applications, 
and having reaped more or less appreciable and 
admitted profits therefrom. Among these, the 
oldest or the largest operators, and, as they 
deemed themselves, also successlul marlers, be- 
sides those already mentioned, were Mr. Darby, 
of Orangeburgh, Dr. J. S. Palmer, and Col, S. 
J. Palmer, ot Charleston district. Dr. Robert 
Gourdin, of Georgetown district, and Gen. Jas. 
H, Hammond, of Silver Bluff, Barnwell. Re- 
ports of the applications of the four last named 
gentlemen have been recently published, and 
their favorable results stated. But the total 
amount of these, added to all other applications 
of marl and lime made in South Carolina pre- 
viously to 1813, it is believed, fell short of 500 
acres.' It would furnish an interesting and 
most useful statistical document, if the Legisla- 
ture would hereafter require the extent of each 
planter’s applications of marl and lime, for eve- 
ry successive year, to be ascertained and record- 
ed by the tax collectors; and. a few years hence, 
also the then and thereafter estimated increased 
product of the improvements thereby made. 
Such statements, continued and published regu- 
larly year alter year, would exhibit an amount 
of newly directed labor, and of newly created 
agricultural wealth, beyond any present concep- 
tion of the effects; and the exhibition would 
stimulate the further exertion and increase more 
than any other possible mode of conveying in- 
st.'-uction, or of urging the propriety and profit 
of using calcareous manures. Nearly all of the 
few applications of marl, or of lime, which 
have heretofore been made, have failed ol early 
or satisfactory effect, or lor so long as observed 
for effects, because of the improper mode of ap- 
plication; which was, as usual with pumescent 
manures, by burying the marl under the “list,” 
and thereby avoiding, and indeed preventing 
all intermixture of the manure with the soil, 
which is essential to its operation. 
Considering the great variations and degrees 
of fertility of cultivated soils, and the important 
bearing of such differences on the profits of the 
cultivators, it is strange that so little attention 
has been given to the causes, or of care to avoid 
i he worst and obtain the best effects. Every 
proprietor knows that the profit of cultivation is 
much greater on rich than on poor ground. But 
very few have estimated how much greater is the 
profit; and nowhere, within the sphere of my 
observation, are the prices of lands properly 
graduated, in proportion to their fertility and 
true productive value. 11 properly estimated, it 
would be manifest that poor land, for cultiva- 
tion, if to remain poor, would be dear as a gift, 
and its cultivation the most costly of all. Yet, 
the greater number of cultivators of such soils, 
are content to remain in that condition, without 
making an effort, and scarcely indulging a hope 
of improving their fields and their profits. 
It is not the less remarkable, that the more 
sanguine and enierf u.-jiig cultivators, who aim 
and hoi. e to improve, seldom inquire into the I 
causes' and manner of the operation designed, 
and therefore, most naturally, seldotn succeed iti 
their design. To apply the ordinary putrescent 
manure, is generally the sole means attempted 
or thought of; and if on poor and bad soils, in 
the race between exhaustion and now fertiliza- 
tion, the latter is invariably left far behind. 
It is a universally acknowledged truth, that 
what is needed to make soil most productive, 
are such irrgredierits as will supply, in sufficient 
abundance, the/<?t>if o/ /Lurfs. Growing plants 
draw frotn the soil by their roots, and are nour- 
ished by the dissolved parts of nearly all putres- 
cent matters, either vegetable or animal, or mix- 
tures ol both. The ordinary manures are pre- 
cisely such substances; and sooner or later, by 
their gradual decomposition, are converted al- 
most entirely to the food for plants, and it judi- 
ciously applied, are consumed by, and help to 
sustain, me growing crops. 
But it is not enough, by a great deal, that ma- 
nures serving to form food for ]ilarits, shall be 
gi?ento the soil. There are other conditions 
necessary for their profitable and best effects; 
and the most important of these conditions is, 
that the soil shall be so constituted as to pre- 
serve the putrescent matters from waste and pro- 
fitless dissipation, and to give them wholly for 
the suppoit and growth ot plants. This condi- 
tion is furnished by nature, in wmll-eonstituted 
soils only, which present the most productive 
and durable lands under tillage. Without this 
constitution, all the supplies of putrescent ma- 
nures which can be given to a farm, wull be of 
little profit; and if derived from its own resour- 
ces only, wdll be utterly insufficient to preserve, 
and still less to increase, the yearly measure of 
productiveness of the land. — Ruffin's Agricultu- 
ral Survey of South Carolina. 
From the Maine Farmer. 
RUTA BAGA AS FOOD FOR CATTLE. 
Mr. H.'Lmes: — I see by your remarks in the 
last Farmer, that the merits of the Ruta Baga 
have been called in question, and that it has al- 
ready fallen from the high estimation in w’hich 
it was once held, and is now but little cultivat- 
ed. Of the evidence upon which it has been 
condemned, as unprofitable, you have not given 
us any account. Yet there may be sufficient 
reason for not cultivating it very extensively, 
without practicing the old proverb that, “ when 
one is found going dowm hill, every one must 
give him a push.” Much of its favor has aris- 
en from the great fondness w'hich has been mani- 
fested for it, by cattle. They are not, how'-ever, 
more fond of the Ruta Baga than of most other 
succulent ford, which is vey naturally ac- 
counted for, as all the juices are retained in ad- 
dition to the organic matter w'hich it contains, 
and is fed to cattle at a time of year when they 
are confined exclusively to dry fodder. This, I 
think, must account for the fondness of cattle for 
Ruta Baga, rather than for any extraordinary 
nourishing qualities w'hich it may possess, as 
apples, potatoes and beets, and any other succu- 
lent food, given them in the winter season, is 
devoured with equal avidity as turneps. It has 
been lound, by chemists, that about nine parts 
in ten of turneps, are water, while most other 
vegetables of the grain kind average nearly re- 
versed proportions of water and organic matters, 
containing about fifteen or eighteen parts of wa- 
ter, and eighty-five of organic matters. This, 
certainly, is fair evidence against turneps, that 
is, if Liebig knows any thing. 
Anothei item in the indictment is, that the 
ground has to be made richer for their growth 
than for any other crop that is produced, and is 
left in a poorer condition lor a succeeding crop 
than by any other vegetable. This fact 1 know 
not how to account for, but experience has prov- 
ed it to be so. In some cases, but little more 
than half the grass is obtained from land occu- 
pied by turneps the previous year, that will grow 
on land that has been planted to corn or pota- 
toes, with the same manuring. 
Turneps, when fed to cattle, operate in some 
way to produce a powerlul appetite, and this 
causes them to eat a larger quantity ol fodder of 
the coarser kind, if required, and in this way 
tiiey are kept in tolerable goo i condition upon 
comparatively poor lare. In this, principally, 
lies the philosophy of cattle thriving as well on. 
poor hay with a lew turneps, as they will when 
kept on good hay, without any turneps. G. 
■VVinthrop, June, 1844. 
From the American Agriculturist. 
SHOW OF THE AGRICULTURAL. HORTICULTU- 
RAL, AND botanical BOCIETY OF JEFFERSON 
COLLEGE. 
I sit down to give you a brief report of our 
Spring Agricultural Show', w'hich came off yes- 
terday. We have had a very interesting meet- 
ing, and the attendance, all thin.gs considered, 
was very full indeed. Several other calls of in- 
terest occurred, unavoidably, on the same day, 
in our neighborhood, drawing offa great many ; 
and the roads are insufferably dusty, ft om the 
long, severe and ruinous drought we have had, 
and still have. Nevertheless, xcc xchn do th.s 
xcork have great cause of compYaint to make, 
that on a subject of such vital importance to 
their interests, as improvement in all things agri- 
cultural, planters show so much apathy. On the 
occasion of a very interesting trial of the com- 
parative merits of a number of agricultural im- 
plements, which occupied a committee appoint- 
ed for the purpose, during two hours in the 
morning, there were but some fifteen ortw'enty 
planters on the ground! But, from the many 
expressions of regret, w'hich I have since heard, 
for non-attendance, when it became known how- 
much of exceeding interest they had missed, I 
am confident that at the October trial we shall 
have a crowd. It is upon this part of the exhi- 
bition that I have most to say, as my time and 
attention, during the day, w'ere too much taken 
up to give the stock and other things more than 
a cursory glance. I will forward you papers 
with the reports of committees at length, and 
pass on with the remark, that the number ofeat- 
tle and horses was, I thought, fully as great as 
at any previous meeting, some of them being 
remarkably fine. 
Of bulls, Mr. Hall had a very handsome two 
year old white bull, which, in my estimation, 
rated first; he is a compact, w’ell-made animal, 
and handles well. Col. D. Cooper, from Wil- 
kinson count}', exhibited an aged bull w'hich I 
must place next, even over the head of Mr. 
Hall’s mountain of beef, Beltzhover: in my 
opinion, there is no comparison between the two 
animals, though 1 know that I could find few 
here to side w’ith me. There were also two 
younger bulls, the property of Samuel Cham- 
berlain and D. P. Jackson, that w'ere very fine. 
Of sheep and hogs, the show w'as a poor one; 
every one being, like myself, afraid of the ex- 
cessive dust. Col. Wailes exhibited a pen of 
very good sheep. In vegetables and flowers, 
too, we W'ere sadly wanting— caused by our 
long drought. Col. Wailes, the Rev', Mr. 
Whielden, and Dr. Butterfield, occupied one of 
the college halls with their fine cabinets of 
stones, minerals, fossils, &c. Col. W. has a 
most valuable collection, particularly of agates, 
madrepores, cornelians, sfec,, and of fossil and 
Indian remains. Mr. Whielden exhibited a 
miniature cage, of broom-straw', ia which were 
some dozen silk worms in the act of enveloping 
themselves in their silken covering— by them 
lay a number ol others, in different stages of 
growth, feeding. 
But to the implements. At about nine o’- 
clock, the committee commenced operations on 
a piece of ground here, on Ingleside. From the 
printed report, you will see what plows, &c., 
were on the ground, and also the opinion of the 
committee, which you w'ould oblige many here 
by publishing, t and confer, too, a more exten- 
sive benefit upon the makers of such things, if 
they will act upon it as they ought to do, than 
they are probably aware of. From the opinions 
there given, I must beg leave to differ some- 
what. The fact is, we know so little here of 
how implements of cast-iron answer the pur- 
pose, that there is a strong prejudice against 
