180 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
of no plant of equal value for soil. ng. lis 
growth commences very early in the spring, 
and continues without interruption through the 
whole season. No ordinary drouth affects it in 
the least, after it once gets fairly rooted. The 
roots have been traced to the depth of more than 
three leet in the earth, the first season, when 
sown in drills. The only cultivation that it re- 
quires after the first season, is an occasional 
harrowing before it starts up in the spring. 
From the Southern Planter. 
SM.VLL, FAR.MS AND THOROUGH CULPIVATION. 
The anecdote ol the boy carrying a stone in 
one end of his bag, to balance the corn in the 
opposite end, because his lather had done so, 
shows in some degree the lorce ol education and 
habit. This stone-carrying system is of broader 
application th.an may be at first imagined. To 
exemplily. A lather has a fieid of one hundred 
acres of land which he cultivates because he 
has laborers and team to do so; perhaps fifty 
acres ot this yield something like two bushels 
per acre, a little more than enough to leed the 
laborers and team whilst engaged in the culti- 
vation; the son inherits it, and forsooth, because 
his lather had done so, he continues the practice, 
until he finds it expeuient to remove to some 
new country. To arrest a course like this, so 
destructive to lands and lortunes, I propose a 
few remarks. All who have noticed any thing 
about farming operations in Eastern Virginia, 
cannot fail to have observed the thiist for exten- 
sive cultivation, irrespective ot tiie quality of 
lan.l and its productiveness, and those engaged 
in it have found at harvest time that their crops 
have mostly been gathered from a tew patches 
ol land in tolerable heart, whilst the greater por- 
tion of the field required oxen in pretty good 
keep to collect a load of ears, more resembling 
awl handles than corn. In view of this fact, 
and in view ot the immense products of the 
small northern farms highly improved, it is pass- 
sing strange the course should be persisted in. I 
suggest the lollowing one to remedy this evil : 
Say a man has a fieid of one hundred acres of 
land, half of which is nearly unproductive, 
which will require eight hands to cultivate it ; 
let him take three ot his hands from his field, 
and commence early in the year to haul Irom 
his wood>, leaves, tnould, swamp mud, walls ot 
ditches cut through his swamp land, and any 
vegetable matter he may have, and apply it to 
the unproductive part of his field so lar as it 
will go; and I will venture to affirm that the 
product of the part of the field in cultivation, 
will tar exceed the product of the whole field in 
any previous year, seasons and cultivation being 
alike. When these sources of improvement are 
exhausted, let the hands above employed in im- 
provement, remove the ground works of lences 
that ha'"e been standing for years, and take the 
soil from under them and apply it as manure, as 
it really is, and the product ot this process xvill 
astonish any one who has not experimented in 
this way, and will leave your fences cleared of 
shrubs and briers, which yearly consume much 
lime and labor in clearing, and so much injure 
fences by obstructing the w'ind and sun from 
them This source ot manure having been ex- 
hausted, if you have light or sandy land, take 
from your adhesive clay subsoils, clay to cover 
it, say about twenty-five or thirty loads to the 
acre, scatter the same so soon as it is deposited, 
so that it may have the frosts and freezes of the 
winter to pulverize it, and turn it under in the 
spring preparatory to planting corn. This will 
give tenacity and fertility to this kind of soil, 
and one experiment of the kind will embolden 
you to a continuance of the practice. As. re- 
spects manuring, from repeated experiments, I 
am fully persuaded a surface application is the 
most beneficial on sward or fallow. I would 
prefer applying it on the sward in August for 
the ensuing year’s crop of corn. When there 
is a great scarcity of manure, a quart of stable 
manure or a pint of ashes dropped on the corn 
hill after planting, will produce a result in the 
crop, that no one would anticipate who had not 
thus experimented, and 1 incline to the opinion, I 
that it will be the most speedy way to cover 
over a large surface, and make a good crop at 
the same time. It is true that this application 
at first is loo limited for a small grain crop, ne- 
vertheless, you have applied the quantity of 
manure over double or treble the surface you 
would have done, if it had have been applied 
bioadcasl; you sviH have obtained double the 
quantity ol corn you would have made from a 
broadcast application of the same, and 1 believe 
you will make as much small grain Irom this 
extended surface. On the second cultivation of 
a corn crop, with the beds reversed, and a like 
application of manure, it wdll have diffused itself 
more generally over the surface than could be 
imagined. All 1 ask of the skeptical on this 
subject is, to make one experiment. 1 have fre- 
quently applied it in this way, and invariably 
have derived benefit from it, exceeding my ex- 
pectation. 
A few words in relation to the varieties of 
corn ; in these I have experimented largely, and 
the result is decidedly in favor of the largest 
kind. Poor land will not bring large or small, 
and rich will produce much more of the large 
than the small. Of one of the small varieties 
I once obtained eleven ears well matured from 
one stalk. The appearance was very imposing, 
but lo! when 1 came to test the proLct ol this 
variety wiih a larger one, 1 found one large ear 
to yield one-eighth of a gill more than the ele- 
ven. When the gathering of the ten additional 
ears, the shucking and housing, and the defi- 
ciency in yield are taken in the estimate, I think 
no one will hesitate in awarding a preterence to 
the large kind. Rexburg, 
From the Southern Planter. 
ECONOMY OF FARM LABOR. 
There is no subject of greater importance to 
the farmer than the judicious application of his 
farm labor, and there is none that receives so 
little oi his attention. False economy often in- 
duces men to use an old worn-out tool when, for 
want ot a good one, they lose more every hour 
than would pay for two. A wood cutter with 
an old stumpy axe labors hard all day and is 
dispiriied because he has nothing to show lor 
his labor; he is scolded proba*'ly for what is en- 
tirely the tault of the tool : with a good tool he is 
active and cheerful, because he feels that his 
day’s work will speak for itself. Some men use 
wooden pitchforks .for hay; the time lost in 
hunting for a proper stick and in cutting it, 
would often secure as much hay as would pay 
for two steel ones ; and then to see a man make 
five or six ineffectual efforts to stick the fork into 
a pile ol hay, and at last takeupaboutone third 
of what he might with a good one, and having 
one-half of that falling back into his lace, is 
enough to di.sgust any body in the world who 
lov'ps to see work done as it ought to be. It is 
the same thing with dung forks. Give an or- 
dinary hand a good steel fork and he will load 
a cart in less time than the best hand will with 
an inferior one — but to observe the indifference 
of our farmers to such things is to me, who have 
been used to different things, a matter of asto- 
nishment. 
Raking up Hay . — As I observed in your pa- 
per once before, one man with a horse rake is 
as good as four and I believe six with the or- 
dinary hand implements. Pine boards for com- 
post should be collected whilst the ground is 
wet; then a portion of earth is taken up with 
them, which keeps them compact, and a cart 
carries in the bulk double the weight. The size 
of the manure heap depends upon the facility 
with which it is accumulated ; what we obtain 
easily we use bountifully. As to the 
Application of Manure . — Suppose a farmer 
has twenty head of cattle ; he pens them in his 
farm-yard and hauls in trash to litter it with. 
In this way he may make eight hundred loads 
of manure, which it will take him eighty days, 
at ten loads a day, to haul out upon his fields. 
Of this probably five hundred were litter, which 
jt has taken him fifty days to haul in. Here is 
one hundred and thirty days employed in haul- 
ing. Suppose, instead of this, he pens his cat- 
tle upon his ground previoi.’sly broken up, on a 
quarter acre at a time, and hauls the five hun- 
dred loads of litter directly to these pens of plow- 
ed land, is it not evident that he gets the same 
amount of manure with fifty days hauling, in- 
stead of one hundred and thirty 1 If this pro- 
cess is followed, ana lime added where the soil 
is deficient in it, the loss from evaporation and 
washing is less than by any other means that I 
know ot, and certainly the saving in labor is 
very great. 
Hours and Weather for Work . — It is bad 
economy to rouse your hands, as some do, by 
starlight, keep them at work for several hours 
on an empty stomach, make them guzzle down 
their meals, and off again to work as long as 
they can see, and then depend upon their feed- 
ing in the dark. Some think a little rain wont 
hurt, and drive on through a drizzle; the body 
hot from work and the skin cool from rain, in- 
duces cold, and lays the foundation oftentimes 
ol the very worst diseases. The loss of time, 
and sometimes of life, from such causes, toge- 
ther with the doctor’s bill, doubles the amount 
of gain that can ever accrue from such means. 
The following is my plan of 
Working Corn . — Lay off the corn rows deep 
with a two-horse plow ; plant in the bottom with 
the usual covering; then when high enough to 
work, put in the cultivator so that the right hand 
tooth will split the edge of the furrow on each 
side, and the corn will be wed, and hilled a little, 
and the ground lefi light and fine, 
Now be not deceived here; planting \s not 
deep covering. Plant deep down, but cover 
light, and when well rooted below, work as 
above directed, and your corn will bear working 
close to the stalk, and will, in my opinion, when 
the dry weather comes, bear working at least 
ten days longer. 
I could enumerate many other points affoni- 
ing a fair scope for the exercise ot economy in 
labor, but it is probable that he w’ho will not 
take the hint from what has been already said, 
would hardly be profited by a more detailed 
view of the subject. 1 will close this commu- 
nication by a single other remark upon tools in 
general, and one of my own in particular. It 
may be asked, shall we throw away our old 
tools and buv new ones ? 1 answer, if your 
good fork is worn too short for a strong man to 
make a good day’s work, give it to a boy, or 
keep it for work that may injure a new one; 
but never expect a full day’s work from a good 
hand with an inferior tool. 
I would mention an implement of my own 
invention for cutting down and picking up corn ; 
it is the circular part of an old reap hook, with 
a shank bent to it, which is a little turned and 
driven into a short handle; with it when ground 
keen, a man can cut with the right hand and 
heap with the left as fast as one can cut and 
another heap in the ordinary' way. 
My aim in this communication is to encou- 
rage those who are w’ithout means to be their 
own means, and to work out their own indepen- 
dence by the shortest route; but do not think 
for a moment that your implements are com- 
plete without having some agricultural work 
coming constantly to you with the latest news, 
that you may profit by the advice and experience 
of others. J. H. D. Lownes. 
A New Fashioned Mattress. — We so- 
journed lately at the house of a country friend, 
where we were treated to the most comlortable 
mattress it has ever been our good fortune to 
encounter. At first we thought it was fatigue 
which had converted an ordinary couch into a 
“ thrice driven bed of down ;” but we soon found 
that there was a most comfortable peculiarity 
about the bed itself, and upon inquiry we found 
that we had been lying upon a mattress consist- 
ing ot eight or ten blankets quilted together and 
encased in a linen cover; this mattress rested 
upon an ordinary feather bed. This hybrid 
between a feather bed and a mattress, secures 
bH the softness of the one and all the levelness 
of the other. Moreover, it is an excellent mode 
of disposing of the blankets during the summer. 
