182 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
the yearth would grow, and besides all the ma- 
nure (and IVe none to spare) would sink 
down into the ground, and my crop cl corn 
wouldnkgii no good Irom it; as it is, the ma- 
nure on the ground sinks into the yearth,^ 
and I only giLs benefit Irom it lor one cro'p.'” 
“ Well now, my good sir, you have given me 
your theory for shallow plowing, and, with your 
permission, 1 will give you mine iu lavor of 
deep plowing.” 
“ What do you mean by theory'?” 
“ Theory means the settled ideas which a man 
may have imbibed, as the governing principle 
of his action, and is to him the motive of his 
practice.” 
“ I don’t understand you.” 
“Then, sir, what I mean by theory, is this — 
it forms the ol my doing any thing — for 
instance, if 1 were going to plant corn in this 
field of yours, I should manure it, because the- 
ory tells me, that the plants would require feed- 
ing to make them grow. Do you understand 
me now*?” 
“Oh yes.” 
“Then Til give you xny reasons deep m 
preference to shallow plowing, and why 1 should 
mix a portion ol the clay that lies beneath, with 
the sand above. You are fearful to break the 
pan, fiar your manure will sink, and yet you 
admit that what you put on the ground, only 
lasts for one season, and you apprehend that, as 
it is, it sinks into the ground and gets below the 
leach of your crops. Now I think you are 
mistaken as to the cause of the loss ol the good 
effects of the manure. I believe that, instead 
of its sinking, and thus eluding the reach of the 
roots of your growing plants, that it escapes 
from the surface of the earth You bury it so 
shallow, and expose it so immediately to the 
heat of the sun and atmosphere, that, upon every 
succeeding rain, the manure rots faster than is 
necessary to the sustenance of your crops — fas- 
ter than the rootlets can take it up, and as the 
most valuable, it not, indeed, the only part of 
manure that is valuable, is light, and volatile — 
it escapes through the pores of the earth, and is 
wafted away by the wind, and in all probabili- 
ty, is carried to your neighbor’s land, where if 
it has a suitable soil it is a.tracted and absorb- 
ed, to enrich his land and nurture his growing 
crops. I notice that your corn stalks are very 
small and easily broken. The reason of that is 
this — there is very little potash in your soil, 
ana hence not enough to dissolve the sand, and 
form that flinty substance which constitutes the 
elastic principle that enables either grass, corn, 
wheat, rye, or barley to stand erect. In all vir- 
gin clays there are more or less potash, and if 
you turn up some of your subsoil and cross- 
plow it, so as to mix it with the sand, you will 
just supply your land with one ol the very in- 
gredients which it wants.” 
“Well, but the red clay will pisen the land, 
and nothing will grow on it.” 
“Not so. T don’t wish you to turn up more 
than two inches at any one plowing, and what- 
ever may be injurious to vegetation, in that 
quantity, will be corrected by the sun and air. 
It is the oxide of iron, which gives the red color 
to the clay underneath the sand of this field, 
which, if it were in too great quantities to be 
brought into immediate contact with the roots of 
growing plants, might possibly injure them, but 
tne quantity I name, could do no harm. If you 
had lime to apply to your land, the oxide of 
iron would be converted into a substance simi- 
lar to plaste.’’, and an immediate benefit would 
enure to you, in a two-fold sense, first by neu- 
tralizing the bad effects of the iron, and second- 
ly, by converting the latter into plaster.” 
“ Who ever hearn of iron being in the ground 
except in lumps hard as stones 1” 
“ Many before you were born.” 
“But let me proceed. By annually turning 
up a portion of your clay, instead of having to 
cultivate an almost barren sand as you now 
have, in a Ie\y years, you would have a good 
mould, that would resist the influence of the 
scorching rays of the sun, and your crops would 
avoid being burnt up by the slight droughts. 
Your manure, instead of being drawn up and 
lost through the heat of the sun, will remain in 
the earth, rot gradually, and as gradually sup- 
ply your growing crops with food, and you will 
find that, instead of having to naanure every 
year, once in tour years will answer, and par- 
ticularly if you sow clover and turn that in 
every second year.” 
“ Why, bless you, clover won’t grow here.” 
“Yes it will, if you do as I tell you: plow 
deeper, turn up and mix the clay with the sand 
and lime in your land. If you can’t afford to 
lime, plaster it. A bushel to the acre for a year 
or two will enable you to raise clover, provided 
you turn up the clay and get the potash into ac- 
tion.” 
“Potash! why, there never was either potash 
or ashes put on this ground, and I’m too far from 
market to haul it, it I was able to buy it, which 
I ai’nt.” 
“ I told you before that there v/as potash in 
the red clay.” 
“ How did it get there ?” 
“Providence placed it there, for wise and 
beneficent purposes, and it remains tor you to 
use it or not, as you may see fit. Plow deep- 
er, I tell you, and you will find potash enough, 
to add to the fertility of your soil and increase 
your crops.” 
“ I reckin you’re a book farmer — you talk so 
like the strange things Fs hearn on” 
“No, my good sir. I’m not a book farmer, 
but like yourself, a farmer in a small way, even 
smaller than you are, yet I do read books, and 
papers too, on farming, and have read them 
with delight, and I hope profit, from my earliest 
recollection. What 1 see in them that my 
judgment approves, I practice, if an occasion 
offers — what I see that I do not approve, I re- 
ject— and if you were to take an agricultural 
paper, both you and your children would profit 
by it. No man ever yet read anything without 
gaining by it. The agricultural papers, besides 
containing the essays and views of theorists, 
have much of the practical experience of prac- 
tical men in them, and by reading them, men 
become acquainted with the customs and modes 
of culture of all parts of the world, and surely, 
with such a field before them, those who do not 
improve by it must be dull indeed. Butlhave 
a few wmrds more with legard to deep plowing, 
and its effects in promoting the growth of crops. 
By deepening the bed in which the plants have 
to grow, you enlarge the pasture of the plants ; 
you enable their rootlets to descend, as well as 
spread with more facility, and it must be obvi- 
ous, that by so doing, you greatly improve their 
chance of growing, as the least difficulty they 
may experience in searching tor food, the better 
chance will they, have of thriving. You say 
that the red clay beneath the sand, is poisonous 
to your crops. Be it so. But keeping it in a 
compact form, you do not render it less injuri- 
ous, for notwithstanding its hardness, the roots 
of your corn will penetrate it several feet, so 
that the objection which you have raised, is 
ima,ginary, not real, and by keeping that stiff 
clay in an unbroken stale, you present it to the 
roots of your corn, in the very worst and most 
injurious form that you possibly can, — plow 
deeper, turn it up to the action of the sun, the 
air and the rains, and you will soon rid it of its 
poisonous qualities.” 
“ How deep would you recommend me to 
plow?” 
“Why, I would have you increase your soil 
two inches each year, until you get at least 
nine inches in depth.” 
“ Why, bless you, stranger, my plow can’t 
never go that deep,and besides,my horse couldn’t 
never turn up nine inches.” 
“Get a bigger plow, and put in two horses 
instead of one. By getting a deep tilth, you 
w'ill enable your land to absorb a good deal of 
manure from the atmosphere.” 
“ Who ever hearn talk of manure being in the 
air?” 
“I have. There is at all times floating in 
the air, a substance, which if you can only im- 
part to your soil the power of attracting and ab- 
sorbing it, you will find that it will add greatly 
to the fertility of your land. That which es- 
capes from your soil as the manure rots, is the 
substance I mean, and it is carried away from 
you, to add to the fertility of your neighbor’s 
land, because of its being in a condition tore- 
tain it. As the manure in your barn-yard rots, 
its most enriching properties are carried off by 
the same process and lost too you. 11 you wish 
to prevent such loss, you can do so, by keeping 
a lew inches ofdirtolany kind spread over 
your manure. This will act in a two-fold way, 
beneficially to your interest. It will prevent 
the escape of the gaseous substances I have 
spoken of, while the body of earth above the 
manure, will become impregnated with the rich- 
est of the manure, as decomposition goes on, so 
that the earth, thus placed on the top, will be- 
come as good as any other part of the manure. 
You have often smelt at a distance from your 
manure pile, an unpleasant stench, have you 
not?” 
“ Yes.” 
“ W ell that is what I call a gaseous substance, 
and the very best and most fertilizing part of 
the body of your manure pile. It is that which 
flies off with each current of wind, is lost to you, 
and enriches the better land of your neighbor, 
because that land is in a condition to a tract 
and absorb it, as I have before told you.” 
“ Well, stranger, I don’t understand all you 
have been saying, though I think I’ll try to plow 
a Utile deeper, and burn some ol the shells about 
my house and shore, and see if I can raise clo- 
ver.” 
“ If you’ll do 30, you n;ay raise clover and 
timothy too, and make three bushels of com 
where you raise one now. Do you raise any 
wheat?" 
“No; my ground won’t grow it.” 
“follow my advice, and after you get a good 
crop of clover, plow that in, seed your field 
down in wheat, and I’ll promise you a good 
yield, provided you apply ten or twenty bushels 
of lime to the acre. 
“They tells me that a hundred bushels is not 
too much.” 
“That’s very- true, but the quantity I have 
named will answer for several years, ai.d I see 
no necessity for a man ol small means applying 
a large quantity, when a smaller one will an- 
swer present purposes. I believe that lime is not 
only an alternative, that is an, amender of the 
soil, but I believe it is also a positive manure, 
that is, that the plant takes it up as a nutrient.” 
“Nutrient ! what is that ?” 
“ A substance that nourishes and encourages 
the growth of plants.” 
With this our conversation ended, and we 
were happy to learn only a few days ago from 
the individual to whom it was addressed, that 
he had followed our advice, and had last year, 
from a field which he was formerly in the habit 
of getting from two to four barrels ol corn to the 
acre, according to the season, gathered upwards 
of eight barrels, and that he had grown as fine 
a crop of clover as he wished to have, when, in 
former times, when his field was resting, nothing 
but a poverty grass and stinted weeds reared 
their heads. 
Subsoil Plowing. — Its efficacy in actually 
improving the character and depth of soils, 
where proper tillage has been maintained, has, 
been abundantly proved, and perhaps nowhere 
more signally than in resuscitation ol the sterile 
lands exhausted by tobacco culture, in Virgi- 
nia. 1 speak from my own observation of its 
wonderful utility in a neighboring county — 
Fairfax — and have the corroborating testimony 
of the of the distinguished Judge of that circuit, 
who declared some time since, that Fairfax, 
from being proverbially one of the poorest, was 
fast becoming one of the most fertile counties of 
Virginia; and this change has been wrought 
by the immigration of Northern farmers, bring- 
ing with them all their agricultural enterprise, 
and knowledge of what may be properly called 
the mechanics of agriculture.— 5'owfAcrw Plan-_ 
ter. 
