NEW COMPOST MANURE*-SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK.-NO. 3 . 
211 
phylla rose, for inside fencing, and find the small 
twigs on a ditch bank have died, at least 8 out of 
10 ; these I have heretofore succeeded best with in 
garden culture. 
I cannot succeed with strawberries; have tried 
Hovey’s, Kean’s, Iowa Mammoth, Lagrange, and 
several other kinds. If I keep them clean they die 
the first summer, if I do not clean them, the weeds 
and grass make a case of them the first fall—must 
1 therefore conclude that the strawberry will not 
do in this climate, when my friend W., within five 
miles of me, has them on a little space, where they 
have been for five years, and I know, not only 
grows enough for himself, but to give an old 
neighbor a quart bowl full at a sitting ? M,ust I 
likewise say the old-fashioned pink, the pheasant 
eye and the carnation, will not do in this climate, 
because some worm or the ant destroys mine 
yearly ? I see them elsewhere. Must I conclude 
that this climate will not suit the dwarf box, be¬ 
cause I was shown a small parcel, “ the last of 
$300 worth,” which afterwards died ? Not so, for 
I find no difficulty in growing a cutting two inches 
long. 
As to this rose for hedging—the great difficulty 
is to keep it in due bounds; frequently a shoot, a 
vine, or runner, as you may choose to term it, will 
shoot out 10—aye, 20 feet. But in the name of all 
that is reasonable, what fencing can we make that 
is not objectionable ? I believe a Cherokee hedge 
can be safe to turn all stock, in four years—the rail 
fence being there, and that cost not counted, for it 
must be there anyhow—and not to cost over two 
weeks’ labor of two hands per mile, say, even 
counting hire at $12 per month, and found, &c.— 
$15 per mile. And it cannot cost more for the next 
25 years, to keep it properly pruned and trimmed in, 
than to keep up a post and rail fence made out of 
anything save cedar and red cypress. I presume 
two hands can attend to a mile a day, say, twice a 
year. The cost is a mere trifle, for it can be done 
when too wet to hoe or to plow. 
I have seen the Cherokee rose ever since I can 
recollect, and never heard of its dying out until 
latterly, and I think it is very much like my grow¬ 
ing strawberries—don’t feel interest enough in it to 
do it properly. My Teason for saying so is, I can 
find strawberries in the woods not a foot from my 
fence, and if I would plant them on mould and give 
the shade of peach trees, or even the north side of a 
fence, I think that I would succeed. I know of 
some who lose all their peach trees, and if you 
would see some of our peach orchards, you would 
wonder that the peach trees did not die when first 
planted—at the very idea of undergoing the muti¬ 
lation by axe, plow, hogs, cattle, &c. 
M. W. Philips. 
Edwards' Depot, Miss., April 6th, 1846. 
New Compost Manure. —Mr. Alexander Mc¬ 
Donald, of Eufaula, Ala., informs us that he has 
recently applied to a thin sandy soil, on pine land, 
40,000 bushels of a compost prepared from pine 
leaves and blue marl, both obtained on his farm, 
having previously been exposed in a small enclo¬ 
sure where his cattle had been penned. The mode 
of application, and the result of his experiment 
will be made known as soon as the amount of his 
present crops is ascertained. 
SCRAPS FROM MY NOTE BOOK.—No. 3. 
Mr. Cockrill’s Sheep. —This is the ninth of 
April (1846), a clear bright morning, but the 
ground is frozen stiff, and so it was one year ago 
this day, but it was not so where I then was, 500 
miles south, but there it was cold enough to kill 
nearly all the peaches in the Ohio valley, and much 
other fruit, and some wheat. 
These reminiscences are now called to mind, 
because, this is the anniversary of my visit to the 
“ Tennessee Shepherd a title which some of the 
readers of the American Agriculturist need not to be 
told belongs to Mark R. Cockrill. 
Mr. Cockrill’s sheep walk is at and near his resi¬ 
dence, seven miles west of Nashville, the drive to 
which is over one of the fine smooth Macadamized 
turnpikes which lead out of that city of rocks in 
every direction. 
He was born on the banks of the Cumberland 
River, near the place where he now lives, some 
fifty-seven years ago, at which time all the uncul¬ 
tivated land in that region w r as filled with immense 
cane-brakes, intersected here and there with buffalo 
roads and Indian trails, upon which some of the 
early settlers paid a higher toll than we do now 
upon these paved ones. Mr. Cockrill is one of 
those western w r oodsmen that in his young days 
could outrun an Indian, or outclimb a bear. He is 
medium size, spare built, “ smart as a steel trap,” 
with a great flow of pleasing conversation, and un¬ 
bounded hospitality, and in whose family the 
visitor cannot but feel at home and comfortable. 
He owns sixteen hundred acres of land, mostly 
very rough limestone hills, in places almost, and 
occasionally, quite bare of soil; and a small tract 
of very rich river bottom (interval) land. Fifteen 
hundred acres (counting the bare rocks), and in 
eluding the woodland, are in grass, the most of 
which is Kentucky blue grass. He usually plants 
about 50 acres of corn, which affords him as much 
as he needs. The corn land is exceedingly rich 
natural soil, on the banks of Richland Creek, near 
the Cumberland. 
The land occupied by Mr. C., is composed of 
twelve different farms, which he has bought up 
since 1835, at which time there were not ten acres 
of cultivated grasses upon the whole; and if the 
farms ever were good, it was long time ago, 
neither are the buildings worth bragging about. 
The fact is, he has been so intent upon providing 
pasturage and accumulating acres, that with the 
personal attention that he pays to his flocks, to¬ 
gether with the care of 2,000 acres of cotton plan¬ 
tations in Mississippi, upon which he works 135 
hands, he finds little time to devote to ornamental 
improvement. 
When I was there, his flock, as I stated in the 
March No., consisted of 1,400 fine-woolled, and 600 
long-woolled, and, all things considered—that is, 
quality of wool, weight of fleeces, size and healthi¬ 
ness of sheep, long life and productiveness of 
lambs, I think cannot be excelled in the United 
States. He also had forty head of very fine Durham 
and grade cattle, none of which were less than 
