362 
A PLOW FOR TURNING UNDER THE COW PEA. 
impoverishment or diminution. Such a practice 
may not be attended with any peculiar advantage 
with the majority of farmers ; but would be emi¬ 
nently beneficial with many. Such as have ara¬ 
ble lands near home, and remote pasturage adapted 
to their wants, would save a large annual expense 
in hauling their manures, and the waste of time 
in going a considerable distance to attend to the 
planting, cultivation and ingathering of the crops. 
Such also as have but a small portion of their land 
suited to easy cultivation, all of which may be 
kept constantly under profitable tillage, while all 
the remainder of the farm, may be rough, rocky, 
>r steep hills, would find great advantage in con¬ 
fining their operations to the same fields. And all 
who have lands at high prices, where interest and 
taxes are large items in their accounts, would find 
it to consist with the greatest economy, to adopt 
a system of soiling, by which an acre of land 
contiguous to their stables and yards, would pro¬ 
duce from two to five or six times the quantity of 
food for their cattle, now yielded by their light 
pastures, and it would cost but a trifling addition, 
in any instance, to the expense of cutting and 
feeding, while in some cases, there would be posi¬ 
tive economy, in the labor of twice daily driving 
cows and working animals to remote fields to 
gather their own food. 
R. L. Allen. 
Buffalo , August 20, 1844. 
A PLOW FOR TURNING UNDER THE COW PEA. 
Can not your ingenious mechanics add some¬ 
thing to their breaking plows which will cut the 
stems or vines of the cow pea, so as to enable us 
to turn them completely under ? They cover the 
ground to the depth of from 18 to 30 inches, the 
vines thickly interwoven. We can roll them flat, 
or tread them down with hogs ; we can also draw 
the leaves and points of the vines under, with a 
chain, as you do in plowing in clover ; but we still 
want a coulter that will cut , not drag the vines, 
which are of great length, and many of them as 
thick as your finger. 
I have thought of several plans, and have been 
told that some northern mechanic made a machine 
for a planter in Louisiana—a plow with a pair of 
large shears attached, and worked by a wheel, in 
some way, within the plow. Who it was for, or 
who made it, or how it works, I know not. I 
would suggest, a wheel with a steel cutting edge, 
or a very sharp coulter, bolted on at a very obtuse 
angle with the point of the beam, as in the jump¬ 
ing-shovel plow. But in both cases, though we 
have no stones, I fear the cutting edge would not 
last, unless, indeed, the wheel was so arranged as 
to press against a surface of rawhide , sliding along 
under it, and under the vines. A pair of shears 
might be attached to the beam, the blades, as in 
sheep-shears, kept apart by a spring; the lower 
blade resting on the ground, with a one-sided 
wheel attached to its point, the irregular motion of 
which would work the shears. These for sugges¬ 
tions. We would object less to the expense of 
such an addition to the heavy plow, than to the 
extra weight, and aptitude to get out of order. 
Without such an addition we can never derive 
much benefit from the cow pea as a fertilizer, 
otherwise than by turning them under in the 
spring after they have been rendered brittle by the 
weather, and trodden in by the stock. I have now 
a coat of peas upon some of my land here, poor 
as it is, which no plow that I have ever seen could 
turn under, without some addition of the kind. 
We have the same difficulty to contend within the 
very heavy crop of crab grass, which comes up all 
over our corn-fields during the long growing season 
we have after the com crop is laid by. So thick, 
tall, and closely matted, is it, that when dead, it 
cannot be turned under and covered by any plows 
we now have; and we have no time for plowing 
while it is yet green, making as much cotton as we 
now do.(a) It is customary, with a great many, 
to burn it off! I managed it pretty well last year, 
by having the farzy surface burnt off after a rain, 
before the body of grass had dried any. I am 
of opinion, however, that with Ruggles & Co.’s 
eagle plow, or Prouty & Mears’ centre draft, I can 
bury it completely, by having a boy keep up 
with each plow, and clear the coulter with a stick, 
as the plow runs, or I may perhaps manage to 
clear it with a crooked iron rod, worked by the 
plowman by means of a cord. 
Could the cotton planter be induced to think of 
such things, and be satisfied to make less cotton, 
he would quickly find that by turning over his corn¬ 
field in the fall, or early in the winter, and putting 
his cotton there next season, even if he adopted no 
other rotation, (manuring his com, and planting 
peas there early,) he would find that one half to 
two thirds of the land now in cotton would pro¬ 
duce more than he could gather within a reason¬ 
able time. He could then make money from his 
cattle, sheep, and hogs—could sell hay from his 
Bermuda meadows—raise all his supplies at 
home—make his own clothing, leather, shoes, im¬ 
plements, &c., and be at the end of each year a 
richer man, and leave his plantation to his children, 
rich in improvements, and with a soil unexhausted. 
Here we are making a crop this season that will, 
I fear, prevent any increase in the present low 
price of cotton, or at all events, but a trifling 
increase to what we had every right to expect from 
the great diminution occasioned by the flooding of 
the river lands. Had we made a moderate crop, 
our staple must have gone up again to a remune¬ 
rating price. Thomas Affleck. 
Washington, Miss., Oct., 1844. 
(a) We have consulted with several of our me¬ 
chanics relative to Mr. Affleck’s suggestions about a 
plow for turning in the cow-pea. Their answer 
is, if they were on the ground and could see the 
working of the plow, they might be able to do 
something, but at this distance they see little hope 
in the case. We think the crab grass might 
be more easily managed, by using a wide sod 
plow, something like those for paring, cutting the 
ground about three inches deep, and turning the sod 
flat over. But such an instrument would require at 
least four stout mules to move it, and so much 
force as this attached to a plow, is enough to 
frighten many planters of the upper country 
against the use of it. When on the rice planta- 
