80 
LETTERS OF R. L. ALLEN.-NO. 2 . 
LETTERS 0/ R. L. ALLEN.—No 2. 
I have found many things in the south worthy 
of commendation, some of which I have noticed in 
the preceding volumes of the Agriculturist. There 
are a few deserving of censure, one or two of which 
I will now state, not for the idle purpose of fault¬ 
finding, but if possible, to produce a reform. Rea¬ 
sonable men, desirous of improvements, as I be¬ 
lieve your readers in this section are, will not fail 
to approve of just and proper criticism rather than in¬ 
discriminate praise. 
The first reform I would suggest, is the wider 
circulation and more careful perusal of the best ag¬ 
ricultural periodicals, and a deeper investigation of 
those agricultural principles , which lie at the foun¬ 
dation of successful farming. It is true, that on a 
fresh, fertile soil, with good implements which are 
now procurable in most of our leading cities, and 
'with the common inodes of cultivation almost every¬ 
where adopted, one may get along for a time very 
well ; and if the soil be sufficiently deep, one, two, 
or perhaps even three generations may succeed, 
with industry and economy, in not only securing a 
good livelihood, but in accumulating property to no 
inconsiderable amount. But if the history of the 
past, the embodiment of others 1 experience, and the 
principles deduced from both, which we call science, 
he unknown!, or unheeded, there will come a time 
when the crops of the occupant must suffer; and if 
this neglect be continued, h is lands will become im¬ 
poverished to the extent of withholding all adequate 
return for the labor and capital bestowed upon 
them; and he is driven as a last resource, to the 
abandonment of his paternal acres, endeared to him 
by a thousand social recollections, to seek in the 
untamed wilderness, amid disease, privation, and 
solitude, that remuneration for his toil, which a 
small portion of science would have realized from 
his long cultivated fields. The dreaded apprehen¬ 
sion of book farming , that bugbear to the unthink¬ 
ing and heedless, has kept him from learning the 
operations and results of innumerable other, older, 
and wiser heads, than his own, which would have 
enabled him not only to avoid want, but to have 
secured a competence, while surrounded by all the 
comforts and delights of a refined society. Thou¬ 
sands of these examples are furnished annually 
throughout the whole south; and where purchas¬ 
ers cannot be found for their impoverished do¬ 
mains, they are frequently abandoned to resume 
their primeval condition of unreclaimed wildness. 
How this deplorable result may be avoided, can be 
easily learned by any intelligent person who will 
read our best American agricultural periodicals and 
hooks, and carefully, cautiously , if you please, adopt 
such principles and practices as may be adapted to 
their particular wants and situation. 
The economy of this course withdraws every ob¬ 
jection against its adoption. For the paltry sum of 
$50, one may obtain a well-selected library of the 
most valuable agricultural books suited to the pe¬ 
culiar products of any ordinary planter ; and for $5 
per annum, he may secure an equal number of pe¬ 
riodicals, which may, if judiciously read and ap¬ 
plied, produce him twenty times their cost in his 
augmented crops. This then, is one of the first 
and most essential reforms I would suggest for 
every portion of the Union, but more especially for 
the south, where the sparseness of population gene¬ 
rally, prevents that ready and extensive interchange 
and observation among the farming community, 
which other and denser settlements afford. 
The second neglect 1 would mention, is equally 
indefensible, though perhaps not equally injurious 
with the first. It consists in that want of associa¬ 
tion or combination of mind, engaged in similar 
pursuits, which is elsewhere secured by farming 
clubs and agricultural societies. Through these, 
the common stock of experience of every planter is 
brought into one focus. Individual opinions, prac¬ 
tices, and results are collected from every quarter, 
and are here analyzed and compared, and from the 
combination and comparison of all, a more perfect 
system is perhaps deduced, than may have been 
practised by either, not excepting the most success¬ 
ful. The experience of each becomes the property 
of all: and the best practice of the past year may 
be the worst of the succeeding; not that this has 
lost any of its merits, but because others have been 
substituted more worthy of adoption. Improved 
varieties of seeds, new species of plants, choice spe¬ 
cimens of animals, implements combining better 
principles and more skilful workmanship, are ex¬ 
hibited ; and the researches, ingenuity, and experi¬ 
ence, it may be, of a hundred active and intelligent 
men, are thus brought to one common storehouse, 
to constitute a general capital for every member of 
the community. The effect of this annual concen¬ 
tration and diffusion of results among intelligent 
minds need not be particularized, for they are evi¬ 
dent on the slightest reflection, and are abundantly 
shown wherever adopted. 
The extent to which anti-socialism in agricultu¬ 
ral matters is sometimes carried, is almost incredible. 
An enterprising planter who has adopted some of 
the improved modes of cultivation with success, as¬ 
sured me, that although a Creole, 40- years of age, 
and engaged in extensive operations, he had never 
seen the cane planted or sugar made on any other 
plantation excepting his own. With the utmost 
enterprise and intelligence, individual action exert¬ 
ed alone, always works to a disadvantage. It is 
using the short end of the lever, while the long end 
is within reach. 
We have for instance, choice kinds of tobacco, 
which is successfully raised within this state, worth 
several times the price of the ordinary kinds, yet 
few know where to procure the seed, or the mode 
of raising and curing it. This might be easily at¬ 
tainable through a common society, and if but a 
few seeds were procured by each, they would soon 
become widely disseminated. Indigo is still culti¬ 
vated to a limited extent in some bye places in the 
state : yet no one hears of it, or knows where and 
what results are obtained; the mode of cultivation, 
or the means for procuring the seed, or the best 
system of cultivation. Immense bodies of lands 
here, every way well adapted to the culture of rice, 
lie in utter waste: but if the most successful 
mode of culture were known, mai:^ would be in¬ 
duced to go into it. It is not sufficient to tell them 
the best modes of raising i't elsewhere, for they re¬ 
ply, and justly enough, too, that there are differen¬ 
ces of soil, climate, tides, irrigation, &c, which, if 
foreign modes were strictly observed here, would 
result in loss. Successful examples, close at home 
