18 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
assert; since the life of the longest liver in those parts 
of our State, to which I alluded, had not been long 
enough to enable him to perceive it, in the instances 
which I cited. Your assertion, therefore, that deterio¬ 
ration does take place in all cases, where no alternation 
of crops is resorted to, seemed to me like taking for 
granted, that which yet wanted proof. Admit these ex¬ 
ceptions to the apparent universality of your doctrine, 
and I shall think with you, that “were our views mutu¬ 
ally understood, there would be no great matter of differ¬ 
ence between us.” Being sincerely desirous to have my 
own opinions strengthened by yours, I will now endea¬ 
vor to ascertain in what that difference (if any,) really 
consists, by stating my own creed as to rotation of crops: 
not, I assure you, because I deem it of the least impor¬ 
tance to any body; but because such statement may ex¬ 
cite a further discussion by abler hands than myself, of 
a subject highly important to all our brethren, and may 
thus possibly lead them to perceive, that heretofore they 
have taken for granted, and accordingly asserted, many 
things in regard to it, which have never yet been satis¬ 
factorily proved; just as in our school boy days, when 
scanning our Latin lessons, we used to tell our masters 
that such and such syllables were long or short “ by au¬ 
thority .” Now, although such a reason—if it can be 
called one, may suffice in lieu of a better, for school 
boys scanning Latin poetry, I cannot deem it admis¬ 
sible among men who are earnestly seeking the truth in 
regard to the soundness and utility of any thing recom¬ 
mended to them as a practical rule. Such a thing, un¬ 
less sustained by well authenticated facts, should never 
be regarded in any other light, even when most attrac¬ 
tively presented, but that of an ingenious and plausible 
theory. In this light, I confess, (perhaps to my fhture 
shame,) that I view many of the alleged benefits of 
our popular rotation systems. Not one of them, in my 
opinion, actually improves land , unless, as I said before, 
some one or more crops of the course be returned to it, 
or unless manure, which cannot properly be called a 
crop, be applied between them. Their food being de¬ 
rived in part from the soil, and in part from the atmos¬ 
phere, unless the former gets back more than she im¬ 
parted of the principles of fertility, deterioration must 
occur in a degree more or less rapid in proportion to the 
quantities of food required by each crop to bring it to 
perfection. The few apparent exceptions I have stated 
cannot invalidate this doctrine, as a general one, and 
therefore ought not to encourage us to neglect it entire¬ 
ly. I gave them only to prove that it did not hold good 
in all cases whatever, since in some it was impercepti¬ 
ble. But some plants require much less food than oth¬ 
ers, consequently when they constitute the chief crops 
of a rotation, deterioration advances more slowly, and 
this is often called an improving course; when in fact, 
it only retards that injury, which would be too visible to 
be overlooked, if the whole or the greater part of the 
alternating crops consisted of those plants which require 
most food. To retard impoverishment therefore, is all the 
credit I think due to any rotation whatever, if all the 
crops which constitute the course, were taken from the 
land. Could this opinion be adopted by all our breth¬ 
ren, it would certainly, I believe, have the very salutary 
effect of causing the whole of our fraternity to pay 
much more attention to procuring manure than they ever 
have done; for they would all be convinced that mere 
rotation could do no more for our arable lands than I 
have stated. 
And now, my good sir, before I conclude, let me en¬ 
deavor to answer the few questions you have asked re¬ 
lative to our poor old mother, Virginia! By the way, 
they remind me very much of a highly esteemed friend, 
long since dead, who used to be vastly fond of this So- 
cratic mode of argument, by which he seemed always to 
calculate on so “ penning” a fellow, as it were “ in a cor¬ 
ner,” that there was no escape but to cry out “ peccavi.” 
It made no odds to him whether you answered “ aye,” 
or “no,” he had you either way, with conclusions to 
suit his purpose. 
Your first question is: “have not successive crops of 
wheat, of corn, or of tobacco, greatly deteriorated some 
of her once fertile soils ?” and your second is “ like unto 
it.” It is: “ have they not reduced thousands and tens 
of thousands of her good acres to comparative sterility, 
to unproductive commons?” To both I reply, that we 
have, alas! hundreds of thousands of once good acres, 
long ago reduced to “comparative sterility,” but not to 
“ unproductive commons;” for they still produce what 
we call hen-grass, broom-straw, and ever and anon, a 
starveling pine or cedar bush—the reproachful and 
melancholy mementoes of ancestral improvidence. But 
the successive crops to which you ascribe this, are far 
from being the only or the chief cause of this lamenta¬ 
ble fact. From the first settlement of the country, until 
within a few years past, the most deadly enemies to 
good husbandry in Virginia, have been, the utter neglect 
of it, as a science—the implicit adoption, by each succes¬ 
sive generation, of the practices of their forefathers; the 
almost total neglect of manures except for grardens; the 
incessant alternate cropping and grazing our lands with¬ 
out rest; the culture oj them in a certain rotation of 
workings, without due regard to the condition of the soil 
as to wetness or dryness. But above all, to the proprie¬ 
tors of this goodly soil generally using it more as the 
means of gratifying their appetites, their love of show, 
and the means of displaying it, than sources of future 
comfort, respectability and happiness to their children, 
as well as of credit and honor to their native State. The 
acme of ambition, in the olden times, seemed to be, 
who should have the best cheer and the most company 
to consume it, with little or no regard to the “ material” 
of which it was composed, provided these “ Nati consu- 
mare fringes” were lovers of, and tolerable contributors 
to, fun and frolic. As long as the plantations held out 
in furnishing the means of this ruinously merry career, 
the troublesome study and practice of good husbandry 
were postponed, like the study and practice of religion, 
“ to a more convenient season.” This sir, I sincerely be¬ 
lieve, is a true and just explanation of the complicated 
causes which have contributed to impoverish a vast pro¬ 
portion of our lands, and much to my shame and sorrow 
have I given it. But I have the consolation to feel as¬ 
sured, that the dawn of a much better stare of things, 
at least in regard to husbandry, is now shining in almost 
every part of our old State. I fear to inquire how 
much is owing to the absolute necessity of reform, how 
much to motives every way laudable, and shall there¬ 
fore content myself with the fact. There is, however, 
one cause of the happy change with us, in regard to the 
efficiency of which I feel so perfectly confident, that I 
cannot omit to mention it. This is, the circulation 
among us of our friend Ruffin’s Farmers’ Register and 
your Cultivator, which have done more than every thing 
else towards it. Both are read by great numbers of our 
brethren, and have greatly contributed to awaken them 
to a true sense of the vast losses they have sustained by 
their long and destructive neglect of the study and prac¬ 
tice of agriculture. That you may both succeed to the 
utmost extent of your patriotic plans, is the sincere, the 
constant wish of, dear sir, yours with esteem, 
JAMES M. GARNETT. 
P. S. Had I not already given you and your readers 
so heavy a dose of my scepticism, as to fear to increase 
it, at present, I should here have offered numerous facts, 
which I have been more than twenty years in collecting, 
to disprove the doctrine stated in your November num¬ 
ber, from Professor Low, that “ it is best to bury ma¬ 
nure.” 
Peat Earth, Peat Ashes, &c. 
Wheat-Sheaf Farm, Staten Island, Jan. 18, 1839. 
J. Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir—In your number of this 
month, page 191, your correspondent B. in noticing “a 
recently published account of the proceedings of the 
British Association for the advancement of Science,” as 
to the improvement of peat bogs, and the use of peat 
moss or turf as a manure, speaks of the preparation of 
the latter in barn yards, and of expelling from the turf, 
through that mode of preparing it, the qualities with 
which it is imbued, when taken from the swamps, de¬ 
leterious to vegetation. I began, some months ago the 
use of it, in some degree, after the modes adverted to 
by the members of the association; and have, from in¬ 
formation I have been able to obtain from emigrants and 
my own observation and reading, been led to a series 
ofexperimentswithit. The results I heretofore promis¬ 
ed to your columns. Though not even yet as complete as 
I hope eventually to make them, I apprehend what I have 
thus far observed may be useful. I apply the turf in a 
variety of ways:—First, after the mode of preparing it 
in compost, directed by Lord Meadowbanks, “which 
was printed and distributed gratis among the Scotch 
peasantry, many years ago, and which has ever since 
been highly approved of both by practical and scientific 
cultivators,” in Scotland, Ireland, and generally in all 
the European countries in which peat is to be found.— 
That method has been described in former numbers of 
your excellent publication, and will be found in all its 
essential particulars in Fessenden’s New-England Far¬ 
mer and Rural Economist, pages 209 to 212, and in 
Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Agriculture. Composts have 
been made by me which, when made in strict conformi¬ 
ty to those directions, have fully justified them. Through 
that medium, there is no difficulty in trebling or four¬ 
folding an ordinary farm supply of manure, and which 
may (as the authors say,) “ be used weight for weight 
as farm-yard manure, and will be found in a course of 
cropping fully to stand the comparison.” Whenever I 
have deviated from the track laid down, I have found 
that the more strict pursuit of the old practice was the 
better, and have returned to it. In particular, I find the 
necessity not only of avoiding the compression of the 
compost heap by the tread of the men or cattle employ¬ 
ed, but the expediency of throwing into it every vege¬ 
table material which may contribute to keep it light, 
and as springy as possible. I also find it most prudent 
to avoid compression by raising the heap above the al¬ 
lotted height. 
My supply of turf to this time, has been taken from 
a swamp about five feet deep, of about two-thirds of an 
acre, one-half of which, down to the clay subsoil, I have 
used in composts or otherwise, and which I propose 
tilling the coming summer. I have also used the turf 
in bottoming my barn and cattle yard, stables and hog 
sties, and in burning it for ashes. My first application 
of it to manuring began with the last spring. 
The ashes were used, as I have already stated in a 
previous number, and I can assure you my clover and 
grass crops fully justified all the anticipations I was au¬ 
thorized to make. Some of my neighbors, of excellent 
practical information in ordinary matters, attempted to 
dissuade me from the use of it. A few days before my 
harvest, I asked them to call and see a result I wished 
to exhibit to them. Leading them to a stand a short 
distance from a field to which the ashes had been ap¬ 
plied, I pointed their attention to a very visible line, 
which could be traced across a part of the field, and asked 
them if they could perceive a difference on its two sides? 
Admitting it, I asked them to accompany me to it, and 
to follow the line across the field, observing to them, 
that for the wheat crop of the preceding fall, the ma¬ 
nuring on both sides of the line, and the seeding for 
wheat, for timothy, and for clover had been precisely 
similar but in the spring, an application had been made 
to the field to improve the grass, which was found not 
to be sufficient for the whole field, and had become ex¬ 
hausted on the land at which the line was visible. On 
examining the course of the whole line, the clover on 
the side to which the ashes had been applied, even to 
the last cast of the shove], was nearly double the 
heighth and luxuriance of the other, and far better 
loaded with blossoms; and here, I said, my friend, is 
the line up to which my turf ashes, of which you disad- 
vised the use, have been applied. Fortunately in spread¬ 
ing, it run out on this land, and thus has afforded me an 
opportunity of again advising with you as to its useful¬ 
ness. 
My mode of burning, you also have heretofore de¬ 
scribed, and my experience has convinced me of the po- 
ficy of smothering the fire, and burning the turf as slow¬ 
ly, and confining as much of the smoke during the com¬ 
bustion as possible. My heaps are generally four to 
six weeks in burning. That the turf is purely vegetable 
will be perceived from the fact, that twenty cart loads of 
turf are necessary to produce one of ashes. Sand or 
clay are not destructible by combustion, and would, if 
present, have been found still the same in bulk, and 
visible to the eye; none however can be discovered in 
the ashes; and this may be considered as a fair method 
of testing the question as to how much of mossy earth 
the turf contains. 
Your correspondent B. in your lastnumber queries as 
to the application of sulphuric acid for converting turf 
into manure, and for fertilizing a turf soil. This indu¬ 
ces me to call attention to facts which have ever been 
witnessed by me—around almost every opening of the 
heap, through which the smoke issues, an oily substance 
resembling sulphur will be perceived. Bottoming be¬ 
fore covering them with litter, the shelters, under my 
barn and sheds, as I always do, to the height of about 
twelve inches with turf, in order that it may absorb 
the stale and moisture of the place, I have observed that, 
though the turf, when taken there dry Irom the swamp, 
is perfectly devoid of all smell; after having thus used 
it, it becomes as sensibly acid to the smell, as the most 
sour lemon. In turning it over, the acid exhalation can¬ 
not but be perceptible to every bystander. 
All writers upon turf, in speaking of its antisceptic 
properties, say it is imbued with a phosphoric acid, hav¬ 
ing some affinity to gallic acid or tannin, and which ren¬ 
ders it, in that state, anti-putrescent, and consequently 
deleterious to vegetation. It will dry rot and pulverize, 
when exposed to the air, and is in that state pernicious, 
because it has not gone through the fermentation ne¬ 
cessary to render it soluble, and fitting food for plants. 
The fermentative decay and solution of vegetable and 
animal substances, afford to vegetation its proper nutri¬ 
ment. The turf, it will be perceived, when used in com¬ 
post, and in contact with fermentative manures, attracts 
to itself and absorbs so much of the putrescent exhala¬ 
tions as is necessary to expel the acid which checks its 
decay, and to superinduce, as a consequence, its own 
fermentation and decay, in common with the manure 
placed in juxtaposition with it. If this then be a ten- 
dencency of the turf in the compost, why should it not 
operate similarly, though in a lesser degree, in the earth 
to which the turf is applied, and so far from affording 
nutriment to surrounding vegetation, attract it to itself, 
and absorb the putrescent or fermentative substances 
already in the soil? In the first instance, it was always 
said, and is no doubt true, that the turf, while saturated 
with the acid, is deleterious to vegetable growth and to 
the soil—remotely, and after having, within the soil, 
taken to itself what will promote its decay, it probably 
gives it back, and does become in some degree benefi¬ 
cial as a manure. It well may be that sulphuric acid 
will, by its action on the turf, accelerate the souring to 
which I have adverted, and thus promote the decay of 
the turf. Turf was, for a long while, the source of dis¬ 
appointment as a manure, until the principles applied 
to it by Lord Meadowbanks, were scientifically explain¬ 
ed and brought into practice. 
In the spring and in the fall, immediately after carry¬ 
ing out the supply of manure from my cattle yards and 
hog sties, I bottom them anew with turf to the depth of 
at least a foot, covering it with six inches of sea-weed 
or drift. To the accumulation of the place, during the 
rigors of the winter, and when little is to be lost, in 
fermentative manures, by solar heat or evaporation, I 
cart around the yard and spread on its upper edges, some 
eigh ten or more feet wide, the emptyings of my stables 
and yard sheds, with the littered surface occasionally of 
my hog pens, (which are placed in the centre of my 
barn-yard.) The feeding racks and moveable pens are 
from time to time shifted, that the turf and sea-weed 
may, by the tread and droppings of the cattle, and the 
occasional moisture of the yard, be worked together, 
and the turf saturated with them as much as practica¬ 
ble. The main part of the manure, being placed on the 
upper sides of the yard, in settling down to the centre, 
and towards the barn-yard drain, passes necessarily 
through the bottoms of the turf and sea-weed, which 
thus becomes imbued with the substances necessary to 
prepare them for the fermentative decay, which the acid 
of the one, and the saline impregnation of the other, re¬ 
quire for them. In the spring, as soon as solar heat 
may induce a tendency to fermentation, and consequent 
evaporation and loss, the yards are turned over with a 
plough or the shovel, that the whole may be so com¬ 
mingled that the turf may attract and absorb the waste 
which would otherwise ensue. At the lowest part of 
