82 
THE CULTIVATOR 
in consequence of the extreme fertility of the soil. I 
am not going- to undertake to tell why it is so, but so it 
is, that when the whole land is so cheap, so easily culti¬ 
vated, and so productive with so little labor, mankind 
will grow indolent, and do not accumulate wealth as fast 
as you do who have to dig and delve among the ‘‘rocks 
and stones, bushes and briars, and stumps,” and then ma¬ 
nure your land at an expense for one year, that equals 
the value of the rent of an acre of land here, equally fer¬ 
tile as yours after receiving the manure, for more than 
seventeen years. 
And although we can raise corn and oats here for six 
cents a bushel, better than you can at 56 cents, we cannot 
compete with you on account of transportation. But in 
articles of more value, we do, and might to a much great¬ 
er extent, if we cultivated our soil as you do yours. It is 
an incontrovertible fact, that you “ expend more labor 
with less profit,” than we do. And I believe it is an 
equal fact, that you make more profit out of your labor; 
for you are compelled to be more industrious. But again, 
you are compelled to spend a greater amount of your 
profits to provide for your artificial wants, in the arti¬ 
ficial state of society in which you live. For my own 
part, I am willing to plead guilty to a love of indolence, 
and for that and some other reasons, 1 love this country. 
But I don’t want any more to come here solely because 
they are indolent; there is enough of us of that kind now. 
But if you, or any of your neighbors, who till your little 
farms, and till them well, would like to till more and till 
better, but cannot where you are, I pray you come here. 
But one thing I beg of you: notwithstanding I w'ould 
like to see you practice a little different from what I have 
described, try to forget before you come here, that you 
ever spent 18 days w'orks, besides the two teams, plant¬ 
ing seven acres of corn, or in the whole work of raising 
the crop, 87^ days; lest you should happen to mention it, 
as it would certainly injure your character as a man of 
truth. 
Let me see how it would answer here to spend 871 
days upon 7 acres of corn. 
Wages, 50 cents a day, or about an average of 
\ 
\ 
$10 per month, or including board, I sup¬ 
pose 60 cents a day is a fair price, so that 87^ 
day’s work at 50 cents a day, is. $43 75 
The crop of 7 acres of corn, at a fair average, 
50 bushels to the acre, 350 bushels, at 12| 
cents a bushel,. $43 75 
A nicely balanced account, saying nothing about the 
team work and husking. 
And again, “ seventeen dollars an acre for manuring.” 
Don’t tell that to us, while moving our barn to a “ clean 
spot,” to get away from the yard where we lost the old 
red cow, mired in the dung. 
Let me see what would $17 do here. Why, as I said 
before, it would pay the rent on 17 acres of land one year, 
or one acre 17 years, well fenced and under what we call 
good tillage. Or it would purchase upwards of 13^ acres 
of soil, more fertile than yours after being thus manured. 
Or it would purchase one acre, and more than half build 
a comfortable log cabin upon it. 
Now you see it is as difficult for us to understand your 
operations in farming, as it is for you to understand ours. 
But if you, (by you, I mean eastern farmers generally,) 
and particularly your book farming hating neighbor, will 
take a journey through the west, there will be no more 
doubts expressed as to the magnitude of western farming. 
But which produces the most, (not wealth, but happi¬ 
ness,) I am unable to answer. 
And now, sir, I hope what I have hastily thrown to¬ 
gether, may give you some pleasure and satisfaction, for 
it is because I am induced to believe from a great num¬ 
ber of similar complimentary notices to yours, that I 
have been able to please if not instruct my readers, that 
I have continued to make myself acquainted with you, 
through the agency of our common friend the Cultivator, 
and which I would most particularly recommend my new 
acquaintance, to whom you have introduced me, to sub¬ 
scribe for and read, and if he learns nothing more, I hope 
he will become so well acquainted with me, as to be able 
to rely upon what I may assure him is the truth. And 
not only this particular individual, but some thousands 
of other New-York farmers, are in duty bound to sub¬ 
scribe for this paper, and at this time, because it is a 
New-York farmer’s paper, particularly devoted to their 
interest, and because the support from other states has 
materially fallen off this year, through sundry causes, and 
the New-York farmers alone ought to have sufficient 
pride to give the paper patronage enough to enable the 
publishers to maintain its present high standing. 
And now my friend having written you a,long letter, 
allow me to find one fault with yours:—it is anonymous 
—this is wrong; you should have given your name; you 
have written nothing but what you might be proud to 
acknowledge; besides, you have the advantage of me; 
to you I am almost pei-sonally known; and if 1 knew 
your name, and should by any chance be placed in a situ¬ 
ation where I could knock at your door and receive, (as 
you may at mine,) the welcome “ walk in,” I have no 
doubt but I soon should become actually known. Thus 
our acquaintance and friendship is extended, whereby the 
agricultural interest is cemented together. This is one 
of the great benefits of agricultural papers; think of it in 
future. And now I will subscribe myself your friend, 
Solon Robinson. 
Lake C. H., Ind., March 24, 1843. 
Great Yield of Cotton —J. E. Caldwell, Esq. of 
Fairfield District, S. C. raised last year, on one acre and 
an eighth of land, 3515 lbs. of seed cotton. 
THE MEASURING CROSS.—(Fig. 40.) 
Messrs. Editor.s —^When I was a little boy, I heard 
a very learned and scientific gentleman, a native of Ger¬ 
many, describe to my father, an easy method of ascer¬ 
taining the exact height of a tree, monument, or any 
other perpendicular object, by means of what I have 
called at the head of this article, the Measuring Cross. 
As a knowledge of this may add to the farmer’s stock of 
useful information, I communicate it for his special be¬ 
nefit. 
In this diagram, a. c. and b. d. represent the cross to 
be used; a. c. and b. d. being of equal length, each pre¬ 
cisely twelve inches, b. d. must be inserted in the center 
of a. c. at b. Then go towards the object you design 
measuring, placing the end of the cross d. on your chin, 
or upper lip, or anj-- other part of the face on a level with 
the eye, until the top of the object at g, and the end of 
the transverse piece of the cross at a, form the right line 
g. a.f. with the eye at e.; and the bottom or foot of the 
object at i., and the lower end of the transverse piece at 
c,, form the right line i. c. h. with the eye as before. 
Then from the spot whereyou stand, to the baseof the object, 
is its exact height. 
In this way, any person, though ignorant of the prin¬ 
ciples of trigonometry, may measure correctly a tree, for 
example, the height of which he is desirous of knowing 
before he falls it, so that he may be assured it will afford 
him a piece of timber of the requisite length for some 
particular purpose. Sometimes a farmer is under the ne¬ 
cessity of falling a tree towards a fence some distance 
off; he is not certain, however, from merely looking at 
the tree, whether it will reach the fence or not; he has 
no quadrant or other angular instrument with which to 
take the angle of elevation; or if he even have, some¬ 
thing else may be necessary and not at hand, or if at 
hand, not understood before the calculation can be made; 
moreover, it may be a cloudy day, or the tree may stand 
in the edge of the woods, and hence no shadow to afford 
data for his figures. Now what is he to do without the 
measuring cross? He will guess at the matter, and in all 
probability be mistaken; for as we are more accustomed 
to measure things of a horizontal position, the eye, being 
more experienced in such cases, is a better guide than in 
ascertaining the height of perpendicular objects. If he 
guess the tree too low, he will let his fence remain, and 
have it crushed to the ground; if he guess it too high, he 
will go to the trouble of taking down his fence, and put¬ 
ting it up again for nothing. But by means of this cross, 
he can tell at once whether it be necessary to remove 
the fence or not. Respectfully, J. H. Young. 
Boonsboro’, Md., March 10, 1843. 
CULTURE OF RICE. 
In answer to the call for information on the culture 
of rice, in our March No., Alfred Huger, Esq., P. 
M., Charleston, S. C., has favored us with a copy of a 
neat pamphlet of SO pages, entitled “ A Day on Cooper 
River, by John B. Irving, M. D.” “In this,” says Mr. 
H., “ you will find Mr. Myrick’s mode of planting rice, 
the best and the most successful that we on Cooper river 
have ever adopted.” Annexed is the description of Mr. 
Irving of the mode pursued by Mr. Myrick in the culti¬ 
vation of rice on Cooper river: 
The lands were dug up in winter every second or third 
year, and turned up about five or six inches. He never 
turned in the stubble on river lands, but burned or hoed 
it off. When the fields were turned up, the ditches were 
shoveled out to the original depth, all the mud taken 
from them being thrown in the center of the bed, so as 
to make the bed more or less convex, and to allow the 
water to run off with greater facility. He never allowed 
the mud to remain at the edge of the ditches. He con¬ 
sidered such slovenly work more injurious to a field than 
having no ditches at all. The fields were then flowed 
deeply, and kept so until ten days or a fortnight before 
planting, when it was run off and kept dry. A day or 
two before he commenced trenching, he chopped and 
leveled the field; then he selected two or three of his 
most intelligent fellows, whom he termed “ guage 
men.” These divided the fields with the greatest accu- 
rac 5 ^ into beds of five feet, by drawing trenches at that 
distance from each other throughout the field. On the 
ensuing day, the rest of the men followed, and filled up 
these beds, by drawing rows fifteen inches from center 
to center. 
He commenced planting on or about the 25th of 
March. His trenches, as I have said, fifteen inches from 
center to center, three inches wide, and as shallow as 
possible, merely giving eartfi enough to hide the rice, 
putting two bushels of seed rice to the acre. As soon 
as he finished planting a squai-e, he flowed, and kept it 
flowed four days, taking off any trash that might collect. 
On the water being drawn off', the land was kept dry 
until the rice had attained its fourth leaf; it was then hoed 
from three to four inches deep, so as to turn over a good 
sod. Water was then again let on from fifteen to twen¬ 
ty-one days, according to the following circumstances. 
At the end of fourteen or fifteen days, after the long- 
water (so called") was on, he always carefully examined 
the roots of the rice. If he found that the plant continued 
to put out new roots, and to form tillers, he continued 
the water on; but as soon as he discovered that the roots 
were getting hard, and ceased to grow, he run the water 
off. When he commenced drawing this flow off, (which 
was very gradually done,) as the land became exposed, 
he would, to use his own expression, “follow the water,” 
and pull out all the grass in the trenches. As soon as 
the ground became perfectly dry, he gave the land an¬ 
other hoeing, about three or four inches deep, as before, 
to mellow the land, and allow the air to get into it, so 
as to expand the roots, and enable them properly to 
perform their functions. About a week after this hoe¬ 
ing, if upon examination of the roots, they were found 
hard and dry from hot weather, without occasional 
showers, he damped the field by letting in a tide or two, 
and then running it off. 
He sometimes gave the land a second light hoeing, after 
the long flow, but this depended altogether upon the 
state of the plant, the field and the weather. If the se¬ 
cond hoeing could not be done before the forming of the 
second joint, indicated by the stock putting out a new 
set of roots above the old, it was omitted, and the water 
put on. At the forming of the second joint, water was 
invariably put on, and kept deep on the rice. This pe¬ 
riod he deemed the crisis of a crop of rice. A very ad¬ 
mirable and lucid writer in the Southern Agriculturist, 
for October, 1832, page 531, whom Mr. Myrick has 
often been heard to pronounce among the most skillful 
and judicious planters he knew of, in treating of this 
important stage in a rice crop, uses the following ex¬ 
pressive language, which I must take the liberty of bor¬ 
rowing: 
“ This is decidedly,” he says, “the most important 
crisis in making a crop of rice—nay, to obtain a full 
crop, it is a sine qua non to have your field perfectly clean, 
and a full command of fresh water at this time, inas¬ 
much as the ear is now about to be formed, and will be 
either long or short, have many or few grains upon it, 
in proportion to the healthy or unhealthy state of the 
plant; and the quantum of grain can no more be increas¬ 
ed by subsequent attention or good culture, than the sex 
in the animal creation can be changed after the forma¬ 
tion of the foetus.” 
Mr. Myrick sometimes drew the water off, when the 
rice was “ tight in belly,” but this was not his usual habit. 
He only did it to give the rice air, as well as to clean it 
of grass, when he found the ear not coming fully and 
regularly out, or as it may be more intelligibly express¬ 
ed, perhajis, when a whole field would not otherwise 
ear out and blossom at the same time. 
From the time the rice was in ear till it was fit to cut, 
he kept the water on, preserving the regular depth, but 
freshening it every two or three days, by letting some of 
the old water out, and taking in fresh. 
As soon as the grain was hard, and fall ripe within a 
few grains of the bottom of the ear, the water was let 
off for four or five days, when the rice was cut and har¬ 
vested. 
It is proper to state that Mr. Myrick was very particu¬ 
lar as to his trunks and drains, and banks. In the con¬ 
struction of the latter, he considered a mixture of high¬ 
land earth with mud, iridispensable to the permanent 
duration of a river bank. He thought the light vegeta¬ 
ble matter composing such land too perishable stuff for 
a bank, and that if used by itself, without the admixture 
of earth, would not only contract and separate, but settle 
also very considerably. Mr. Myrick, therefore, always 
added highland earth, not in layers, or indiscriminately 
mixed, but he put it in the middle of a bank, vertically 
from the foundation to the top, and the two sides plas¬ 
tered or sloped with mud. He did this not only to pre¬ 
vent cracking, but to guard against the perforations of 
crawfish, and to save the banks from being washed by 
spring tides, and when the fields were flowed. The base 
of his banks were never less than three times as great as 
the height. 
Mr. Myrick’s lands were divided, as nearly as he 
could, into fields of twenty acres, having reference, 
however, to the location of the land. Around each 
square, he placed a margin ditch, six feet wide at the 
top, and three feet at bottom, and five feet deep. The 
body of the field he divided by drains, two feet widb and 
three deep, one hundred feet apart. If the land was 
low, and drained badly from any other cau|e, he placed 
these drains or ditches seventy-five feet apart instead of 
one hundred. These ditches all emptied into the mar- 
o-inal ditches, six feet wide and five feet deep. The 
margin ditches were placed at a distance from the cross 
banks, twenty feet, and from the river banks, forty feet. 
If the field was lengthy, he put a center ditch, four or 
five feet wide, crossing the small ditches, which greatly 
facilitated their draining. 
Mr. Myrick’s task in digging land, was one-quarter to 
the hand, plantation measure. In chopping the land, 
