r 
© 
it What is the soil and climate where your 
correspondent, F. G., lives? Is not orchard 
grass what ia commonly called quack? If 
not, where can the seed be obtained ? If it 
ia quack, I don't want it; if not, I would like 
to try it—G. J. II., Uooaick, N. 7. 
Now that 1 am out of debt, I intend to use 
what capital I can accumulate in making 
improvements so long as I see a chance for 
a good investment. In the first place, I shall 
build two tenant houses, for while I want 
plenty of farm help I do not want to hoard 
it It is just as cheap to let the laborer 
board himself as for the farmer to do it, ancl 
getting that, burden from the farmer’s family 
is the first great step towards increasing the 
The tenant houses 
arm 
raimmy 
GRAIN IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 
The cotton mania is on the increase. Old 
“ hog and hominy” farmers arc cutting down 
their woodland to make cotton. One, who 
before the war hunted his woods and selected 
old decaying trees for fuel and necessary 
timber for plantation use, is this winter cut¬ 
ting down tho last forest tree on hia place 
under the impression that the yearly yield 
of cotton on his new ground will give him 
more than the value of his land. The 
provision crop in this section failed entirely 
the past season. Wiseacres say it is folly to 
plant corn and provision crops. " Plant,” 
say they, 11 cotton, and buy provisions.” 
The value of oats as a forage crop is at 
present exciting much attention. The ex¬ 
periment of more oats and cotton and less 
corn is being tried this year by many. But 
there is one thing which may operate against 
grain production. A great many negroes 
are farming—that is, they plant what they 
please, manage their crops as they please, 
and pay a certain amount of cotton at 
gathering time for facilities for production, 
in the shape of land, seed, mules, provisions, 
&c., furnished them. 
This class of laborers, almost to a man, 
turn out as cradlcre in harvest time, whether 
they have ever acquired any skill in the busi¬ 
ness or not. 
pleasures of their life, 
will rent for enough to pay a fair interest on 
their cost. 
“ Next I must make my farm more pro¬ 
ductive, and the first step is underdraining. 
I know', and every sensible farmer knows, 
that it will pay large interest on the capital 
used, to ran open ditches through the swales 
and till all the springy high lauds. After 
draining comes more thorough cultivation 
and heavy manuring. To make more ma¬ 
nure 1 must have more stock, and to keep 
more stock I must grow more food. Bo I 
shall try growing roots largely, and after 
building suitable stables and yards, some of 
my stock, and perhaps all, will be fed there 
during most of the year. To do all this I 
shall require more labor than as I now farm 
it. More team work will be necessary and 
more tools. There will he more capital in¬ 
vested in my business, and I am confident 
the returns will be enough larger to prove 
remunerative. 
“Then I have some specialties, which I 
would invest in. I have a notion that I can 
so improve the grains I grow by the selec¬ 
tion of the best each year, that the yield 
will be greatly increased, and I shall be able 
to sell my surplus to my neighbors for seed 
at large prices. The cattle and hogs must 
be improved, and I should very much like 
to import some Pcrclieron horses from 
France. Nothing in the line of stock needs 
improving so badly its our farm horses. The 
trotting mania has spoiled our working 
breeds. A great deal can bo done in poul¬ 
try. I shall plant an acre to fruit trees, en¬ 
close it, and establish a poultry-yard in it. 
With care, good buildings, and roomy yards, 
I can gather a fine income from this" sotirco 
—and a great deal of manure. A wcll-so- 
lccted orchard will be a necessity, of course. 
I shall want ice for summer, and I proposo 
building some dams across the spring brook 
in the pasture and stock them with fish. I 
want, too, a work-shop w'ell stored with 
tools. 
“ Then the ugly rail lences and tumble- 
down stone walls must be replaced by trim 
hedges of honey locust, and screens of Nor¬ 
way spruce must be planted in certain places 
to shelter the buildings and orchards. Stone 
must be cleared from the fields, weeds eradi¬ 
cated, and a few acres planted with valuable 
timber trees. In short, I sec chances enough 
in my favor to profitably invest a great ileal 
of capital. I have faith in the future for 
farmers and larmiug. Landed property, 
well located, can never be lower in value, 
but on the contrary, as our population in¬ 
creases, it will rise as sure as the sun. Per¬ 
manent improvements will add their cost to 
the value of the farm, and always pay good 
interest. I have faith, and shall go ahead.” 
That has the ring of the true farmer; one 
who knows that his vocation is the best, and 
life most independent, when they are fol¬ 
lowed and lived truly, of any that falls to 
the lot of men. Peuin Tone. 
AN IMPlXOVEI> FARM GATE. 
tise through llio bottom rail, near the hack seat, which, for purposes of storage or trans¬ 
end of the gate, with an iron pin, the ends portation, can be folded together. It is ex- 
of which rest in staples on the under side of lrcin ely simple in const ruction, and not liable 
the rail. For a front wheel, take an iron i? . Bv means of a scraper, 
... . , , , against which the tooth revolves, it is kept 
cel similar to those used on plows and clean or scoured even in the most adhesive 
cultivators, attach it to the crank-shaped Western soils, thus obviating the necessity of 
iron, I), which is also attached to the under 81661 teeth. See advertisement. 
They are all professed adepts 
in the art of cutting grain, and the cotton 
planter employs as many as present them¬ 
selves. They fire ahead, drink his whisky, 
(it is an old custom in this country to give 
whisky at harvest time,) knock down hi# 
grain and waste half of it. There is dissat¬ 
isfaction with the work} but after a little 
grumbling he pays up, drives ahead at his 
cotton, and pays no attention to the grain 
until it is convenient. It turns out badly, of 
course, and he concludes that it will not pay 
to sow grain—that it is better to stick to cot¬ 
ton. He may even observe that the imper¬ 
fect harvesting is the cause of failure; but 
this is with him a good argument agaiust 
sowing grain, for he cannot spare the time 
Irom his cotton to learn to use the reaper. 
The consequence is that grain is only solved 
■when it is entirely convenient, and can be 
done without interfering with the cotton 
crop, and with the expectation that it is to 
lie harvested by these negro croppers who 
neglect their own crops of cotton and take 
this means to get a little wheat to cat. 
Willi col ton at present prices, grain is not 
considered a paying crop. If sowed at all, 
it is done for the convenience of the thing, 
and not for the profit. The cotton planter 
is willing to take very little trouble or pains 
to either sow or harvest. The downfall of 
the cotton market, only, will change this 
st ate of t hings. Winnbboro. 
CAPITAL ON THE FARM. 
American farmers are timid in employing 
capital in their business. Against them as a 
class this charge may be easily maintained, 
though there are many notable exceptions. 
This absence of capital in conducting farm 
operations, has been noticed and wondered 
at by many eminent foreign agriculturists 
who have visited this country. It can hard¬ 
ly be expected, however, that we should as 
lavishly use capital as British farmers, for we 
have neither their cheap labor nor average 
high prices for produce; neither is capital so 
cheap and plentiful. A large part of our farm¬ 
ers are yet in debt for laud; those who are 
not, and have accumulated money, find it an 
easy matter to safely invest it where they 
realize from six to ten per cent, interest, 
without incurring any labor. It requires 
pretty good farming to make the capital in¬ 
vested return as large and clear an Income as 
the national bond or a mortgage on real 
We give herewith an engraving of orchard 
grass —Dactylus gJ/nneraUt — as it appears 
when fully grown. It will grow anywhere 
that red clover will. It flowers oarlier than 
timothy and about the time of rod clover, 
hence is a better grass to seed with clover 
for meadow In this respect; but it Is a coarser 
grass than timothy, and is better for pasture 
than meadow, though we have seen good 
meadows of it when sown thickly—say two 
ami a-lialf to three bushels per acre. It is a 
perennial plant, endures drouth, thrives bet¬ 
ter than any grass we know of in the shade, 
and is in no wise related to quack grass. It 
ought to be more cultivated than it is. 
CYLINDER PLOW WITH SOD AT¬ 
TACHMENT. 
A good plow is an implement of the first 
importance to every farmer. The one of 
which we give a cut this week derives its 
name from the form of the mold-hoard, 
“ which is a segment of a perfect cylinder, 
with ils ends cut in the style of ordinary 
mold-boards. Its lineTifre thus always hori¬ 
zontal to the surface of the land,” and claims 
GLEANINGS FROM LETTERS. 
GROWING TURNIP SEED. 
Under the head of “ Farm Miscellany,” 
in my last Rural, 1 find a request for some 
‘■facts in relation to growing turnip seed. 
In compliance with that request, I send you 
my experience and observation in connec¬ 
tion with the article, and its production. 
Thirty-five years ago my father sowed tur¬ 
nip seed in his quince nursery, raised a fine 
crop of turnips, and in the fall those loo 
smull tor use were left in the ground. In 
the spring they grew thrifty, and j ie ]et them 
grow. I liqy went to seed, and ho hail three 
bushels of see,I, which netted him about 
$H)0; the last oJ it lie sold to n seedsman In 
Lyons, Wayne county. Those who pur¬ 
chased that seed, it alive, will remember it 
to this day; for it was worthless. I have 
tried it several times by sowing seed which 
had been grown in the same way, and know 
that no good turnip seed was ever grown, in 
this climate, upon a turnip that hacl stood in 
the ground all winter. 
Such seed will grow as well, perhaps, as 
any, but. there is too much woody fiber in 
the product, and it naturally deteriorates 
ouch year so sown, until it runs back into 
Mhut we call “ wild mustard,” which is one 
of the greatest nuisances some of our farm¬ 
ers have to contend with, and one which is 
constantly increasing. 1 noticed acres of 
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 
NISHWITZ PULVERIZING HAR 
ROW. 
Good tillage is one of the first requisites 
to success in farming. Next to deep and 
careful plowing, a thorough pulverization of 
the soil, a« a preparation for the seed bed, 
derail field of oats which were produced in 
this way“ The owner had taken pains to 
gather the best specimen heads in the field, 
and by sowing them a few years had seed 
enough to produce this great crop. No 
doubt we could greatly increase the yield 
and quality of our small grain in this manner. 
Mediterranean Whom. 
A JIadison Co., N. V., subscriber writes, 
THE NISHWITZ PULVERIZING HARROW 
ORCHARD GRASS. 
cannot receive too much attention. For the 
performance of t his labor, different forms of 
harrows and cultivators have been devised 
and used with varying success. We offer 
this week an illustration of an implement 
designed to perform t he pulverization of the 
a model farm. Although yet young, he has 
paid, by fanning, for a farm of one hundred 
and forty acres, for which he owed two- 
thirds of the purchase money in 1861. 
“My farm,” said he, “is so well located 
that 1 intend to make it my home for life. 
To Prevent Powder Post.— Chaukcev Hon 
gerford says“ jar the timber when season, 
ing-.’* 
