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108 HERDS GRASS AND RED GLOVER. Editors Southern Cultivator: —ln compliance with your request, I will give you the result of my observations and experience, in the culture of Herds grass and Clover at the South ; not, with the view, however, of adding to, or detracting from, the excellent article of Mr. Hull, but of corroborating what he has so forcibly illustrated. During a residence in East Tennessee of twenty-five years, I enjoyed many opportunities of witnessing the re eults of the successful cultivation of Red Clover and the grasses, in that fine agricultural section. My earliest sports were among flowery meadows and verdant hill sides, upon which immense herds of cattle, sheep and swine were luxuriating, and amply repaying in golden butter, snowy fleeces, and fine porkers, the husbandman for his care. The neighboring stream was often turned upon the young grass, while it struggled for existence in the hot summer’s sun. Gypsum was applied at the rate of from 100 to 200 pounds per acre to Red Clover in the Spring, and thus by the aid of the fertilizing effects of water and artificial manures, clover and grass were highly remunera tive crops in Tennessee. If a stray bunch of broom-sedge made its appearance, it was at once dug up, and thus pre vented from spreading. Red Clover was sown in the fall, with wheat or with oats in the spring, and brushed in at the rate of one bushel of clean seed, or thirty in the chaff, to eight acres. The first year one crop of hay, and one of seed were cut; second year, hogs turned on when the clover was in bloom, and taken off in time for it to go to seed, when it was turned under, and in September cross-plowed and seeded with wheat—seldom failing to produce a fine crop of wheat, and a fine stand of clover from the seed turned under. Both clover and stubble were then turned, and the land cultivated in corn ; or it was let stand in clover if desired, and mow r ed and pastured as before—the land thus becoming more fertile every year. I have thus briefly adverted to the system of grass and clover culture in Tennessee, to show that even there Herds grass will yield to broom-sedge, and everywhere the best land will become “ Clover sick,” or fail to yield pro lific crops,, unless properly attended to. Many years before the whistle of the locomotive was heard in East Tennessee, I enjoyed the pleasure of a visic to the “ Plaster Bank,” near Abingdon, Ya. The supply seemed inexlniustiole, and the price at the bank was mere, ly nominal—about $2 40 per ton. It was hauled sixty-five miles by wagons, ground and sold at one dollar per hun dred. From one to two hundred pounds per acre, on Red Clover, would produce the most luxuriant growth on the poorest land'that you could get a stand of Clover upon; but, strange to say, hundreds of acres of Rod Clover were suffered to maintain a growth scarcely sufficient for pas turage. But lam digressing, as I intended at the outset to ihow that Red Clover and Ilerdsgrass, or “ Red Top,” will grow finely, even this far South , as I know from ac. ual experiments, made under the most unfavorable circum stances. I have grown two crops of as fine Herds grass as I ever saw in Tennessee, in Madison county, Ga., without »ny manuring whatever, and with no other preparation or cultivation, than simply sowing the seed in February on a plat of sandy land near the creek, and subject to over flow. The seed were not even brushed in. I also have Rod Clover growing by the side of my Herds grass, that S()UTII ERN CU LTIVATOR. was sown last March. In Towns county, Ga., I had a plat of the poorest kind of sandy land in Red Clover, which, without any manure, grew high encugh to cut, and im proved every year. Upon the same plantation, I had as fine Herds grass I ever saw on upland ; and upon an old field, that would not have produced one barrel of corn per acre, I had a stand of Herds grass sufficiently thick for pasturage. There are, in my immediate vicinity, not less than one hundred acres of land, that w r ould yield as fine Herds grass, I have no doubt, as Sweet Water Yalley in East Tennessee ; and yet it is suffered to go unfenced and un cleared—not even paying a tithe of its taxes. As many inquiries have been, made of me recently, by intelligent farmers, in reference to Clover and Grass cul ture in this locality, I will simply state that Herds grass or Red Top can he successfully grow n upon any land where the Swamp Willow, Alder, and Maple grow, if properly drained of the surface water, and on all stiff bottom lands. Red Clover will grow finely, I think, on the most of our Red Tine lands, but our Hickory, Post Oak, and Buckeye lands, are still better adapted to its growth; and upon these, I will guarantee that it will grow, if properly man aged, yielding larger annual profits than any other crops, both in hay and fine pasturage, almost insuring fine crop 9 of wheat, besides adding largely to the fertility of the soil. Gypsum is certainly the cheapest and best manure for Rod Clover, and will, if applied in the spring, at the rate of from 100 to 300 pounds per acre, produce fine clo ver on very thin land. I know there are many intelligent men in Georgia, who will discredit these statements, and laugh at the idea of grass and glover culture at the South; and yet I know whereof I speak, and nothing but facts and figures can convince me that I am in error. Less than fifteen years ago, it was believed that wheat would not grow in the extreme North Eastern portion of Georgia. Five years from that time, one hundred and two bushels of as fine wheat as I ever saw, were grown on five acres of upland, without any manure, and with no other preparation than sowing and plowing it in among the growing corn. Since then, large wheat crops have been grown on the different kinds of soil in that fine agricultu ral, but undeveloped portion of Georgia. Large herds of cattle were wintered there, almost entirely on herds grass, previous to the war. The hay was stacked or penned on the meadow, upon which the cattle fed or grazed at plea sure. I have fed w r ork horses entirely on herds grass and clover hay, keeping them in fine condition and in better life than when fed entirely on corn. When cut and mix ed with a little meal, it is very rich food. Cattle are fond of it as oats, and sheep will winter entirely on it. It is a beautiful perennial grass, seldom yielding to anything ex cept briars and broom-sedge. It should be sown during the full or winter, on land previously plowed or harrowed at the rate of at least one bushel of clean seed per acre* and all stock kept off until after the first crop has been mowed. I have thus briefly and imperfectly given you a sketch of two valuable forage plants, with'no other desire than to encourage their extensive cultivation in Georgia • as in no other way can our exhausted old fields and low lands be reclaimed and made profitable; and in no other way can we cease to be dependent on the North and West for hay, horses, hogs, beef, butter and wool. F. S. S. Banks cotnity x Ga. y January , 1867,