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fresh young grass at a time when, in countries destitute of
this invaluable product, cattle feed reluctantly on the old
grass of the spring.
u J* ™ a 7 l>( : saiJ h - v so ™e of the readers of tins fcssay,
jhi> i» fair theory, but we have tried these grasses at
the South, and they do not succeed.” Perhaps the ex
periment lias been made on poor land. Neither cotton,
corn, nor grain would succeed if put on poor land and 101 l
without subsequent attention. The great body of the
Southern States was once covered with a carpet of nutri
tious grasses, as Texas now is. They were then natural
to grass. Most ot these grasses have disappeared from
among us. The pea vine once grew on land now too much
exhausted for profitable cultivation without manure. The
history of a range is as follows: When the stock of the
settlers first enter it they attack oulv the grasses which
tliey like. They continue these attacks from Year to year,
beginning as soon as the first bud of spring puts forth.—
They leave the grasses which they do not like. These
flourish while the valuable grasses are destroyed. Hence
w e may go into a range in the older parts of the South,
and w hile the ground is covered w ith grass in August al
most knee high, we shall find the cattle hungry"in the
midst of apparent plenty.
Cultivation adds to the destruction of the valuable natu
ral grasses. The salts necessary to them are exhausted by
it. . And if we w ish to replace the grasses upon the soil on
which they once flourished, it would be absolutely necessary
to manure it heavily. The careful observer will occasion
ally find some of the grasses growing in the older parts of
the South, but always in rich places in which they nave by
gome means been secured against the exterminating “ hoof
and tooth.” If it be necessary to manure the land in or
der to make valuable grasses grow w hich were once native
to it, how much more is it necessary to manure the same
land in order to make grasses grow which are foreign to
it. The artificial grasses are highly concentrated food.—
T lie) contain much in a small space. They are composed
of the elements which make up the flesh and bones otffche
animals which eat them. They must, previously fee&Hoe
forc they can feed these animals. If the grass Capd is not
in the soil, it must be put there. There is no crop on
which manuring pays better than on grass lands, aadt-pays
twice—in the profit on the animals fed and in the im
provement of the soil. Most of the successful experi
ments in grass culture in the South has been unsuccessful
because they have been made on poor laud.
Good bottom land at the South will generally produce
the grasses suited to them without the aid of manure.
There is very little cultivated upland in this country which
will produce good grass crops without manure. These ex
ceptions are generally found in the West and Northwest.
They rarely, if ever, occur at the South.
The question is asked,, Will it pay to manure grass
lands at the South IP If it will pay anywhere, it will '"cer
tainly do so here. If it pay to manure-a meadow at
the North, from which hay is to be cut, carted, and stack
ed, or housed, much more will it pay at the South, where
all this expense can be saved by an advantage of climate.
The person wno is considering grass culture at the South
on upland, must take into the account the cost of manu
ring as an indispensable preliminary. On open land this
cost may be abated and sometimes more than compensated
by sowing grain with grass seeds, the increase of-the grain
crop covered the expanse of the manures.
Persons attempting the cultivation of the grasses at the
South have sometarses failed, because they did not under
stand the nature ofthe perennial grasses. They are ac
customed chiefly to the annual grasses;' as the crab and
crowfoot grasses. These mature rapidly, as they are short *
lived. It is alaw of nature that those of her products
which are designed to \m t long mature slowly. The Plan
ter will recognize 'an illustration of this remark in the
growth of a broom sedge- field. The first season the grass
barely makes its appearance, yet it is there. It is several
yeai’3 before it entirely occupies the ground. The same
field, if ploughed, trduid spring up in crab grass, and in
SOUTHERN GULTIVATOR.
two months would bo covered with a heavy carpet of "raw
and annual weeds. °
’A hen a field is sown with the artificial grasses at the
South, the first season the ground will apparently be occu
pied almost exclusively by the natural grasses and weeds
which always follow the stir rmg of the soil oythe plough.
The experimenter, observing this result, concludes that his
experiment i«a failure and ploughs up his ground.
lie should have remembered that these grasses and
weeds are annuals; that they follow the plough ; that they
u ill not appear the next year, and that they have shaded
from the scorching sun the delicate needle-lilce spears of the
young perennial grasses which are hardly visible to his
eye. lie should have waited until the the next year, when
he would probably have found a fair stand of the grasses
sown by him. Again, some experimenters in grasseulture,
ut iiijited at the succulent appearance of the youny grass
in the autumn, when every thing else has been withered
M frost, turn upon it their equajly delighted animals.—
These continue upon it all winter* wet or dry. A blade
ol grass which appears above ground is instantly bitten.
This process is repeated until late in the spring. Tho
summer’s sun comes, the naked roots are exposed to it,
the grass is killed, and the experimenter declares that
the Southern climate is unsuited to any of the artificial
grasses.
These failures, whether from the selection of unsuitable!
grasses, fron sowing in poor land, from ignorance of the
eomparitively* slow growth of the perennial gausses or
from overstocking and too close feeding, are all set down
to the climate.
The writer lias given for more than twenty years a con
siderable degree of attention to the growth of the artificial
grasses at the South. He does not hesitate to give it as
his opinion, based upon long observation both in all parts
of this country and many European countries, that, for the
production of several of the most valuable grasses, the cli
mate of the Southern States possesses advantages which
«re not exceeded by any other climate whatever—the tem
perature of the whole year being taken into the account.—
Our deficiency is much more in fertility of soil than in
suitableness of climate. A disadvantage of climate is ir
remediable by man ; a disadvantaged of soil may be reme
died by skilful culture.
What Industry Will Do.—The Waco (Texas) Rcqi*.
ter says last year a young oian living near that place—let
his name be known—Albert Sears rented a piece of good
land, hired one good old freedman, and with his own
hands went to work to cultivate the Roil. He worked
manfully and well, and now for tho fruits of his industr) :
He has gathered twenty bales of cotton, two thousand bush
els of corn, and made four hundred gallons of molasses
from sorghum. He has also some pork to. spare. He has
sold sixteen hundred bushels of corn for twelve hundred
dollars in gold, obtained three hundred for bin molasses,
and his cotton is good for eighteen hundred more—making
in all three thousand and three hundred dollars, lie was
at some trifling expense during cotton picking time.
Absurd. To make 400 gallons of syrup in cotton pick
ing time besides gathering all that cotton would we should
think require “ some trifling extra expense,” for labor,
above what any two hands could do.—Ed. Ho. Cult.
Deep Flousiiiso.— We have ourself experience a little
in deep ploughing. Our experience is that one good mule
can turn over the best of our land quite as deep as it is
judicious to turn it; but let a subsoil plough follow in
-the same furrow without turning up the earth. The best
crops we have ever made were by this method, and we
think we will be backed by farmers generally that we are
correct in our experience and judgment,
A few Northern planters the past year come South to
teach the people how to farm, but in the sequel they have
found out to their cost that what can be done North, is
not practicable South. They have failed in their anticipa
tions, notwithstanding occasional boasts before they had
seen the result.— Milleljevillc Recorder.
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