Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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. 111