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ill a thousand, has his faculty for doing the most
work, and growing the largest crops with the
least labor. As Mr. Gift says, there are thou
sands of square miles of the richest soils in the
Mississippi valley, now lying waste for the want
of men to clear, drain and cultivate them. The
Chinese being born and reared to industry in a hot
climate, they cannot fail to be the right kind of
immigrants to labor profitably in such a region.
Mr. Dickson may suppose that the less cotton
there is grown, the higher will be the price ; but
Mr. Gift looks at things on a broader scale, and
lie does not allow cotton to bellie summumbo
num of southern prosperity, lie says “we buy
guano because it is easy to handle, and waste
our manure because it is laborious to save and
apply it We scratch a line in a field and scat
ter corn in it, thereafter we scratch a little more,
and the summer sun burns up the poor plants,
which is the last chance for our poor starved
stock.” Dr. Jackson in the Cultivator recom
mends corn cobs for manure; they make nice
kindling wood, and nearly all the chemical value
of their elements is in the ashes. When tile
drains first came into use it was supposed that
they were not needed in a field that had suffi
cient descent to take off surplus water. But it is
now known that tiles perform a double office;
they not only relieve the soil of surplus water,
but they also aerate the incumbent soil, and the
air carries with it carbonic and nitric acid and
ammonia. A soil thus tiled will also become
more friable and retentive of moisture to sustain
the crop in a drought. The subsoil plowing of
a compact soil performs more generally the same
office but for the time being only.
In England the best farmers not only make
the most manure on the farm, but they also buy
the most commercial manure, guano and super
phosphate. Our best farmers in Western N. Y.,
make and sow a great deal of manure in stock
growing, and gf.g much red clover both for hay
and to plow in green for soil amendment. But
plaster is the only commercial manure they yet
use in this county of Seneca. There can he no
doubt but that at the present price of farm pro
ducts, the addition of commercial manures would
pay well. But the most enterprising farmers sell
out and go west, and those who remain are con
tent “to let well enough alone.” But here is an
exception—three years ago a Vermont yankee
bought a farm on which no man had ever made
more than a poor living before. Last year he
sold butter from thirty cows at forty cents a
SOUTHERN CULTIV A TOR
pound, to the amount of $2000; and this season
he paid $ 110 an acre for another small farm ad
joining. He beds his cows in winter on dry
swamp muck and straw, and hauls the manure
out to his fields as fast as it accumulates, spread
ing it early in the spring.
He raises the best heifer calves on skimmed
milk and boiled meal —the hasty pudding, the
equivalent for cream skimmed off. Ilis early
spring pigs weigh 250 lbs. by 10th May, as they
have plenty of butter milk and clover pasture>
with old eorn meal boiled with pumpkins to fat
ten on. He has a small corn field that yields
eighty bushels to the acre. I suppose you could
hardly induce this man to put the plow in one
of those worn southern fields which only pro
duce from five to ten bushels of corn to the acre.
But it is the general practice of all our farmers to
manure the field for corn highly by the applica
tion of stall manure, even if the other crops have
to suffer for the want of it. We have had good
farm crops this season generally, corn and pota
toes, apples, and grapes, yielded well. Onions
owing to the dry spring, was a partial failure.
Waterloo, N. Y, Oct. 9th , 1870. S. W.
•
INQUIRIES.
Editors Southern Cultivator: —As our
noble and long-worshipped King has got to be
so low in the estimation of others, I would like
to try some other means of making money. I
i fancy a republican form of government, consc
j quently would like for all the products of the
; South to have a say so in the question of peace
and plenty. Gan any of your subscribers giv*>
jme general information about the culture and
! marketing of the Navy Bean and Onion —the ob
jections as well as the recommendations of these
| crops V Also the best breed of hogs for West
Tennessee, to be raised in a lot and constantly
fed, and some calculations on the expense of
raising. How do sweet potatoes compare with
corn for feeding hogs? I have some selfishness
about me as well as others, and consequently ex
pect to hold on to the coat-tail of our old King
Cotton, until I find another master that pays as
well, and is as easily satisfied with our apology
for laborers. I have ten acres set apart, which
Ijwish to plant in a variety of crops, so as to
find out which pays best. 1 fear the onion will
not pay well if planted largely, as it requires ex
tra attention and work, which is not in tl a ne
gro. Will it do to manure oats with cotton seed
on fresh land ? Do sweet potatoes require any
manure, and what sort ? I have never seen an
article on that subject. F. B. GAUSE.
Durhamville, Tenn.
419