The banner of the South and planters' journal. (Augusta, Ga.) 1870-18??, March 04, 1871, Page 2, Image 2

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2 are mere improvements upon the latter, obtained by long and careful selections of seeds from the most promisiug in dividual plants. The Dickson variety is an excellent cotton, much better than the common varieties of the coun try. These cottons are quite prolific of bunchy growth, bear and mature early, and are easy to pick. The “Hunt” and the “Simpson” cot tons are like the Dickson seed, but improvements upon the old “Boyd Pro lific.” They have been selected and improved with much care and are quite as good as the Dickson, their charac teristics being nearly the same. The “Six Oaks" cotton originated and improved by Jas. V. Jones, of Burke county, is a distinct species, and the best which the writer has ever seen or tried. It is very prolific, a strong bushy grower, with n likable short joints. It branches t hickly and from the ground in all dh ; ■ The bolls are in clusters at each jointon the main stem and on the bituu'JkL-often -• many as thr* • and rv< iMM.i.h each joint. Ti Mis ar size—opet ton do not ull:“i’t h ) |,< h; , hull. This is a. /a ,iy i \ at least 15 or 20 day, any Other kind within the « - know ledge. It is not so liable rust as other varieties and rarely sheds or casts its fruit. It stands dry hot weather better than any cotton I have ever known. It will produce more per acre than any cotton I have ever tried. On iair uplands it will yield with goo<l cultivation a bale to the acre. 1 made last year on old pine land, badly worn but treated with a light application of commercial manure, over seventeen hundred pounds of seed cotton to the vgld.this.mAAi /. over the entire field. The writer is not engaged in the sale of these seed, and has no interest in puffing them. On the contrary lie expects to purchase seed from Mr. Jones to enable him to plant, with what he has raised himself, his whole crop the present year in this variety. I invite the planters of Georgia to give this seed a trial alongside of “Dickson” or any other kind, and if the “Six Oaks” does not yield more than any other the writer will be greatly disappointed. Columbia. Writton for tho Bann. r of tho South and Planters' *1 turns). Manures, Jf xsm. J&ditors. 'Notwithstanding so much has been " ritten >p the subject of manures, I apprehend here is much confusion in the minds of the great masses of the people in regard to them. This arises mainly from the use of technicalities not clearly understood, the want of a proper classification of fertilizing ma terials, and an indistinct knowledge of the various kinds of soils and what fertilizers are best for each. It is not my purpose to attempt an elucidation of all these matters, were I capable of it, but, merely to state a few general principles which may be of service to some who have not given due thought to these important questions, or others whose experience is very limited. In the first place I would state, what perhaps all know, that all, man ures are either vegetable, mineral or animal. Each may be used advan tageously by itself, or, all may be profitably combined. Green crops, such as clover, rye, cowpeas, &c., ploughed into the earth add vastly to its productiveness, and probably give it more permanent fertility than either animal or mineral application. Gyp sum, or Plaster of Paris, which is a native sulphate of lime, that is a com bination of su'phuric acid and lime, t; that mineral manure which is more generally diffused than any other. Guanoes, or the excrement of sea birds, and all other excrements of ani mals, with their decomposed bodies, BANNER OF THE .SOUTH AM) PLANTERS’JOURNAL. in some instances, constitute what termed animal manures. These thn may be combined and constitute a fe ‘ilizing union of three kinds of plain food. Chemists have not fully agree as to the comparative merits of eitlu kind, of their separate constituents, < then-combinations. One distinguish chemist will testify to the value of om and another to the value of another. One Fanner, perhaps, without an a quaintance with agricultural sciem will commend stable, or horse manu over all others: another the manure t the cowpen, and a third rotted cottc seed. I once heard a good and thrift farmer say that common wood ashi made as good a manure as he wante for the production of com. That r< mark was made to me twenty odd years ago and I think he added that i making com one bushel of ashes wa worth fifty cents. The truth is a goo and bountiful Providence has placed within our reach a great variety < constituent elements which we have only to use to increase the quantity an i value of our crojis and add yearly t the productiveness of our lands. Much is said about sulphuric, phosporic, ca ic and other acids; about pot as 1 ‘ oia, phosphates and supcrphi i'huiijg, &e., and yet in some instance <!, man who does not understand tin terms will make better crops than the one who does. By this I mean to < no slur upon science or scientific tr • for, they have done and are do ir much to advance the interests of rieulture. I mean simply to con ■ the idea that industry, energy and g it common sense can work wonders u the plantatian and the farm. Tin guanoes and manipulated compounds are excellent under favorable ©bream stances; but many, as I myself 1 done, have found the com and cot; fertilized with what we term conn • or, home-made manure, wore asgoi■■! that to which the guanoes were a} plied and it will be found so < i time. The great difficulty seem to have been to procure enough of ■ »> home material to go over the extern; and fields placed under cultivation. Di drt commercial manures have the advan tage because a small quantity will go so far. But that advantage is not so great when we estimate their cost. Half of file enormous sums paid for them would go far to the production and dissemination of the common kinds which experience proves are equal to the more costly ones. It does not follow that the skillful and industrious farmer, who uses the common kind will make the loss, because, he is unacquainted with lechnicalties—be cause he does not know the constitu ent elements of the soil he cultivates that an analysis of it will show that it contains seliea, potash, lime, soda, and various acids. I would not be un derstood as insinuating that he should not know these things (for all Plan ters and Farmers should as far as practicable acquaint themselves with agricultural chemistry); but I mean that he may do as well without know ing as the man who does. He must, however, have the requisite means, good stock, good tools and implements, and a determined energy and will. Nature has placed the necessary fer tilizing elements in the home-made manure. Who has not seen the tall corn and the prolific cotton in the bottoms, on the edges of swamps and branches, where no guanoes nor home manures have been placed. Look at the new grounds, especially, after the first year, and how will we account for the rich and heavy crops that are gathered from them. This virgin soil needs none of the phosphates and acids of the chemists, because they have been manufactured in natures great laboratory. She acts with uner ring wisdom and foresight and places in the virgin soil whatever is neces sary to enable man, under the almighty fiat, to earn his bread with the sweat of his brow-. Within the forests, in the cycles of years, she has been mouldering the falling leaves, dispers ing the rains and shading the earth’s surface during the summer heats, with the rich and green vesture of the trees. When these are cleared away nothing is wanting but the plow, the seeds and the hoe to charm the eye of the cultivator with the rich rewards of his labor. TO BE CONTINUED. Deep and S * Ploughing. Api uin r m,| i sful planter I give, bis v«%-8 a tills important sub-j iject, to Sou.niera Ygricui’ irists in the j folio -viiig Laigoa- “I t ave paid a I -.•-i, at deal <nf attention u ■ what is called j deep ploughing, and I r -er yet have j * any ploughing A!; it can average | Ses deep, bi that looked i J inexpert* id person, it j mil easily f| printed Fas eight or I «jep. Bti after trying j . , ■oth deep aid shallow j ploughing. eo*§e the conclu-j si on *h»t ploia/biug shoo! be regulated \ to suit the bnf l we were t oughing. If 1 went into tig field with but four inches jof s<;!, I wq|M tum ...vr that land but three to ■ *qr«cK;.,. tin! übsoil in the furrow of fiypitruing plo ; that would! 1.0 ray sysuPi for the first time 1 laOi.Ld]'-'! sneHi ian l.e And the next i .r :f therJpiert -nibble or weeds on the bold, I would i inder again, guiiig i is Jri e fri-u four to six uehes—tt.it&jg, I would never plough iiiv land /flttor than it* soil—the first |i]i « ach suereJß'g 1 up, 1 would gradually iMp-ei r, .1 I reached the ' ptli of ijSSh or eight inches, which is the d< i lit 1 have yet seen ( I done b. • plows, plough j • three la u ses ; übble, clover niually when ■ rWp .Si Jl Jsnil in V made deeper c<i- unenced. is, to be gov ornWi .the quality of the gli. If shal «. , : Hbgh sliulliw, and subsoil: i •! paps V ■ inland such crops as will oi ikiqyd', : jfot rubbish t turn under— allow soil can us ploughing > and T »i‘ s * Jap-turn up the clay to ;he s- rf ; ,:-. raided; and if a field had : Mlc soil 1 would break :p such 1 .-r.rireb ’with subsoil 1 plows—the lei-i down with small gralt) u ' 1 long, and then im ’ and o. ribed. much inn .. . e .- 1 he plow; it is our first and great *t ; implement. hence every farmer si i.'.d make the plow anil ploughing iia study: 1: ought so to understand it., is to led to in struct or ni l the m; loifactaier in its oonstrtWtiou—telling him hat he wants ami v mt is mx ' make a plow jhtlV'H . Loero are so few- the plow and ploughiift r,i ,I, T' n ' l ' uivr us in with their own ideas plow should he. and. right in construction, wc find but few it. The plow mav break and the draft may be too or the draft may be light, and tllßPork of the plow im perfectly dolie; also, the fault some times lies in lhe gearing in of the beam. But lie the flult where it is, the fanner should sounAjrstand the plow, plough ing and in of the same, as to detect thcßn-or and point out the remedy. II not, his plotighings are ac cidental, wb tlier right or wrong. In turning lands, it will be noticed that some p ows turn the furrow slice flat over, o lap on the principle of shingling. Vliere the plow turns the furrow over lat, I prefer such a plow for manuria purposes, that is to turn under clover weeds, or stubbles. But in bre iking the ground for culti vation, and i specially for com, give me the plow th it lodges its furrow—as, when the fi irrows are so lodged the ground ren ains longer loosened and broken—as it is not so easily ran together an 1 compressed by rains as when the tu nmg over is flat. The aan i ers’ Herald (Chester Eng land) foreil ly says : “ Mixed hus bandly is n edful to realize the full amount of j rofit which the farm, prop erly manage 1, will yield. Every year the price o ’ farm products varies— some will b< high and some low, and thus the fan rer catches good prices for a part, if nc ; all: whereas, if he is wholly dep indent upon one kind of crop, he ma 'be wholly disappointed. A little sold of every thing, makes a muckle, and if one thing does not pay, another will The Cost of Fences. A writer in the Illinois Agricultural Report for 1 «64 says: “The fences of the United States have cost more than the houses—cities included; more than the ships, boats, and vessels of every description which sail the ocean, lakes, and rivorg; more than our manufacto ries of all kinds, with their machinery; more than any one class of property, aside from real estate, except it may be the railroads of our country.” This may seem like an exaggerated state- j ment, but let us look at the estimate: The first cost of the fences of New | York State was between $100,000,000 and $150,000,000. Robinson gives it as $144,000,000. Assuming this to be approximately correct, and estimating I the first cost of the fences of other I States on the same basis, we have, as the total first expense ot the fences of the whole country, the vast sum of $1,200,000,000. This requires to be renewed once in ten years, giving $120,600,000 as the annual cost, to which should be added, however, at least half as much more for repairs, making the aggregate of $194,400,000 as the annual national ex pense—a sum, we believe, below the actual figures, yet quite beyond com ! prehension. Nicholas Biddle estimated ! that the “fence-tax” of Pennsylvania j was $10,000,000 a year. Gen. James IT. Worthington, of Ohio, says that ; 1 here are 18,000,000 acres of land in Ohio enclosed with 45,000 miles of ; fences at a prime cost of $115,000,000, j and at a yearly expense for repairs, j etc., of $7,680,000. If roadside and boundary fences can be dispensed with, half the cost of fenc ing will be saved. That cost is now an annual tax of $1.50 on every acre of improved land in the United States —the “fence tax” being twice or thrice as great as the aggregate of the State and local taxes combined. Why cannot a large portion of this outlay be saved for pome profitable in vestment? ’Every dollar rescued from fences may be added to productive wealth. Fences are dead capital; they pay no interest, and are a constant draul upon .he pecket. As .nr.' j says, “We j»oisori our land with femes; they are a shelter for weeds, as well as a vast and useless expense.” The in direct waste which they inflict is almost i as great as their direct cost. A Vir-; ginia zigzag fence occupies five acres for every hundred enclosed, thus im posing a five per cent, tax on the mar ket value of the soil—a tax that would be felt to be oppressive if it were for the payment of the national debt instead ot to shelter a growth of weeds. Shall we fence stock out or in ? There is no doubt that our people now expend four times as much money to fence stock out as would be required to fence it in. Our present custom, which com mands universal fencing, is the worst blunder the practical American people ever made. Enterprising and original in many matters, they are here follow ing slavishly, generation after genera tion, the habit of the earliest English j colonies—following it though very ex pensive and inconvenient, because It is “the good old way.” Europe has learn ed a more rational method. There are ten times as many fences in Illinois as in Germany ; and Duchess county, in New York, has more than all France. In France, Germany and Holland, farm ers hold their lands in common, with only narrow paths between. The continental system of having few or no fences is evidently the best; and even exclusive England is slowly adopting it. America will inevitably follow; for economy, taste, thorough tillage, lair play, and good sense com mand it, and the time will come, be fore many years, when the absence of farm fences will be a sign of progres sive culture. The immense cost otsustaining fences, the inconvenience of having them al ways in the way of thorough tillage, and of easy ingress and egress to tb< premises; the impassable snow-drifts accumulated by them; the shelter they afford to weeds and briars, the protec tion they afford to many of the worst animal pests of the farm, and their un sightly appearance generally through out the country, as the receptacle of stone heaps, piles of brush, and dead trees, to say nothing of the countless acres rendered worse than useless by their occupancy, would seem sufficient reason for disposing of fences wherever not indispensable for purposes of past uring.—People's Journal. Relation of Woolen Industry to Agri culture. We have seen lands in certain por tions of the West producing wheat so abundantly as to compel the opening of railroad lines for the single purpose of transporting their teeming harvests; and have also seen in our own time these very lands so rapidly exhausted that the rails have been torn up for want of traffic. Such facts apprise us ; that there is no security for continued i fruitfulness, even in our most fertile I States, but in a more provident agricul ; tiy-e. What is taken from the land I must be restored. Science give us but j little encouragement in the promise of i cheap imported or artificial manures. ' The guano beds are being rapidly ex : bausted. The experiments of Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, at Botham stead, | show that the application to the land j of sewage from the cities, from which so much was expected, is a failure. ■The brilliant experiments of Villa, in : France, made to exhibit theapplicabili jty of artificial manures in place of : animal manures, in countries like I France, where the land is so much ' divided as not to permit the profitable | culture of animals, lead to no practical j results, because no economical source t»f artificial nitrates, phosphate, or potash, have been or are likely to be i discovered. W e see, but as through | grated windows, exhaustless but prac tically inaccessible stores of potash in | tho granite rocks ; of phosphates in ! beds of apatelite; and of nitrogen in i the atmosphere, or in the far-off j rainless plains of Chili. Has not Pro | vidence locked up these treasures, or removed them from our reach, to com | pel man, for his highest physicial good, | to cultivate the animal which best sup | lies the primal necessities—food, cloth | ing, and the continued enrichments of j the earth? The blessing in the olden | time was given to him who “brought | the firstlings of his “flock,” for “the | Lord had respect to Abel and his of fering.” * ..n, • w.n. —. '• ■ in-. ■ woolen industry to agriculture, much less broad in their scope, but so in teresting and illustrative that I cannot passs them by. The first which I allude to, because connected with the topics which we have just considered, is the achievement which chemical science has recently effected in saving the potash contained in the yolk of fleeces in such a form that it may be returned to the soil or used in the arts. It is well known that sheep draw from the land upon which they graze a con siderable quantity of potash, which, after circulating in the blood, is ex creted from the skin with the sweat, in combination with which it is deposited in the wool. The French chemists, MM. Maumone and Rogelet, have es tablished, quite recently, at the great seats of the woolen manufacture in France, as at Rheims and Elbeuf, fac tories for putting the new industry ■ which they have erected into practical operation. They induce the woolen manufacturers to presen e and sell to them the solutions of yolk obtained by the washing of the raw fleeces in cold water, and pay such a price as en- I courages the manufacturers to wash ; their wool methodically, so as to en I rich the same water with the yolk of a I number of fleeces. These semirings , the chemists carry to their factory, and j then boil them down to a dry, car ; bonaeeous residuum. The alkaline salts remain in the charred residuum, and are j extracted by lixivation with water, i The most important of the alkalies ob ; tained is potash, which is recovered in a state of great purity, It is comput ed that it the fleeces of all the sheep of France, estimated at 47,000,000, were subjected to the new treatment, France would derive from this source alone all the potash she requires in the arts, enough to make about 12,000 tons of commercial carbonate of potash, convertible into 17,000 tons of salt •petre, which would charge 1,870,000, cartridges. So that the ineffensive sheep, the emblem of peace, can be made to supply the chief muniment of war. The obvious lessons from these facts, to the sheep farmer, is to wash fleeces at home in such a manner that the wash water, so rich in potash, may be distributed upon the land as liquid manure.— John Ij. Hayes.