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238
AGRICULTURAL.
DAMDL LEE, H. Editor.
SATURDAY. DECEMBER 17. 1559.
HINTS ON FARM ECONOMY.
Some weeks since, being brain-weary from
writing and leading, we left the editor s room ot
this paper for a long walk over the farms near
Augusta, to soc what might be found worthy of
a paragraph. Good luck soon brought us in con
tact with Mr. J. M. Miller, driving alone in his
buggy, and secured for us a seat by his side. —
He drove for our accomodation first to Dr.
Turner's farm near the city, a part of which was
advertised for sale, and will make a valuable j
meadow and pay a large interest on the cost of |
the property. He then drove by Mr. X. B.
Moore's place, that we might see how he cures
peavine hay. A friend in Athens, who is very
successful in making a plenty of excellent hay
from this luxuriant plant, informs us that he fol
lows the plan first recommended by Mr. Moore
some twelve years sicco iu the Cultivator, which
we remember, but thought it not unlikely he
had improved since. Instead of finding his pea
vines put up in small heaps of the size of a
• flour barrer to cure, according to the old plan,
they were iu good largo haycocks, that would
shed rain in wet weather and expose but small
surface to the bleaching effects of dews iu lair
weather. We did not see Mr. 31. and cannot say
how much he dries the pea plant before lie puts
it into cocks, nor how often lie opens them after
the dew is off iu the morning. But it took us,
this year, eight days to cure and make the first
quality of pea hay, which is now as good as hay
can be. We presume Mr. Moore's practice dif
fers but little from our own: if it does, our col
umns are open for liis correction. After putting
the lialf cured plants into small stacks as a par
tial protection from rain and dew, these stacks
or cocks are opened every fair day as soon as
the dew is off, with a common hay fork, and left
open and light for the sun, air and wind to dry
out the surplus water. At night, if it is not
likely to rain, the open hay is merely turned
over, that the dew may not fall on the suu-dried
surface. Tlio intention is to expel the moisture
from the thick stems of the plant as speedily as
possible, without losing its nutritious leaves and
liner vines. So soon as the plants are thorough
ly cured, the hay should be hauled into a barn
or house that has a tight roof. Finding this a
very excellent winter forage for all kinds of
stock, we venture to commend pea hay, made
from peas sown either broad cast or in drills as
a field crop, without corn, to be cut with scydies
by hand, or with a machine driven by horses.—
As the stems of ripe plants are both hard and
large, we doubt whether any common reaper
will cut them, where one wishes to harvest peas
for seed; but cut early, when the woody fibre is
immature and soft, as for hay, then the reaper
will, perhaps, do admirably, as iu cutting grass, i
This paragraph is written, because there is a de
ficiency of good forage on almost every farm
that we visit.
Mr. Miller drove next to his own farm. Ou
the way there we passed a herd of spotted,
speckled and ring-streaked eatUe, with large
heads and horns, big, ungainly legs, and small,
gaunt, raw-boned bodies, which struck us as
being about die worst looking samples of Pha
raoh’s “ lean kino” that we ever met with. It
turned out that this was a drove from the wire
grass counties of this State, of so-called fat ani
mals sent to tlio Augusta market. The pur
chaser had put them iu a pretty fair pasture;
but come when it may to the tables of the best
hotels in tho city, their beef will boa hard,
tough, wire-grass, wirery mixture of grizzle
membrane, tendon, fascia, bone and eartilege,
requiring at once the jaws of the lion to masti
cate, and tho gizzard of an ostrich to digest it.
A servant opening the gate as we arrived at
Mr. Miller's place, we drove into a large field of
ripe peas, which were truly worth seeing. While
the growth of peas was extraordinary, the sev.
eaty-flve or eighty fat hogs, which would aver
age some 250 or 300 pounds of meat, or dressed
each, luxuriating on the peas, were still more
noticeable. This field lias been made rich by
often receiving a liberal dressing of the leaves,
vines and roots of the pea plant, improved great
ly by all the droppings derived from the con
sumption there of every pea grown in the field.
The land gets all but the fat in the hogs, which
is nothing but coal or carbon and the elements
of water. There is sound farm economy in thus
making and spreading large quantities of manure
over 100 acre fields, and never hauling a pound
of the plants that yield the manure ono yard, or
the manure itself; and yet, such hogs as Mr.
Miller raises, will sell readily for over twenty
dollars a head by the thousand. We saw in the
same field between fifty and sixty wethers, feed'
ing on peas. They were a tolerably well form
ed lot of sheep, but so small as to show that
they and their progenitors had grown up on
short allowance. They wero selected from a
flock driven from one of the wire grass coun
ties. They arc smaller than wethers reared in
Upper Georgia which we have seen, and pur
chased to some extent. There must be a part
of the year when the natural herbage fails in
the Southern part of the State, and sheep and
cattle growers there should remedy the defect.
We went to seo the ewes in another field, and
found them healthy and doing well, but showing
too little wool for desirable breeding animals.
On entering this field, we noticed at once that a
crop of wheat had been cut by a reaper, and
one of crab grass by the same machine. It
worked well in both cases, and, if our memory
is not at fault, both crops were satisfactory.
Ou going to the bam, wo saw the first hay
rakes that we ever met with on any farm iu
Georgia, and hoped to find a good horse rake or
two, but did not. It gave us pleasure, howev
er, to see a capital hay press, which turned out
400 lbs. in a bale, and pressed about four bales
¥»£ SOVXXKBS FIKI.H MB
! in an hour. It is a strong cotton press, used for
1 putting up hay in a convenient form for storage,
market and cheap handling. We remarked that
he should make some small bales of 200 lbs., as
many a poor man in every city, who keeps a
horse for draying, or a cow, will buy 200 lbs. of
hay, when he could not conveniently purchase
twice that quantity at a time, nor a wagon load
of unpressed hay. Much of the retail trade in
every article is a matter of necessity with the
masses.
We suggested to Mr. Miller the propriety of
converting 100 acres of liis low-lying pastures
into a meadow of English grasses, believing that
some of his rich river bottoms will give aii aver
age of five thousand pounds of excellent hay a
i year, worth at $1.20 per hundred, sixty dollars.
Twenty dollars per acre will make this crop and
keep up the fertility of the land. If so, the net
profit will be S4O per acre, and ten per cent, in
terest on a valuation of four hundred dollars per
acre. The annual consumption of so much abo
lition hay from tho North, and at a price which
renders the land worth from one hundred to two
hundred dollars an acre that produces it, strikes
us as not exactly the right way to attain South
ern independence. Between Augusta and Sa
vannah, ou either side of the river, there are
hundreds of thousands of acres of unimproved
swamp lands that may now be bought at a low
figure and made at once into superior meadows.
They are equally adapted to the production ol
tho finest pastures in the world, and yet they
now yield little or no income to any person
whatever. We go for developing the home re
sources of the South, and humbly ask others to
join in this great enterprise. Our present plan
tation economy is defective, narrow and partial,
alike in its sphere of action and in its results.
We are attempting to raise a grand agricultural
superstructure on too small a base. Experience
proves that planting alone will not do. It not
only ignores, but violates the fundamental prin
ciples of good husbandry. Restrained within
proper bounds, it will forever remain a source of
incalculable wealth, and confer great commer
cial and political power. Profitable and endur
ing planting demands rich land; and wise stock
husbandry can alone furnish such land at tho
minimum price, in all time to come.
—
“THE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE OF CUL
TIVATION BY SLAVE LABOR.”
Our readers will be interested in the article j
headed “The Present Condition of American :
Agriculture,” which we copy from that excel
lent weekly, The Southern Field and Fireside ,
whose agricultural department is edited by Dr.
Lee. We are glad to see so well exposed, a j
miserable libel on the State of Virginia, and the
stale falsehood that “sterility and decay” are
“ tho inevitable consequence of cultivation by
slave labor.” That any such consequence is the
natural result of slave labor, nobody believes
who really knows anything of the matter. On
the contrary, slave labor being directed general
ly, by a degree of intelligence far surpassing, as
we believe, the average of that which directs
the farm labor of the free States, we expect to
| find better, more successful, more profitable cul
ture, and more rapid strides in agricultural im
provement, and wo are not disappointed. If
there is better farming, or more successful plant
ing, or more rapid improvement of lands to be
found anywhere, than in the slave States, we
have yet to discover where it is. It is mere
ignorance, or despicable malice, to charge that
that is the result of slave labor which every
well-informed person knows to be owing chiefly
to scarcity of labor of any sort. Labor seeks
everywhere the most profitable field of opera
tions. Tho agricultural labor of the Southern
States has in years past sought new lands rath-,
er than improve the old. Precisely the same
thing has taken place iu the New England
States. Whole towns, thousands and thousands
of acres, in Massachusetts, have been depopu
lated and have gone back to their primeval con
dition, because it was thought more profitable
to emigrate and cultivate the fertile lands of the
West. It is only because tho higher profits of
cotton and sugar culture have drawn off
• the slave labor from the tobacco and grain grow
ing portions of tho South, and from the old to
the new cotton lauds, that “ sterility and de
. cay” are apparent anywhere. It is only because
we have not slaves enough to fill the space they
ought to occupy.
The suggestion of Dr. Lee in this connection
is worthy of consideration. It is one that we
have repeatedly urged as the true econqmy of
the planting States, viz: that the system of hus
bandry be so modified as to embrace sheep hus
bandry, mule raising, and stock growing gener
ally. That each individual planter would
shortly find such a system more productive,
than the exclusive planting system, we do not
doubt. That properly pursued it would result
in improvement of land and consequent in
creased production, we have as little doubt.—
, That such a system would enable the States
i who hold slaves to occupy and make productive
a much larger portion of their territory with the
same amount of labor is a consideration of still
greater importance. We do not fear, so much
as Dr. Lee, the influence of free soil votes and
free soil sentiment in Virginia and Maryland.—
When tho “ irrepressible conflict” shall be forced
upon us, whether sooner or later, we do not
doubt that these States will stand as one man
in their true position. But the high price of
slaves, caused by the eagerness to enlarge the
cotton culture, is warring against tho interests
ol these States by subtracting their necessary
labor, and against the true policy of tho more
Southern States by concentrating the slave in
terest on too limited a portion of their territory.
The union of slave States against aggression, to
be most effective, should bo based upon interest
as well as sympathy.
Wo are pleased to see so old and able a paper
as tho American Farmer coincide with views
expressed in this journal in reference to South
ern policy. There is sound philosophy in the
remark: “ Tho union of the slave States against
aggression, to bo most effective, should be based
upon interest as well as sympathy.” If we pur
chase all the slaves of tlio border States which
now hold this kind of agricultural laborers, their
interest in the institution, so important to the
cotton, rico and sugar producing States, ceases
at once and forever. We now take from them
all their annual increase of slaves, and a part of
the stock that remains. This is more than they
can spare and not become free States. Indeed,
their agriculture demands a steady increase of
field hands instead of the decrease now wit
nessed.
Cave Srixg, Ga., Dec. 6, 1859.
Dr. Lee — Dear Sir: For some ten years
past I have been reading your articles in the
Southern Cultivator, and my only object in sub
scribing for the Field and Fireside, was, because
you were at the head of the Agricultural depart
ment. I have read these articles with zest and
interest, and they have afforded me great profit
and delight. Regarding me, therefore, as one
of your disciples in agricultural science, I hope
vou will not consider it presumptuous in me to .
draw upon your kindness, to answer the follow
ing inquiries for my personal benefit.
I have a field of some twenty-five acres, which
I desire to appropriate to the use of pasturage
for my stock. It lies beautifully, with here and
there occasional undulations, and will retain the
entire voidings of stock. It has been in culti
vation about twenty years, and for the last five
years, since it came into my possession, has
yielded some twenty bushels of corn, sis hun
dred pounds of cotton and thirty dozen of oats
to the acre. The soil is sandy loam, with some
gravel and a sandy foundation. It is what we
term “gray land.” I desire to sow this field in
clover, or grass, or both, and you are requested
to inform me as to what will be most suitable,
whether clover or grass —if grass, what kind?
Please state how I ought to sow, how the land
ought to bo prepared, and how the seed should
be put in. The field was in cotton this year
past. It is free of trees or stumps, so that I can
apply a harrow or roller, as may be desired. —
Please answer this at your earliest convenience,
either privately or through the columns of the
Southern Field and Fireside, and oblige
Yours truly, A. J. King.
The field you describe may be a little too
sandy and dry for grass to flourish and be prof
itable thereon. Orchard grass, blue grass and
oat grass -are the perennial English grasses
which we should try on such land—giving the
preference to the first named, if one only was
sown. Clover, lucerne aud orchard grass are
the plants best adapted to such land, which
ought to be manured to yield good crops. Pre
i pare the ground at once as for wheat: harrow
thoroughly and sow one bushel of orchard grass
seed per acre. Mr. Peters, of Atlanta, adver
tises in our paper seeds of this year’s growth.—
In the month of February sow a gallon of clo
ver seed to the acre on the same land. Roll in
the grass seed, but do nothing to the clover
seed. In place of the clover seed, sow four
pounds of lucerne on ono acre of the ground,
to test its value by the side of clover.
«n mm
MAPES’ SUPERPHOSPHATES.
There lies before us a letter from Mr. Mapes,
; of recent date, in which he requests us to pub
lish a little less than three columns of printed
matter, containing numerous commendations of
his so-called superphosphates, and several mis
j statements in reference to the value of the min
eral phosphate of lime, as it is found among
primitive rocks. His agent at the South has
called at our office, and represents that wo have
done injustice to the oldest manufacturer of su
perphosphates in this country, by publishing
Prof. Johnson’s analyses of his commercial ma
nures, made under the direction of the Connec
ticut State Agricultural Society. This agent
also states that, while some other manipulators
of superphosphates have made a quarter of a
million of dollars in four or five years, Mr.
Mapes has been some ten years at the business,
and realized a smaller fortune.
New York is a pretty large city, and it is
quite possible that some sharp fellow has beat
Mr. Mapes in the trade of selling dirt at an
enormous profit; but no man in America has
equalled him in the practice of agricultural
quackery and humbug. His theory of “ pro
gressed atoms ” was evidently invented to aid in
selling his special manures, under the pretense
that such atoms of phosphorns, sulphur, potash,
and ammonia as he uses, are worth more, as
food for plants, than atoms of the same name
and character, sold by others, which had been
less frequently vitalized in plants or animals.
Prof. Rogers measured the stratified rocks
under and above the coal deposits in Pennsyl
vania with great care, and found them over forty
thousand feet in thickness. Such is the depth of
the strata in which the remains of plants and
animals are found; and it is known that the ele
ments consumed to form the tissues of these liv
ing beings were the samo in the beginning that
they now are. The elements of water formed
as large a share of the plants that gavo exis
tence to anthracite and bituminous coal, as they
do of the agricultural plants now cultivated.
If Mr. Mapes’ theory is true, then the substance
now called water has never remained two years
the same, but has been steadily advanced from
year to year by the vital influence of plants du
ring all the vast unknown geological ages that
have elapsed since water, air, and earth pro
duced the first plant. Now. there is not a par
ticle of proof to show that water, which is so
important an element of plants and animals, has
ever changed at all. When pure, as it was in
the beginning, so is it now. The same is true of
pure carbonic acid, and the other substances
that feed plants. This false pretense has done
its talented author far more harm than good.
We do not blame him for trying to distinguish
himself from common men engaged in the man
ipulation of valuable fertilizers. This ho might
do by making a superior article, without any
quackery about “progressed” water, nitrogen,
phosphorus, flint, potash and carbon. By thus
attempting to humbug the agricultural commu
nity, he unwittingly gives his competitors in the
manufacture of superphosphates a great advan
tage over him. He appears to have forgotten
that ‘‘honesty is the best policy",” and therefore
he is forever in hot water. It has often been said
in his praise that he was the first in this coun
try to recommend the use of highly concentrated
manures; but this claim of priority has no foun
dation in fact, as possibly wo may take the trou
ble to prove at another time. His contributions
to agricultural literature are all of a recent date,
and consist, mainly, of elaborate and ingenious
puffs of something which he had to sell. Such
writings are about as useful and trustworthy as
the stories told by a horse-jockey when trying
to dispose of a bad horse for a little more money
than would buy a good one of another man.
NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. |
We have received a pamphlet containing the
Act incorporating the New York State Agricul
tural College; a brief history of the institution,
the names of its trustees and other officers, and
the plan of its collegiate studies, and farming
operations. The whole subject has been ma
turely considered, and from our knowledge of
the gentlemen who have the interests of agri
cultural education in charge, we ehensli the be
lief that this farmers’ college will soon take rank
as a model establishment of the kind. Major
M. R. Patrick, its President, is a graduate of
the government school at West Point, a man of
talent, energy, and firmness, a capital disciplin
arian, yet genial, courteous, and conciliating, ?nd
withal, an excellent practical farmer. He will
command, at once, the entire confidence of the
Board of Trustees, professors and students-
The college is located on a large farm near Ovid,
iu Seneca county, between Cayuga and Seneca
Lakes.
——— ■
BRITISH MANUFACTURERS.
The well-informed London correspondent of
the National Intelligencer, in this letter of Sept.
22nd, writes as follows:
As respects the immense manufacturing pow
er of this country, and the vast annual additions
to its produce, it lias loDg appeared to us that
nothing can give bounds to that power, or fix
limits that prodnee, but a want of raw materials.
As civilization and commercial intercourse, each
operating to increase and promote the other, ex
tend into new countries and new climates, new
raw materials and additional supplies of old ones
for manufacturing purposes will bo produced,
and new wants of manufeetured articles will be
created. The ruder domestic manufactures of
other countries will give way to the cheaper and
better supplies of English goods, and every ad
ditional foreign producer of the raw material will
be a new customer of the goods produced. Thus
there arises, and will continue to arise, a con
stantly increased craving on tho part of English
manufacturers for a larger supply of raw mate
rial, rendering it imperatively necessary that
■ every means should bo taken to provide it. It
will also follow, of course, that this craving
will be most urgent with respect to those man
ufactures in which improvements in quality and
cheapnets in price have been most rapid and de
cided, This cotton trade is evidently the most
prominent in this class of manufactures; so
much so that, although the supply of cotton has
always been largely increasing, the English man
ufacturers never appear to have enough.
I
The following table shotes the guality of each of the lead - j
ing articles of raw material imported into England in
1833, and other years since that date:
Year. I Cotton. Wool I Bilk. I Hemp A Flax.
I j j | Juto. 1
lbs! tbs. | lbs. cwts. | cwts.
1888.. 1 80.-t.656.057 88,046.087 8,400.560 527,550 1,180.000
1844.. 616.1U.000 65,700.000 4,100.000 0T3.000 1,558,000
1850 ... 668.576.000 74,800,000 4,900.000 1,048,000 1,822,000
1836.. 894,751.000 99,800.000 6,600,000 1,267,000 1,298.000
1856.. 1,028,886,000 166200,000 7,800,000 jl,502, 000 1 1,687,000
1857.. 969.818,000 129,700,000 12,000,000 1,400,000! 1,866000
1858.. 1,084 “42,000| 126500,000! 6,200, 000 11,624,000; 1,281,000
■ ■ ■ . . - ' (
I
This table shows a very striking contrast in
the increase of the supply of flax as compared
with other raw materials during the last quarter
of a century; and further back the contrast
would bo still greater. The supply of cotton,
wool, silk and hemp may be said to be three
times greater now than it was in 1833, and the
steady and rapid increase warrants a reasona
ble pre3umtion that the future supply will meet
the increased demands of those great branches
of industry. But the case is very different as
regards flax. There is less grown at home, bo
cause the land has been appropriated to more
valuable crops; and the principal imported sup
ply has been derived from old Kuropean sources,
where more and more land is every year want
ed for the growth of food for the rapidly increas
ing population. In the case of cotton, much of
the additional supply is received from the com
paratively new cotton-fields in the United States,
and no inconsiderable quantity lately from India.
Austria furnishes the greater part of the inci
dental supply of wool, and India and the Cape
of Good Hope have sent a respectable portion.
The new sources of China and India yield most
of the additional silk now consumed, and near
ly all the increased receipts of hemp have arriv
ed from India. On the contrary, tho supply of
flax is looked for from the same sonrces that it
was a century ago, where, as we have stated,
imperative causes not only prevent an additional
quantity being raised, but rapidly curtail the
area formerly appropriated to its cultivation.
There is, perhaps, nothing else connected with
English trade which exhibits so stationary and
stagnant a character.
Whatever may be the cost and cares of India
to Great Britain, and whatever may be in tho
womb of the future respecting that important
region, it will be evident, from tho following
brief table, with tho raw material for her textile
manufactures, India has very amply performed
her part. The imports from India in 1833 and
1858 were as follows:
Cotton, lbs 32,755,000 132,720,00
Wool, 3,721 17,333,000
Silk > 980,000 3,652.000
Hemp and Jute, cwts .. 34,000 839,000
We are told that the soil and climate of a
large portion of India is admirably adapted for
the growth of flax. Tho Punjaub is regarded
as the most favorable flax country, and the ri
sing port of Kurrachee as the best port for ship
ment, from whence the freight would be nearly
as cheap as from St. Petersburgh, with the ad
vantage of being open all the year. The British
manufacturing towns of Belfast, Leeds, and
Dundee areas much interested in the linen trade
as Manchester is in that of cotton: and wo trust
the enterprise of the former towns will do os
much to encourage the growth of their staple
raw material in India as that of the latter has
done for the cultivation of cotton. There is no
doubt that with a good supply of flax the linen
and baggmg trade of Great Britain might speed
i u an( l we are equally without a
doubt that the necessary impulse is about to be
given to this only lagging branch of British com
merce.
The expectation of receiving any considerable
quantity of flax from British India is not well
founded. The climate is not adapted to the
plant, as is that of Ireland, Scotland and tho
north of Europe generally. Cotton, wool and
silk for common go ods, and hemp for bagging,
are the textile raw materials for the general use
of civilized man in all nations. Note the increase
of wool exported from India, from 3,721 pounds
in 1833, to 17,333,000 pounds in 1858. Let
southern wool show a like gain in the next
twenty-five years, in the quantity sent to Eng
land.
——•— .
[For the Southern Field and Fireside.]
BOOK FARMING.
Mit. Editor: —lt has ever been a puzzle to
me to hear men, and some of them men of no
mean pretensions to intelligence, condemn book
farming, and yet in choosing a lawyer or phy
sician, make it a point that he shall be a man
of much book learning. I say it is hard to re
concile the reasoning of such persons, for if in
formation should be a prerequisite in the last
case, I do not see why it should not be in the
first. What is book farming more than the ex
perience of farmers reduced to writing? If I
am told how to make blackberry wine, or do
anything else, does the information becomo less
valuable when conveyed in writing; ? I certain
ly think not. And may it not be, that some of
these book farming opposers are indebted for
what they may know to the very thing they arc
condemning? Perhaps some father has be
queathed to them a system of agriculture learn
ed from experience, and fortified by long and
incessant reading. Ido not say that a man can
not plow his ground and put in his seed with
out a knowledge of what is contained in the
books, but I do say, he ought not to move with
the pole boat speed, when lie should be keep
ing up with the steamboat.
But while I confess tho experience of others
should be the guiding star in our farming oper
ations, I do not deny that as a general tiling
writers are too indefinite in their details, an
oversight that often proves fatal to the very les
son they would teach. Then let tho experi
mentalist give a minute description of his expe
rience, the quality and locality of the land on
which the experiment was made, whether level
or undulating, quality of manure used, tho dif
ferent seasons on the crop—in a word, stato ev
ery thing w ithout the omission of a letter, and
then tho reader will know precisely what to do,
and also how to account for a failure, in case
there should be one—and more than that, wc
will hear no more of the crusade against book
farming.
Respectfully, V. L.
ADAPTATION OF FERTILIZER 3 TO SPECIAL
OBJECTS.
BY PROF. E, EMMONS.
The tendency of all real improvements in the
cultivation of land, is to speciality. This is par
ticularly manifest in tho changes which tho im
plements of husbandry have undergone in the
last twenty years. The efforts of both mechan
ics and husbandmen have been, to produce an
instrument best adapted for a particular end.—
Thus the plow has been improved not only gen
erally, but it is often made for a particular use
and to perform certain kinds of work. Now,
improvements which require merely mechanical
skill, are always in advanco of those which re
quire considerable knowledge of tholawsof veg
etation, or of the economy of the vegetable and
animal kingdoms. The knowledges of the best
adaptation of fertilizers is among that kind of
information, or of research, which is not well
understood, and about which very little discrim
ination is made. To bo sure there is much talk
about long and short manures; about guano,
and the phosphates, marls, 4c. f and the question
is discussed, wliat quantity should be used?
But after all, the questions and discussions arc
very general and do not touch points which are
often of considerable importance. We will put
a case: What manure is best adapted to tho
cultivation of Tobacco, so that it shall grow ear
ly and rapidly, and at the same time mature in
perfection before frost? The latter is the spe
cial point to be attained; and in order to secure
the ripening of the leaf in time, it will not do to
use the strong manures, such as ashes, or those
w'liich contain a large proportion of the alkalies,
especially potash; and yet, potash is one of the
elements which give the highest price to Tobac
co. This seeming paradox in vegetation is ex
plained by the peculiar effects of potash upon
the whole plant. It keeps up its growth so long
as the extra amount of potash remains in the
soil, and thereby carrieß it forward into the pe
riod of frost. A large, vigorous green plant is
produced, but the amount of this particular kind
of food encourages tho constant production of
leaves, and the plant will not stop to ripen even
the oldest parts of its foliage; it will continue to
grow as long as its magazine of food remains,
and there will be no concentration of elaborated
juice in the leaf.
When we consider the special effects of man
ures in tho points we have indicated, we may di
vide cultivation or crops into two classes. In
tho first class, we may place those crops which
it is necessary should be ripened before frost;
and in the second, those which require no spe
cial attention as to tho timo of ripening. In the
first class we place tobacco, cotton and certain
vines, as the grape. In tho latter the grasses.
In the case of cotton and tobacco, it is a well
established doctrine, that they must get a good
stand and be put within tho reach of sufficient
food to secure a good sized plant. When these
points are secured, soil, with its ordinary
amount of fertilizing matter, is sufficient to ef
fect the maturity of its foliage. It will no longer
put forth new leaves which will command the
circulation of its sap, but the circulation of sap
with a sufficient amount of nutriment, will go
to, and be retained by the full grown foliage, and
its ripening will at once begin. The expendi
ture of nutriment is no longer in the direction of
new leaves at the top of the plant, but the pro
cess of accumulation actually begins in the old,
full grown leaf, and this accumulation may be
proved by its increase in weight. It is indicated
in tobacco by a chango of color ; a change which
is quite imperfect, while the plant is growing vig
orously under the infiuonco of strong fertilizers,
however late it may be in the season. Good to
bacco is never made by curing, but bad curing
may spoil good tobacco. It is the soil and sun
which make good tobacco; the curing perfects
the process, or gives it a fancy price. The spe- .
cial object to be attained in the cultivation of to
bacco, is tho use of such a fertilizer, in such a
quantity, that its power shall bo exhausted by
such a timo in the season, that the ripening pro
cess may begin early. Guano fulfils the condi
tion required on old lands and. in this climate.
The comparatively small amount used, leads to
an early expenditure of it 3 principal influence ;
and hence when this is done, the leaf begins to
ripon. It is no longer stimulated to put forth
new leaves, and the process of accumulation or
retention begins in the old leaves.
Leaving the subject of tobacco, wo may turn
for a moment to facts relative to the Vine. In