A SOUTHERN BARN.-FENCING. where potatoes or similar plants have been grown and removed. 81 should be open to admit light and air. About 6 inches from the floor there should be an air hole 3 I would remark, that I have selected the above or 4 inches wide, and above, under the plate, there cases, because they represent the chief of the pro- should be an opening of about 4 to 6 inches, the ducts cultivated in this country; and in doing so, width of the stall. The partition wall should not I have given such average preparations as will be be less than about seven feet high, to keep the beneficial in most, if not in all cases, as manure, to horses from biting each other-no opening allowed be used after the different crops mentioned; but ma- on the partition walls. On the posts in the passage nures may be prepared according to the invention, there should be pins or hooks to hang up bridle, for other plants than those mentioned; and, if desir-halter, &c. The above plan of stalls may be exed, manures may be made with greater exactness tended to any number, according to the length of the for those plants which have been mentioned for barn. It should be 25 or 26 ft. wide if double rows particular cases, if the matters of which the plants of stalls are wanted; and if only one row of stalls, are composed and the quantities are first ascertained, then 16 ft. wide will do. Between the floors it by burning the plants and analyzing the ashes, and should be 9 or 10 ft. The passage or outside door then combining the manure according to the should be as wide as the passage, and have three or analysis. The manure so made is to be applied to four hinges to each one, large and strong. the land in quantities, as great or greater than the South Carolina. JOHN B. MILLER. quantities of the elements which have been removed by the previous crop. It should be stated, that where the straw of wheat and other similar plants In my last, I omitted to state one of the losses which require much silicate of potash, is returned from fencing, which, though trifling to each indito the land as manure, that is considered to be the vidual, amounts to something in the aggregate. A best means of restoring the requisite silicate of mile of our worm-fence occupies half an acre of potash to the land, in which case, in preparing the ground. If there are 100,000 miles of fencing in manures above mentioned, the silicate of potash the State, then 50,000 acres of land are covered and would be omitted. made useless by fences. Supposing its average FENCING.-No. 2. Having thus described the nature of the inven-value to be $5 per acre, here are $250,000 more of tion, and the method of proceeding under it, I capital lying idle. would wish it to be understood, that what I claim, In most parts of Europe there are no fences, and is the preparing and applying, in the manufacture you may travel day after day, through beautiful of manure, carbonate of potash and carbonate of fields, coming up to the road side. One feels as soda with carbonate and phosphate of lime, in such though he was riding through his own plantation. manner as to render the alkaline salts in manufac- Here the section fences shut out much of the beautured manure less soluble, and therefore less liable ties of the growing crops and varied landscape, and to be washed away by rain before they are assimi-frown defiance on every passer-by, eternally leted by the growing plants. JAMRS MUSPRATT. English Repertory. A, passage way, 7 or 8 ft. wide; aaaa, stalls, 9 ft. long and 7 ft. wide; bbbb, mangers for hay, 2 ft. long, 1 ft. wide, and 14 ft. deep; cccc, boxes for grain, 1 ft. long, 1 ft. wide, and 1 ft. deep; eeee, doors leading from the passage way into the stalls, 6 ft. high and 31 ft wide. marking the fact that you are on another's soil, and a mere wayfarer. How much the pleasures of travelling and the interest in agriculture are diminished by this! Then, again, we have here to keep up endless lanes-to close up our change roads, or put up gates, which are expensive, troublesome, and a constant source of vexation. Half the troubles of a planter's life are in some way connected with his fences. Besides the never ending labor, he has to clog, wound, and kill his neighbor's hogs, which are sure to find all the weak places; and he after all loses more or less of his crop every year. These trespasses, and the closing or changing of road, or leaving open gates, occasion nine-tenths of the heart-burnings and quarrels among neighbors. It is scarcely possible to maintain " peace and good will on earth," where rail-fences and stock ranges are the fashion. I have said that after all our ranges are of little or no value. I believe that, in most instances, we The horse's head is always at the door where feed as much to our hogs at any rate, as they would his food is; he needs no halter, and can turn require in pens, and as much as the proper number round in his stall, which gives him room to lie of good cattle would consume. Let us suppose we down at his ease. When you wish to feed, it can feed only half as much now as we should feed be done, without running the risk of being kicked, without ranges, does any one doubt that if our and the horse's head is where you want it to bridle stock was kept up all the year round, and their food aim. The large passage will admit a cart or small doubled, they would give us double the meat; or, wagon to pass through and receive the dung of the in other words, that with the same food half the stable. number of stock would give us just as much meat The partition walls should go down to the floor as we get now? Our range system deprives us of of the stall, whether of brick or stone. The door all the benefit of improved breeds of all kinds. 82 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. South Carolina, Feb., 1846. LOGY.-No. V. AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOQ. Upon what does the beneficial action of ni trate of soda upon plants depend? A. Upon its supplying nitrogen and soda to the growing crops. Q. What quantity would you lay upon an acre? Berkshire and Short-horns were not made for such | home and actually without cost-and all of these grass as our woods afford, or cane and acorns. benefits would produce in turn, many more necesThey are, when so treated, inferior to our native sarily arising from them. COKE. breed. Feed both breeds, however, and the improved ones are twice as valuable as the native. Now, hogs put up to fatten, will generally require about four bushels of corn each, when in the pen, and weigh perhaps 150 lbs. net. They have consumed at least as much, first and last, before penning. I doubt if we do not with all our range give at least ten bushels of corn for every 150 lbs. of pork killed in the State. Now, after some experiments, I will guarantee, that if a sow be fed with half a pint of corn daily, properly prepared in slop, for every pig she has, until it is weaned, and the pig be then allowed the same, gradually increasing the quantity until the ten bushels are gone, he will weigh at that time 300 lbs. Of course it must be done judiciously, and without waste. If the corn is ground into meal, or the corn and cob ground up fine together and boiled or fermented, it will go much farther. And all this can be done with as little trouble as feeding in the common way. A hand will attend to more hogs in pens than he can properly attend to in ranges. A. Sulphate of soda is the substance commonly called glauber salts, and consists of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) and soda. It sometimes produces good effects when applied as a top-dressing to grass lands, to turnips, and to young potato plants. 40 lbs. of sulphuric acid with 31 lbs. of soda, form 71 lbs. of dry sulphate of soda. Q. How is common salt applied? A. Common salt may either be applied as a topdressing, or it may be mixed with the farm-yard or other manure, or with the water used in slaking quick lime. Q. In what places is salt most likely to be beneficial? A. In places that are remote from the sea, or are sheltered by high hills from the winds that pass over the sea. Q. How do you account for this? A. Because the winds bring with them a portion of the sea spray, and sprinkle it over the soil to a distance of many miles from the sea-shore. By the proposition thus stated, the hog raiser will at least save himself by keeping up his hogs. If his neighbors would all do the same, they would save the expense of fences. But while the hog was consuming this ten bushels of corn, he would, if properly supplied with litter, make at least two hundred bushels of the very best quality of manure. One hand could supply litter, &c., for 100 hogs; or it might be done as our stables are (too commonly), filled only on rainy or idle days. The adoption of this system, however, accompanied with the cer- Q. What is gypsum? (plaster of Paris.) tainty of making a large quantity of manure with A. Gypsum is a white substance, composed of little comparative feeding, would induce planters to sulphuric acid and lime; it forms an excellent topmake the manufacture of manure a regular busi-dressing for red clover, and also for the pea and ness. A hog will not consume more than the bean crop. eighth of what a horse will, and his manure will almost equal in quantity, and surpass in quality, that of a horse. Two hundred bushels of hog manure put on corn, say 50 bushels to each acre, will make a certain increase of 5 bushels per acre, first and last, if not more. We have then 20 bushels of corn returned to us, for 10 fed away. Of this, 10 bushels will more than cover the extra trouble of making and putting on the manure, and the other 10 will replace that consumed by the hog. We then actually get the hog for nothing, while our land is improved and our bacon also. These calculations sufficiently verified, induce me to keep up my own stock for my own profit, though I live in a pine forest contiguous to swamps, and have ranges and timber fences in any quantity. If all would do so likewise, I cannot help thinking the greatest advantage would result to the State. If a law was passed requiring every man to keep up his stock on pain of forfeiting them, I believe it would be of more real service to agriculture, than any one law the legislature could pass. We should save $1,000,000 annually; we should have an end put to half the quarrels, fights, and lawsuits, that take place; fine breeds of stock of all kinds would be introduced, appreciated, and taken care of; our lands would be improved, and our crops increased; and finally, we should all raise our own bacon-at 40 lbs. of sulphuric acid and 28 1-2 lbs. of line form 68 1-2 lbs. of burned gypsum. 40 lbs. of acid, 28 lbs. of lime, 18 lbs. of water, form 86 lbs. of unburned gypsum. Native or unburned gypsum loses about 21 per cent. of water when heated to dull redness, becoming burned gypsum. Q. What name is given to limestone by chemists? A. It is called by chemists carbonate of lime. Q. Are there not many varieties of limestone? A. Yes, some soft, such as chalk,-some hard, such as our common limestone,-some of a yellow color, like the magnesian limestones, which contain magnesia,—some pure white, like the statuary marble,-some black, like the Derbyshire black marble, and so on. Here it would be advantageous if the teacher could exhibit some of these or of other varieties of limestone. SHEEP ON THE PRAIRIES. Q. Can these marls and shell sands be applied with advantage to the land? A. Yes, either as a top-dressing to grass lands, and especially to sour, coarse, and mossy grass, or they may be plowed or harrowed in upon arable fields, and especially they may be applied with advantage and in large quantity to peaty soils. Q. Can they not be used also in making composts? 83 One of the first objects with the shepherd upon the prairie, should be to get a good stock of domestic grass for fall feed. A good substitute may be found in rye sown very early-say in August certain. I believe that blue grass will be found to be the most permanent pasture that can be made for sheep, and that it may be worked in upon the prairie by fencing small lots and yarding sheep, which will soon kill the wild grass, and then by sowing the blue grass seed, it will take well without plowing. As I before remarked, the greatest difficulty in our soft, rich, black prairie soil, is the mud. Great care must be taken in yarding sheep, both summer and winter, not to confine them in too small a space, as I know of no animal that has a greater antipathy to lying down in the mud, than a sheep; and no A. By putting a little of it into a glass and pour-treatment more likely to procure disease and death. ing upon it either vinegar or weak spirit of salt If your yards, where you usually feed and keep the (muriatic acid). If any bubbling up (effervescence) flock, get muddy, you must move them, or they will appeared, I should say that lime was present. A. Yes, mixed with earth and vegetable matter, or with animal matter, such as fish refuse, whale blubber, &c., and even with farm-yard dung, they will often produce very good effects. Q. How would you ascertain the presence of lime in a soil, or in a substance supposed to be a marl? SHEEP ON THE PRAIRIES.-No. 3. IN Vol. 4, page 55, I promised to give your readers another article upon the above subject. Miserable health has been my excuse for this long delay in doing so, and being now a close prisoner from the same cause, in my house, will be my reason for saying a few words more at this time. die. Don't say that you have nowhere else to put them. You must find a place if it is a mile from home, and you have to haul your hay and camp with them every night for a month. I have proved by experiment, that sheep will do better without water than in water. Last winter while I was at the South, one of my neighbors who had taken 225 of my sheep upon a contract to keep for the increase of the flock, giving me the wool, lost one-third of In my last communication I had brought the flock them, as I believe, solely from keeping them in too into winter quarters. Whoever has had any expe- small a yard, where for weeks at a time the poor rience in the matter, knows how difficult it is to creatures never had a dry spot to lie down upon. bring them in, in good condition, from the prairie And I have been told that at times they stood in grass. It is a fact that never must be lost sight of, mud knee deep. Of course I took from this brutal that luxuriant as the grass is in the summer, and man the whole of the increase, having no more good as is the hay made from it, the fall feed upon mercy upon him than he had upon the poor creathe prairie is as poor as poor need be. And it is tures that fell into his hands; and I feel as though I this that produces death among the new flocks, did not punish him sufficiently at that time. Now, more than every other cause. To prevent this the I fear, there are hundreds of just such flock-masters, first year, commence feeding grain in small quanti-ignorant, stupid, unfeeling, and indolent. They ties by the middle of October, and continue it until shelter themselves and families, in a rude uncomsnow comes; at which time the sheep will readily fortable log cabin, through the cracks of which the take hold of the hay, which they will not do while they can pick up a scant supply of frost-bitten herbage. Oats in the sheaf, I look upon as very good feed for sheep, particularly where you have no other convenience than the bare ground. Mark R. Cockrill, of Tennessee, whom I look upon as one of the best shepherds in the country, says he prefers corn for his sheep, and he always feeds it upon the ground. He selects some clean dry spot of sward, and sows the corn broadcast, and then lets in the flock to pick it up. In feeding hay, he follows the same course; never laying down the hay while the sheep are in the same lot. By this means the sheep never run over each other to get at the feeder, or get crushed under the sled or wagon if the hay is hauled out, as it always should be (a) Mr. Cockrill never confines his sheep, to make them "stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder," but gives them a broad range summer and winter. He has one of the best flocks that I know of, which consisted when I was there last spring, of 1,400 head of fine wool, and 600 head of long wool. He also has a cross between the Cotswold and Saxon, which are most beautiful animals. I have some interesting notes of his flock, which I hope to be able to write out some day. winds sweep almost as freely as they do through the rail fence that forms the only shelter for their cattle, unless they choose to be located near some friendly grove; which is the reason that I have advised the new settling shepherd to seek such a spot, where the comfort and health of his flock will be greatly promoted by giving them the privilege of a stroll through the bushes, of a sunny day in winter. Many excellent locations can be found where it will be very inconvenient to find a washing place. But let not this objection be considered an insuperable one. It is not a very expensive or troublesome matter to make an artificial washing place. Select some little rill, and excavate a place big enough to put in a vat 4 feet deep, 8 feet wide, and 16 feet long; and if necessary add other vats of the same dimensions. It is a mistaken notion that it is necessary to have clear and swift running water to wash sheep in; for it is a fact, that until the water in the vat actually becomes thick with filth, it will loosen the dirt in the fleece better than clean water. Even when there is no kind of a stream to construct the washing place in, it could be supplied from a good pump in a shallow well. In many places where sheep are washed in streams and ponds, they accumulate so much mud and sand 84 THE YELLOWS IN PEACH TREES.-SOUTHERN CROPS AND CULTURE. the bank or on the road home, that the benefit upon of the washing is overbalanced. "A penny saved is as good as a penny earned," is literally verified in shearing sheep. A good shearer will more than save his wages, over a slovenly one, besides the looks of the thing; for what work ill done, looks worse than an ill-sheared sheep? I say nothing as to the position of holding sheep while clipping them, for that is of little consequence, so that the fleece is kept whole, and rolled up in the most compact and neat manner, inside out, and tied tight with small strong twine. This is an important matter, and will well pay in the enhanced price of the clip, for extra wages to a careful hand. If, as is often the case in newly settled places, you have no barn or other convenient building to work in, be sure and not commence your shearing until you have procured some large sheets of canvass-or coarse cotton drilling will answer-to lay down upon the ground to lay your wool upon to keep it out of the dirt. Before sending to market, put up the wool in sacks, made of five yards each of stout tow linen, yard wide. Sort the fleeces, and fill each sack with those of equal quality as near as possible. If you sell the sacks with the wool, the buyer will always pay for them, and if he can ascertain the quality aright, without unpacking, will prefer to do so, and will be likely to pay about a cent a pound extra for your neatness and honesty. A word more about filling the sacks, and I have done. Sew up in each bottom corner a bunch of wool as big as a goose's egg. Get a stout wooden hoop, made like a cooper's truss hoop, the size of your sacks, slip it over the top of the sack, and wind the cloth over round the hoop, and then have three ropes that will suspend the sack just clear of the ground, and at the end of these ropes iron hooks that will just clasp the hoop, which will keep the cloth from slipping off, and still be easy to cast loose. Let the packer get into the sack, and as the fleeces are handed to him, tread each one into its place, and you will be surprised to see what a quantity you can get in. When full sew up the mouth, and make two just such corners as at the bottom. These are the handles of the sack, and are very convenient. Perhaps at some other time you may hear again "The Yellows is a disease common to all trees; it shows itself by the yellow color taken by the leaves when they lose the beautiful greeħ which belongs to each kind. Its effects are the unseasonable fall of the leaves; the drying up of the ends of the young branches; the scantiness and weakness of the wood; the smallness and almost abortiveness of the buds; the insipidity of the fruit; the general change of the sap; the languor and decline of the tree, and at last death, if timely care has not been taken to apply a cure. Its principal causes are a poor, worn-out, shallow soil, too dry and impenetrable to the rains; or a soil too cold or wet; or else one in which clay and subsoil are in contact with the roots. Its cause may also be found in cut worms, ants, and other insects, which take up their abode at the foot of trees. The cause being known, the remedy is easy, and that to be employed will be determined by the nature of things; thus, according to circumstances, it will be necessary to have recourse to manures, to waterings, and to trenching, in order to draw off the waters and cause them to flow, or to supply the roots with earth of a good quality. If the evil is caused by insects, it will be necessary to take measures for their destruction. If these proceedings have been seasonably adopted, and before the contagion shall have reached the roots, the trees will soon acquire their natural beauty and vigor." My experience in the cultivation of this tree has by no means confirmed the views which American writers have taken of the Yellows. I am convinced that it is not a contagious disease, and that it should almost always be imputed to some quality or defect in the soil, which prevents the roots from imbibing the substance, which, when carried to the leaves, is there converted into the prussic acid with which the foliage of the peach tree is known to abound, and without which it cannot prosper. PERSICUS. SOUTHERN CROPS AND CULTURE.—No. 1 I KNOW it is impossible to persuade the planters of the cotton region especially, and I doubt not of your northern country also, that they have any interest equal to the present full crops. As I think there is, when I write, I give my convictions; I must therefore say what I think, which is, that a [proper management of our land is of as much, if not more advantage in a general rule, than the making of large crops. If a planter will exert himself to protect his land, he will gather for a life-time fair and remunerating crops; whereas, by the common careless mode of planting, he will make for five years good crops, (a) Our readers will recollect Mr. Cockrill is located in a mild climate, where little snow falls. The corn of that climate is not as hearty and as oily as it is here. Oats, peas, and beans, are undoubt-the next five he will make ordinary, the next five edly the best grain for northern store sheep. THE YELLOWS IN PEACH TREES. I AM under the impression that the disease called the Yellows, is generally supposed in this country to attack peach trees only, and to be peculiar to the United States, and that our writers have been contradictory, and far from satisfactory in explaining its causes; but that they have unanimously pronounced it incurable and contagious. From the following passage translated from the New Duhamel, vol. 6, p. 28, folio ed. 1815, it would seem that these opinions are incorrect still smaller, until within less than twenty or twenty-five years his crops will be so bad, that he is forced to extraordinary exertions in working his land, or to emigrate. Is this not so? In much of our northern country, lime, marl, and manures are cheap; and conveyance is cheap. These things are demanded on account of the previous bad culture of the cultivators. Here, all these things are dear, but fortunately for us they are not needed-our soil being comparatively new, and where the surface soil is worn, the subsoil possessing all the requisites of a good soil. We have yet one more advantage, our winters are so much mild SOUTHERN CROPS AND CULTURE. 85 er and shorter we can grow grain cheaper; and the turn under. I know some theorists deny this-but cow-pea will grow among our corn without mate- that matters not. rial injury. I have repeatedly referred to these To the above I would recommend at least half an facts, but they are in my estimation of so much acre be planted per hand of sweet potatoes, onevalue and of so easy application, that I must con- third to one-half of an acre with artichokes. I know tinue to allude to them even if I repeat" line upon that ordinary land, producing say 8 to 10 hundred line, and precept upon precept." The policy is, to lbs. of cotton per acre, will produce 1,000 to 1,200 protect land from the sun, from washing, and from lbs. sweet potatoes. My experience with artithe exhausting effects of cropping. Whether this chokes is too limited to speak positively; but when can be done, and good crops gathered for 50 or 100 we reflect that the leaves are large and hairy, that years, I will not dare affirm; but this I will do-the product is from 200 to 1,000 bushels per acre, much of our lands lying near to the water courses, and that no portion of the crop is fed off from the and the flat lands in the western part of Mississippi, land, the improvement must be certain. The stalk can be kept near their present state of product for and leaves contain more alkali than most any other many years. plant yields, and very largely of ashes. I have unWe never remove corn-stalks from our land, as is derstood that some writer has determined-for himdone in many portions of the United States; many self-that sweet potatoes exhaust the land very have burnt them off, as they do cotton stalks--much; all I can say to this is, I have assisted in these are therefore generally returned to the land. planting them for 25 to 30 years, and have made up If the pea be sown among corn about the 1st of my mind that a good crop of sweet potatoes, leavJune, the vine will cover the land entire before the ing the vines on the ground, is equal to a good hottest of our summer be past, and if not fed off, manuring. will give a vast quantity of vegetable matter to the There is yet all the manure from lots, stable, and earth; these, with the corn-stalk, will nearly coun- hog pen to use, which, though small, yet will add terbalance the deterioration caused by taking off the somewhat to the general result. This can be vastly corn and the fodder-and if we were to sow down increased by hauling in leaves and corn-stalks. In in October, Egyptian oats or rye, on corn and cotton addition to the improvement from manures, I would land, to be left on the ground until planting time, I urge as equally important-rotation. A friend who feel certain that the washing rains of winter would dined with me this day, who was bred to farming, do but little injury, and that the return to the earth and who is no theorist, made confession of his conwould be ample. There can be no doubt as to the version to the soundness of the doctrine. He was vegetable matter, and I presume there is a suffi- incredulous, and changed this year mostly through ciency of inorganic matter in our soils to last many necessity. He says, though he was injured by years without any material injury; for we only ex-worms and a bad stand, that he has made a better port the cotton wool, having, you may say, all the crop than he ever had before. If we will examine balance to return to the land. What the intrinsic into the material taken up by some crops from the value of cotton seed is, taking stable manure as a earth, we can see that there is sound reason in the standard, I cannot say; but I am fully convinced matter. Let us take wheat and oats. Wheat takes they ought to be used only as manure. I am satis-up 19 per cent. of potash, and 20 of soda; whereas fied as to feeding hogs with them, having tried them oats require only 6 of the one and 5 of the other. effectually. The experience of all men can never If wheat be persisted in for several years, these induce me to use them again. I have lost in twelve alkalies must become scarce on farm lands; wheremonths full 60 hogs, that should now have netted as, if a crop that would probably take less or me 12,000 lbs. of pork, and which I could now sell restore a portion were planted, and the land allowed for about $500. Í say not that my loss is entirely to grow up in grass or weeds, there would be some attributable to the seed; but I know that I lost some certainty of making other good crops. I have seen very choice mixed hogs, which were killed by the an improved crop of cotton grown on land after it seed. As to feeding cattle with them, I am so had grown one crop of oats, which were fed off to doubtful, that I exclude my stock entirely. I would hogs on the land. then only use them for manure. A brother planter Draining is another important addition. Many of mine, who is devoted to planting, informs me are prepared to pounce on this-"what! drain our that he has manured in the drill, and that the yield lands here when we need so much moisture!" The was about one-third gain, which, if only 300 lbs., advantage of draining much of our upland would would be $4 or $5 per acre; this for the first be sure, in getting a stand of corn or cotton earlier; year; $2 to 2,50 for the second year; and $1 to of its growing off earlier; of its ripening earlier; and 1,25 for the third, would be some 10 dollars per in course of its needing moisture in midsummer, acre in three years. I would use enough to do per- much less. But if the land be drained, so as to manent good, say about 100 bushels per acre, thus draw off the water that the earth cannot absorb, it manuring about one-third of cotton land yearly, at a cannot prevent the earth from retaining as much trifling cost. Thus far, the labor and cost is trivial, moisture; and from being less liable to being imand all corn land and one-third of the cotton land pacted by water, will really retain moisture longer has been manured. There should be enough rye, besides, the early shading of the land will retain oats, and peas saved, to plant the succeeding crop. it. By getting corn up earlier, and it growing off You have no conception of the quantity of grass earlier, it can be laid by earlier, and thus we shall that follows an oat or a rye crop, in this country, on have more time to attend to cotton. fair land. I have no doubt but I could have cut a ton per acre, and then left a heavy aftermath to We lose too much time in fencing, and if we would adopt hedging with the nondescript rose, or |