system. No manures are used, the first ploughing scarcely exceeds two inches in depth, and the after cultivation is often delayed at the critical time. until the crop is materially injured by being crowded by grass. Under this system, I think a yield of three bales to the hand a large estimate, with not enough provisions-plain bread and meat-to support employés and feed teams. Now, when these three bales have netted but $200, it will require but little skill in figures to determine that there is no money in such a business.

Cotton is a great staple, however; all the civilized world demands it. Its sale is ready and certain, and at prices which would be very remunerative, if it were cultivated in a rational manner; and it is the purpose of this paper to contribute, in some degree, to such improvement. In what may be said I will advance no untried theory, but be guided solely by the lights of experience.

Dr. N. B. Cloud, of Alabama, some years since, reported a yield of 5,975 pounds of seed cotton from one acre of fine upland, manured with 5,000 bushels of barnyard compost. From my knowledge of such lands, I should judge that the clear gain from manuring was fully 5,500 pounds of seed cotton, equal to 1,700 pounds of lint, (counting 3 pounds of seed cotton for one of lint,) worth now about $425, net! Total yield of the acre, 1,810 pounds lint, worth $452. On good, deep, upland loam, a much smaller quantity of manure, coupled with thorough culture, would probably have brought about the same result.

Mr. David Dickson of Hancock county, Georgia, says, in the Southern Cul

tivator:

My last crop of cotton, under the old system, was grown on 950 acres. I made 810 bales. The greatest amount I ever made per acre was on four acres of upland. I used 400 pounds guano, with the usual quantity of salt and plaster for turnips, and fed them off on the lot. The following spring I added 100 pounds guano, 100 pounds dissolved bones, 100 pounds salt, and 50 pounds plaster per acre, and put in cotton. The crop was 4,200 pounds seed cotton per acre.

From the four acres the crop was 16,800 pounds seed cotton, equal to 5,150 pounds lint; worth now $1,287, net! or nearly $322 per acre-a sum quite equal to the profits of some market gardens in the neighborhood of cities, where the lands are valued at $1,000 per acre.. The same gentleman says, in a later communication:

in cotton in 1866.

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The land (a lot of 16 acres) is good, pine land, and has been under the plough nearly 70 years, and as many as 55 years in cotton. About 12 years ago it was sown in oats, with 200 pounds guano and bones, mixed with salt and plaster, and made 30 or 35 bushels per acre; all fed off by turning stock in the field. Four years ago, I left it uncultivated until the middle of July, there was then a heavy growth of weeds on it, just grown. I turned them in, and dropped peas in every third furrow. The result was a heavy crop of vines, and at least 15 bushels of peas per acre. These were fed off by beef cattle. It was planted I commenced the third day of May, (1867,) with two horses, to prepare the land, and applied to each acre 250 pounds soluble bones, 165 pounds No. 1 Peruvian guano, and 100 pounds plaster, dropped in the bottom of the furrow." the picking of most of it at 40 cents per 100 pounds. The lot averaged about 3,000 pounds per acre, but owing to a storm, and other causes, I gathered only about 2,700 pounds, which will make two good bales per acre. In the lot was a potato patch, which had been twice manured and mulched with straw. I think that portion made at the rate of 6,000 pounds per acre. The next best place was about one acre of old pine field, first year, which made about 5,000 pounds. The cotton would have been better, planted 10th April. during the wet weather, where most manure was put it stood the rain best. is the cost of one acre :

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* I hired

I found,
Below

Against this small outlay stands a credit of 2,700 pounds seed cotton, equal to 818 pounds lint, worth $204; a clear profit of $171 95 per acre, or $2,751 20 gain, on a field of 16 acres. I wish the reader to bear it particularly in mind that this was done in 1867, the identical year in which so many thousands were rained. They neither used manures nor ploughed with two horses.

As an additional and crowning evidence of what may be achieved, I mention that Mr. Dickson sent to the Cultivator a stalk of cotten, but three feet high, which had upon it 523 matured bolls. In Georgia uplands it is estimated that 100 bolls make a pound of seed cotton. Consequently this single stalk yielded 5 pounds. Reckoning a crop to stand 3 by 5 feet, we would have 2,904 stalks to the acre, which would yield 15,188 pounds seed cotton, or 4,560 pounds lint, worth now $1,140, net. I may be met by the sceptic with the assertion that this enormous production was due to accident, or extraordinary care and treatment. I deny the accidental part, and, if it was due to high feeding, will it not pay to feed whole crops in the same manner? Mr. Peter Henderson, of South Bergen, New Jersey, tells us that in order to take profitable crops of vegetables from his gardens he underdrains by 3 feet drains, placed 15 feet asunder; thoroughly subsoils once in 4 years; ploughs to a depth of 12 or 14 inches annually; and each year lays on a dressing of manure equal to 75 tons, or of bone dust 2,000 pounds per acre; and yet he does not claim so great a profit as $1,140 per acre, and his lands are worth probably not less than $2,000 per acre. Plant cotton on such land, and, my word for it, cotton is yet king-the most profitable plant yet grown by man on a large scale.

The exclusive system of cotton planting must give way to a mixed system of farming. Each and every farm must be made more than self-sustaining as regards provision crops, looking to cotton for the profits. The area of cultivation must be reduced; a thorough rotation of crops practiced, stock raised, and manures carefully saved, housed, and composted. Deep, thorough, and careful tillage must succeed the present shallow and slovenly culture. When these conditions are fulfilled we will become independent as regards our food crops, and the production of cotton will rapidly increase from year to year.

To treat land so as to obtain the greatest maximum crops would require a very considerable outlay of capital, which our people have not. But I insist that our lands may be brought up to the paying level by judicious rotation of crops, and by saving and utilizing the vast quantities of manures which now go utterly

to waste.

The rotation I would recommend is that of five fields: First, all the manure for cotton, the land to be thoroughly subsoiled and properly tilled; second, corn after cotton, manured in the hill with ashes and such cotton seeds as are not fed to stock; third, wheat after corn, to be seeded with red clover or mixed grasses, and allowed to wait its turn in the five years' shift. Returning, the clover sod to be broken in the fall, and the land thoroughly subsoiled in the spring, manured and prepared for cotton, and so on as before. Under this system we may expect the greatest yield of all crops, and with the easiest cultivation. Crab grass, the cotton farmer's greatest enemy, perishes where the land is not cultivated continuously. Following grain and the grasses we find this pest exterminated. Cotton exhausting land but little, and the culture being "clean," we have every right to expect after it a bountiful corn crop, and thereafter good wheat and grass. I would not have more than 25 acres under this system to each reliable hand employed. From every acre we get food for stock. Cotton seeds, as oil cake or cooked, are of great value as food for cattle, reckoned in England, when decorticated, as equal, if not superior, to the richest grain. From the other crops we have corn and fodder, straw, brin, and hay. Hence, under judicious management, with stock enough to consume the products of the place, the amount of manure for the cotton land would not fall short of 30 tons per acre per annum; enough to bring the crop up equal to that of Mr. Dick

son's four-acre lot; or, we will say, 10 bales of cotton to the hand; not an unusual production on the rich bottom lands of the Mississippi and Yazoo prior to the war. The following estimate of receipts and expenses for 25 acres may serve to further illustrate the system

According to this system we are sure of a living and some money. As we are going now we are pushed to get the former and have none of the latter. Before closing, I may say that this system is based upon the theory of reliable and intelligent labor, and ample protection for crops and stock.

SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE.

The whole country is desirous of knowing the present and prospective con dition of agriculture in the States which were directly involved in the rebellion and resultant emancipation. The people of those States are presumed to be still more anxious for a speedy return of agricultural and general prosperity. The more intelligent and progressive are fully aware that such prosperity must come through means and agencies adapted to the changed circumstances surrounding southern industry. From the first moment permitting the slightest action of this department, unremitting efforts have been made, so far as means and facilities were at hand for the work, to ascertain the pressing wants of this section, to furnish information and advice suited to the exigencies of the case and to initiate a new era in the history of its productive industry.

In the hope of obtaining facts of importance, and learning the views of the most practical men of the south, the following queries were directed to our reg ular corps of reporters and agricultural editors, and planters distinguished in their vocation:

1. Prior to 1860, what percentage of acreage actually cultivated in your State was annually planted in cotton? Please make this an average for a series of

'vears.

2. What percentage was in corn?

3. What was the prevailing mode of culture, product of ginned cotton per acre and per hand, and profit of the crop?

4. What were the prices of labor per annum, in 1860, of men; of women; of youth of 14 years?

5. What were the prices for the same classes in January, 1867?

6. What are the contract prices of the same classes for the present year' ?

7. What changes in modes of culture, size of plantations, and contracts for labor, have been made since 1860, with comparative production and profit? Please give an accurate idea of the terms of different contracts, and indicate the comparative prevalency of each.

8. Please give individual cases of improved modes of culture, with successful results, including the name of proprietor, number of acres, mode and amount of culture, kind and quantity of fertilizers, and product of ginned cotton, with cost per pound.

9. Give instances of cotton planting by colored men, with results.

10. What circumstances affect the comparative profit of large and small plantations, and what number of hands would be likely to prove most profitable? 11. Give name and description of different agricultural implements now in use. 12. What facts have you tending to illustrate practically the saving of labor, reduction of cost of culture, or increase of production and profit, by the use of improved implements of husbandry?

13. The culture of what crops promises to pay better than cotton planting; and the reason why?

14. What are the inducements to stock-growing, and improvement of breeds of stock?

15. What suggestions would you commend to your neighboring planters as to the enrichment of their fields, the variety and proportion of crops to be cultivated, the improvement of their neighborhood, and advance in values of lands? What home resources for fertilization are available, as marls, lime, gypsum, &c.?

The responses to these inquiries afford the most gratifying evidences of a strong desire for improvement in agricultural processes, and the dissemination of just views of true agricultural economy. They are generally full, and often elaborate in the expression of individual views. While their hints towards improvement are locally suggested and various, there is less divergence in spirit, and an actually nearer approach to unity than could have been expected in the chaotic state in which all social and industrial elements of the south now exist. In the brief space allotted to this article it will be impossible to make many extracts from correspondence. The returns are necessarily so nearly alike that repetition can only be avoided by giving, in condensed form, an average expression of the statements and recommendations of all. The department is under great obligations for the care and fidelity with which its inquiries were met, and has filed for special and local reference all matter connected with the subject.

ACREAGE IN COTTON AND CORN.

The twin crops of the south, cotton and corn, have monopolized its tilled land, crowded out the grasses which are essential to permanent success in agriculture, and left 100,000,000 acres of "old fields" to the greed of hungry broom sedge and insatiable pines. In a small section of South Carolina and Georgia 170,000,000 pounds of rice have been grown; in Louisiana 220,000 hogsheads of sugar were made upon a narrow margin of river land in a few of the lower parishes of the State; and a moiety of wheat was harvested, two or three bushels only to each inhabitant of the cotton States. A beggarly list of other products might be specified, all occupying a percentage of the cultivated area scarcely computable. Cotton and corn have been planted in four-fifths of the tilled lands of the cotton States, and a large portion of the other fifth, assigned to other crops, has been found in the mountain sections of Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The best soils of the Gulf region have

been so exclusively given up to these favorite crops that in plantations of hundreds of acres scarcely a single acre has been permitted to produce anything else.

An effort was made to ascertain approximately the proportion which these crops have respectively borne in former years to the total acreage actually tilled each year, and from the county returns the following averages are calculated:

The great fertility of Louisiana lands, mainly Mississippi bottoms, places that State at the head of the list, as to excessive cotton acreage, after making full allowance for cane culture. It is lowest on the corn list on account of the facility of obtaining corn from the western States; Mississippi stands next, both in excess of cotton and deficiency of corn. A verification of this estimate may be obtained from the census figures, which give 21 bushels of corn for each bale of cotton in Louisiana, and 24 bushels for one bale in Mississippi. The difference in acreage is still more apparent in view of the larger average yield of corn in Louisiana. As appears from the table the relative positions of the States are as follows: cotton, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, South Caro lina, North Carolina, Tennessee; corn, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana. The last is first; Tennessee, once the first corn State in the Union, heads the list, and it is curious to observe that the others follow in order exactly the reverse of that of the cotton list, except in the displacement of Texas.

MODE OF CULTURE AND PRODUCT.

The mode of culture before the war is too well known to require extended description. It consisted of ploughing in beds of four to six furrows each, more or less, in accordance with the size of the ploughs and the desired distance between the rows, sowing thickly in a drill opened in the centre of the bed, at the rate of two or more bushels of seed per acre, covering with a strip of board (screwed to the foot of a common shovel or scooter plough) made concave on the under surface, to fit the crest of the ridge, with sharp bevelled edges, a device which leaves a slight elevation to prevent saturation with water and dresses neatly the surface of the ridge; chopping out the surplus plants and all weeds on the ppearance of the third or fourth leaf, with the hoe, followed by a plough to round the ridge and cover weeds, or preceded by it when the field is so rough as to expose the plants to the liability of being covered and smothered; ploughing again, and bringing to "a stand" with the hoe by leaving two plants (where but one is eventually allowed to remain ;) and at the intervals of 20 days con tinuing to plough less deeply and closely to the plants each time, cleaning up with the hoe any remaining patches of grass, and keeping the surface of the ridge clean, mellow, and smoothly rounded.

The minor details of the culture vary with the circumstances of soil or season