ority i Want this respect. Some assert that "anything is more profitable." of experience with other crops has evidently influenced the opinions of many in favor of this staple product. There is a growing tendency to enlarge and extend into new districts the area of sugar-cane planting. Florida and southern Georgia are regarded as promising sections for this purpose. In Conecuh county, Alabama, the following comparison is made: J. M. McIntire planted one acre in sugar-cane, and 20 in cotton. The one acre in cane made seven barrels of molasses, at $1 25 per gallon, and 1,000 stalks for seed, altogether worth $400. The 20 acres in cotton made six bales, which sold at 124 cents per pound, and netted $375. The cane did not require any more labor than one acre of cotton. Returns from Louisiana indicate a revival of the sugar interest, and point to an increase of 100 per cent. in 1868 over the crop of 1867. In the parish of Avoyelles, last year's area of 150 acres of canes will be increased to 600 aeres, all the canes being reserved for planting. A correspondent enthusiastically claims north Louisiana as "the best grape and peach region of the world," and that fruit culture will displace cotton-growing there. Strawberries begin to ripen by the 23d of March; the Scuppernong family of grapes never fails, and figs are prolific and hardy. The Palma Christi (castor-oil bean) is very profitable in Texas. It grows spontaneously in some parts of the State. The Cameron county correspondent deems it the crop that will ultimately enrich the Rio Grande valley. Stockgrowing is also mentioned as promising better profit than the prevailing culture. The average product per acre-190 pounds-as deduced from these returns, is not a very remunerative exhibit. At 15 cents per pound, an acre would produce $28 50, and each laborer, at an average of 1,750 pounds, would "make" a gross earning of $262 50. An acre of wheat, at the average for 1867, throughout the United States, is worth $23. If the estimate given in the statistician's report of $33 per acre, based upon a somewhat higher price of cotton for the past year, be taken for this comparison, the advantage will still be largely on the side of wheat, in view of the wide difference in the labor required in the culture of these crops. A wide field is opened for comparison, which may profitably be entered in the future. It is safe to assert, without further investigation, that cotton will always constitute a profitable element in the future system of farm rotation of the south. the care of man. STOCK-GROWING. The testimony to the value of this part of the country for stock-growing is voluminous and convincing. Little has been done in this direction; the preda tory character of a portion of the population has, in many places, reduced the stock of hogs and sheep to a minimum. The climate and products of this region are, in many respects, admirably suited to the cheap production of meat and wool. Swine can be profitably fattened on such luxuries as peaches and sweet potatoes. Of the entire stock of domestic animals, in certain sections of the cotton States, less than one pound in every hundred is produced by feed furnished by In the area between the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, inhabited in 1860 by less than 9,000 whites, in which 428,000 acres were in cultivation, there were then $7,000 hogs, 10,980 sheep, and 69,260 cattle, all raised without care, with no reference to a market, entirely for home consumption. Fortunes are made in Texas by rearing cattle for sale at $5 to $10 per head. That the business of stock-growing will be greatly extended within ten years and be found very remunerative, may be considered certain. With laws for protection against the ravages of dogs, the south can easily supply the entire country with wool, and furnish an equal amount for exportation at a better profit than has ever been obtained in the culture of cotton. SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS IMPROVEMENT. Every intelligent correspondent presents some judicious suggestions of improve ment, in accordance with his own practical education, and the peculiar circumstances of his neighborhood. There is abundant evidence of a change of views, more or less wisely suited to changed circumstances; and with all the diversity of climates, soils, and other elements of production in agriculture, which influence individual opinions, there is a degree of unanimity in views of what shall constitute a reformed system of culture, that proves unerringly their truth and wisdom. Adopting them so far as they appear reasonable, and in accordance with the true principles of culture, as recognized in the practice of scientific farmers of this and other nations, the following hints for the agricultural reconstruction of this section are presented: Reduction in size of farms.-In all countries where land is cheap, there is a tendency to attempt the cultivation of too large an area in proportion to capital and labor-a course which leads to impoverishment and ruin. A working capital of $50 to $100 per acre is required in England, aside from the value of the land, which is seldom owned by the farmer. In the south the landholder should have at least a sum equal to the average value of the farms of that section, for expenses of stocking and working. Failing either in sufficiency of money or labor, he should sell land enough to obtain it, whether it be a fourth, half, or even three-fourths of his present farm. Land without labor is worthless; and if the coming of laborers is awaited, in the expectation of accruing wealth in real estate, while the owner refuses to sell, his ultimate loss will exceed by far a present sacrifice of half his estate. Diversity in production.-While cotton may ever be a prominent crop, it should only be cultivated as one of several products for exportation, and an ample sufficiency of everything consumed upon the farm should be grown at home. The idea that southern horses should be obtained from Kentucky, flour from Missouri, and part of the corn supply from Illinois, has been a curse to the cotton States. Specious and false was the theory of reciprocity of material interests; it never can be profitable to carry bulky agricultural products a thousand miles, to be used on soils as rich and cheap as any in the world, at an expense for transportation far exceeding the cost of production at the place of consumption. The variety of which this region is capable is truly wonderful; embracing all the cereals, grasses, vegetables, and fruits of the temperate zone, with many of the productions of the tropics. A belt extending from 25° to 39° north latitude, including a range of elevations amounting to 6,000 feet, and geological formations from the primitive granite to alluvion now in process of deposition, cannot become a wealthy region, rich by persistence in the culture of a single product. Sugar production, though a special industry, must become, from the necessities of our people, as also from the adaptation of soil and climate to the growth of cane, a prominent, growing, and profitable interest, which should not be neg lected. It promises at present to become, within three years, a business of greater magnitude than in 1860. The Ramie, (Bohmeria tenacissima,) a fibre of superior strength and beauty, is upon trial, and hopes are entertained that it may eventually add to the productive resources of this region. The production of cotton-seed, castor and other oils should be largely extended. The culture of grapes, peaches, olives, figs, oranges, lemons, bananas, and a great variety of other fruits of the semi-tropical and temperate climates is des tined to afford pleasant and profitable occupation to a large number of people. Rotation. With variety of crops there may be system and recuperation in place of the present waste and exhaustion. Ruin follows continuous planting of hoed crops; the soil must be shaded with the luxuriance of green crops; grasses must be furnished to stock for supplies, both of meat and fertilizers. Heretofore, as exhaustion was threatened, "rest" has been the remedy-such rest as attends the growing of weeds and broom sedge, filling the soil with seeds of pernicious growth and roots of tenacious grasses to plague the future cultivator. The rotation should include but one year of cotton, with corn and peas and clover and other crops, varying the order and variety according to soil and other circumstances, the course extending four or five years, and so arranged as to cover the surface with green crops at least half the time. A correspondent says: The whole of eastern Virginia could be renovated in six years if farmers had energy and means to persevere in a proper system of rotation. Instead of two and three field shifts, they should adopt and adhere to a six-field rotation, somewhat as follows: First, corn; second, oats, seeded with clover; third, clover, pastured by sheep and hogs; Fourth, wheat, seeded with clover and orchard grass; fifth, hay; sixth, pasture. Two years of clover to one each of corn and wheat, are suggested as a proper rotation by correspondents in western Carolina. Dr. Phillips, of the Southern Farmer, would place three-fourths of the land in pasture, grow roots and vegetables for stock, and three acres of corn for every one of cotton. For feeding stock and fertilizing the soil, the cultivation of peas promises better than that of corn. Peas, sweet potatoes, and clover should occupy a prominent place in the rotation. Improved culture.-In former years culture has been equivalent to careless scratching of the surface to the depth of two and a half inches, more or less. Deep thorough culture has proved as beneficial, in the few instances in which it has been practiced, as in other climates and soils. The case of David Dickson, of Georgia, is a representative one upon this point. Horizontal culture and hill-side ditching are requisite on hilly lands. It is probable that uplands are deteriorated much more rapidly by washing than by the abstraction of the elements of crops. The best soils are of a texture so fine as to yield readily to the force of the surface currents, and the rains are so heavy that the utmost care only suffices to prevent destruction of the soil of hillsides. Farm economy and improvement.-Winter shelters for stock should be provided. Barns for protection of farm animals, for economy in their management, and the preservation of farm products and implements, should be erected, with cellars adapted to the collection and preservation of manures. No farm is in its highest condition of efficiency without these improvements, and no climate sufficiently mild to dispense with them. Fertilizers.-With "full garners, good pasture, and fat stock," as a correspondent suggests, there is no lack of abundant means of fertilization. To force a single crop, or to obtain a stand of clover or other resources for feeding animals or for green manuring, guano often gives marked and profitable results; in combination with other fertilizers, to supply a deficiency of ammonia, it is often highly advantageous; where more bulky manures, furnishing similar elements of fertilization, are difficult to obtain or expensive in transportation, it is sometimes admissible; but as a regular resource for the annual crop, the use of guano will ultimately impoverish the soil and its owner. Every farmer should rely mainly upon his stock for manures; hogs should be fattened upon field peas; cattle and horses should be penned at night in deeply littered yards. Accretions to the manure pile may be made from a great variety of sources, including all decaying vegetable and animal matter, waste and wash from the kitchen, muck from the swamps, and pine straw or leaves from the forest. There are many special fertilizers in this section, ample for a perpetual supply of all possible drain upon the resources of the soil. The coast line from Virginia to Texas, including all the sounds, inlets, bays, and estuaries, has an aggregate extent of thousands of miles, and every mile can furnish abundant stores of fish and sea-weed for manuring adjacent fields. Oyster-shell lime is also plenty and cheap in the tide-water region. No mineral manure is more abundant than marl, which is found in the whole tide-water section of the Atlantic coast, in the Mississippi valley, and in Texas. It underlies wide belts of various depths, often very near the surface; it is in many localities easily obtained in large quantities; and its value, though varia ble, is undoubted for application to soils needing lime. Gypsum can be obtained from native beds, at no great distance from any locality in the South. Lime is abundant in the mountain valleys, from Virginia to northern Alabama; and the "rotten limestone" formations of Alabama and Mississippi are unsurpassed for fertility. All these home resources should be used in bringing up the average cotton yield from 190 to 500 pounds per acre, and obtaining, from half of the present acreage, all of the fibre needed, leaving free a sufficient area to produce the bread, the fruits and vegetables, the beef and mutton necessary for the home population, and a surplus of the lighter products for exportation. Farm implements.-When half a million men were withdrawn from the agriculture of the northern States, by the exigencies of war, their place was supplied by farm implements and machinery. The scarcity of labor in the south, resulting from a like cause, must be remedied in the same way. It is probable, that of every $3,000 spent for farm labor, $1,000 at least might be saved by the introduction and effective use of the most approved labor-saving appliances. Corn has been cultivated, on certain prairie farms of large size, on which laborsaving machinery has wrought with the minimum of human aid, at a cost of scarcely more than a dollar per acre; and it is probable that southern crops will soon be cultivated at half the average cost of the past three years, in part through the economy of farm implements. Improved ploughs, cultivators, capable of cleaning daily greatly enlarged areas, steam engines for driving gins and threshing grain, and perhaps steam ploughs for breaking the soil, with many other forms of applied mechanical science, will ere long save annually $100,000,000 otherwise payable for animal or human muscle. This is the labor that is reliable, controllable, ever ready, never failing, and cheap withal. It is the labor that has given wealth to the north, and it is destined to perform an equal service for the south. Miscellaneous desiderata.-One of the most essential needs of the South, attainable only with improvements already suggested and with the increase of popula tion, is a better quality of roads and greater care in keeping them in good condition. A saving of transportation and breakage amounting to tens of millions annually would ensue from the accomplishment of this item of advancement. An increase of laborers, especially of intelligent and skilled workers in every branch of agriculture and horticulture, are necessary to rapid progress. A portion of this increase should be obtained at home, and the remainder should be drawn by special inducements from other States and other countries. Our correspondents very properly suggest, as aids to agricultural advancement, the dissemination of agricultural newspapers and books, the increase of schools, workshops, grist and saw-mills, manufactories, and railroad facilities. A new career is opened to the South; a new system of agriculture is beginning to be adopted which promises, even while emerging from the chaos of abrupt change and the shock of grievous disappointment, to bless her people with a higher prosperity, within a single decade, than they have ever previously enjoyed. |