The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-07-23
BREAD, HEAT AND FODDER.
CoKEsBuRY, July 20, 1869.
TO TRt EDITOR OF TEE NEWS.

that interests the planter, induces me to ask
the insertion in your columns OF an article
more appropriately designed for an agricultu-
raj journal. As large proportion OF your
readers are planters, suggest for their con-
sideration the following inquiry Does corn
planting on upland in South Carolina. or
throughout the South, Il mean the cotton belt
of the South,) remunerate the planter
negative reply comes this year from all
quarters, and the same will be the case two
years in three. The twenty-acre field Of up
land, that will produce this year ten bushels
per acre, will be the exception one-thlrd oi
this goes to the freedman, and the remaining
two-thirds will be consumed by wear and tear,
blacksmith's bills, interest, insurance, taxes,
and the mule. The planters profit will be
nothing. Then why do planters persist in
cultivatlpg 30 exhaustive and still so unremu-
nerative q crop? can assign no other reason
than the one assigned by the boy who was
asked, why he vent to mill with q bushel Of
meal in one end Of the big and rock in the
other He replied, he did it because daddy
did 1t.
Advising against growing upland corn am
not an advocate for the cultivation OF cotton to
the exclusion Of forage and provision crops.
Not at all. Corn should be grown more or less
on all plantations, but solely upon such lands
as will p ty best in corn. 10 my judgment there
is not labor enough in the South to glut the
market, were every acre Of cultivated la''d
planted in cotton. But it would be ruIpous in
more ways than one to pursue such policy;
breadstuffs would be greatly enhanced, and
provender would become an expensive neces.
si,y. The quantity Of corn, however, oon-
sumed by man is but an item in the products
OF the farm. 1t is the stock that are the costly
consumers. And the OBJECT Of this article is
to suggest a method by which stock can be
more economically ted. labor more advantage
ously employed, plantations improved, and,
wilhal, no corn cultivated upon up.dnds.
Any field capable Of producing ten bushels
Of corn per acre. will yield the same number
Of bushels Of rye; aud one bsshel Of rye,
GROUND into meal and made into ''mash"
with cut rye straw, will feed horse or mule
one fourth longer time than bushel OF corn.
The same field Gown in red oats, anytime be-
rween LIST October and 1st April. will produce
Mreshed oats enough (the straw being sailed
and fed as foddel) to feed a number of apimals
one-hali longer than the corn and fodder from
the same field.
Any piece Of land. having an admixture OF
clay 10 it's soil, sown in wheat in November,
and top-dressed with ten dollars worth OF
commercial manures per acre, any tune be-
tween the 1st February and the LIST April fol-
lowing, will yield wheat enough 10 pay for the
manures, bread the family, and buy the corn
the land would have produced.
Any field manured at seeding-time with ten
dollars worth per acre Of co ameIcial manures.
and sown in barley. and again top-dressed as
suggested above Tor wheat, will produce grain
enough to pay for the manures, and buy twice
az much corn as the land would have produced
without manure.
Any laborer that can cultivate six acres or
cotton and six Of corn, can just as easily culti-
vsse ten acres OF cotton and eight acres OF
either OF the cereals.
These assertions are not made ct random;
they are the result Of my own experience. And
il these facts be true, each planter has but to
calculate for himself the difference in cost II
seeding and harvesting o small grain crop, and
Of ciltivsting corn crop. Imay be mst with
the remark that wheat and barley are too ooat-
IL to be fed to work animals. reply, II they
are worth double in market what corn is, and
I can grow bushel of either cheaper than
can bushel OF coIn, they are less expensive
feed for my stock than corn would be. II
their marketable value woull be greatly re-
du,ed by being more extensively sown then
We would only e the happier people, because
breadstufs would be cheaper.
For all small grain crops the land should be
thoroughly prepared as soon after the 1st
October as practicable, and the grain brushed
or narrowed in, mol ploughed IN, and the land
rolled. Harvesting should, if possible, be
done with re=er. not with cradle. The
best GRADER will, IN luxuriant small grain
crop, in spite Of himself. lose from three to five
bushels per acre. If the land is properly pre-
pared, the reaper saves it all.
We're q more extended area Of thoroughly
prepared land upon all Of our cotton planta-
tiops sown in that small grain best adapted
to the respective plantations. We could live
more independently, raise more stock, set orr
own price upon cotton, aud not bs so solicit
Gus about labor. An intelligent laborer accus-
toned to improved machinery can cultivate
more land and harvest more grain than any
half dozen men who use the uncou.h imple-
ments Of slavery times. As a planter, I feel
that the great want OF the agricultural inter.
ests Of our State is the introduction Of that
class OF skilled la5orers, who, bringing their
improved implements with them, will become
land proprietors, rather than the immigration
of hordes OF illiterate foreigners, who would
soon become as demora!ized aud uncon;rolla-
bic as our existing labor.
Very respectfully,
D. WYATT AIKEN.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME!