Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1869-06-03
Aarifmltaral 4tpartaent.
PLANTING IN GEORGIA.

PLANTING IN GEORGIA.
MORE ACCOUNT OF THE COTTON oRAcLEs OF
GEORGIA-HoW MR.. DAVID DICKSON AND
HIS NEIGuBoRs MANAGE.
A Georgia correspondent Of the New
York Times, writing from Sparta, Hancock
County, says:
Of all the counties outside Of what is
called par excellence, the cotton district Of
Georgia, this Hancock County is the most
productive. Here reside and plant Mr..
David Dickson, Mr.. Simpson and Mr.. Tur-
ner, with number of faithful imitators and
disciples, and nowhere can there be found
more thoroughly skilled professors of prac-
tical farming than the gentlemen l have
named. 1t is incalculable the good they
have done in their neighborhood, and in
deed, in every part of Georgia their exam
pie and precepts have proved beneficial.
They have demonstrated the value of SCI
entifc agriculture, Of system and of intel
ligent industry, and have exposed the waste
full folly Of the old system of scratching the
surface, extracting crop after crop until the
land becomes perfectly exhausted, and then
repeating the process, never dreaming Of
using manure, and believing that breaking
the land more than couple of inches kills
it. The individual, in the fable, who killed
the goose that laid the golden egg, was
provident compared with the farmers of the
old school. Thousands and thousands of
acres in every county now grown up in
stunted pines, and presenting a barren red
surface, were once good land. They are
now the slaug ghtered geese that laid golden
eggs.
Messrs. Dickson, Simpson and Turner
have proved that lending money to their
land is the best and most lucrative invest
ment, and that improving the land that
they have got pays better than buying 'snew
ground" d"when the old is exhausted to bar
renness. At first they were regarded as
crazy men: Flowing the soil with two and
four horses, and with large turn plows, and
using guano and commercial fertilizers,
were considered 'all foolishness." 1t was
thought they "must break at that business, f."
and that applying from ten to twenty dol
lars worth per acre of that ''stuff that
smells so bad" was, in itself, sufficient
proof of lunacy. After some time, howev-
er, it appeared that they gathered and sent
to market a much larger number Of bales
of cotton than their old-fashioned neigh.
bors that their corn cribs were fuller; that
thew had more wheat in their bins; that
their horses, mules, cattle, wagons, harness
and implements were in better condition
and lasted longer than those of the pri-
Emitive school; and that they never owed
anybody cent, and always had plenty of
money. They were the first to use the
commercial manures literally, and the first
to find that it paid better than any other
investment of capital to use them, at cost
of even $40 per acre.
The result is now that no county in Mid
die Georgia produces Us much per acre Of
arabic land as Hancock County, although
the soil generally is extremely poor from
the ill-usage of the ante-Dickson days,
and no county in proportion to its size
uses anything like the same quantity of the
guanos, phosphates and land plaster.
Mr.. David Dickson who, I believe, COM
menced life as storekeeper (dry goods,
&c., in this village, is now universally ad-
mitted to be the best, most successful and
most intelligent planter in Georgia. He is
not by any means the largest planter, how
ever. Mr.. Lockett, MIR. Lee Jordan, Cap
tain John A. Cobb, and others in South
western Georgia, plant double and treble
the quantity of land, own double and treble
the number of mules, horses, &c., and en-
ploy very many more laborers; but at the
end of the year take the number Of bales
per acre of all the plantations, and Mr..
Dickson incontestibly carries off the palm.
He raises from bale to bale and half
on all his land, and on parts Of it produces
as much as three bales, or 1900 pounds Of
lint cotton. To look at his plantation you
are not struck by any particular neatness,
fancy fences or evenly.divided fields. On
the contrary, you are disappointed at the
rough, untidy appearance of the face of the
farm. But the stock looks well. The plow-
ing is admirable, the hands work systemat-
ically, and the crops in all their stages of
growth look more vigorous and healthier
than those of other people. MIR. Dickson
is an eminently practical man. He has no
idea of aesthetics. He does nothing for ap-
pearances. He does everything to make
money. He is i'll. educated, an old bachelor,
and devoted to putting one dollar on the top
of another. Year after year since he went
to farming and quit dry goods, he expert
mented with manures of different kinds for
cotton, at first on a small scale and eau
tiously, until he discovered that the combi-
nation of genuine Peruvian guano, land
plaster, dissolved bones and salt was the
ssperfect manure for cotton, and once
found, he "made note ont" and has used
it lavishly, being, believe, the largest
individual customer of Mr.. Merryman, OF
Baltimore. He has contributed many USE
full, instructive and eminently practical ar
ticies, or the substance of articles, to the
Southern Cuztivator, in which he has given
detailed accounts of his mode of culture.
Without any pretension to scientific skill,
and without using term that every farm
er cannot understand, he has explained the
whole process of cotton culture in its small
lest minutie, and has described all the I'M
plements which are used and which are the
most effective. He seems to have devoted
all his intellect to the study of how to raise
the most cotton on a given quantity Of land,