The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-04-02
ReroIution in southern Agrleulture.

Revolution in Southern Agriculture.
The Turf Field and Farm, of New
York, conducted bV cosmopolitan
makes the following suggestions to
southera farmers
Your whole system Of agriculture
has been revoiutionized. In the ante
bellun DAYS you had at your disposal
the best possible labor, because it was
amenable to discipline, and, like reg
Mar army, ever ready to obey the or
ders of the commando -in-chief. You
have new lost by the arbitranIent of the
sword, the control of the forces which
made your broad fields laugh with an
1fud harvests, and now you find your
selves burdened with an enormous IN
productive landed property, which Is
more heavily taxed than when it filed
your store houses, and garnaries, and
barns, and furnished nine-tenths of the
foreign exchanges of the whole union.
What, uuder these circumstances, ara
you to do? Your labor is compare
lively worthless, and your land without
labor must inevitably, sooner or late,
come under the hammer of the sheriff.
We fancy the solution of the problem
is to be found in one word, and that is
grass.
Get your fields in sod, and pasture
upon them every, grazing animal that
has a money value. Depend less upon
the, blow and the still more expensive
hoe. and have recourse to the mower.
II YOU have not the capital in labor,
horses, implements and manure-nat-
suEal and artifcial-to get your land IN
grass in the speediest way, be not i'm
patient or discouraged, have recourse
TO sheep; in time the very poorest land
will put on a good sod of nutritious
grasses under the fructifying tread of
| a flock of sheep. 1t may be objected
that negroes and Vsgraht ours wl4 nre-
vent sheep breeding in the south.
| This objection has some weight, 5but is
not insuperable. On the contr'IIy, we
may pluck safety from this danger,
and be compelled to fold our sheep,
i part of their management too often
| omitted, but which should never be
neglected under any circumstances.
By means of the fold you effectually
/ protect your Aocks from nightIproWf
| ing dogs and their masters, and the
lorier patches and CALLED spots in your
| fields will soon be- cleaned or en-
riched by their tramping and their
| droppings zEkCEsE <1E. ~
Again, it may J 9 objected that but
a small portion of the cleared lands OF
the south are adapted to grass, and
some of them not even to clover. To 9
/ certain extent this is true, but the fact
is that southern planters, absorbed in
the cultivation of tobacco, cotton an
sugar, have never given sufficient
thought to other agricultural products
quite as indispensable in their way as
the three above named staples. In the
balmy days of cotton culture in Missis-
sippi the planter who raised his own
bread and meat was the exception. Most
of them were corn buyers, and none OF
them raised pork. Most of them had
cotton on the bfaIn, and they all dreaded
grass as they would cholera, the boil
worm and caterpillar.
/ Under the new dispensation you must
of necessity give more attention to
other possible farm products, aud chief
among tbese.are grass aad other forage
plants. Il is generally believed that
except on stiff olays grass cannot be
grown with profit on the tide-water
d lands of the southern states but has 1t
ever bean attempted? Until the at
! tempt is made and fails we must refuse
to subscribe to the general belief.
/ Where is the grass which makes a finer
or closer sod than the Bermuda, grow
ing in many house yards IN Mississippi,
always green and growing Tnder the
hottest sunlight and heaviest trampling!
Who has tried the new grass called
Japan clover, which has appeared In
some of the cotton states aimee the war
Who among the southern planters have
tried the miraculous power of gypsum
in growing clover and grass Admit
ting that red clover viii not stand the
prolonged heat of a southern summer,
there Is plant Of the same family, and
far nobler one, which villa plant
which houEishes in perennial verdure on
the bleak mountains of AqEergne IN
France, and all around the Mediterra
mean, as far south as the cataracts of the
Nile, under the fervid sun of Egypt
This is the 271edtc0gO SaiiU0, the lucernt
of Europe, and the alfalfa of CalifOr
MIA and South America. But southern
farmers AID planters neglected this, The
most valuable Of all the forage plants
because in the days Of slav ~ they
could think Of nothing but tobacco o.
cotton; and they neglect it now. anc
are deferred from It's cultivation, under
the erroneous impression that it mus
be drilled and cultivated with the hoe
J The traveller between Alexandria anC
II Cairo and Suez, Egypt, viii see thou
: sands of acres knee-deep, in lucern,
} which was never put In with the drill O.
touched with the hoe. Why should b.
= not see the same In our southern states
In conclusion, We will say purchas
nothing you can do without; make you
2 own bread and meat, and TODD this sue
l cessfully you must grow grass.