The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1874-03-27
Revolution in Southern Agriculture.

Revolution in Southern Agriculture.
The Turf Field and Farm, of New
York, conducted by a cosmopolitan,
makes the following suggestions to
southern farmers
Yonr whole system of agriculture
has been revolutionized. In the ante
bellum days you had at your disposal |
the best possible labor, because it was |
amenable to discipline, and, like reg |
ular army, ever ready to obey the or
ders of the commander-in-chief. You I
have now lost by the arbitrament of the /
sword, the control of the forces which 1
made your broad fields laugh with an |
nual harvests, and now you find your |
selves burdened with an enormous I'M |
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, under these circumstances, are
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 money value. Depend less upon
the pillow and the still more expensive
/ hoe, and have recourse to the mower.
/ If you have not the capital in labor,
! horses, implements and manure-nat-
ural and artificial-to get your land in
grass in the speediest way, be not i'm
patient or discouraged, have recourse
! To ch in 10
viii put on good sod of nutritious
grasses under the fructifying tread of
a flock of sheep. It may be objected
that negroes and vagrant ours will pre-
vent sheep breeding in the south.
This objection has some weight, but is
not insuperable. On the contrary, we
may pluck safety from this danger,
and be compelled to fold our sheep,
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 hocks from night-prowl.
ing dogs and their masters, and the
brier patches and CALLED spots in your
fields. will soon be cleaned or en-
riched by their tramping and their
droppings.
Again, it may Re 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 a
certain extent this is true, but the fact
, IS that southern planters, absorbed in
the cultivation of tobacco, cotton ard
, 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 Mis- sis
t sippi the planter who raised his OWL
? bread and meat was the exception. Most
+ of them were corn buyers, and none OF
81 them raised pork. Most of them had
: cotton on the brain, and they all dreaded
t grass as they would cholera, the boil
2 worm and caterpillar.
Under the new dispensation you must
: of necessity give more attention tC
| other possible farm products, ard chief
/ among these are grass and other forage
s plants. 1t is generally believed that
, except on stiff clays grass cannot be
2 grown with profit on the tide-watel
{ lands of the southern states but has il
, ever bean attempted ? Until the at
l tempt is made and fails we must refuse
3 to subscribe to the general belief
t Where is the grass which makes a fnel
/ or closer sod than the Bermuda, grow
s ing in many house yards in Mississippi
/ always green and growing Under the
: hottest sunlight and heaviest trampling
= Who has tried the new grass called
( Japan clover, which has appeared IL
f some of the cotton states since the war
: Who among the southern planters have
g tried the miraculous power of gypsum
9 in growing clover and grass ? Admit
= ting that red clover will not stand thu
: prolonged heat of a southern summer
i there is plant of the same family, and
e a far nobler one, which villa plan
: which fourishes in perennial verdure OF
r the bleak mountains of Auvergne Il
# France, and all around the Mediterra
e mean, as far south as the cataracts of tn
: Nile, under the fervid sun of Egypt
/ This is the n1edtcGgO SGIiUQ, the lucern
e of Europe, and the alfalfa of Califor
4 MIA and South America. But southern
n farmers ard planters neglected this, tn
, most valuable of all the forage plants
3, because in the days Of slav ry the
d could think Of nothing but tobacco o
st cotton and they neglect it now, an
y are deferred from its cultivation, unde
'e the erroneous impression that 1t mus
le be drilled and cultivated with the hoe
n The traveller between Alexandria an
Cairo and Suez, in Egypt, will see thou
.. sands of acres knee-deep in lUcern
which was never put in with the drill o
touched with the hoe. Why should h
! not see the same in our southern states
\ In conclusion, we will say purchas
N nothing you can do without; make you
- own bread and meat, and to do this sue
- cessfully you must grow grass.
"A CONF. LET rs REASON TOGETHER.-Tl