Whig and tribune. [volume] (Jackson, Tenn.) 1870-1877, 1876-05-20

prOdufl0it OF. cO,JOV,VVV CHIchtHsJ WulCn
in market Weld $24 600 600. The extra
valne TO be added for capOns, fattened
hens, and the like, is put at $1,000, GOO.
The production Of eggs amount to $4S,-
100000. In all it is reckOned that the
value of hens, chickens and eggs sold in
!. the markets of France, is $50, 100000.
THE SILK HARVEST or THE WoRLD.-
According to a report just published by
the syndicate of the Lyons union of
silk merchants, the silk crop of Europe
last year was, in round numbers, $685.
900 pounds of raw silk, while there were
exported from Asia 12,00O,0OO pounds,
making upward of twenty and a half
million pounds of raw silk available for
European consumption. The countries
included in the report are Italy, France,
with her dependencies, Corsiac and Al
geria), Georgia, Persia, India, Japan and
China. The first and the last together |
supply four-ffths of the silk used in Eu-
rope.
WAsHISGroN's OPINION oE FARMING.-
| think OF 40 pursuit in which more zeal I
and important service can be rendered !
to any country tian by improving its ag |
ricalture. Fl sE
Thus said the immortal Washington, |
whose utterances were never selfish, but /
always looking to the good of others and |
building up his country. lie was far /
mer-one who went forward in advance |
of the great mass Of those who trudged /
along in the old beaten track, and his 1
views are entitled to weight with all /
who wish to see our agriculture occupy |
that elevated position its importance de-
mands,- a
4. WHY PooR.-Let the people bear in |
mind continually that the reason why
: our city and other Southern cities are
poor, is because they make nothing to
sell. We buy from other States more
than .weFpr0duce for sale 10 pay for what
we purchase. If our cities and towns
were bht filed with manufacturing es
tabhsllheHts and shops, making up our
raw materials into articles needed by
Our people, thrift and prosperity would
soon cause new life-blood to flow through
the veins of our commerce. and all other
pursuits. Our agricultural interests de-
mand this no less than other departments
of business. Our farmers and miners
furnish the raw products, and If these
are worked into useful forms among US,
they are changed into money to I'LL all
the arteries of trade, and build up our
prosperity. Certain it Is that nothing of
the kind need be looked for till our peO-
pie work more successfully, aud make
more to sell than they buy. Let every
citizen weigh these facts and acts ration
ally.-Rural Sun.
RENovATING WORKOUT LANDs.-FOr
years have read articles on the above
subject, in all of which the writers adYo-
Gated bornyard manure, muck, cotton
seed, scraping from the woods, fence cor
ners, ETC., not one of which do l believe
is at all feasible with the present labor Of
the South, or their manner of keeping
stock.
In the first place there is too little stock
kept in proportion to the land, and they
are only housed while working, and often
not then-in fact, so little manure is thus
made that l have never seen a cotton
plantation that made more manure than
would do for the garden; and have
only seen three Farms in ali my travels on
which any quantity of manure was hauled
to the fields. Since the war my experience
and observation show me that but few
men have been able to employ labor TO
keep their farms in order, much less to
haul manure. But there is 4 plan which
/ have seen succeed, bp which every acre
of ground in the South can be brought to
its original fertility, without costing You
dollar in money and making the owner
rich while doing it. This plan is simply
the growing of green crops, feeding them
off on the ground where they grew, and
turning them under the residuum. For
instance: Sow a crop Of peas, and as
soon as they are ripe Cor even before, if
fit is necessary, turn on hogs, sheep, or
cattle, or such stock as may be wanted TO
tfatten; and after they have eaten up all
they will, then turn under the reSiduum,
and SOW TO a crop of some small grain.
FWhen this is ripe feed of again, turn I'M
der all the straw left and then another
crop of peas-and so on for few years,
and you will find your land rich, aud il /
you have judiciously handled your stock, |
you VIII find that You have made money |
on that.
Sorghum isa fine thing to sow broad
cast to make crop TO turn under, or red
clover viii grow, that is very fine-but
know of nothing equal to peas.
l once saw an old WORKOUT cotton plan
tation, in Middle Tennessee, that was
bought by a Kentuckian for less money
than it cost to up the buildings, which
after a few years of the above treatm Il,
was brougbt to such 4 state of fertiney
that the produce of one year Was ninety
bushels of corn, average, per acre, on
about four hundred acres. So dear Far
mer, / think it waste of words to ever
be talking or making any kind of manure
to be hauled on the fields BrOOmsedge,
in Southern Farmer
THE ATMOSPHERE As FERTILIzER.-
'"rhe Atmosphere as a Fertilizer" is
thus discussed by the Canada Farmer.
One of the great advantages of fall
ploughing is that the soil is put in condi-
ton to receive benefits from the air, heat,
cold, rain and snow:
This is a subject which, practically, re-
ceiyes but about half the attention it mer-
its. Substantial manures, when Obtaina-
bic, are OF course the great desideratum,
and.no soil however fertile, can long
sustain nutrition without them. But in
many instances these are not readily at
tainable, at least in appreciably large
quantities, and il is well 10 know in
such cases how best to adapt Onr soil for
the absorption of those ineXhaustible fer
tilizers which are chemically combined in
the air around us.
The composition of the atmosphere is
so well known that it need not here be
repeated. 1t is, however, worthy of
note, as Illustrative of the wonderful re-
source of the air, that q young SaplinS,
planted in earth that had been Over-dried,
and receiving no other nourishment
thereafter than that derived from the air,
and occasional watering, more than
quadrupled its weight in twelve month;
while the earth in which it grew, having
been again dried and weighed, showed
loss of only two pounds fact which
proves that we are indebted almost solely
to the atmosphere even for the solidity
II our trees. The same truth on small
scr scale, as well as on the large, is being
ILLUSTRATED every day all around us, but
the principle could be much more effect
lively utilized in agriculture than it is,
Rand that simply by a more thorough pull
yerization ofthesOil.
) The decomposition of animal and vege-
table matter keeps constantly filling the
air with fertilizing gases, and perfect
tillage is the first step necessary to con-
dense these in the pores of the soil. 1t
follows, moreover, that if air is such an
essential source of vegetable nOurish-
ment, the more of it supplied the better:
and so it is, provided only it be supplied
through the proper channel, viz, the
soil. The nature of soil, too, must here
be taken into account, for some kinds are
more easily permeated than Others
For instance, in testing with water, 100
pounds of pnre clay, dried, absorbed 40
pounds of water before any came through
so as to drop. a similar weight of clay
loan took in 80 pounds; English chalk,
45 pounds; loamy soil, 40 pounds; cal
careous sand % nOunds and dry quartz