The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-11-13

How to Cultivate Them-An Essay heati
Before the South Carolina Agricultural
and Mechanical Society and State Grange
by ID. =. Duncan, Esq, of Union County.
When invited by the executive COM
mittce to prepare something on the
Grasses" for this occasion, / said yes
for as l had been experimenting with
grass for the past ten years felt as
Enough would be at home with this sub
ject; and then, again, it grows SO well
for me, and it seems like can have more
of it on less space than any one know
in fact, I think Dean Swift would have
called me benefactor, for you remember
be said, sthat man was beDefactor who
could make two blades of grass grow
where only one grew before" and my
neighbors tell me If / can get q little guano
I will make forty blades grow where
there never was any before. And then,
again, I thought il would be Just the
thing for a young man like me to be up
here reading an essay along with all the
agricultural and Grange magnates of the
land, and furthermore, it has become so
highly fashionable to look after and cul-
tiYate these Grange and agricultural
meetings. All our great men "do it."
and who knows but what I may make q
vote by it.
Well, farmer like, / kept putting
off preparing for this occasion until
suddenly there came notice, "Sum-
mer meeting of the Agricultural Society,
second Tuesday in August, at Chester, S.
CT and said to myself, "you had bet
ter be seeing about that essay" but of
course knew it was small matter, and
that anybody could write an essay on
grass. SO one of those late hot days In
July when the thermometer was some
what up in the nineties in the shade, /
put little table by q northeast window
where there was a little breeze slipping
in between the blinds as though it was
ashamed of being around on snch hot
day. Ihad chairs all around me on
which were my Encyclopedia, my bound
copies of The Rural Ccrolinidn, 4nerican
Agricuturist, &c. My HWebster's IN
abridged had q chair all to itself
Then I said, now I'll write an essay that
will surprise the folks over yonder, and
so I concluded would write q very SCI
entific article, it would show moro learn
ing. But I found after writing while
about clover, orchard grass, timothy, tall
meadow oats, Rescue, Italian rye grass,
and last, but not least, our own dear old
crab, that was not displaying any scien-
tiGc attachments whatever, and that / was
only getting up very dull and prosy
concern. 3t
then decided, as I was pretty well
"read up" on these subjects, | would put
together what ! had Learned in an elo-
qlent and grandWorded way, and that
would take; but did not get far on that
line before / found that that essay was
going to be great mistake, and l awoke
to the sad, sad fact that all my wits were
badly n''the grass" and that in my con-
ceit / had consented to do one of the
greeuest acts of my life. 1t was too late
now to turn back, my hand was already
Hatthe plough, 1.-THE meeting was on hand,
the essay had been announced, and if not
forthcoming the epitaph would be,
Whipped out by Gen. Green"
Sc I just concluded, as I had been
having some grass patches, would write
my experience in plain, farmer-like
manner, bring it up here to be thrown
into the heap produced by this meeting,
and if it was productive of even o stimu-
latiDg thought to any farmer would be
more than repaid for my exertions; and
if there was no good metal in it, it could
be thrown into the fire and burned with
the rest of the "s:abble."
dare say in your reading of Ramsay's
History of South Carolina this question
offered itself, "Where is the necessity of
artificial grassesW For you read there
about magnificent and endless forests,
clear, pure streams filled with fish; all
these thousand hills, whenever the leaves
were burned off, would be soon covered
with luxuriant growth of native grass
and wild pea or vetch all kind of game
abounded.
We of to-day think iI must, indeed, be
a romance as we read of this picture, and
then look at the one the face of our poor,
dear old State presents. Why in ride
of less than thirty miles across the coun-
try, from Union Courthouse to this place,
whilst it may not literally be SO, yet it
seems as though nothing meets the eye
but sea Of gullies, with islands of ball
spots; and | hope you won't smile, or
the Society think me extravagant, when
/ say in como places these are SO thick
that they seen to be on top of each other,
and the few spots left for the broomsedge
and pines seem so lonely and sad, like the
man who found himself in the wrong
rev, and wished he had not come to be
,ft in such hopeless minority.
| had a gentleman on the Union side
Of Broad River tell me sometimes he
would get on one of those broomsedge
strips, on long hill, and have to ride q
quarter of mile before he could get out.
Now whilst we are all cognizant of the
many drawbacks there are to those who
are trying to build up and improve a
home in this dear old sunny Sonth-for
"with all the faults we love thee still"-
yet it is sometimes struggle to keep
down q harsh feeling towards chat genera
tion which the conDtry's history tells Of:
"One generation spending its life pulling
down, the next one at the bottom round
to build up again."
Pardon me for reading from that histo-
ry: "The art of land manuring is little
known and less practiced. The bulk of
planters, relying on the fertility of the
soil, seldom planting any but what is
good, and changing lands when it begins
to fail for that which is fresh, seldom
give themselves much trouble to keep
their fields in heart. Beds of compost
are rare. Some twenty years from this
writing (some seventy-6ve years ago.
there was no fixed price in Charleston
for manures, and it was often given to
the first who offered to carry it of"
Could such process give us any other
sequel? And the all absorbing question
to every wide awake farmer is what is
the quickest, surest and cheapest route
by which can recuperate these old
worn lands, make competency for my
self and family, and leave the latter
AZ