The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-08-26

| the cost 40 cents per pound. These
figures show that, with middlings ruling
at from 8 to 10 cents at the seaports, cot.
ton by itself can be no profitable crop.
Apalyzing the items of expense in my
accounts I find that 8 6.10 cents, or
something over half, was in manure,
meat and bread for the laborers, and feed
for plough animals. These under the
syetem Of mixed hnsbandry are made on
the farm and sold at full price to the cot;
ton crop: It is just here that. in any
such system at: the South, cotton. comes
in, and planted only to proper extent
is valuable. If sold only at the cost Of
production, it has purchased the man.
nres from the live stock, and turned into
money the provision crops or the meat
into which they have been previously
converted. These are some unsaleable,
and others marketed with difficulty,
wilhelm that respect cottonis unequaled.
It is transported with more facility and
less waste than almost any other farm,
product, and is as readily exchanged for;
gold as the note of solvent bank. The
limit of the cotton crop is the extent to.
which the compost made on the place
will 20, some thirty to forty acres and
the seed is all fed to sheep or working
oxen none of it is used directly as q.
fertilizer.
TURN1Ps, RYE, BARLEY AND CLOVER,
About six acres. of ftrlita- baga turnips
are sown annually on land upon which
stock have been,recentlyFI hurdledss This
is sufficient fer the flock of sheep, to-
which it is fed.. Larger crops, with q,
view to feeding also. to cattle and hogs.
have been tried and Abandoned. The
ruta baga remains sound in the field all
winter and is dug as fed. Barley for
soiling, and rye and! red clover for graz.
ing, are sown. Though good for this
purpose, rye does not do as well as on
the sandy loans of the. lower country.
Barley is highly iremunefative for early.
spring soiling, and red clover sown as "a.
separate crop on hufdled land has. never
failed to catch, and does as we'll as II
have ever seen it in Virginia or Ken.
lucky. From forty to fifty acres are now:
set aside for these crops. :
S, PAsTURAGE. ;,se,,,.s... /.
There are, as stated, seventy FIVE acres.
in meadow, one hundred acres in corn;
culture, fifty being planted alternate
years. eighty acres in the cotton and oat'
rotation, and say fifty acres in small
crops. The remainder is permanent
pasture or forest. Of this near 400 acres
is recently cultivated land, (both. bottoms
and highland or: highland known with
us as "old; feld,n upon which all the.
short. leayed pine has been cut down and
the young deciduous trees left for shade,
This constitutes the summer pastures.
Its cultivation consists in keeping down
shrub growth and an annual spring
scorching off Of dead grass. Under this
treatment the soil. of:.natural grasses has
steadily improved. 1t carries, including
cattle, sheep, hogs aud colts, some five
hundred head of stock. A separately
fenced pasture is necessary for the hogs
during. the lambing: season. 10 the. vim.
ter the gleanings of the corn fields, :ithe.
aftermath of the meadow and the cane.
brakes of the swamp. forest, (which are
not grazed in summer are q valuable
resess5ss.
Commencing withiffty native:and fifty
Southdown ewes, road-tailed bucks
were bred to them and their female pro.
geny for four years. Then pure bred
Southdown buck was put with the flock
and recently Shropshire has been ad-
ded, the broad.tailed being Withdrawn to,
the same extent. The number of breed
ing ewes was increased to near three
hundred. These we're found to be too
many, and two hundred adopted as the
right number without further provision
of special pasturage. The flock has been
kept principally for the lamb market and
the product of wool is secondary object.
Barren ewes are culled for sale; breed.
ing ewes have been generally kept as
| long as they we're fertile. In nine years
three sheep have been lost by dogs, none
by theft. There has been little scab
and other disease of a: spooadic ;charac.
Ter. No epidemic of any kind some
deaths from accident, some from old age,
,sad -a-few from unknown causes. The
loss of grown sheep from all these causes
has varied from 8 to 10 per cent, With an
average of less than 5 per cent. The
number of lambs reared in proportion to
ewes has averaged 81 per cent. From
Christmas till middle of April the flock
receives as much hay as it will eat clean
at night with, per head, q pint of cotton
seed one night and one large turnip
sliced up the next At other times it
subsists upon the pasturage heretofore
indicated. From early spring until
Christmas the sheep are hurdled in open
movable pens; in winter they are yarded
at night upon litter with sheds provided
that they can use at pleasure.
CATTLE.
Cattle have been bred chiefly for beef
and work animals, the calves getting
| nearly all the milk from their dams.
Recently dairy for the sale of butter
has been undertaken with success thus
| far. Selected native COWS we're bred to
Devon bull with Brahmin cross. The
half.bred heifers were bred to shcrt.
horn bull with like Brahmin cross, and
now pure.bred Devon is being used.
The result has been rapid improvement
and a handsome herd of general purpose
cattle. No further cross breeding is
contemplated. Devon bulls will be used
in future. About fifty bead of cattle are
kept. The straw crop and some second.
class hay is reserved for their use in bad
weather in winter, and when high water
keeps them from the canebrskes. They
also in winter are yarded at night on
litter with adjacent shelter, and are
hurdled in summer along side of but not
with the sheep. In hurdling, the land
| is ploughed before and after the stock is
put upon it. The size of the pens is de-
termined by the number of stock, upon
calculation that one COW is equal to
three sheep and that five hundred sheep
will in seven days manure an acre. This
is more than profit, and other writers
consider a fair dressing. Itis believed to
be the equivalent of at least seven or
eight hundred pounds Of irst.class fer
tilizer, and the pcrmauency of its effect,
with fair after treatment, is such that it
is thought to add ten dollars per acre to
the value of the land. The manure Of
animals is applied by hurdling at one.
third of the expense of compost.
COLTS.
Colts have been the least profitable
stock handled. Both mules and horses
| boyo coot naarlv their fi1ll value tn rear