The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-12-13
ss. ANDERSON, S. c. THURSDAY 3 1888.

S. c.. TE
HOWTO BREAK tP Land.
Major Paul f. Hammond,s Practical Expo.
rience Told.
Weekly ,Nstbs and Cburit1.
In estimating the expense of an opera.
ton, the most impoftaht elements OF cost
are often overlooked. Take DIS an illus
tratioD, the simple matter of cotton pick
| ing. It costs 80 cents per cwt. to pick
cotton, and so cento only. 1s that true3
If you make 5000 pounds of seed cotton
to the available picker, and get it all
picked about as fast as it opens, from
August to November, and carry it to
market and sell 1t for say 10 cents, the
price of good cotton, then if you paid so
cents per cwt. for picking, that:and that
only is the cost. But suppose you make
5000 pounds, and 1t has to be left in the
field until it becomes dirty, and picked
rapidly without separating the trash, and
as sequence you get 9 cents for it in the
market, even if yoH have paid only 60
cents, is that the entire Cost Of picking?
By no means. You must add to the 90
cents per cWTt:: your Joss of I cent pound
on the 5000 pounds Of lint which the
5000 pounds of seed cotton would pro-
duce. Suppose that q factory has machf-
merry competent to manufacture, when
run at proper speed, FIVE bales of cotton
day, and it is pressed beyond that speed
and manufactures seven bales, but the
machinery'breaks down and has to be
repaired is not the amount spent for
repairs part ofthe cost of manufacture? ?
Suppose that tie otit.ttrn is an inferior
article and sells for cent less than q
standard article of the same class; ought
not that to be chafged IS cost to this
method? But for fear / should not use
terms with scientific accuracy, and to
prevent confusion, We will agree to define
cost as all that is necessarily expended
or lost in production, or in the develop.
nent of method of production. This is
an important; matter as- will be shown
little farther On; and one largely over
looked by farmers, to their detrifiiei,t.
A PLoUaHMAN's TASK. -
An average ploughman, with a good
plough and pait Of brisk, stout mules,
will break two and a half acres per day,
not on q hard or sticky clay, but on any
clay or sand loan in fair order. How
-doyyou find that out? will be asked. By
sctual test in the field, by experience
often repeated; is the answer. But it
may be. reached in another way. A
team not overloaded shohld walk, in the
winter, from twenty.one to twenty-five
miles, in the midsummer little less, say
twenty miles, a day. a furrow six
inches deep and twelve inches wide is
rot too heavy Graft, and with the fnrrow
slice twelve inches wide the mules are
required to walk little less than twenty
one miles to break two and q half acres.
If you give that much to the average
negro ploughman as task, he will do it
in seven hours. have known it done
in Eve hours and a half, but that is bad
on. the team, and the furrow slice is apt
to be not quite six inches deep and rather
more than twelve inches wide. Inshort,
the ploughing will be bad. The hire of
such team, when it can be hired, would
be So day, including plough and hand,
and hence the cost of breaking is 80 cents
an acre. To break land ten inches deep
with six inch furrow is harder work,
though you move less land. In the
former instance your fnrrow contains "
cubic inches, and in the latter only so
cubic inches. But when you go down
below six inches the ground becomes
much harder from the weight of the
superintendent mass, from the pressure
of the plough in former ploughiDgs, and
from the fact that the earth has never
been moved before. Every practical
planter knows that it requires more than
twice the power to lift land from the
depth of eight to ten inches than from
four to six inches. Besides, the plough
ing would of necessity be bad. The width
of the furrow must come within certain
ratio to the depth. Some makers claim
that to do good ploughipg the width
must be 80 per cent greater than the
depth. It is doubtful if there has yet
been made any plough that running ten
inches deeep would bring up half the
subsoil, unless the furrow was at least as
wide as deep. The land would be only
pushed aside, and the ploughing conse-
quently very poor, and the draft 80 much
heavier that, If the team we're kept stead
lily at it, it would be more completely
broken down than the land would, be
broken-up. Passing over these Difficult.
ties, however, let it be admitted that the
team will break one acre and quarter
per day at an expense of SLIGO per acre.
Why, that is very little; there is only a
difference of 80 cents: less than bushel
and halfof corn will pay for it, or two
bushels of oats, or 80 pounds of seed cot
ton. Ifthat is all, we need not hesitate
to break the land ten inches; the expense
will be recovered twice over in the
greater ease of summer cultivation.
THE MULES TASK.
But is it all? No! nor half, nor 8
fourth. Keep in mind from the begin.
ming one fact-a mule can always culti-
vate more land in the summer in cotton,
corn, or any ploughed crop, than he can
prepare we'll ia the winter. With mod.
erately: good preparation he can cultivate
on dry land sixty acres in mixed crops
of corn, cotton, potatoes, &C., and in the
time which is coming, fastening, I hope,
with improved laborsavipg implements,
he can do much better than that. But if
the mule can prepare only sixty acres of
land to the depth of six inches, which is
considered good preparation, why he can
prepare only thirty acres to the depth of
ten inches. The stock upon our farms
is limited and must remain 80 through
out the season. You cannot double it or
materially increase it by hiring for such
heavy work as breaking land ten inches
deep. You could not increase it with
any surety 80 per cent BY offering s., or
even 81 a day for double teams. In fact
the only sure reliance would be in pur-
chase, and the time hs not yet come
when you can convince our planters that
- &,s1l NOW to hnv otnnE in Topt1orv Of