s 
 .116 
 
 DAVID DICKSON'S 
 
 SYSTEM 
 
 =OF= 
 
 FARMING 
 
 I 
 
Hass 
 
 ^6C(r 
 
 Rnnlc * H S" 
 
 rmnvri^htN" 
 
 
 COPyRIGHT DEPOSrr 
 
3zx ^ "^ 
 
 DAVID DICKSON'S 
 SYSTEM 
 
 lOFi 
 
 FARMING 
 
 Published by 
 THE CULTIVATOR PUBLISHING CO.. 
 
 Atlanta, Georgia. 
 
LIBRARY o< CONGRESS 
 Two Conies Received 
 
 AUa 18 1906 
 
 Copy ne tit tntry 
 CLASjr Ci XKc, No, 
 
 /s 3 ^7f 
 
 ' COPY B. ' 
 
 Copyrighted 1906 by 
 
 THE CULTIVATOR PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 Atlanta, Ga. 
 
INDEX 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Tntrofluction — (David Dickson, his Great and Wonderful Suc- 
 cess as a Farmer) 5 
 
 Agriculture as an Applied Science 10 
 
 Teaching Lal)or to be ]More Effective 12 
 
 Importance of Informing your Minds 14 
 
 Chapter I., The Farm 16 
 
 Chapter II., General Treatment of Lands 18 
 
 Chapter III., Fertilization of Soils and Crops 21 
 
 Chapter IV., Organic and Inorganic Manures 28 
 
 Chapter Y., Breaking Lands 34 
 
 Chapter VL, Cultivation of Crops 38 
 
 Chapter YIL, Cultivation of Corn 41 
 
 Chapter VIIL, Cultivation of Cotton 45 
 
 Chapter IX., Growing Wheat 52 
 
 Chapter X., Potatoes. Turnips" and Vegetables, (two-field 
 
 system) 55 
 
 Chapter XL. Fruit Culture and Care of Stock 50^ 
 
 Chapter XIL. On Immigration 65 
 
 Chapter XIIL. Best Extracts from the Writings of 
 
 Dickson 73 
 
DAVID DICKSON 
 
 His Great and Wonderful Success as a Farmer. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Mr. Dickson was reared on a farm, 
 and while yet a plough-boy, conceived 
 the principles of agriculture that now 
 distinguish the system of farming 
 which has immortalized his name, 
 and brought him not only fame but 
 fortune. While ploughing and hoeing 
 corn, in his boyhood, it occurred to 
 him that that method of cultivating 
 was wrong. He says, "while plough- 
 ing — cutting the roots of plants — I 
 could see the effect of hot days be- 
 hind me in less, than thirty minutes, 
 and it would continue for days to 
 damage the crops, more or less, ac- 
 cording to after seasons. Even with 
 the hoe, digging round the corn, and 
 hilling up, I could see the corn wilt at 
 once, in hot and dry weather; and the 
 corn would fire more or less, and 
 sometimes be thus prevented from 
 silking well. How was this to be pre- 
 vented? I formed my opinion then, 
 and put it in practice as soon as I 
 commenced planting." Again, he 
 says, "I saw new land full of mpld, 
 never baked, was always easily 
 worked, and would stand a long 
 
 drouth and a heavy wet spell. The 
 conclusion was, to keep all land in the 
 virgin state, as near as possible. How 
 was this to be done?" 
 
 The reader will notice that these ob- 
 servations and inquiries struck at the 
 very foundations of agriculture. His 
 close duty to nature had detected a 
 fundamental error, and his genius 
 readily devised the remedy. 
 
 When, years afterwards, Mr. Dick- 
 son had determined to invest his all 
 in farming, so strong was his faith in 
 the truth of the convictions of his 
 youth upon these agricultural sub- 
 jects, that he adopted them in his 
 practice, discarding the old stereotyped 
 system of farming as erroneous. In 
 developing the principle of his newly- 
 conceived system, and reducing it to 
 practice, he found that one prepara- 
 tion of land was all-sufficient for each 
 crop; that the lands would be im- 
 proved, would produce double the crop 
 per acre; and that a hand could culti- 
 vate fifty per cent, more acres, and 
 obtain more than five times the usual 
 dividends. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 At twenty-one years of age, Mr. 
 Dickson started out with $1,200. By 
 merchandising and trading, lie made 
 $2.5,000 in fourteen years. At this 
 period (1845) he invested all his means 
 in lands, negroes, stock and agricul- 
 tural utensils, and commenced farm- 
 ing. He purchased two hundred and 
 sixty-six acres of land, for which he 
 paid from $1 to $2 per acre, and for 
 some as low as 50 cents per acre. 
 Lands, under his system and success, 
 continued to rise in price until 1860, 
 when he paid .$18 per acre for the last. 
 The average $7 per acre. This land 
 had been producing four bushels of 
 corn per acre, and two hundred pounds 
 of seed cotton. On beginning to 
 plant he followed his own peculiar 
 notions, putting in practice the concep- 
 tions of his boyhood; and these con- 
 stitute the guiding principles of the 
 Dickson system of farming to-day. 
 These early impressions have been 
 verified by experience, and thoroughly 
 demonstrated by successful results. 
 He says his crops were fine from the 
 very first, and that he never failed to 
 make a good average crop, no matter 
 what the season. 
 
 The reader will observe, that Mr. 
 Dickson's first crop was, a success; 
 and that, at that time, guano had not 
 been introduced. This fact tends to 
 correct the impression that Mr. D's 
 success in farming has been attributa- 
 ble alone to the liberal use of "am- 
 monia" — in other words, to the em- 
 ployment of guanos. We know that 
 he did not use much guano until 1857. 
 Yet his crops were "fine" and paid 
 good dividends! What does this 
 show? Clearly, that most of his suc- 
 cess as a farmer has been due to his 
 peculiar method of treating his lands, 
 and cultivating his crops, and not ma- 
 terially to his feeding his lands with 
 ammonia, superphosphate, potash, 
 land plaster and salt. The principle'=' 
 of cultivation, in his system, are es- 
 sentially different from the popular 
 system of agriculture, and to this sys- 
 tem, as a whole, conjoined with Mr. 
 Dickson's native genius and extraordi- 
 nary executive ability must we at- 
 tribute his success. Peruvian guano, 
 
 or even "Dickson's Compound," 
 used according to the common 
 plan of farming, would not pro- 
 duce half such results. The 
 "magic" is to be found in the way it 
 is used, and the general policy of 
 treating and cultivating the lands. 
 It is a great mistake to say, that guano 
 has made Mr. Dickson. The fact is, 
 Mr. Dickson helped to make the guano 
 market. Native genius, good judg- 
 ment, his study of nature and her laws, 
 and their application to agriculture, 
 have made Mr. Dickson. True, guano 
 has been a potent agency in his hand, 
 but it has paid better with him than 
 it has with nine-tenths of the planters, 
 because he has used it in accordance 
 with the principles of rational agri- 
 culture. But the liberal use of ferti- 
 lizers constitutes an important in- 
 gredient in his system of farming. 
 Guano has paid him, while it has 
 proved worthless with many who have 
 not employed it with a proper system 
 of cultivation. Mr. Dickson's system 
 must be taken as a whole, and in cal- 
 culating his results, guano must come 
 in only for a part of the credit. Mr. 
 Dickson had planted nine years before 
 he used guano to its full extent, (200 
 to 250 pounds to the acre), and yet 
 his crops were good. 
 
 In 1846, the second year of Mr. Dick- 
 son's planting, he made his first trial 
 of guano. "I saw," he says, "an ad- 
 vertisement in the 'American Farmer,' 
 Baltimore, of the wonderful effects 
 of Peruvian guano. I procured three 
 sacks, and used it, and finding it paid, 
 used it in increased quantities, till 1855 
 or 1856, and then went in to it fully." 
 Very soon after this Mr. Dickson com- 
 menced having bones prepared with 
 acid, according to English farming, 
 furnishing what we now use as "dis- 
 solved bones." This he combined 
 with Peruvian p;uano, and ultimately 
 he added land plaster, salt and potash. 
 This combination was a result of a 
 great deal of experimenting with all 
 kinds of guanos, and, as the reader 
 knows, it is now his favorite "com- 
 pound." 
 
 The reader will notice subsequently 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 an experiment with this compound and 
 the result. With $17 worth per acre, 
 the crop was three thousand pounds 
 per acre the field over, equivalent to 
 two bales, which, at the market value 
 at that time, was worth $250. A part 
 of this tract produced 6,000 pounds 
 seed cotton per acre. 
 
 Again, there will be found an experi- 
 ment showing the great advantages of 
 using the whole compound — the bene- 
 ficial effect of the addition of land 
 plaster and salt to Peruvian guano 
 and dissolved bones. This formula 
 was produced by Mr. Dickson, and was 
 the result of a vast amount of experi- 
 menting with all kinds of guano, and 
 which is as near perfect as manure 
 can be made. 
 
 With this mixture, together with 
 his improved system of farming, Mr. 
 Dickson has produced those "fabu- 
 lous" results with which he is accred- 
 ited. Before the war, his crops aver- 
 aged him from ten to fourteen bales 
 cotton per hand, and nearly one bale 
 per acre, besides an abundance of 
 corn, fodder, bacon, etc. He raised 
 enough bacon and grain to pay for two- 
 thirds of his guano. He cultivated 
 and gathered fifty acres to the hand — 
 lGy2 in cotton, 16i/^ in corn, and lei/L- 
 in small grain, or as near that division 
 as practicable. Such was his economy 
 of labor, and his system of manage- 
 ment, that a visitor might ride through 
 his farm, without seeing a weed or a 
 bunch of grass in his crop. His hands 
 would gather — some of them three 
 bales of cotton per week, and many of 
 them two bales, during the favorable 
 part of the season. Corn and fodder 
 were always stored around him in 
 abundance. I have seen much of his 
 crop for the last three years, and have 
 not seen many acres in any of these 
 crops that I estimated at less than one 
 hale to the acre. True, the crops 
 that I saw were on the best part of 
 his farm, and received the most of his 
 attention. I saw a field of his last fall 
 planted in .Tune, that had fourteen 
 hundred pounds cotton to the acre. 
 Mr. Dickson says, that last year (1869) 
 was the dryest and hottest year he 
 ever saw; that he had but one rain 
 during the summer, and that in Au- 
 gust. And yet he made a good average 
 
 crop. I saw his crop in November, 
 and consequently know what I say. 
 He made last year — that is, all his 
 tenants, black and white — between 
 seven and eight hundred bales of cot- 
 ton. These facts verify what Mr. 
 Dickson claims for his system of farm- 
 ing — that good crops can be made 
 with the least rain that can fall any 
 summer, and that if the work is prop- 
 erly and thoroughly done, there need 
 be no such thing as a failure. The 
 many reports made by visitors and 
 correspondents, as to Mr. Dickson's 
 crops, are substantially true. He has 
 had unprecedented success during his 
 whole farming career, without a single 
 failure, and still sustains his reputa- 
 tion, by producing larger and still 
 larger crops. He has no successful 
 rival as a planter; and it may truly 
 be said of him, "he stands at the head 
 of his profession." 
 
 He once bought a plantation, with 
 the negroes, stock and every thing on 
 it, and paid for the whole with one 
 crop. He did not visit the place but 
 once a month, had the same number 
 of hands and paid all charges. In 
 1859, Mr. Dickson, with fifty-six hands, 
 made and gathered six hundred and 
 sixty-seven bales of cotton, besides 
 one hundred dollars' worth per hand 
 of bacon, corn, etc. 
 
 So successful was Mr. Dickson in 
 making money by farming, that his lit- 
 tle plantation of two hundred and six- 
 ty-six acres rapidly extended its area, 
 and now, in the language of a corre- 
 spondent, "he owns the domain of a 
 prince." When the war began, his 
 property was worth, by fair estimate 
 $500,000, clear of all encumbrance. 
 This he had made in fifteen years by 
 farming, with a capital of $25,000 to 
 start with. Not a dollar had been 
 made outside of his farm. Here is a 
 striking contrast between the profits 
 of trade and merchandise and farming. 
 It took him fourteen years at a trade 
 (o make $25,000; but during the fifteen 
 years succeeding, he accumulated 
 $500,000 by farming — not counting 
 four hundred bales of cotton, and a 
 large supply of bacon, and grain, given 
 to the Confederate Government, and 
 burnt by Sherman in 1864. He deliv- 
 ered to the Confederate Government 
 four hundred bales of cotton, for 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which he got bonds which were never 
 paid; and after the first year of the 
 war he planted no cotton, but raised 
 provisions for the army, and for most 
 of which he received no pay, not even 
 in Confederate money. General Sher- 
 man burned four hundred bales of cot- 
 ton, took all his stock, and a large 
 amount of provisions. He owned two 
 hundred and fifty (250) select negroes, 
 which were worth fifty per cent, more 
 than the average of negroes. 
 
 Since the war, Mr. Dickson has 
 been planting cautiously, "not caring 
 to save money till we had a Govern- 
 ment that would protect us in person 
 and in property." He sayp his crops 
 have been fair, but his dividends less 
 than before the war, because of bad 
 labor, stealage, killing stock, etc. He 
 is now working on the tenant system, 
 and is again making his nine hundred 
 bales of cotton, including his Texas 
 crop, and declaring good dividends. 
 He uses the "Compound" exclusively 
 for all crops, and plants the "Dickson 
 Cotton." He owns thirty thousand 
 acres of land, and a good deal of rail- 
 road and company stock, besides his 
 plantation stock, farming implements, 
 etc., amounting in the aggregate, to not 
 much less than half-million dollars. 
 Add to this amount, his losses from 
 the war, and the emancipation of his 
 slaves, which he says were "worth 
 $300,000," and the reader can approxi- 
 mate what would have been Mr. Dick- 
 son's wealth, as the profits of twenty- 
 five years' farming, on a capital of 
 twenty-five thousand dollars — losing 
 near five years of this time, for dur- 
 ing the war he planted no cotton, but 
 raised provision crops for the Govern- 
 .ment. 
 
 Estimating all these losses, who can 
 say that Mr. Dickson would not have 
 been worth to-day, one million dollars, 
 but for that unfortunate war, that 
 swept away his earnings? 
 
 Mr. Dickson has always lived well, 
 entertaining a great deal of company 
 in sumptuous style, and allowed him- 
 self every comfort and luxury that 
 heart could desire. He has devoted 
 more than half his time, since he has 
 been farming, to his visiting friends, 
 who, attracted by his fame as a 
 planter, came from all parts of the 
 United States to see his farm, and 
 
 obtain information in regard to his 
 system of agriculture. He has rid- 
 den with them thousands of miles 
 and through all kinds of weather and 
 written and read no telling how many 
 wagon loads of letters, besides his con- 
 tributions to the agricultural journals. 
 Having an innate fondness for agri- 
 culture, Mr. Dickson gave himself to 
 its study with all the zeal of a devotee, 
 and would have given it "all the ener- 
 gies of his intellect," but for the diver- 
 sion occasioned by constant interrup- 
 tion and taxes upon his time. In esti- 
 mating the sum total of his success in 
 his agricultural pursuits, a large sum 
 must be placed to his credit for this 
 loss of time. For many years past, 
 not a mail, perhaps, that does not 
 bring him from a dozen to several 
 dozen letters, to be read and answered 
 on the subject of agriculture. True, 
 he is delighted to see them come, and 
 often invites company; yet, the atten- 
 tions thus necessarily devoted, occa- 
 sion neglect of his business, and les- 
 sen his products. 
 
 Very many persons think that Mr. 
 Dickson's reports as to large crops, 
 are taken from his fancy brag patches, 
 and that his general crop does not cor- 
 respond. This is uncharitable, as well 
 as untrue. He claims credit for his 
 general results — so much corn and 
 cotton per hand. Like a general in 
 the aimy, he operates from his head- 
 quarters at home. His farm consists 
 of many little farms, which he seldom 
 visits. He furnishes the implements 
 and material, and gives direction; but 
 the executio:^ of the work is entrusted 
 entirely to the laborers, having no 
 overseers or superintendents; nor did 
 he ever, have an occasion even in sla- 
 very times, except on one place. It is 
 evident, then, that Mr. Dickson's suc- 
 cess has been attributable to the ad- 
 vantage of his system of farming, to- 
 gether with his general policy and 
 management. He has been richly re- 
 warded for his zeal and research in 
 the study of agriculture; and the rea- 
 son that so few people approach him 
 in his results is, they do not follow his 
 teachings, or his practice. Success 
 depends upon the adoption of his sys- 
 tem as a whole. Guano alone is not 
 the "potent charm"; neither is deep 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 breaking of land, or subsoiling, or sur- 
 face culture, or rotation of crops; but 
 all these agencies must be taken in 
 combination. Tlie neglect of one may 
 paralyze the whole. This system is 
 drawn fi'om the study of nature's laws, 
 and not one of its precepts may be 
 safely violated. Many who undertake 
 to follow the Dickson plan of farming, 
 do it only in part, and consequently 
 the failure. Its beauty and strength 
 consists in the union of its parts. Ad- 
 here rigidly to the principle, and carry 
 out in practice. Study it as a system 
 — as a whole. Execute it with tact 
 and judgment, and confidently expect 
 results approaching the success that 
 has rewarded the labors of Mr. Dick- 
 son. 
 
 The dividends of stocks constitute 
 the true test of their value — so the 
 crops, and clear profits, are the tests, 
 and indicate the practical value of any 
 system of farming. Is it not wonder- 
 
 ful — not to say incredible, that in the 
 poorest parts of Hancock County, Ga., 
 a man can take $25,000, and double it 
 twenty times in fifteen years? And 
 yet it is true with Mr. Dickson. He 
 has done that, and during the time 
 has used, for his own household ex- 
 penses, during the whole time, fully 
 seven per cent, on the $25,000; and 
 has not Invested a dollar in trade or 
 any speculation during the time! The 
 people of Hancock County will vouch 
 for the truth t)f this statement. I 
 state these facts that they may en- 
 courage young men to effort and en- 
 terprise, and demonstrate to them that 
 farming, as a vocation, can be made 
 lucrative; for it is certainly true, 
 what has been accomplished by one 
 may be accomplished again by others! 
 Mr. Dickson's success as a farmer 
 seems really beyond comprehension. 
 Editor of Cultivator. 
 
 Peruvian Guano on the Left and Ordinary Guano on tiie Right. 
 
Agriculture as an Applied Science 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID DICKSON 
 
 Agricultural science comprises a 
 knowledge of soils, their general prop- 
 erties, class and chemical composi- 
 tion; also the natural history of 
 plants, their habits, wants, physiology 
 of assimilation, growth, reproduction, 
 etc. It also involves the study of the 
 atmospheric air and water, the two 
 great vitalizing elements of both ani- 
 mal and vegetable life. These with 
 the natural laws governing these ele- 
 ments, and their mutual relations and 
 influences in the growth of crops, con- 
 stitute the basis of agricultural sci- 
 ence and practical familiarity with 
 all these subjects, as applied to farm- 
 ing, are necessarily essential to intel- 
 ligent agriculture. 
 
 How can the cultivator be expected 
 to know the importance of breaking, 
 subsoiling and cultivating lands for 
 the production of crops when he 
 knows nothing as to the chemical com- 
 position of the air, and the vitalizing 
 effects it has upon ^.rowing crops? 
 How could he conceive of the impor- 
 tance of husbanding the spring rains, 
 and storing away a bountiful supply 
 for the summer crops without the 
 knowledge of the chemical and ma- 
 terial value of rain-water in bringing 
 to the soil ammonia, carbonic acid, 
 and other fertilizing gasses from the 
 atmosphere, and its active agency in 
 dissolving the organic and mineral 
 substances of the soil, and thus mak- 
 ing them assimilable as plant food? 
 Rains are not alone important for 
 moistening and softening and mellow- 
 ing the soil so as to allow the crop 
 
 roots to readily traverse and pene- 
 trate, but equally important in a chem- 
 ical and philosophical sense. Hence, 
 agricultural science teaches the prac- 
 tical importance of deep, mellow soil, 
 calculated to hold and retain suffi- 
 ciency of moisture for the crops during 
 their season of growth and maturity. 
 Upon the same basis must be placed 
 the application of manures to soils 
 and fertilizers to crops. How can the 
 farmer intelligently compost his ma- 
 nures, or select fertilizers for his 
 crops, when he knows nothing as to 
 the chemical composition of soil, or 
 the or-ganic constittients of crops to be 
 grown tipon it, and hence knows not 
 the chemical wants of his crop? If the 
 cultivator knows nothing as to the 
 design of nature in putting forth roots 
 and fibrils to every plant, how can he 
 be expected to intelligently decide as 
 to comparative benefit or injury re- 
 sulting from deep or shallow culture? 
 How can he, calculate the extent of 
 damage he is doing his growing crops 
 by rudely invading the soil that has 
 been allotted to them, and cutting off 
 the roots — through which, alone, the 
 crops reach and utilize the soil for 
 support and growth? He knows not 
 that he is violating the laws of nature 
 by interrupting a process which na- 
 ture has instinctively designed for the 
 benefit of this growing plant? 
 
 Science teaches what are the real 
 objects of cultivation. Destroying the 
 grass an'd weeds, and thus saving the 
 entire strength of the soil for the 
 planted crop, and so breaking the sur- 
 
AGRICULTTTRE AS AN APPLIED SCIENCE. 
 
 11 
 
 face, soil as to admit the atmospheric 
 air in the soil beneath, as a nutrient 
 and vitalizer. Deep culture, also ef- 
 fects both of these objects, but no more 
 efficiently than the sweep culture, and 
 with the decided disadvantage of tear- 
 ing off the plant-roots, and thus depriv- 
 ing the crops of their main agents and 
 source of support, which stuns and 
 cripples the plants and absolutely foils 
 the designs of nature, and seriously in- 
 jures instead of benefiting the crop. 
 Nature does no superfluous work. She 
 puts forth to her plants no supernu- 
 merary root or rootlet, not absolutely 
 needed by the plant for its growth and 
 development. Hence, by deep cul- 
 ture and root-cutting we violate the 
 laws of nature. Science clearly 
 teaches its agriculturist the impoi-- 
 tance of strictly conforming to and 
 fostering the designs of nature, and it 
 plainly teaches the policy of conserv- 
 ing and utilizing not only the shower 
 and the sunshine, but every available 
 element and agency. 
 
 By the teachings of agricultural 
 science, the planter can intelligently 
 compost his manure heaps, and select 
 his fertilizers for his several crops, ac- 
 cording to the soil he cultivates; and 
 such discriminate selection is not only 
 important to the growth of the weed, 
 but to the final development aad fruit- 
 age of the crop. It points out rational 
 methods of culture, and general treat- 
 ment of each individual crop, by fur- 
 nishing from its natural history the 
 special and peculiar nature and devel- 
 opment of each individual class of 
 crops. For instance, cotton is shown 
 to be a sun plant, and especially 
 adapted to a certain latitude, where it 
 grows and matures more perfectly and 
 is comparatively exempt from pests 
 and . casualties. This favorite belt 
 is known to be in latitude 30 to 
 34 degrees. The evidence of its being 
 a sun plant is seen in the fact that, as 
 soon as the sun rises, the cotton plant 
 holds out the broadest surfaces of its 
 leaves to the sun, and continues grow- 
 ing till killed by the frost. Its habit 
 is to elaborate the food, return it to 
 the squares and bolls, and thus mature 
 the fruit rapidly so as to escape 
 the worm and frost. Science also 
 teaches from this same peculiar habit 
 
 of cotton, that, to mature the greatest 
 quantity of it before the frost comes, 
 or other casualties attack it, it must 
 be planted thickly in the drill, in order 
 that the fruitage may be hastened. 
 
 From the same teachings, corn is 
 known to be an annual, delighting in a 
 latitude higher than cotton; and that 
 the higher the latitude in which it will 
 ■certainly mature, the larger the yield 
 per acre — everything else being equal. 
 Unlike cotton, it begins elaborating 
 substances for the grain at once, and 
 returns it to the storehouse in the 
 center of the stalk to be brought out 
 at the proper time of shooting and 
 maturing the ear. 
 
 Tliis point of natural history teaches 
 us to give the stalks good distance in- 
 stead of planting it thick as we do 
 cotton. If there should not be enough 
 soluble matter for two stalks the re- 
 sult would be no ear, or a very small 
 nubbin. If there be only one stalk 
 left, and there be enough soluble 
 matter in the place allotted to that 
 stalk to make two ears, the one stalk 
 will absorb and appropriate it all 
 and even more, and the one stalk 
 will make from two to four ears 
 of corn. Another important scien- 
 tific fact connected with corn culture 
 is that, whe.n given good distance 
 — so many square yards to each stalk 
 — it will make a larger crop in a dry 
 year; and, if seasonable, a single stalk 
 will always be double-eared, provided 
 the soil be fertile and in good heart. 
 The higher the latitude, the thicker the 
 corn may be planted, but even then it 
 can be over seeded: such facts indi- 
 cate, and experience has determined 
 what should be the distance given this 
 crop; never to exceed a stated number 
 of ears to the bushel the land ought to 
 make. 
 
 As thus seen, agricultural science is 
 based entirely upon natural laws. From 
 nine-tenths to nineteen-twentioths 
 of all the substances that sustain ani- 
 mal and vegetable life, and build up 
 bodies, come from the atmosphere; and 
 hence the lesson taught us by science, 
 to so treat, prepare and cultivate lands 
 as to utilize this element to the great- 
 est possible extent for the benefit of 
 growing crops. The more or less effi- 
 cient execution of these lessons of 
 •science, as ai)plied to the treatment 
 
12 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 and keeping up of lands, the recupera- 
 tion of exhausted and the enrichment 
 of poor and unproductive lands, will 
 constitute the triumph of science, al- 
 lied with administrative genius, in at- 
 taining results worthy the name of suc- 
 cessful farming. 
 
 The great object of study and prac- 
 tice is to know how to utilize the at- 
 mosphere, and to work up the manures 
 into the soil. We have but few text- 
 books on this subject. We have to be- 
 gin almost at the beginning. When 
 these subjects are reduced to practice, 
 and written out in the form of text- 
 books, the study of agriculture as a 
 science will be comparatively an easy 
 one; but under no circumstances will 
 the work ever be performed with 
 success unless with preparation by the 
 planter, and study of all the laws, prac- 
 tices and arts, times and mode of cul- 
 tivation. One object should be to uti- 
 lize water, and to make the greatest 
 yield from the least water; and there 
 never has been a year when there was 
 not water enough to make fair crops, 
 provided the cultivation was done with 
 care and science. I believe the culti- 
 vation of corn can be carried to such a 
 point, that you can make a full crop 
 with two good seasons. 
 
 TEACHING LABOR TO BE MORE 
 EFFECTIVE. 
 
 No system can prosper without 
 teaching all the operatives and labor- 
 ers to be experts, whether agricultu- 
 ral or manufacturing, or anything that 
 is done requiring labor. The first 
 thing to do, in regard to any of the op- 
 erations of labor, is to teach the labor- 
 ers how to do it; the next thing, to do 
 it with more ease and efficiency, and 
 to learn to do better work every day. 
 For instance, take a boll of cotton. 
 They must be taught, with the great- 
 est speed, how to throw the hand into 
 the boll, and pull out all of the cotton 
 with one lick, not waiting to see 
 whether any is left in the boll or not, 
 always having in mind to strike but 
 one lick at the boll, and as soon as 
 that is done, to strike at another boll. 
 I have, in five minutes, taught a hand 
 to pick one hundred pounds more of 
 cotton per day than he had picked on 
 
 the previous day, and from that point 
 he will continue to improve. The 
 greatest efficiency I have obtained in 
 hands picking cotton was eight hun- 
 dred pounds — equal to more than three 
 good bales a week. 
 
 The same improvement can be made 
 in other species of labor on the farm* 
 One hand will plough so as to fatten 
 his horse, doing a full, good day's, 
 work; while another hand will do in- 
 ferior work, hardly so much as the 
 other hand, and reduce his horse to 
 poverty. A hand using a sweep or 
 plough, can arrive at such efficiency, 
 that he can do the ploughing and hoe- 
 ing and go his sixteen and two-third 
 miles per day, which is a day's work. 
 This is my practice, not having to put 
 a hoe in the corn field, and having had 
 the cleanest crops in the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 The same efficiency may be acquired 
 with the axe. Quick motion; throw 
 the axe with the proper spring and 
 line, so as to go precisely to the line, 
 with a sleight that will knock out the 
 chip. 
 
 The same thing with the maul and 
 wedge. One man will make rails with 
 less than half the labor another does. 
 If a laborer will watch these experts, 
 and do as they do, he will effect the 
 same results. 
 
 With the hoe, some hands will chop 
 and motion a dozen times at a bunch 
 of grass; an expert will keep his hoe 
 sharp, and pull it through the row, 
 leaving everything clean behind, and 
 can strike to the sixteenth of an inch 
 any time of the place he wishes. 
 
 The same thing is true of the hewer 
 using a broad-axe. One will strike a 
 dozen licks to get to the line, the last 
 one will probably go through the line 
 into the timber. The expert, with, his 
 improved eye and motions, strikes to a 
 hair's breadth the first lick of where the 
 line should be, and carries it equally 
 through to the bottom of the timber, 
 doing from two to three times the 
 work per day as the botch. 
 
 Still more true is it when you set ex- 
 perts to manufacturing, making shoes, 
 or tending machinery of any kind. One 
 operative in a factory will draw three 
 or four threads while another will 
 
TEACHING LABOR. 
 
 13 
 
 draw only one, or will attend to four 
 loonas while another will attend to but 
 two. 
 
 There is a great difference also with 
 wagoners, one requiring double the 
 time to gear his team that another 
 does, fumbling around his team, hunt- 
 ing up things to do, and so losing two 
 or three loads on the plantation in a 
 day with a six-horse team, and losing 
 enough to pay for three experts per 
 day. 
 
 The same improvements may be 
 made in art and execution in using 
 plantation machinery and gearing that 
 can be made in any other profession 
 and art. 
 
 During last year, I learned some val- 
 uable new lessons. One was the 
 training of hands to do double the 
 amount of work, with more ease, and 
 less of sweat and muscle. My former 
 hands, being better trained than oth- 
 ers, had better offers than I could give, 
 and nine-tenths of them left me. I 
 then employed hands from as many as 
 forty plantations, and got none that_ 
 knew how to work to any advantage. 
 I had hands before the war that could 
 pick eight hundred poimds of cotton in 
 a day, all by daylight; and all hands 
 that went to the fields averaged three 
 hundred pounds per day, without any 
 white man in the field. 
 
 In my system of deep preparation, 
 thorough manuring, and surface cul- 
 ture, the results depend altogether on 
 the time and judgment when to work, 
 where to work, and the style of the 
 work. To be successful, and to pay 
 dividends, you must do the greatest 
 quantity of the work with the least la- 
 bor. That art is acquired by studying 
 practice. To attain it, you must ap- 
 proach the perfectness of a juggler, or 
 sleight-of-hand man. With a peculiar 
 sleight, one man will throw an axe into 
 a piece of timber, with half the force 
 of another, and with the same or bet- 
 ter result. It is absolutely necessary 
 to come to time. All the operations 
 should move at once; this is just as es- 
 sential as it is for a team of mules in a 
 wagon. To perform all these things 
 successfully, you must have absolute 
 control over the laborer. Every far- 
 mer should teach this art to his labor- 
 ers. If the farm hands on one planta- 
 
 tion only leani this, they will always 
 be offered inducements by other plan- 
 ters to leave. The hands on the place 
 should be taught to do every kind of 
 work with facility and ease. Nothing 
 pays so well in hoeing as to get every 
 bunch of grass. Taking up a bunch 
 of grass injures a crop of cotton equal 
 to bad ploughing, if not perfectly 
 done. 
 
 The science of agriculture is soon 
 learned, and is of incalculable impor- 
 tance; but nothing to compare with 
 the execution of details. Many of the 
 Confederate generals of the late war 
 had the same military education and 
 book training as General Lee; but none 
 of them came near executing as he did. 
 Two planters may have the same 
 knowledge of planting, while in execu- 
 ting, one will get rich, and the other 
 break, and thinking they were operat- 
 ing upon the same system of farming. 
 
 To enumerate, in brief, a few of the 
 mottoes of success in farming, I would 
 say: Always come to time, and keep a 
 little ahead, and the work will be easy. 
 Do the winter work in the winter, and 
 the spring work in the spring, and do 
 it well. Cultivate a little ahead of 
 time. Gather as soon as crops are 
 ready. The most important part is 
 the judgment when to plant, and how 
 and where to work, and with what 
 tools, and what part of the crop to 
 work. 
 
 In hoeing, always have sharp hoes, 
 and use only the force necessary to 
 the particular object, raising the hoe 
 only six to eight inches, and more 
 licks can be made. Only get under 
 the crown of the grass. Always be 
 governed by natural laws and natural 
 causes. The style and expertness of 
 the work are no small things; and 
 judgment in coming to time, and work- 
 ing at the right place and in the right 
 style of work, etc. 
 
 Those who may presume to call my 
 plan of farming a failure, either do not 
 know it, or cannot execute it. The di- 
 vidends of stocks are the true tests of 
 their value. Crops and dividends are 
 the true tests of any system of farm- 
 ing. I would fain shrink from say- 
 ing anything about my planting, but 
 my practical success has been so 
 
14 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 beyond comprehension, and so known 
 hj my Hancock friends, as induces 
 me to report for the encouragement 
 of all enterprising young farmers. Is 
 it not hard to believe that in the 
 poorest part of Hancock County, 
 Georgia, a man can take $25,000 and 
 double it twenty times in fifteen years? 
 But it is true, and in the meantime, I 
 have consumed at least seven per cent, 
 of the capital for my family expenses. 
 
 One of the most important things to 
 learn is how to control labor and how 
 to have your laborers in place, and all 
 move together at once, doing the work 
 the easiest way, but for the best effect. 
 
 I am writing of old times. I teach 
 all my hands fo be experts — to do the 
 work better and faster than others. I 
 never knew how little work other 
 farmers got out of hands before the 
 war. My old hands could do fifty per 
 cent, more work and with more ease, 
 than any I have ever employed since. 
 Each one could do any kind of work 
 done on the farm; the newcomers 
 could do one or two kinds of work, 
 and that not well. But some 
 people can not believe that any- 
 thing can be done which they can 
 not do themselves. Dr. Lee once 
 remarked of my farming, when on a 
 visit, that "Mr. Dickson had demon- 
 strated to men of small means, that 
 not only a living could be made on 
 poor land but a large fortune, and that 
 as the great majority of land was poor, 
 there was no calculating what might 
 be done by careful study of the science 
 of agriculture and the art of farming." 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF INFORMING 
 
 YOUR MINDS. 
 
 Some men are born generals, some 
 mechanics, some orators, some farm- 
 ers; some adapted to one profession, 
 and some to another; but the great 
 mass of men have to read, study and 
 practice, to become efficient in any 
 calling they may select; and if they ap- 
 ply themselves faithfully, and do not 
 rise above mediocrity, they should quit 
 that business and try some other. 
 "WTiatever has been accomplished by 
 man can be done again, and ought to 
 be done better, with all the accumu- 
 lated knowledge of the past before us. 
 
 "What is book-farming? It does not 
 mean to take a book in your hand and 
 go to the field; but it means you should 
 read and study everything that you 
 can possibly bring to bear on farming, 
 and store it away in your head. But 
 be sure to master the subject, anc] 
 learn the true plan. This is the 
 science of agriculture. Study bad 
 practice as well as good, and learn of 
 the latter the errors, that you may a- 
 void them. Read books until you be- 
 come so perfect in theory and the use 
 of tools and manure that you will have 
 confidence and the nerve to act, and 
 act at once — not lose time running a- 
 bout to your neighbors, to see when to 
 do a thing and how to do it. Do not 
 let frost, or wet or dry weather cause 
 you to doubt or dally. Fortify your- 
 self with books before you begin — such 
 books as will teach you everything 
 necessary to your success; and do not 
 forget that you can learn something 
 from almost- every profession. 
 
 Book farming means for the farmer, 
 just what book-learning does for the 
 physician. The medical student must 
 read all the books and attend all the 
 lectures, and the dissecting room, un- 
 til he can pass, then take his medicine 
 and instruments, go out to practice 
 and test his knowledge. So with 
 book farming. You must read and 
 study, not only agricultural books, but 
 all books that would apply in any way 
 to that profession. 
 
 You need the knowledge of a general 
 to enable you to discipline your labor- 
 ers to come to time — ^to move all at 
 once — to know when to charge, when 
 to retreat. You need the knowledge 
 of a banker, when your money is made, 
 to know how to invest it (and this is a 
 very important point). You want the 
 knowledge of a bookkeeper, that you 
 may keep your accounts correctly. In 
 this, many farmers fail — they fool 
 themselves, not knowing how to keep 
 their debtor and creditor accounts — 
 get in debt and become bankrupts be- 
 fore they are aware of it. You must 
 have some knowledge of mechanics 
 and machinery, or you will never know 
 how to keep implements and machines 
 in order or use them; and if the farmer 
 is ignorant, how can he instruct the la- 
 borer? You should even have a suf- 
 
INFORMING YOUR MINDS. 
 
 15 
 
 licieut knowledge of law to know how 
 to keep out of the courts. You should 
 have some knowledge of commerce 
 and trade, for you have to buy and sell. 
 Y''ou should learn from the merchant 
 order and punctuality. This is no 
 small item in a lifetime business. 
 
 How is all this to be acquired? By 
 reading- and hard study, and making 
 an application of the knowledge ac- 
 quired. Knowledge is power, in agri- 
 culture as well as other things; and 
 how are you to get knowledge? Only 
 by reading, study, and application. 
 With knowledge, you can use the hand 
 as well as the tongue more effectively. 
 
 You must learn the use of tools. A 
 man that has a perfect use of tools, 
 can do double the work one can who 
 knows nothing about their use. Rail- 
 roads and steamboats have brought 
 men together, and have furnished a 
 partial remedy for want of books. 
 
 I would ask you, can you tell what 
 the farmer is now gaining by the use 
 of manures and by the knowledge re- 
 ceived through agricultural papers? Or 
 can you tell what is lost to Georgia by 
 not taking the agricultural papers, and 
 keeping up with the improvements of 
 the day? By reading agricultural pa- 
 pers, each farmer may learn and prac- 
 tice all the improvements of every 
 farmer in the State. Who would not 
 subscribe and pay for an agricultural 
 paper, for such a reward as that? 
 
 No man has a right to put his light 
 under a bushel. Farmers, come out, 
 and let your lights shine! If you can 
 
 not afford to give it away by contribu- 
 ting to The Soutiiekx Cultivator, put 
 it in book form and sell it. If you 
 have improved tools, take out patents 
 for them, and sell the rights, or give 
 them to the public. 
 
 Y'oung men, read, practice, and qual- 
 ify yourselves for one of the noblest of 
 callings. Do not commence where 
 your fathers did, but where they are 
 now, and where the best farmers in 
 the State are, and being young, active 
 and vigorous, make every effort to sur- 
 pass the best. Be assured "there is 
 much to learn yet. 
 
 The three great essentials are: first 
 the theory (true plan) of farming; sec- 
 ond, the art of controlling labor, and 
 executing all work to the best advan- 
 tage with least labor; third (last and 
 best), success depends on quick per- 
 ception, wise judgment, that seldom or 
 never errs. How is this to be acquired 
 except by the use of books, in conjunc- 
 tion with practice? 
 
 In conclusion, I may say, to succeed, 
 you not only must be superior to your 
 laborers, but you must be so far ahead 
 of them that they shall know that your 
 plans are wise, easy to put in practice, 
 and certain of success. Then they 
 will follow in a charge, as good sol- 
 diers will the best of generals. The 
 laborer must have confidence in the 
 man that directs. How are all these 
 qualifications secured? I repeat, 
 through books, hard study, observation 
 and practice." 
 
 DAVID DICKSON. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Farm. 
 
 The farmer should select a farm of 
 fertile soil, or soils capable of illimita- 
 ble fertilization. It will not pay to 
 cultivate poor or exhausted lands. If 
 not productive, they must be made so 
 by proper treatment. 
 
 It has been clearly demonstrated 
 that certain soils are especially 
 adapted to certain crops. Corn will 
 grow better and make better yields on 
 certain classes of soil than on other 
 and different soils. The same is true 
 of cotton. One farm will successfully 
 produce grain crops, while another 
 grows cotton more profitably. 
 
 The farm land and quality of soil 
 should be selected in view of the crops 
 proposed to be raised. For the 
 growth of corn I would select a soil 
 of black prairie, blue limestone, brown 
 or mulatto soil with a moderate 
 gravel; also, what is called strong 
 land of the river bottom. 
 
 I would prefer brown or mulatto 
 land — with moderate gravel, for cot- 
 ton. The subsoil should not be reten- 
 tive of water, but should let the water 
 percolate through, but not open enough 
 to leach the land. From my observa- 
 tion I find this kind of land more pro- 
 ductive. I find such soil makes the 
 stalks more bushy and prolific, and 
 bear better through the season. The 
 fruit comes thicker on the limbs, and 
 there is less falling of squares. The 
 most sandy lands may be profitably 
 cultivated by sticking the particles of 
 sand together with vesretahle mold; 
 and it would be a si-eat addition to 
 
 add muck or river mud, or any other 
 substance that would measurably ad- 
 here the sand, and make it dark 
 enough to prevent reflection, and close 
 enough to hold the water. Cotton 
 can be cultivated on sand in this way. 
 Sandy land, I consider the lowest 
 grade, and the sandier the land the 
 lower the grade. 
 
 For wheat, I would take the very 
 same soil as for cotton. Wheat will 
 succeed better on the heavier lands 
 than cotton. 
 
 For oats, the same may be said. I 
 do not think there is any particular 
 difference between oat soils and wheat 
 soils, but oats will errnw hptfer on low, 
 flat lands than wheat. 
 
 Wheat requires land that is better 
 drained, either by natural or artifi- 
 cial means. 
 
 Rye will grow anywhere corn will, 
 and do better on light or sandy soil 
 than wheat or oats. 
 
 The farm should, by actual or imag- 
 inary lines, be laid off into divisions 
 so as to be cultivated on the five-field 
 system. 
 
 I would have a permanent pasture. 
 One field should rest, one field should 
 have cotton, one corn, and one small 
 grain. I would put in cotton after 
 rest, corn after cotton, small grain af- 
 ter corn, and rest after small grain. 
 If you have only five fields and wish 
 to keep up the vegetable mold to a de- 
 sirable standard, sow peas after the 
 crop is off, always using commercial 
 
THE FARM. 
 
 17 
 
 fertflizers as the most desirable in all 
 kinds of farming. In using commer- 
 cial fertilizers you should not over- 
 look the point of saving home ma- 
 nures. The more manures bought, 
 the more home manures should be 
 saved and applied to the farm. 
 
 One of the objects in the system of 
 rotation of crops recommended, is 
 seen from the fact that all plants do 
 not receive the same kind of material 
 from the soil; one kind draws more 
 phosphate and another more ammonia, 
 and some draw very liftle of either. 
 If you were to plant one kind of crop 
 alone j'ou would soon exhaust the land 
 of that particular kind of nutritive 
 element required. I would let the 
 land rest in order for it to accumulate 
 vegetable mold, and to make it pro- 
 duce more, annually, than it would 
 without rest, and thus save labor. The 
 vegetable mold would keep the land 
 open and porous and soft so that the 
 roots could penetrate through it. 
 
 I would plant cotton after rest, be- 
 cause the land is then in a better con- 
 dition for the cotton, there being no 
 corn stalks in the way, and less crab- 
 grass, to obstruct its growth. Expe- 
 rience has also shown that the land, 
 when cultivated in cotton after rest, 
 will produce a healthier weed, and 
 will retain water better to keep guano 
 soluble. The vegetable mold darkens 
 
 the soil so that it will receive the heat 
 better and keep it up better during the 
 twenty-four hours. It does not throw 
 the rellection of the sun back on the 
 plants to burn and scorch them. The 
 vegetable mold in the land from the 
 rest is becoming soluble the year 
 round, and during the growth of the 
 crop, and when partially decayed it 
 acts like a sponge in holding the water 
 and letting it out gradually to the 
 roots of the plants. If there 
 should be a surplus of water, it 
 leaves the land porous enough for the 
 water to pass through into the sub- 
 soil and prevent its damaging the 
 crops. 
 
 It is proved by experience that corn 
 grows better after cotton than after 
 any other plant, and that it is more 
 easily cultivated. It makes heavier 
 and sounder corn. Corn, when culti- 
 vated on m.v system, leaves the land 
 in a beautiful condition, and there is 
 less labor necessary to prepare the 
 land for small grain. The corn crop 
 could be gathered in time for the 
 small grain, while the cotton crop 
 could not, and these are the only two 
 summer crops. The reason that I pre- 
 fer rest to succeed small grain is be- 
 cause the land is then smooth, no open 
 furrows to wash, and is covered with 
 stubble and small grass to protect it. 
 
 Waist-High Grain. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 General Treatment of Lands. 
 
 Herein lies the main secret — the 
 source of success or failure in all agri- 
 cultural pursuits. As a single item or 
 specification in my system of farming, 
 I attach more real importance and 
 practical value to the treatment of 
 lands than to any other one subject 
 connected with the study and practice 
 of agriculture; and to my special at- 
 tention to and method of treating my 
 lands, do I, in a very important sense, 
 attribute my aggregate successful re- 
 sults as a farmer. It is a part — an 
 essential component of my theory and 
 plan of farming; and to dispense with 
 its due consideration and practice, 
 would simply amount to disparage- 
 ment of success in the whole enter- 
 prise. 
 
 We have sketched the Farm, the 
 adaptation of crops to soils; the quali- 
 fication of the farmer for planning 
 and executing the work, and the im- 
 portance of framing his operations 
 upon rational and scientific bases; 
 and we come now to the ground-work 
 — the gi-and basis of permanent and 
 aggregate success in all farming. 
 
 There is no point or step co-equal 
 in Importance, in view of successful 
 farming, with that of proper and con- 
 servative treatment of lands. , It con- 
 stitutes the mainspring, — the essential 
 policy in all farming. It is the first 
 lesson for the planter to learn, and 
 an imperative duty that he may not, 
 with impunity, neglect — to keep his 
 lands tillable — in good healthy state 
 for cultivation. 
 
 In common routine farming, the 
 treatment of lands, to the end of im- 
 proving or even keeping them up to 
 a healthy standard — is most wofully 
 neglected, or misdirected through 
 want of scientific guidance. To cul- 
 tivate poor land is folly. It can not 
 pay. If not rich, it must be made 
 fertile; and if it be rich, it must, by 
 proper treatment, be kept in good 
 heart, and constantly improved in fer- 
 tility. It must not, by neglect or mis- 
 management or by botchery, be per- 
 mitted to run down and exhaust it- 
 self, as is too true of a very large 
 acreage of the lands of Georgia and 
 the South, which are now refusing to 
 produce paying ci'ops — and purely for 
 the want of conservative and scientific 
 treatment. 
 
 There are just as many ways to 
 preserve and improve land as to waste 
 it; and by close economy and indus- 
 try, you can gather the fertilizing ele- 
 ments much fast;pr than they are 
 wasted by the crops. Nature helps 
 to waste, and helps to return. The 
 rains leach and wash away fertility, 
 while plants and evaporation from the 
 sea, return it to some extent, to the 
 land. Hence, let everything made on 
 the farm, after it is used or eaten, 
 except the lint of cotton — which takes 
 away nothing from the soil, be re- 
 turned to the land. In addition, 
 gather muck, scrapings of swamps, 
 leaves and pine-straw, and carry to the 
 nearest field, and scatter broadcast. 
 Don't be afraid of mud and pine-straw 
 
GENERAL TREATMENT OF LANDS. 
 
 19 
 
 hurting your land — heat and moisture 
 will make it right. All vegetable mat- 
 ter placed on your fields, will, in due 
 time, turn to corn and cotton. Handle 
 manure as little as possible but han- 
 dle a great deal of it. The field is 
 the place to make it, the plough to 
 stir it, and the sun and water to turn 
 it into corn and cotton. But before 
 putting it on your fields in this way, 
 use enough muck and straw in your 
 stock-yards to absorb the ammonia of 
 the stock drippings, and take up the 
 urine, and have as much of this saved 
 — under shelter — as possible. Once a 
 week sprinkle it with plaster. Do not 
 handle it or pile it. The first time 
 you stick your fork in it, pitch it in 
 the wagon and carry it to the field. 
 Make every lick count. Manure loses 
 every time it is turned or moved. Let 
 all your spare time be spent in gath- 
 ering new lots of manure. Carry to 
 the nearest field at once, but not to 
 the lot to get twice as heavy by the 
 addition of water. 
 
 I prefer this diffuse and economical 
 method of applying this valuable class 
 of manures, to that of raking and 
 shoveling and loading and carrying to 
 the compost heap — and then penning 
 and sheltering, and then again tearing 
 down, loading and hauling to the field. 
 Let it lie under the shelter till break- 
 ing or planting time and haul immedi- 
 ately to the field; this saves labor 
 that might be more profitably em- 
 ployed in gathering up other manures. 
 Instead of ^penning stock to make ma- 
 nures, let them range the fields. Leave 
 a shade-tree for every twenty-five 
 acres of cleared land. The stock will 
 feed until full, then go to the shade 
 to rest. They drop but little manure 
 till they get in motion — twenty to one 
 hundred yards from the tree. Place 
 salt over the field in right places. 
 Pen your straw and shucks in occa- 
 sional places over the field, that the 
 stock may gather and litter around 
 them. The cheapest and best plan 
 to save manure from stock while graz- 
 ing or eating off crops from fields, 
 is to have the manure dropped by the 
 stock where it is eaten. The urine 
 soaks into the soil at once, and the 
 excrement, like a post, commences 
 rotting at the surface next the ground, 
 and being covered by the sounder 
 
 part, the earth absorbs the ammonia 
 as fast as formed. Stock while graz- 
 ing, drop manure regularly over the 
 field, and the object of giving them 
 shade-trees is to keep them out of 
 the swamp. I contend that this plan 
 gives cheaper manure, more beef and 
 less labor than any other. Use ma- 
 nures everywhere you plow and plant, 
 except in a hole of water, or on a 
 rock. If you cultivate land, it will pay 
 to use manure, and it will pay best on 
 lands that' pay best without it; the 
 safest without manure is the safest 
 with manure; and your labor will be 
 more certainly rewarded by using ma- 
 nure on all the land you plant. You 
 can and must accumulate manures in 
 the same ratio as you buy it — the more 
 you purchase the more you can make 
 at home. 
 
 To get the full benefit of manures, 
 lands must be rested to grow weeds, 
 and accumulate vegetable mold. Also, 
 use it on the pea crop for the same 
 purpose. 
 
 Peruvian guano and other strong ni- 
 trogenous manures will exhaust land 
 under any bad or erroneous system of 
 farming. The mixture I recommend, 
 under a good system, will make land 
 rich. 
 
 The use of guano or other commer- 
 cial fertilizers is objected to by some 
 — thinking it lessens the interest in 
 home-made manures. It should be 
 made the means of doubling the 
 wheat and oat straw, producing twice 
 the quantity of weeds where land is 
 at rest, doubling the quantity of peas 
 and vines — and the more of all such 
 manures produced and saved, the bet- 
 ter guano will pay. I am in favor of 
 making the land produce double what 
 it now produces, instead of doubling 
 the number of laborers by the impor- 
 tation of Chinese. — Double the pro- 
 ductiveness of land, and it will be 
 worth four times the present value. 
 We want more manure, and the cities 
 of the South can furnish it in pou- 
 drette, and add greatly to the health 
 of the places. 
 
 Resting Lands — By this we mean, 
 allowing it to lie without cultivation 
 for one or more crop seasons, and al- 
 lowing it to grow up in grass and 
 weeds. This spontaneous crop — cov- 
 ering the land well over during spring 
 
20 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 and summer, and rotting and decom- 
 posing during the winter and spring, 
 produces quite an amount of soluble 
 vegetable matter for replenishing the 
 exhausted quantum of vegetable mold 
 and humus, without which in the soil 
 no laud can claim productiveness, or 
 any course of manuring prove of much 
 benefit. This dry vegetable matter 
 turned into the soil likewise furnishes 
 traces of ammonia and other fertile 
 elements whic^ tend to enliven and 
 recuperate the soil. Such supply of 
 vegetable matter is important for 
 keeping the soil mellow and porous, 
 so that it will readily take ii? the 
 rainfall, with its fertile grasses, and 
 allow the crop-roots to penetrate and 
 pervade it. It prevents lands from 
 baking after heavy rains, and quickly 
 becoming hard and crusty and im- 
 permeable to the atmosphere. 
 
 The treatment of the various classes 
 of soils does not vary so much as 
 might be supposed. Extremes are 
 likely to meet, and rest exerts differ- 
 ent valuable effects upon different 
 lands aside from its general uniform 
 results. Let a sandy soil rest to accu- 
 mulate vegetable mold, to turn the 
 soil dark and enable it to receive the 
 heat, and prevent reflection and burn- 
 ing what is above ground; to hold a 
 uniform heat, and so fasten the parti- 
 cles of sand together as to enable the 
 soil more readily to receive and hold 
 moisture — all of which effects are im- 
 portant besides the real and perma- 
 nent increase of fertility. On the 
 other hand, rest a clay soil not only 
 to accumulate vegetable mold and de- 
 posit fertile elements, but to darken 
 the soil — as in case of sandy lands — 
 open the particles of clay, and thus 
 pulverize the soil so as to receive 
 the rains, let in the air, light and 
 gases, and enable it to imiformly re- 
 tain heat and moisture. 
 
 All lands should be rested at least 
 one year in four; and the best time 
 for rest is after small-grain crops. To 
 
 make it more positively beneficial, 
 treat it as follows: After taking off 
 the grain crop, pasture the balance of 
 the year. Rest from January to June 
 or July the year after; then plant 
 peas with manure; then feed off with 
 stock. It will pay all interest and 
 cost, and leave the land better for the 
 next crop. The year after, plant in 
 cotton, then in corn, and then in 
 small grain, and again rest. 
 
 Rotation of Crops. — The crops upon 
 all lands should be changed occasion- 
 ally; and it is practically important 
 to change them every year under some 
 regular system of rotation — such as 
 my Five Field System, hereafter to 
 be mentioned in these pages. Rota- 
 tion of crops not only materially as- 
 sists in furnishing the requisite sup- 
 ply of vegetable mold and humus — 
 the standard of which must be kept 
 up — but is likewise important in a 
 chemical sense. 
 
 One object in the system of rotation 
 of crops recommended is seen from 
 the fact that all plants do not receive 
 the same kind of material from the 
 soil. One crop draws more phosphate, 
 and another more ammonia, and some 
 very little of either. If you were to 
 plant one kind of corn alone for a 
 number of years, it would soon ex- 
 haust the land of that particular nu- 
 tritive element required. For instance, 
 the clean culture of cotton lessens the 
 supply and exhausts the nitrogen in 
 the same proportion; but a crop of 
 wheat or oats or corn, with the addi- 
 tional crop of grass and weeds, will 
 replace all these exhausted elements 
 — organic matter and ammonia, and 
 besides, will furnish the soil phos- 
 phoric acid. Hence the benefit ac- 
 cruing from change of crops — not only 
 to the present crop — but pefmanent 
 improvement of the land. Rotation is 
 a means of material importance in 
 keeping up the land to a healthy and 
 fertile standard, and can not, with 
 impunity, be neglected by any practi- 
 cal agriculturist. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Fertilization of Soils and Crops. 
 
 . I repeat, with emphasis, the practi- 
 cal importance of the two means sug 
 gested in last chapter for keeping up 
 and positively enriching lands. I refer 
 to rest and rotation. All these pi'oced- 
 ures directly furnish the soil with 
 vegetable matter, and certain fertiliz- 
 ing elements — thus imitating the pro- 
 cess of nature in the formation of ori- 
 ginal or virgin soil. 
 
 As an essential prelude to all direct 
 and positive steps toward fertilizing 
 the farm, we must mention proper 
 drainage — ditching of the hillsides and 
 draining the bottoms with deep and 
 deeper plowing every year — in addi- 
 tion to the incorporation of vegetable 
 mold in the soil as above directed, 
 even if you have to resort to two green 
 crops on the same land the same year; 
 but be sure to turn your land deeply 
 and subsoil it every year. Return the 
 proceeds of all crops to the land — as 
 near as possible — including cotton- 
 seed, pea-vines, wheat straw, etc. Make 
 as much manure under shelter as pos- 
 sible, using straw, leaves and other lit- 
 ter to absorb the whole of the urine 
 and excrement of the stock and no 
 more. Utilize to the extent of your 
 teams, all the scrapings from fence cor- 
 ners, swamp mud, muck out of the 
 ponds and bottoms, spreading it over 
 the lands; all barn-yard manure, pre- 
 served under shelter, and other rich 
 scrapings. Everything made on the 
 place after it is used or eaten, except 
 
 the lint of cotton, which really takes 
 nothing from the soil, must be returned 
 to the land. 
 
 Use commercial manures on all cropL 
 planted, up to from one hundred to one 
 thousand pounds per acre of "Dickson's 
 Compound," which will be noticed di 
 rectly on these pages. Soils are not 
 to be considered up to their full capac- 
 ity until you have twelve inches of soil 
 and six inches of subsoil. It is a good 
 plan to subsoil at least one-fourth of 
 your crop lands every year. 
 
 The greatest of all the means of im- 
 proving lands is to use liberally the 
 commercial manures every year, and 
 on all crops planted, because you not 
 only improve the land, but it will also 
 pay you to use them out of the crops 
 grown. I consider this the "philoso- 
 pher's stone" in all farming. You 
 may talk of machinery for saving labor 
 but there is no such thing as labor-sav- 
 ing where the liberal use of manure is 
 neglected. No machinery can possibly 
 compromise the importance and abso- 
 lute necessity of manures in all farm- 
 ing operations. They permanently im- 
 prove lands, and at the same time, pay 
 their own cost on every crop, and bring 
 in clear net profits to reward labor and 
 enterprise. But at the same time, 
 while I consider annual application of 
 good crop-gi'owing manures the great- 
 est and cheapest means of saving la- 
 bor, (hpy give you capital to increase 
 your labor-saving machinery in the 
 same proportion that they increase 
 your crops. I would not deter the 
 
22 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 farmer from all labor-saving ma- 
 chinery. I look upon manures and 
 machinery as the best means by which 
 we can add to our present labor. 
 
 There are several points of impor- 
 tance connected with the application of 
 commercial manures as crop growers 
 in order to obtain full fertilizing bene- 
 fits. By former treatment of the lands, 
 the soil must be properly imbued with 
 vegetable matter and especially of 
 vegetable mold, in order to prepare it 
 for the process of chemical assimila- 
 tion. When applied to worn down and 
 exhausted soils, it fails to produce its 
 full fertilizing effects; and, hence in 
 routine farming it is frequently said of 
 it that it "burns up the crops and ex- 
 hausts the soil." This is all for the 
 want of sufficiency of vegetable mat- 
 ter to support and bring out the fertile 
 powers of the guano. The absolute ne- 
 cessity is proper system of farming. 
 
 In my practice, and on my farms, 
 these manures have always paid me 
 good profit besides steadily improving 
 my land. It is a great mistake to say 
 "guano has exhausted and ruined my 
 land." It was exhausted before the 
 guano was applied, and, hence, the 
 failure was attributable to the farmer 
 in using guano on lands that had an in- 
 sufficient supply of vegetable mold to 
 support the guano and develop its fer- 
 tilizing effects. The richest barn-yard 
 compost may as signally fail in the 
 hands of an ignorant routinist whose 
 lands are never rested and whose 
 depth of soil is only two inches instead 
 of eighteen. 
 
 Peruvian Guano — Is obtained from 
 Peru and the Chincha Islands. The 
 prevalent opinion is that this guano is 
 the deposit of birds. My own opinion 
 is, that this deposit is a natural forma- 
 tion, the same as coal, iron, plaster, 
 gold, etc., in those countries where 
 they would be preserved for their pres- 
 ent use. My reason for this opinion is 
 founded on the enormous quantities of 
 this deposit. In making a calculation 
 of the number of birds that could set 
 on these islan'ds and feed within a rea- 
 sonable distance of each other, they 
 never could have gotten a sufficient 
 quantity of fish to produce the phos- 
 phates and ammonia that are fovmd in 
 the island, containing, as these guanos 
 
 do, on an average, 16 per cent, of am- 
 monia and 30 per cent, of bone earth. 
 I have not the means of ascertaining 
 the exact amount, but several millions 
 of tons have long since been taken 
 from these islands, and still the sup- 
 ply is not exhausted. Now, if a few 
 birds have accumulated all this — occu- 
 pying not more land than one or two 
 counties to feed on — what can the 
 whole multitude of farmers do, with 
 their stock spread over the whole 
 globe? I say, that they can make 
 every acre rich, if they will. 
 Providence intended the earth should 
 increase in fertility as rapidly as it 
 does in population. Every man. 
 that assists in removing this dor- 
 mant guano, lying idle and useless on 
 the Chincha Islands, and puts it in cir- 
 culation, creating therewith food and 
 clothing, is a benefactor to his kind. 
 The country suffers for want of a share 
 of the surplus fertilizing material. Re- 
 move the deposit, and apply it to our 
 crops, and it will enrich the land, and 
 even that which escapes will enrich 
 the atmosphere, to be gathered in 
 again by growing plants. 
 
 As already stated, in my practice, I 
 have found Peruvian guano the best 
 fertilizer I have ever used; and as in a 
 large majority of manures, its princi- 
 pal value consist in the amount of ni- 
 trogen and ammonia it cor;\tains. Not 
 undervaluing other substances, yet I 
 consider ammonia at the, head of the 
 list. 
 
 I commenced the use of guano in 
 1846, and gradually increased the use 
 of it until the present time — never hav- 
 ing omitted to use it on my crops ex- 
 cepting the last years of the war, when 
 I could not obtain it. With a proper 
 system of rotation of crops, and return- 
 ing all the crops to the land, except 
 the lint of the cotton, land may be im- 
 proved with Peruvian guano alone, but 
 not so fast as when you combine with 
 the soil all the elements of the plants 
 to be grown. Ammonia being necessary 
 for all plants, I know of no crop that 
 it would not benefit. It will pay the 
 best upon those crops that bring the 
 most money — cotton being that crop in 
 this section, and tobacco in other sec- 
 tions. 
 
 The direct fertilization of lands is ef- 
 fected by various manures, ",ottonseed. 
 
FERTILIZATION OF SOILS AND CROPS. 
 
 23' 
 
 and a long list of commercial and ma- 
 nipulated compounds. 
 
 But as I am proposing simply to fur- 
 nish the reader my own system of 
 farming, I shall restrict my notice of 
 manures to those only that I have used 
 in my own practice, and which from 
 long experience and successful results 
 I can commend as valuable and relia- 
 ble fertiiizers. 
 
 Ammonia — Is certainly the most val- 
 uable manure known to agriculture. I 
 consider it the best crop grower, and 
 the mainspring that puts all the rest in 
 action. As already noticed, it abounds 
 in Peruvian guano, and is the special 
 ingredient that makes this guano solu- 
 ble as a fertilizer. It is largely fur- 
 nished by barn-yard manures and com- 
 posts and also by cottonseed, and 
 hence the value of these substances as 
 strong and powerful fertilizers. The 
 manure heap and the compost of lot 
 manure and cottonseed attach their 
 chief value as fertilizers and crop 
 growers to the ammonia evolved. Am 
 monia is contained in the atmosphere 
 and by the rain-fall is carried down 
 and diffused in the soil. It is an ingre- 
 dient of one of the components of the 
 atmosphere, and an element in all 
 plants. It is supplied to the soil bv 
 decomposition of plants and, hence 
 the fertilizing value of green crops 
 turned into the soil. The soil incor- 
 porates the ammonia and holding it as 
 a fertile element, feeds it to the grow- 
 ing crops. 
 
 Ammonia being the most easily ex- 
 hausted of all manures, it requires an- 
 nual application to the soil for suste- 
 nance and growth of annual crops, and 
 yet its impress is permanent upon the 
 soil. Witness for instance, the lasting 
 fertile effect of a pile of cottonseed or 
 heap of wheat-straw upon a certain 
 spot of ground. . It will show itself for 
 ten years to come, and hixuriant 
 crops will annually mark the spot. 
 Hence, we say of ammonia, it is the 
 chief of all the crop-growers, and the 
 most substantial fertilizing element 
 known to the farmer and horticultur- 
 allst. 
 
 Dissolved Bones — I consider second 
 in phosphates or value as a fertilizer — 
 it being one of the most important in- 
 gredients in the chemical composition 
 of the grain and seeds of plants. This 
 
 substance forms the basis of many of 
 the most valuable commercial phos- 
 phates and compounds now in popular 
 use as fertilizers. Of these their value 
 depends on their solubility. While in- 
 soluble they are worthless to growing 
 crops. 
 
 Potash — 'I consider of third rate, or 
 mere nominal value as a fertilizer, 
 compared \frith ammonia and the phos- 
 phates. It is not of much value as a 
 crop-grower, but seems to act benefi- 
 cially upon some soils by dissolving 
 and thus reducing some of the inor- 
 ganic and mineral substances of the 
 soil to an assimilable condition. 
 
 Land Piaster and Salt. — We mention 
 these, not as positive fertilizers, but as 
 in some sense, adjuncts to the two 
 prominent fertilizers last mentioned. 
 These will pay their cost; but their 
 greatest value consists in keeping the 
 other manures active, preventing rust 
 and assisting crops in standing dry 
 weather. 
 
 With sufficiency of the above-named 
 manures, viz.: ammonia, dissolved 
 bones, land plaster and salt, the crops 
 will be enabled to find most of the 
 other ingredients necessary for their 
 development and maturity. It is ad- 
 mitted that every article composing 
 the plant must be present in the soil, 
 but I do not think that they should be 
 in exact quantities. It will do to have 
 more of one ingredient and less of an- 
 other. My favorite 'compound' — pres- 
 ently to be noticed, is about as near 
 perfect — in point of supplying everj' 
 element of plant food — as a manure 
 can be made. It does not put you to 
 the trouble of getting all the ingre- 
 dients of plants and combining them, 
 the four principal ones enabling the 
 plant to find the others that are neces- 
 sary. Should they fail, all economical 
 means should be used to find out what 
 particular item is wanting and sup- 
 ply it. 
 
 "Dickson's Compound." — Twenty- 
 years of diligent research and study of 
 the laws of nature as applied to agri- 
 culture, with the experimental use of 
 Peruvian and other guanos upon soils 
 and crops. I have determined upon the 
 following combination of commercial 
 manures as the best and most valuable 
 for all crops: 
 
•24 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 Formula, "Dickson's Compound." 
 
 Peruvian Guano 100 pounds 
 
 Dissolved Bones 100 pounds 
 
 Common Salt 100 pounds 
 
 Land Plaster 50 pounds 
 
 Well mixed. 
 
 This compound I have now been us- 
 ing for many years upon all my farm 
 crops, and unfailingly with satisfac- 
 tory results. In my hands and under 
 my system of farming, this compound 
 has never failed to grow me good crops 
 and bring me satisfactory dividend's. 
 It has always paid me, and my clear 
 profits have always been larger in pro- 
 portion to the amount of the compound 
 applied — up to one thousand pounds 
 per acre. I have long since learned 
 not to fear failure of making paying 
 crops no matter the season. 
 
 This year, (1869) has been the dryest 
 year that I have known since I have 
 been farming, there having fallen very 
 little rain since the 27th of April. At 
 this time, November the 8th — many 
 branches and creeks on my place have 
 not a drop of water in them. My mill 
 has not turned since the first of May. 
 and there is not a drop of water in the 
 pond, though I have an unusually tight 
 dam. It has been one of the best years 
 for testing the value of the different 
 modes of farming, in my whole farm- 
 experience. The negroes have notions 
 of their own, and I have thought proper 
 to let them be convinced of the value 
 of the "compound" by their own experi- 
 ments. Some of them have used on a 
 portion of the crop, bone and Peruvian 
 guano alone, others used on the bal- 
 ance of the crop the full "compound." 
 They are enabled now — at any time 
 day or night — to see the difference be- 
 tween the effects of the full "com- 
 pound" and the bone and Peruvian 
 guano alonC' — the crops grown with the 
 compound grew better, kept greener, 
 made larger ears of corn and more of 
 them, and finer cotton. 
 
 This year has been considered one 
 of the most disastrous for rust, but I 
 have had less rust this year than usual, 
 not exceeding one or two per cent, on 
 the plantation, and having a great deal 
 of land that is subject to rust. I tried 
 this year an experiment on a plot of 
 land that failed to make cotton fifty- 
 
 two years ago. I planted that plat on 
 the nineteenth and twentieth of May, 
 and the cotton on it was flourishing, 
 with no rust, except on about one-half 
 of an acre of the water-oak land on one 
 edge. It has produced the largest bolls 
 of any cotton on the plantation, having 
 used about 800 pounds of the "com- 
 pound" to the acre. This plat has pro- 
 duced I believe, and all visitors think 
 so too, no less than one bale per acre. 
 It would require no less than 400 lbs. 
 of the compound to do this, still any 
 one will find that it will pay a good in- 
 terest on the money to use a thousand 
 pounds of the compound per acre. No 
 man should object to making an invest- 
 ment in this compound when he is paid 
 from four to ten times the interest on 
 his money that he would get by loan- 
 ing it to a bank, a railroad or his neigh- 
 bor. The true test for deciding what 
 is the most profitable amount of ma- 
 raire to be used, is to take off the legal 
 rate of interest on the amount that is 
 used, and then count the dollars they 
 have made over, and not the per cent, 
 that any given quantity makes. For 
 instance, you would use one hundred 
 pounds of it to the acre, the cost being, 
 say, four dollars per hundred pounds, 
 the interest would be twenty-eight 
 cents; it would gain six dollars, mak- 
 ing one hundred and fifty per cent. 
 There is six dollars made per acre 
 above the rate of interest. If you 
 use 400 pounds per acre at a cost 
 of $16, the interest is $1.12. If it 
 only gained one hundred per cent 
 there is $16, showing $14.88 clear 
 profit. I admit that there would be 
 a less per centage, but the estimate 
 is made in order to show that the 
 profit is greater the more guano If 
 used after deducting the legal rate of 
 interest until you reach the amount of 
 about one thousand pounds per acre. 
 In each of these calculations, the labor 
 is the same, and a large crop is as eas- 
 ily gathered as a small one. Large 
 ears of corn are more easily gathered 
 than small ones, and the same is true 
 of perfect bolls of cotton. In addition 
 to this, you have the advantage of the 
 great stimulus to work that a fine cot- 
 ton and corn crop gives to the laborers. 
 This compound I have used on all 
 sorts of crops. I used it because I con- 
 sider it the most perfect compound. 
 
FERTILIZATION OF SOILS AND CROPS. 
 
 25 
 
 and combining more, appropriately the 
 several chemical elements entering 
 into the composition of, and necessary 
 for the sustenance, growth and devel- 
 opment of the several farm-crops. 
 
 In answer to the question frequently 
 asked, to what class of lands is your 
 compound applicable? I desire to 
 state, that I have used it successfully 
 and with remunerative results upon 
 all my lands, including every variety 
 of soil to be found in Middle Georgia. 
 My lands extend from the granite hills 
 in Hancock county, to the rotten lime- 
 stone and long moss in Washington 
 County; from red, rocky hills, to a 
 blowing sand twenty feet to the clay, 
 and from a mulatto soil to a pipe clay; 
 and tell you if a farmer can make corn 
 and cotton on- a blowing sand, he can 
 make them anywhere above water — off 
 of a solid rock. So my compound is 
 well-nigh applicable to all farm lands. 
 Can any man believe that ammonia 
 and phosphates would even fail where 
 a plow ought to run? I have been of- 
 ten asked. Wbat kind of land pays 
 best with guano? I have but one reply 
 — "land that pays best without it;" 
 Land could be so rich, that sixteen 
 hundred pounds of ammonia would 
 make but a small per centage of profit 
 on investment; but we have none such 
 in Georgia. 
 
 Land can be improved, and eventu- 
 ally ma'de rich, under proper system of 
 treatment and culture, by atmospheric 
 agencies alone. But this agency can 
 be greatly quickened by the compound. 
 The better drained and preserved the 
 soil, and the deeper ploughed, the more 
 rapidly the land can be improved. The 
 ammonia and carbonic acid of the at- 
 mosphere, continually formed and de- 
 posited in the land, will yearly improve 
 the crops, which under proper rotation, 
 will leave more in the soil than they 
 take from it. The richer a soil grows, 
 the more will the plants grown upon it 
 take from the atmosphere, and the 
 more rapidly can its fertility be in- 
 creased. I do not underrate the value 
 of any manure that supplies the ele- 
 ments necessary to make a perfect 
 grain of corn or cottonseed; but I do 
 attach superior importance and value 
 to ammonia and carbon or vegetable 
 matter. 
 
 In some classes of lands containing 
 an excess of lime and other minerals, 
 continued cultivation without the ap- 
 plication of ammonia in some form 
 seems to tire in productiveness and ap- 
 parently become exhausted. This ex- 
 cess of mineral supplies in the soil ren- 
 ders all nitrogenous matters soluble, 
 and the supply of ammonia is soo?t 
 given off to the plants, whilst the ma- 
 nure has not been returned. Sow such 
 lands down in cowpeas or clover, 
 treated as already directed, and in two 
 years the exhausted lands will be re- 
 stored almost to virgin productiveness; 
 ammonia is known to be the great 
 crop-grower, but to command it, you 
 must have all the necessary salts con- 
 tained in the various crops. The more 
 nitrogen or ammonia you store away 
 in your land, the more you can obtain 
 from the atmosphere. 
 
 I advocate mixing the valuable es- 
 sential manures to grow perfect plants, 
 as in my compound; but if you use 
 only one, let that be ammonia, as it is 
 the best and cheapest; but as it will be 
 materially assisted by soluble bone, I 
 add it in my formula, and also land 
 plaster and salt. I think my compound 
 well nigh a perfect manure, and would 
 be quite so with plenty of potash in the 
 land, or it was added by sowing ashes. 
 To be successful in agriculture the 
 farmer must know where all the ele- 
 ments of plants are, and how to con- 
 trol them. 
 
 Plow deep and subsoil, use all possi- 
 ble manures to be had on the place, 
 and purchase largely of the best ma- 
 nures in the market. Get manures, as 
 perfect plant-growers as can be found; 
 but you must have ammonia and solu- 
 ble bone. With these, or my com- 
 pound, you will have no use for second 
 breaking. 
 
 I am friendly to all pure guanos 5n 
 their natural state, but prefer mixing 
 them myself, and saving the profit, and 
 for one, will buy that manure that pays 
 the best. It is not recorded in my 
 book of practice that, by adding a fer- 
 tilizer to land. T kill that land. 
 
 Fair, practical tests have decided in 
 favor of ammonia as the chief of all 
 known fertilizers. Under Northern 
 and European systems, the farmers are 
 improving their lands almost exclu- 
 sively by increasing their supplies of 
 
26 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 ammonia, growing hay, clover, oat;; 
 and rye, and keeping stock to eat these 
 crops annually, not gaining, but losing 
 phosphates, and gaining nitrogen, mak- 
 ing the land rich, and the land making 
 the owner rich with luxuriant and 
 abundant crops. In English agriculture, 
 ammonia is the foundation as taken 
 from the atmosphere, from Peruvian 
 guano, from the turnip, hay, clover, 
 etc., returning merely the bone earth 
 by ammonia, which last is constantly 
 increasing in its relative amount. 
 
 With a little ammonia we can gather 
 large amounts every year, getting 
 larger returns from year to year, by 
 adding a little ammonia annually, and 
 getting good dividends on the invest- 
 ment. I believe strongly in natural 
 laws. Study nature, trace all things 
 from cause to effect, and from effect to 
 cause; but take no such extreme views 
 as some do, advocating surface manur- 
 ing because the trees drop their leaves 
 on the ground, and hence, it is nature's 
 plan to manure, the surface. At all 
 events add a little science, experience 
 and art to assist, instead of invalidat- 
 ing the wisdom of natural laws. To 
 command and use ammonia in the best 
 and most economical way, both for 
 permanently improving the farm, and 
 getting large crop dividends, you must 
 have five fields: 
 
 Five-Field System. — 'First, a perma- 
 nent pasture; one for cotton, one for 
 corn, one for small grain, one at rest. 
 The field that rested last year, put in 
 cotton with 300 or more pounds of the 
 compound, or some guano, per acre. 
 The fiel'd that was in cotton last year, 
 plant in corn, manuring with the cot- 
 tonseed, putting in the middles cow- 
 peas at the proper season for manur- 
 ing the crop that follows, and it will 
 pay to manure them for this purpose 
 with the compoimd. 
 
 The field that was in com last year 
 should be sown in small grain, with 
 two hundred pounds or more of my 
 compound per acre. 
 
 The field that had small grain last 
 year should rest after harvest up to 
 from the 1st to 2nth of Julv of the ne-^ 
 year, then put in peas, with one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five pounds of my 
 guano. The method of putting in the 
 peas has^already been given the reader 
 under the head of "General Treatment 
 
 of Lands." Should you not have time 
 to plant the peas, let the land rest the 
 balance of the year. This will become 
 the cotton field for the next year, 
 whether sown in peas or not. Where 
 clover succeeds, it can be sown with 
 the small grain, and will gather fer- 
 tility faster than the spontaneous 
 growth. 
 
 Now I will state a different way to 
 prove that ammonia is the cheapest 
 and most expeditious means to renew 
 the fertility of land, and make It pro- 
 ductive. In the first place, I will refer 
 you to clover. Every person knows 
 the effect that clover has on worn land, 
 in a climate where it will grow. The 
 chief things added to the soil by a 
 clover crop, are carbon and ammonia. 
 In the South, the cowpea will answer 
 the same end, if sown early, manured 
 with two hundred pounds of Peruvian 
 guano, and turned under from the 1st 
 of July to the 1st of August ; then at the 
 same time seeded again with peas, us- 
 ing one hundred pounds of guano. Feed 
 off with hogs and beef cattle, which 
 will generally pay for all expenses, and 
 leave the land twenty dollars better — 
 the increase in value, to be decided by 
 the increased production of the next 
 cotton crop, compared with that of a 
 part of the field that you have left un- 
 manured, and not sown with peas. 
 
 If any man will try this experiment 
 on one acre each way, and fails to get 
 his money back next year, in cotton, 1 
 will send him the Cultivator during 
 my life. All acknowledge the impor- 
 tance of turning under green crops. 
 The only thing lost by their drying, is 
 their ammonia. I have made money 
 by giving my land one year in four, to 
 gather ammonia and humus. 
 
 One of the great objects, aside from 
 the immense profits of using commer- 
 cial manures is, that it gives you the 
 means of increasing your composts. It 
 gives you increased feed for stock — in- 
 creases your cottonseed and grasses 
 to be turned under: causes weeds and 
 other things to spring up early in the 
 winter to be turned in the spring with- 
 out any loss or trouble of using green 
 crops. These weeds protect the land 
 from washing during the heavy winter 
 rains. Land washes much less when 
 fertilizers are used, for the reason that 
 they encourage deeper plowing; make 
 
FERTILIZATION OF SOILS AND CHOPS. 
 
 tl 
 
 three times the amount of litter to pro- 
 tect the land. One of the benefits of 
 shade on land when at rest, that there 
 is a less amount of manures becoming 
 soluble, and less leaching of the land 
 during the year of rest. Cottonseed is 
 very valuable as a manure, being eas- 
 ily decomposed, and returning to its 
 natural elements as food for plants. 
 All articles of a vegetable nature, when 
 reduced to their natural elements, are 
 valuable as fertilizers. Manures are 
 not alone valuable for the food they 
 supply to plants, but they render the 
 land more easy to cultivate and assist 
 the crops in standing either wet 
 weather or dry weather. They cause 
 less friction and resistance to the 
 plough or hoe. Manures I consider 
 one of the best economizers of labor 
 that we can use in a hilly, broken or 
 gullied country — vastly preferable to 
 emigrants, because if the production 
 becomes too great you can abandon 
 the use of them for a season. 
 
 Barn-Yard Manures. — Except the 
 droppings on the farm, all stock ma- 
 nures should be raised under shelter, 
 as far as practicable, and with as little 
 labor as possible. It should be taken 
 from where it has been deposited and 
 carried directly to where it is to be 
 used, never permitting it to be thrown 
 into the rain, or exposed to the sun to 
 be burned and become of less value. It 
 should be spread on the ground and ap- 
 plied immediately, so that the decom- 
 position shall take place exactly where 
 
 it is wanted. In this way the earth 
 will take hold of all the gases and 
 other diffusible substance formed, and 
 retain them for the crop. 
 
 In addition to the droppings of the 
 stock, everything that has been of a 
 vegetable character is of value when 
 applied to the land, and I consider it 
 the cheapest and best method to take 
 it where you find it, and carry it to the 
 nearest place where it can be used. 
 
 Lime spread over where you have de- 
 posited it, will reduce it to plant food 
 by the aid of heat, light and moisture 
 in sufficient time for the crops, ■which 
 will be a great saving in handling and 
 rehandling it from three to four times, 
 the extra labor being of more value in 
 ircreasing the amount by hunting 
 waste deposits. In manures, as in 
 everything else, the great considera- 
 tion is to economize labor. Haul into 
 your lot, and place in your stalls pine- 
 straw, leaves or litter of any kind, suf- 
 ficient to absorb the ammonia of the 
 stock droppings, and take up the urine, 
 and have as much of this saved under 
 shelter as possible. Once a week 
 sprinkle it with land plaster to help 
 dissolve the matter and retain the am- 
 monia. Do not pile or handle it. Pitch 
 it into the cart and carry it to the field. 
 Make eveiy lick count. Manure loses 
 every time it is turned. Employ your 
 idle labor in gathering up scrapings of 
 manure and deposits from every possi- 
 ble source. 
 
 The Chicken for the Farm. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Organic and Inorganic Manures. 
 
 These are the two recognized and 
 distinct classes of manures, and we de- 
 sire to consider them respectively, in 
 comparison to value as crop growers. 
 
 Inorganic manures, such as lime, pot- 
 ash, phosphates, etc., are the basis of 
 all fertility and where they abound in 
 considerable quantities will enable 
 plants to gather and appropriate much 
 more of the organic manures. But 
 plants and seeds are not always made 
 up of specific quantities, any more 
 than a hog is. Take a fat hog, weigh- 
 ing three hundred pounds, and one of 
 the same age very poor, weighing one 
 hundred pounds. Analyze the two, 
 and note the difference in proportion of 
 all the parts, according to the weight 
 of each animal. How various the pro- 
 portions of bone, nitrogen, carbon, etc. 
 
 The same disproportion holds good 
 as to cottonseed, the different plants, 
 wood, etc., as to weight and to the in- 
 crease when applied to crops. 
 
 Farmers, and others not acquainted 
 with chemistry, can ascertain the rela- 
 tive proportion of the organic and in- 
 organic substances by the use of fire. 
 For instance, take ten bushels cotton- 
 seed, and reduce them to ashes by fire. 
 Having weighed them before reducing 
 them, weigh the ashes that are left; 
 the amount set free comes from the at- 
 mosphere, and constituted the organic 
 elements of the seed — the ashes re- 
 maining represents the inorganic ele- 
 ments. To ascertain the respective 
 value of these, as food for crops, is 
 done by applying the ashes of the ten 
 
 bushels cottonseed just burned to a 
 given quantity of land — noting the in- 
 crease of crop products; and then ap- 
 plying ten bushels green cottonseed to 
 the same quantity of land — deducting 
 the per cent, made over nothing. This 
 will show what was produced by the 
 organic matter of the ten bushels seed, 
 in contradistinction to what was pro- 
 duced by the inorganic constituent of 
 the same quantity of seed. As already 
 stated, what is true of cottonseed, 
 holds true with other seeds, and all 
 vegetable matter. 
 
 My opinion is that, one bushel of 
 raw cottonseed is worth for the growth 
 of plants, as much as the ashes of one 
 hundred bushels of burnt seed. This 
 I consider a fair test of the difference 
 in value between the phosphates and 
 alkalies on the one hand, and carbon 
 and ammonia on the other. I had 
 four hundred thousand pounds of cot- 
 ton and seed burned in one house. The 
 whole residue — as manure — was not 
 worth to me as much as one thousand 
 pounds of seed. 
 
 As another instance, illustrating the 
 disproportionate value of organic and 
 inorganic substances as crop-growers: 
 Take the manure of ten horses one 
 year, dropped under cover, and set free 
 of all organic parts by burning — there- 
 by wasting the ammonia. Then take 
 the droppings from a like number of 
 horses, dropped in like manner. Use 
 this on twenty acres cotton — use the 
 other on twenty acres the same kind 
 of land — then plant twenty acres with- 
 
ORGAMC AND INORGANIC MANURES. 
 
 29 
 
 out any manure. Cultivate all exactly 
 alike, and the difference in crop prod- 
 ucts will be a fair test between phos- 
 phates and ammonia as a fertilizer. 
 The only discount on this test is the 
 fact that the commercial phosphates 
 are mostly insoluble — the ammonia be- 
 ing alv/ays soluble, or will be in due 
 time, which is a great item in favor of 
 ammonia. 
 
 With a full supply of nitrogenous and 
 carbonaceous matter, corn and cotton, 
 etc., may be made with much less, in 
 proportion, of potash and bone earth. 
 Take a cord of black-jack wood off a 
 poor pine or black-jack ridge, where 
 there is but little organic matter, aiul 
 set the organic matter free by burn- 
 ing the wood; then take the second 
 cord of black-jack from a rich bottom, 
 vvnere the organic matt'i^r abounds rn 
 great quantities, an'd relatively in 
 much greater proportion to the inor- 
 ganic matter; burn this as you did the 
 first cord. The cord of wood from the 
 poor land, will contain nearly double 
 the quantity of phosphate of lime and 
 potash that exists in the wood from 
 the rich land. All soapmakers have 
 found this true as to potash. 
 
 All these experimental facts, taken 
 with our experience with the fertiliz- 
 ing results of turning under clover, 
 peas and other vegetable crops, prove 
 unmistakably that ammonia is the 
 cheapest and most expeditious means 
 of renewing the fertility of land, and 
 making it productive, in comparison 
 with the commercial phosphates, which 
 are so generally insoluble as to prove 
 almost worthless. 
 
 Finding from the above experiment 
 that such a large proportion of plants 
 come from the atmosphere, we are 
 taught the reason why we should grow 
 green crops and other crops to be 
 turned into the land, and from every 
 source to let as much atmosphere into 
 the soil as possible; because the more 
 organic matter we have in the soil, the 
 more we can command annually from, 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 * * * I am for an annual manure — a 
 soluble manure — one that will return 
 the principal, or at least seventy-five 
 per cent, of it, with one hundred and 
 twenty-five per cent, profit, or double 
 the investment. I am in favor of an 
 
 investment that never pleads for time, 
 or complains of usurious interest, or 
 calls for relief or repudiation, but will 
 punctually square up accounts, with 
 one hundred per cent, profit. Such an 
 investment is soluble bones and Peru- 
 vian guano. Lend it to your land, in 
 sums of from five to fifteen dollars per 
 acre, at six to nine months' time,, and 
 if you do your duty— plough deep and 
 cultivate shallow — the payment will be 
 sure. Your land will be left in better 
 condition; money will be furnished to 
 put back the same amount of manure 
 the. next year, and ample dividends 
 made to live on and make other invest- 
 ments. The word "stimulate" is im- 
 properly applied to manures. Plants 
 have no nerves for them to act upoii< 
 When you see plants growing very rap- 
 idly, to which manure has been ap- 
 plied ; do not think they are drunk. The 
 truth is, the manure is soluble, and not 
 permanent; and the roots of the plants 
 are absorbing it, and the blades work- 
 ing it up for the crop. I have no use 
 for a permanent manure. If perma- 
 nent, it is not soluble; if not soluble, 
 it never will enter the roots of the 
 plants; and if it does not enter the 
 roots of the plants, your money is gone. 
 No manure is worth a cent, if perma- 
 nent. TTie Atlantic ocean would not 
 be permanent, if its supplies were cut 
 off — if the rain ceased, and all the riv- 
 ers were stopped. Supposing it level 
 at bottom as well as at top, and one 
 thousand feet deep, still it would dry 
 up' in less than two hundred years — a 
 shorter time than some lands in Vir- 
 ginia have been cultivated. So, away 
 with your permanent manures; but be 
 ever vigilant to save all home-made 
 manures possible, of every variety — 
 pine straw and swamp mud included. 
 Manipulate your sandy land with clay, 
 your clay land with vegetable mold. 
 Plough deep, rotate your crops, and 
 rest your lands. Buy liberally of solu- 
 ble manure, and save twice as much 
 as if you tfought none. Is there a sin- 
 gle planter who would lend money to 
 be paid in equal installments of twenty 
 years, with low interest? Yet if he 
 uses permanent manures, he can not- 
 expect much better luck. Is there one 
 that is unwilling to lend his money at 
 six and nine months, have it under his 
 
80 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 control all the time, and get prompt 
 payment — receiving seventy-five per 
 cent, of the principal, and one hundred 
 and twenty-five per cent, profit? Give 
 me the manure that will pay promptly, 
 with good dividends. Do not be afraid 
 that it will exhaust your land. Put the 
 cottonseed back, together with the ma- 
 nure from the straw, corn, oats and 
 ^ shucks, with the straw used to save 
 
 » the manure and bed the stock; also 
 what the crops got from the atmos- 
 phere. I would like to have my land 
 exhausted in that way. 
 
 Tliere is only so much corn and cot- 
 ton in any manure, and the sooner you 
 get it the better. It will pay. The 
 loss W'ill be smaller, and only one 
 year's work required. The same is 
 true of land. There is only material 
 enough in it to make a given quantity 
 of corn or cotton, and the greater quan- 
 tity you get each year the better. Do 
 not understand me that I am for ex- 
 hausting land. Not- so. Each year 
 put back more than you take from 
 it. Accumulate a large fund in soluble 
 mold and other manure, and never let 
 it be said by posterity, that it is harder 
 for them to live because you lived be- 
 fore them. Leave your land better 
 than you found it. Improve agricul- 
 ture, so that a given quantity of labor 
 may produce double what it now does 
 — double the capacity of the land. Then 
 each agriculturist will be able to con- 
 sume four times as much as he does at 
 present in necessaries and luxuries. 
 
 This can be done. During my day 
 the planters in Hancock county have 
 doubled their crops. There were more 
 planters in Hancock county who made 
 ten bales per hand in 1861, than there 
 were who made five bales to the hand 
 in 1845. I repeat, buy Peruvian guano 
 and dissolved bones, and some salt and 
 plaster, where the freight is not too 
 high. Try on a small scale (or large, 
 if you wish) all pure guanos, and be 
 governed by the result. For one, I 
 ■will not touch a manipulated manure. 
 
 It creates a middle man, to compete 
 with me in bones, guano, etc. If there 
 is anything to be gained by mixing, I 
 want to make it myself and then I 
 know also that it is pure. I want no 
 manure that will not pay, without the 
 addition to it of Peruvian guano. 
 
 Suppose Dr. Pendleton had mixed 
 
 his Peruvian guano with sand — half 
 and half — it would have paid two hun- 
 dred and twelve per cent! Good! But 
 four hundred and thirty is better. 
 
 * * * By using two hundred pounds 
 of Peruvian guano per acre annually, 
 you double the relative products of 
 your growing crops, compared with 
 land fresh from the forest, and with 
 crops that have no guano. Tlierefore, 
 you will get a double proportion from 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 It is even possible that enriching the 
 land in Europe, has, to some extent, 
 lessened the fertility of the atmosphere 
 in this country. The richer you make 
 your land, the more you can draw from 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 * * * I do not say this is the only 
 plan, or the best plan; but it is one 
 that will certainly improve your land, 
 and pay good dividends, if you can get 
 reliable labor. You have had my re- 
 ceipt for what I think one of the best 
 manures, except I would add ten 
 pounds of potash, or one bushel of 
 wood ashes. I leave it out for two sea- 
 sons — the scarcity of potash, and the 
 exhausted financial condition of the 
 country. This article is not designed 
 to underrate superphosphates, but to 
 show that ammonia is the cheapest 
 and best of all manures, and that, judg- 
 ing by experience, it will not exhaust 
 land, but may be the means of enrich- 
 ing it. If it fails, it is the man's fault 
 — not that of ammonia. 
 
 You will find some guanos advertised 
 as permanent manures. I want to 
 avoid that kind, for I think it is true 
 of some of them at least, that when I 
 use them, my crops do not remove 
 them. I prefer the kind that will come 
 to see me the first year, and bring a 
 large interest, in the form of cotton, 
 corn, wheat, etc. 
 
 The true system in manuring, is to 
 get the manure back the first year, 
 with a living profit, and rapidly im- 
 prove the soil up to its original capac- 
 ity, and carry it beyond that in the 
 same ratio as the increase. We are 
 only tenants at will, and have no right 
 to use the soil in a way to destroy its 
 capacity to maintain the present popu- 
 lation and its future increase. When 
 the people understand the difference 
 in an acre of land that will produce a 
 
ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MANURES. 
 
 31 
 
 hundred pounds, and one that will pro- 
 duce five hundred pounds of lint cotton 
 —that this difference exists in the 
 present value of each of these two 
 acres of land, we then will begin to im- 
 prove our farms. 
 
 The great inquiry is, on what kind 
 of land to use the guano and other com- 
 mercial manures. I say, use it on all 
 lands you plough or cultivate — or 
 everywhere. 
 
 * * * All my practice and teaching 
 has been that the use of manures I rec- 
 ommend, gave the farmer the means 
 of making and using double the quanti- 
 ty of home-made manures. I again re- 
 peat this, and as well as I can, with de- 
 moralized labor, still practice upon it. 
 I not only consider it hurtful to the 
 purse, but sinful to waste manures, or 
 not to use the necessary precautions 
 to save them. My motto is, to increase 
 the fertility of the soil in a greater 
 ratio than the population increases. My 
 soil furnishes a portion of the food to 
 raise fish and oysters in the Atlantic 
 ocean, and if I can make a profit and 
 improve my land by using the excre- 
 ment of birds fed on fish, etc., it is my 
 duty as well as my interest to do so. 
 
 It has been truly said that "the true 
 test of a general was success." I say, 
 it is the only test that will do to try 
 the farmer by. Some writers have 
 greatly misrepresented me, in charging 
 that I overlook the great profits of 
 home-made manures. One reason why 
 I use commercial fertilizers is, that I 
 may save double the quantity of home- 
 made manures. I make double the 
 crops, have twice the amount of forage 
 to feed away, and twice as much cot- 
 tonseed for manure. * * * 
 
 It is true that I made fine crops be- 
 fore I used guano, bones, salt and plas- 
 ter, but nothing to compare with crops 
 made with them. It is self-sustaining; 
 it is punctual in payments; never re- 
 pudiates or asks an extention of time; 
 wants no stay-laws or military orders; 
 pays promptly, and on an average as 
 much as one hundred and twenty-five 
 per cent, and at other times as high as 
 four hundred. It enables one to make 
 double the quantity of home-made ma- 
 nures: improves the land; gives the 
 means of keeping more and better 
 stock; improves crops: makes the la- 
 
 borers more cheerful and willing to 
 work; puts money in the hands to do 
 fancy farming; purchases good machin- 
 ery and tools; will afford some luxu- 
 ries as well as substantials; enables 
 you to work freedmen, when they 
 would bring you in debt without it. If 
 I could realize all the profits on $12,000 
 to $20,000 worth of guano, I could do 
 well throwing in the use of land, horse- 
 power, tools, capital to furnish sup- 
 plies, together with my attention, 
 which alone increases the crop more 
 than one-half. * * * 
 
 Guano pays back the purchase-mon- 
 ey in cotton lint which is but little loss 
 of matter, and the guano furnishes 
 more than that loss, and leaves a still 
 larger amount in pocket. It enables 
 one to plough twelve inches deep in a 
 thin soil, inasmuch as the guano placed 
 near the roots of plants, gives them 
 vigor to go forth and find the soluble 
 matter that is diffused so thinly 
 through the land: without the use of 
 some concentrated manure, the plant 
 would never have vigor to hunt up the 
 crop food so deeply mixed in the poor 
 land. 
 
 * * * I will tell you something that 
 guano did for me when I could direct 
 labor and be obeyed. I made per hand 
 ten to fourteen bales of cotton, eight 
 hundred to twelve hundred pounds of 
 pork, one mutton, three-fourths of a fat 
 beef or three hundred pounds, eight to 
 ten colts per year, Jvith corn, wheat, 
 oats, rye, etc., to sell, amounting to 
 $100 per hand; to keep one yoke of fine 
 young oxen for every three hands, to 
 aid in hauling muck, straw, and ma- 
 nure generally: and keep two hundred 
 acres of land under a good fence per 
 hand: six to seven head of cattle, ten 
 to twelve head of hogs, five sheep per 
 hand — all besides being a cotton 
 planter. 
 
 Instead of penning my stock to make 
 manures, I let them graze the fields, 
 and induced them to keep away from 
 the swamps, by saving shade trees in 
 the fields, and making straw-pens and 
 shuck-pens, and placing salt about in 
 convenient places. Stock while graz- 
 ing, drop manure regularly over the 
 field. I contend that this plan gives 
 cheaper manure, more beef and less 
 labor than any other. This plan paid 
 
32 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 me in astounding profits in meat, ma- 
 nure and dollars, and, conjoined witli 
 other distinctive features of my plan of 
 farming, and have always returned me 
 gratifying results. 
 
 * * * I invite the reader to an aggre- 
 gate view of my cotton production: 
 Ten thousand persons planting as I do, 
 would produce ten millions of bales of 
 cotton (my crop in 1861 was one thou- 
 sand bales, last year very little less.") 
 The ten millions of bales at the pres- 
 ent price, would give one thousand mil- 
 lions of dollars; one-half of this due to 
 the use of the manure, would place five 
 hundred millions of dollars to its 
 credit; deduct, then, the cost of the 
 manure (one hundred and twenty mil- 
 lions), and it leaves three hundred and 
 eighty millions clear profit, as the land 
 will be benefited to the full amount of 
 all the labor. I like such drains as 
 that — it gives power and profit. 
 
 * * * In 1861, four thousand planters 
 raising such crops as I did, would have 
 made four millions of bales. Last 
 year, it. would have taken but a few 
 over two thousand planters, to have 
 produced a crop equal to that of 1861 
 (each making as much as I did) ; so 
 you see the only thing we have to fear, 
 from using guano, and making the 
 most of it, is over-production. 
 
 * * * We can purchase fifty millions 
 dollars worth of guano in its raw state, 
 and clear one hundred millions of dol- 
 lars on it in nine months, and expend 
 nothing additional in manufacturing 
 cotton and grain out of it. I say, do 
 not let any foreigner have your dollars, 
 when you can with certainty make two 
 dollars in nine months, clear of cost, 
 for every dollar spent. 
 
 If Dr. Pendleton and others, who 
 seek to show the superior value of 
 phosphates compared with ammonia, 
 are right, what becomes of the green 
 crop manuring? We have been taught to 
 believe that it was the nitrogen added 
 ed that paid for the time and expense. 
 What also became of the rest system? 
 Dr. Pendleton's comments explode that 
 too; nothing of importance being 
 added, but carbon and nitrogen. What 
 becomes of the British turnip system, 
 
 or the Northern system of growing hay 
 and grain, to feed stock to accumulate 
 nitrogen with a loss of phosphates, etc., 
 to increase future crops? 
 
 Why does the farmer, when he 
 wishes to turn in a green crop, select 
 the plants that contain the most nitro- 
 gen, such as clover and peas? It is 
 because practice has proven their 
 value. Take one thousand (1,000) 
 bushels of cottonseed, now worth twa 
 hundred dollars, to manure with, set 
 the nitrogen and carbon free by fire, 
 and what would you give for the phos- 
 phates and other salts left? I do not 
 think they could be sold for ten dol- 
 lars. 
 
 Why is it that the rich lands in Ken- 
 tucky, as they term it, tire when they 
 are full of all mineral manures? I will 
 give you my opinion. It is, that the 
 excess of lime, and perhaps other min- 
 erals, renders all nitrogenous matters 
 soluble. Tlie ammonia is soon given 
 of to the plants, whilst the manure has 
 not been returned. 
 
 What is the remedy? Sow it down 
 in that nitrogenous plant, clover, and 
 in two years the exhausted land is re- 
 stored almost to virgin productiveness. 
 From the earliest days to the present 
 time, practica proves that nitrogen 
 (ammonia) is the great crop grower. 
 To command nitrogen you must have 
 all the necessary salts contained in the 
 various plants. The more minerals,. 
 the more nitrogen you command; the 
 more nitrogen you store away in your 
 land, the more you can obtain from the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Fill your land with humus, to stick 
 the sand together, and to darken it. 
 This will prevent its refiecting the 
 heat, and will cause it to receive it 
 gradually, and part with it in the same 
 way. These are some of the good re- 
 sults, in addition to its manurial quali- 
 ties. With clay land do the same 
 thing, to render it open, and make it 
 ploughable at all times. Plough deep 
 and subsoil. Use all possible manures 
 to be had on the place, and purchase 
 largely of the best manures in the mar- 
 ket. Get manures, as perfect plant- 
 growers as can be found ; but you must 
 have ammonia and soluble bone. 
 
ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MANURES. 
 
 33 
 
 * * * I am for the plant that pre- 
 serves the capital best, and pays the 
 largest dividends. I have no doubt, 
 that on good cotton land, a fair year, 
 I could make one hundred bales of cot- 
 ton, with one No. 1 mule: commence 
 operations the first day of December; 
 subsoil every acre; use twenty -five dol- 
 
 lars' worth of manure per acre; and 
 finish the 1st of May; cultivate sixty 
 acres. 
 
 The use of commercial fertilizers is 
 incorrectly objected to by some. Dou- 
 ble the productiveness of the land, and 
 it will be worth four times the present 
 value. 
 
 Cotton Exhibit at State Fair. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Breaking Lands. 
 
 The principal object in brealiing land 
 is to pulverize the soil, and render it 
 mellow and porous. To make it suffi- 
 ciently light and spongy to catch and 
 retain the spring rains for the benefit 
 of the summer crop, for, in cases of 
 hot and dry summers, where there is 
 inadequate rainfall, the growth, devel- 
 opment and final maturity of the crop 
 must depend upon the supply of rain- 
 water stored away by the soil during 
 the winter and spring rains. 
 
 Another object is to mix the soil; to 
 place the surface and richer soil deep 
 under, where it will attract the crop 
 roots to a depth that will protect them 
 from the heat of summer's sun, and 
 where they will find moisture to en- 
 liven and invigorate them during the 
 summer drought. 
 
 Proper breaking of lands places the 
 surface litter, and all vegetable matter 
 that has accumulated upon the surface, 
 deep under where they rapidly decom- 
 pose and become soluble plant food. 
 This process, likewise, by turning un- 
 der this accumulation of litter, re- 
 moves it out of the way of the cultiva- 
 tor. It prevents the wasting effects of 
 washing rains during the spring and 
 early summer. 
 
 The paramount object, however, in 
 all breaking of land, is to so pulverize, 
 mix, deepen and soften the soil as to 
 enable and invite the roots of the 
 planted crops to readily penetrate, tra- 
 verse and permeate the soil in search 
 of such specific elements of food as 
 these plants need for nourishment and 
 
 growth. The soil belongs to the planted 
 crop, and should be placed in such 
 favorable physical condition as will 
 render all its fertile elements subser- 
 vient to these crops. This consti- 
 tutes the work and real design of the 
 cultivator — to utilize, to the fullest pos- 
 sible extent, the soil and all the adju- 
 vant agencies of nature, for the produc- 
 tion of luxuriant and fruitful crops. 
 
 Land should be broken from eight to 
 twelve inches. Such as has not been 
 well broken, should be broken every 
 year one or two inches deeper, until 
 you get to the maximum, which I con- 
 sider to be twelve inches, with six 
 inches beyond as subsoil. 
 
 The advantages of deep breaking are, 
 that it protects the land, and enables 
 it to retain moisture sufficient to carry 
 the plant through any ordinary season 
 of drought. I have never known a 
 year, but that, with proper breaking, 
 proper manuring, and surface culture, 
 you would not make an average crop. 
 There is no such thing as failure, when 
 man does his duty in the premises. 
 Providence has provided all the neces- 
 sary means to make a competency. 
 While the land is fresh broke and por- 
 ous the roots penetrate and occupy the 
 whole of the soil, and come down into 
 the subsoil that is broken. During the 
 cultivation, the rain on the land settles 
 the soil to the roots of the plants, and 
 T?nables them the more completely to 
 draw all the soluble matter out of the 
 earth. The settling on the roots has 
 been proved valuable in more ways 
 
BREAKING LANDS. 
 
 35 
 
 than one. I will only mention the dif- 
 ference in time it takes seed to come 
 up when the earth is pressed closely 
 to them, and when it is scattered loose- 
 ly over them. They will come up in 
 twenty-five to seventy-five per cent. 
 less time when the earth is packed 
 moderately around them. 
 
 There is a great variety of ploughs, 
 all answering nearly the same purpos^e. 
 The plough that is set so as to scr.ew 
 the land over with the least draft, or to 
 pass it up the inclined plane or mold- 
 board the easiest, is the best. Tlie 
 principal objection to this kind of 
 plough is its liability to break, and its 
 high cost. I find the cheapest plough 
 I have ever used is a wrought-iron 
 turn-plough of the make of the old "Al- 
 len" plough, now called by many peo- 
 ple the "Dixon" turn-plough. It 
 should contain from twenty to thirty 
 pounds of iron, according as to wheth- 
 er you wish to use one or two horses, 
 and cut from seven to ten inches, as 
 you may wish to use one or two horses. 
 
 I would say, where the soil does not 
 reach more than from tour to ten 
 inches, I would prefer the common long- 
 scooter of four to five inches width to 
 subsoil with, until you obtain a depth 
 of soil of from nine to twelve inches. 
 The reason why I would use the 
 scooter is because it mixes a portion 
 of the soil every year with the subsoil. 
 After a sufficient depth of soil is ob- 
 tained, I should prefer ploughs that 
 are known as subsoil lifters. I have 
 no doubt that subsoiling every year 
 would increase the crops more than if 
 you subsoiled once in a rotation. I 
 would prefer to subsoil every year 
 for cotton, because cotton is the best 
 paying crop, and you would feel the 
 extra cost less. I have subsoiled for 
 both corn and small grain with satis- 
 factory results. 
 
 Breaking must be commenced in 
 time to do it full and well by plant- 
 ing time. Usually, it should be com- 
 menced by the first of December, and 
 not later than the first of January. 
 In this climate, on my farm in Han- 
 cock county, it is best, taking ten 
 years together, that the breaking be 
 4one not more than ten days before 
 planting time, this, however, we 
 know to be impracticable in many 
 
 cases. My reasons for late plough- 
 ing are based on practical observa- 
 tion. In warm, wet winters, the land 
 is much damaged by washing and 
 leaching, by early breaking, and runs 
 together closer than it would if the 
 ground had not been broken. In cold, 
 dry springs and winters, I have found 
 the early ploughing to do much the 
 best, but from observation I find that 
 we have only about one of them in 
 ten years. If I lived in a cold climate, 
 I would recommend to break early 
 and deep, where the ground freezes 
 from seven to twelve inches or over, 
 where the rains are not so heavy, and 
 a large portion of the time the land 
 is covered with snow. In all climates 
 above 36 degrees, I would give it as 
 my opinion, that land would be ma- 
 terially benefited by fall ploughing, 
 and the further north you go on that 
 line, the more benefit would be re- 
 ceived from fall ploughing. The 
 freezes and snows would make up for 
 all the disadvantages that apply to 
 the line south of 33 degrees. I do 
 not consider it a question when to be- 
 gin breaking land; the point is, you 
 must begin in time to do the work be- 
 fore planting, and take all the advan- 
 tages and disadvantages that may- 
 come; and the better the breaking is 
 done, the easier the land is cultivated, 
 and the larger the crops. I always 
 consider the preparation the half, 
 ^and the heaviest half, of viaking the 
 crop. 
 
 No step in the whole process of ag- 
 riculture can be considered so abso- 
 lutely essential to successful crop- 
 growing as proper and thorough prep- 
 aration of the soil before planting. 
 We need to turn in the surface soil 
 with the vegetable matter. We want 
 a large extent of soil and depth of 
 pulverization, because the roots of 
 plants are many times longer than 
 the limbs and stalks, sometimes go- 
 ing as many as five or six times the 
 length of the limbs and stalks of 
 corn and cotton. We want a well 
 pulverized soil of sufficient depth to 
 take in from the spring rains a supply 
 of water sufficient to move .off the 
 young crops in the spring and carry 
 them safely through eight or ten 
 weeks of drought. To this end, you 
 
36 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 must have a soil of twelve inches and 
 subsoil six inches beyond. 
 
 Now as to the method of procedure: 
 Have good turning plows, and, ac- 
 cording to your ability, use one or 
 two horses, and subsoil behind. Ride 
 over the field or plat, and lay off the 
 land so that the teams will go round 
 on a level, and the dirt fall down hill. 
 A team will break the soil nine inches 
 deep in this way as easily as 
 they could seven inches on a level 
 piece of land. Continue this round 
 until the field is finished — one team 
 following another — all the time go- 
 ing round the circle. If you subsoil 
 have one team between each turning 
 plow — running in the bottom of the 
 furrow. Finish in the middle of the 
 field or cut. In this way no water 
 furrows are left to be washed out 
 into gullies, and the general surface 
 of the field is left uniformly smooth. 
 
 If you wish a fort to stand a hot 
 and protracted attack, you must wa- 
 ter and provision, as well as man it, 
 in order that it may hold out until the 
 siege is raised — remembering one day 
 unprovided for may prove fatal; so 
 if you wish a cotton plant or a corn 
 stalk to stand a hot burning sun, and 
 a dry northwest wind, from four to 
 ten weeks, and come out safely, you 
 must water and put in sufficient solu- 
 ble food to last. How is that to be 
 done? By deepening the soil, plough- 
 ing deep, subsoiling, and filling it* 
 with humus, that it may retain the 
 greatest amount of water. The soil 
 is like a sponge, if too porous, water 
 will sink through it; if too close, it 
 will hold but little. I find that humus, 
 clay, and a due proportion of sand, 
 constitutes the best soil, to succeed 
 under all circumstances, with soluble 
 plant food in abundance. 
 
 An over estimate as to the practi- 
 cal importance of deep and thorough 
 breaking of lands for the cultivated 
 crops can not be made. It is an ab- 
 solute necessity, one of the indispens- 
 ables in all necessary farming. A 
 grain of corn, or seed of cotton in- 
 serted into a soil of half an inch of 
 depth Vill readily germinate and 
 sprout up under the inspiration of 
 vegetable instinct; but for want of 
 depth of soil, these plants soon wilt. 
 
 and perish away fruitless. To pro- 
 duce prolific crops, or even to repro- 
 duce their kind, they must have, not 
 only fertile, but deep soil. Hence, we 
 emphasize what we know from long 
 practice and hard-earned experience. 
 Plow deep; turn your land under 
 from eight to twelve inches, submerg- 
 ing the surface soil, with all the litter 
 and vegetable matter deep under. 
 Plow deep, for the purpose of well 
 arid thoroughly pulverizing the soil 
 and making it loose, permeable and 
 tillable. Plow deep, and subsoil, to 
 give your crop roots depth of range, 
 and capacity of reservoir that will se- 
 cure them sufficiency of moisture for 
 any emergency of drought. Deepen 
 your subsoiling to that extent that 
 will furnish safety in any possible or 
 probable peradventure, up to a ten 
 weeks' drought, (see article on the 
 "Cultivation of Cotton" on that point). 
 The reader will permit me to recur 
 to a point of importance connected 
 with the subject of turning lands, 
 which was omitted in it proper place. 
 I allude to the popular impression, en- 
 tertained by many, that it will not do 
 to turn the clay subsoil to the surface, 
 for the reason it will injure the land, 
 and prevents the crops from growing 
 off promptly. Now this is all myth; 
 one inch of clay, each year, over a good 
 soil, will do no harm in any land. The 
 clay turned to the surface will, by op* 
 eration of the chemical elements of the 
 atmosphere, become vitalized, and so 
 changed chemically as to assume the 
 properties of the fertile soil. 
 Many a red-clay fortification in Geor- 
 gia, during the late war, has demon- 
 strated this fact, by producing on the 
 very height of the embankment the 
 most luxuriant weeds. Hence the ex- 
 posure of the clay to the atmosphere 
 transforms it into a fertile soil, and 
 thus, to that extent, deepens the soil, 
 and at the same time shields the ten- 
 der roots of the planted crops from 
 the hot suns of early summer, and un- 
 til the cultivator comes along to break 
 the crust, and let in the air, light and 
 heat. So, turning a stratum of sub- 
 soil clay to the surface not only does 
 not injure the land, but contributes 
 to deepening the soil by vitalizing its 
 organic elements, and making them 
 productive. 
 
BREAKING LANDS. 
 
 37 
 
 1 take the ground that if my sys- 
 tem be carried out as a whole, there 
 is no use to break the ground but 
 once a year. It requires till the first 
 of May to do it right, and that is soon 
 enough to finish. Then the sweep in- 
 stead of the bull tongue for cultiva- 
 tion. If you depend upon the latter 
 you will loose two-thirds of your crop. 
 
 An important precaution in break- 
 ing lands is, never plow when the 
 land is wet. Let it sufficiently dry af- 
 •ter each rain to crumble and disinte- 
 grate when raised by the plow. The 
 soil should never be plowed when it 
 is so wet as for the particles to ad- 
 here or stick together in lumps. When 
 thus plowed wet, the soil dries off 
 hard and crusty, and to a certain ex- 
 
 tent, loses its assimilable character, 
 and hence, to that extent. Injured; 
 clay soils are greatly damaged by be- 
 ing plowed when wet. It must al- 
 ways be remembered that the princi- 
 pal object in breaking lands is pul- 
 verization. 
 
 There is no necessity for breaking 
 lands a second time during the sea- 
 son., or for the same crop, if it has 
 been well done, and sufficient carbon 
 and vegetable mold incorporated into 
 the soil. Lands that have thus been 
 prepared by breaking, and planted in 
 crops, become the domain, the pri- 
 vate territory, of these crops, and 
 should not again be invaded by the 
 plowshare, but left to tender culture 
 of the surface cultivator. 
 
 Good Pasture Lands. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Cultivation of Crops. 
 
 The main objects of cultivating 
 crops are, to Iteep the weeds and 
 grass out from drawing the substance 
 from the plants, and to keep the sur- 
 face broke so as to let in light, heat 
 and air. If a small amount of loose 
 earth is on top, it prevents the sur- 
 face from heating too rapidly below, 
 and acts as a blanket to keep the 
 earth from discharging the heat too 
 rapidly at night. This small fine pul- 
 verization on top, say from a half to 
 an inch, comes to the dew point much 
 earlier than a solid body, and secretes 
 moisture and the elements of the at- 
 mosphere much earlier in the night 
 and more rapidly. It retains the ele- 
 ments of the atmosphere to be wash- 
 ed deeper down when it rains, and 
 protects any further evaporation be- 
 low the moisture until that is dis- 
 charged. 
 
 I consider it just as deleterious to, 
 cut the roots of a plant as I would to 
 cut the veins of an ox when 1 have 
 him fattening. The object of the 
 roots is to penetrate in every direc- 
 tion the surface and the depth below, 
 .to gather the food and send it up to 
 the blades to be elaborated by them 
 into food for the stalks and the grain. 
 If the roots are cut off, the whole sup- 
 ply of nutriment is cut off; if enough 
 roots are left in deep ploughing to 
 prevent the plant from dying 
 straight out it may be recuperated 
 for awhile, but it would have the 
 same effect as putting an ox on half 
 feed when he is fattening. 
 
 Vegetable mould opens the parti- 
 cles of clay, and so mellows the soil 
 that the roots of the plant may easi- 
 ly penetrate; and it is so closes the 
 particles of sand as to enable the soil 
 to retain moisture. Hence there is 
 no positive necessity of breaking such 
 land a second time during the same 
 crop-season. To break the surface 
 crust occasionally, to destroy the 
 grass and weeds, and admit the at- 
 mospheric gases, light and heat, is 
 the object of crop culture. Hence, 
 my practice of surface culture. 
 
 The practice of root cutting is so 
 absurd, and so violate of the evi- 
 dent design of nature, that I have in 
 all my farming, avoided the use of 
 plows that cut deep enough to reach 
 the roots of plants that I am cultiva- 
 ting. These roots are put forth in ac- 
 cordance with the laws of vegetable 
 life, to collect and appropriate nutri- 
 ment to the growing crops. These 
 roots and fibrils permeate the soil in 
 every direction, an'd to the utmost 
 depths of the broken soil, and travers- 
 ing entirely across the rows, instinc- 
 tively seek the richer spots of soil. To 
 cut these roots is simply doing vio- 
 lence to nature's laws and seriously 
 frustrating her designs. 
 
 In my practice of surface-culture, I 
 use a broad, shallow-cutting sweep, 
 that simply breaks the crust, and run- 
 ning not deeper than from half an 
 inch to one inch. The following is a 
 description of, and directions for mak- 
 ing and using, this cultivator: 
 
CUL'nVATION OF CROPS. 
 
 39 
 
 The Dickson Sxi-eep. 
 
 The stem should be of iron, three- 
 inches wide and three-fourths of an 
 inch thick. It should be cut square 
 off of a bar, fourteen or fifteen and a 
 half-inches long, 'leaving five and a 
 half inches stem above the wing to 
 come on the foot of the plough. The 
 balance of the stem is to put the wing 
 on, and to form the point. The use 
 of the point is, that you can hold the 
 sweep much more steadily, and it acts 
 as a rudder to keep every little bunch 
 of grass or twig from throwing it out 
 of its position. I find the most valua- 
 ble size to be from twenty-two to 
 twenty-six inches, never less or more. 
 The wings should be cut out of the 
 best Swedes iron, just half the length 
 of the width of the sweep. TTie width 
 of the iron in the wings should be 
 three and a half inches by one-half 
 inch, and they should be cut diagon- 
 ally across the iron, varying about 
 one inch from the true line, and when 
 the wings are put on, the end of the 
 wings should lack very little of be- 
 ing in a straight line with the upper 
 end of the stem. If put square on, 
 they would not discharge the dirt, on 
 account of too great a slope, and they 
 would dodge for every little resist- 
 ance, instead of cutting it. The 
 sweep should be put on the stock so 
 that when power is applied on the 
 end of the beam it would not be in- 
 clined to go in or come out of the 
 ground. They should always be kept 
 sharp, if the smith has to work on 
 them once a day. They will usually 
 last from three to ten days without 
 sharpening. 
 
 In contra-distinction to this strict- 
 ly surface-culture, the popular prac- 
 tice of deep plowing with rooters or 
 turn-plows — thus rebreaking the land 
 at every plowing of the crop, is prac- 
 tically absurd, and acts as a stunning 
 blow to every crop thus treated. 
 
 Whilst, in the preparation of the 
 land for planting, the plowing should 
 be — in all — eighteen inches, the culti- 
 vation should not be deeper than 
 above stated; but the farmer who pre- 
 pares his land by breaking it eighteen 
 inches deep, and cultivates six inches, 
 deep, will injure his crops less than 
 the farmer who prepares six inches 
 
 deep and cultivates six inches deep. 
 In the one case — the roots having 
 twelve inches of prepared land to oc- 
 cupy, and in the other, no space at all 
 not interrupted by the root-cutter. 
 
 Nature is exact, and puts forth no 
 superfluous roots to growing plants! 
 Hence every root should be spared. 
 
 It is astonishing how quickly and 
 rapidly the roots of a young plant will 
 spring out, and traverse a mellow soil, 
 and how speedily the tap-root will 
 reach the hard subsoil beneath, and 
 end its quest in that direction. Hence 
 every plowing in cultivation that is 
 deeper than one inch must destroy 
 more or less of the plant roots; but 
 under my system of preparing, plant- 
 ing and cultivating, as a general re- 
 mark, I cut no roots. Soils planted 
 in crops, belong to these crops, and 
 the cultivator has no right to invade 
 it with his plowshare during the 
 growth and development of these 
 crops. To best promote the processes 
 of nature in maturing these crops, he 
 has only to break the surface crust 
 occasionally to destroy extraneous 
 growths and admit the light and at- 
 mospheric gases to the under soil. 
 This is sufl^ciently effected by the sur- 
 face culture proposed, and by the 
 Dickson Sweep above described. The 
 true philosophy of crop cultivation re- 
 quires nothing more. To violate 
 this principal and practice is to dam- 
 age the crops. 
 
 Furthermore, it is great economy 
 of time and labor to sweep your crops 
 with a twenty-two inch sweep instead 
 of breaking again, and everv three 
 weeks with a bull-tongue three or 
 four inches wide. CuJtivation with 
 such an implement, makes dividends 
 impossible. There is no use for the 
 second breaking with bull-tongue or 
 rooters to make the most out of 
 land or labor. The sweep will give 
 you larger dividends because you can 
 cultivate a much larger area, and do it 
 upon more conservative principles. 
 
 It is not only important that the 
 plowing of crops should be done shal- 
 low, so that the roots of the plants 
 may escape cutting, but the same care 
 and tenderness should be observed in 
 the hoeing of crops. The term "chop- 
 ping cotton" should be expunged 
 from -the farmer's vocabulary. Cot- 
 
40 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 ton should be thinned by shaving out 
 across the drill — and not dug out by 
 'chopping.' Let the hoe pass level 
 through the drill, and just deep 
 enough to shave off the cotton and 
 grass, barely breaking the surface 
 crust, and finish the thinning with 
 the hand, if necessary. The ridge or 
 bed should not ^e rudely chopped 
 down leaving the tender roots of the 
 cotton bare, or in a crippled or fall- 
 ing condition. To break up its at- 
 
 tachments to the soil, leave it in a 
 tottering condition, or cut off its tap- 
 roots just under the crust soil, is posi- 
 tively hurtful to the plants. It crip- 
 ples and stunts them, and they often 
 perish. I repeat, shave lightly and 
 do not dig about your plants. 
 
 The same is true of other crops. 
 Digging about corn, to hill it, is of- 
 ten hurtful. Deep ploughing, or dig- 
 ging about, forking or spading crops 
 in the cultivation, is all wrong. 
 
 Proper Cultivation. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Cultivation of Corn. 
 
 Preparation of the Land. 
 
 If you cover deep you lose all the 
 advantages of deep planting (but not 
 deep breaking) ; and for this reason 
 — corn, in good weather, will come up 
 from a depth of one to six inches, but 
 will strike out roots about one inch 
 from the surface of the ground, *and 
 all below that will perish. That is 
 one reason why I am opposed to dirt- 
 ing corn as it comes up. It brings 
 the roots of the stalk to the top of 
 the ground. " 
 
 If any hills should be missing, it 
 should be immediately replanted as 
 soon as the corn comes up, and it will 
 be just as forward as the other corn. 
 If more than one grain be dropped, 
 just as soon as the stalks have three 
 blades they should be thinned to one 
 — never having more than one stalk 
 in a hill. 
 
 Cultivation. 
 
 It is not necessary to commence 
 working corn before the 20th of April 
 to the 1st of May. One reason for 
 this is that earlier working is a loss 
 of time, and if the corn plant is hilled 
 up before there are lateral roots to it, 
 the plant roots all below an inch or 
 inch and a half will perish, thereby 
 losing all the advantages of putting 
 the corn in deep, but no loss from the 
 deep preparation. My plan is to fin- 
 ish working from the ^Oth of April to 
 the 25th of May. With the land well 
 turned very little grass and weeds 
 will come up, except in the bottom of 
 
 the furrow, which will be easily man- 
 aged. 
 
 First Working. — I would side with a 
 twenty-two inch sweep, the back of 
 the right wing elevated about one 
 inch and a quarter, so as to sift in dirt 
 to make it about an inch of being on 
 a level with the common surface. The 
 middle can be broken with the same 
 size sweep, the back of both wings 
 elevated, finishing out the seven feet 
 with four furrows. A horse should 
 plough three and a half acres a day, 
 and four hands completing fourteen 
 acres every day, by going sixteen 
 miles a day. 
 
 Second Ploughing. — This work, if 
 well done, will stand from three to 
 four weeks. It should be ploughed 
 just as at first, with the right wing of 
 the sweep a little more elevated, run- 
 ning very close to the corn — leaving 
 a perfectly level surface, and finish- 
 ing out the middle with three furrows. 
 Add a fifth furrow for making a good 
 place for planting peas. Five horses 
 should plough fourteen acres a day. 
 If the plowing be well done there is 
 no use for a hoe. 
 
 Planting Peas. 
 From the 1st to the 20th of June is 
 the time to plant peas. This should 
 be between the second and third 
 ploughing — running a shovel furrow 
 in the middle of the corn rows. One 
 hand can drop for one plough. Drop 
 six or seven peas a distance of not 
 over two feet — covering with a har- 
 row. Two hands and one dropper 
 
42 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 will plant sixteen acres per day. If 
 the farmer can. spare the time and 
 means it will pay to guano his peas. 
 Third Ploughing. — This is to be the 
 last and final ploughing. It should 
 not exceed half an inch in depth. Side 
 the corn with a twenty-two inch 
 sweep, the right wing elevated, and 
 the left wing one-half elevated. Side 
 the peas with a twenty-six inch sweep, 
 the right wing half elevated, the left 
 wing elevated, going a half-inch deep. 
 If this be well done, it leaves a beau- 
 tiful inch of surface — not a bunch of 
 grass in the pea or corn row. No hoe 
 hands are ever needed in the cultiva- 
 tion if the plough hand does his duty. 
 Should the hand who sides the corn 
 leave a bunch of grass, he should get 
 it with his hand or foot. This will 
 make him more careful to do the 
 work right; and he can go his sixteen 
 and two-thirds miles a day, take care 
 of his horse, and do everything that 
 is necessary to be done. 
 
 This is the last ploughing; if well 
 done, the ground will be almost as 
 smooth and level as a floor, with not 
 a sprig of grass to the two hundred 
 acres, nor a weed to be seen in the 
 field. In old times, I required every 
 hand to clean the crop as he went — 
 what the plough left, to be removed 
 with the foot and hand. From thir- 
 teen to sixteen miles, according to the 
 condition of the crop, was a day's 
 work. 
 
 Such pine land as mine (some of 
 it very poor) should make from twen- 
 ty to twenty -five bushels per acre; 
 and wet or dry, if the work is right- 
 ly done, there is no such thing as a 
 failure. 
 
 All the labor required to cultivate 
 corn is less than one day per acre; 
 requiring only thirteen days to culti- 
 vate fourteen acres; and if well done, 
 it will get the largest crop out of the 
 land that is possible to get any one 
 year. To plant the pea crop costs 
 only one-eighth of a day per acre in 
 the ploughing, and one-sixteenth of a 
 day's work per acre to drop it. This 
 will make the corn and pea crop, af- 
 ter the land has been prepared, re- 
 quire only one day's work per acre. 
 
 The reader will note in the above 
 account of my plan of corn culture — 
 
 a practical solution of the proposi- 
 tion — "do not cut the roots of growing 
 crops." 
 
 In the first ploughing, the sweep 
 did not reach within several inches 
 of the surface roots of the corn. 
 Hence, not a root . was touched. In 
 the second ploughing, the sweep is to 
 run not exceeding one inch deep. 
 This one inch will not reach even the 
 surface around the corn, and its roots 
 being below, can not be reached by a 
 plough running one inch deep — so, the 
 roots have escaped the two first 
 ploughings. The third and last 
 ploughing goes only half an inch deep, 
 and hence misses the plant roots 
 again, and not a root has been cut 
 during the entire cultivation of the 
 crop. 
 
 Clay lands will bear the same treat- 
 ment as sandy lands, with the same 
 result, and with less difficulty. If you 
 have two hogs fattening, one white, 
 representing sandy land, the other 
 red, representing red land, and you 
 cut .the veins and let out the blood 
 every two or three weeks, the resul*" 
 would be the same — just so cutting 
 the roots of corn every two or three 
 weeks, on red or sandy land, would 
 involve the same loss. I do not care 
 what color your land is, or whether 
 sand or clay, if you keep up a full sup- 
 ply of vegetable mold, break deep be- 
 fore planting, and cultivate lightly 
 afterwards, the same results will be 
 good, wet or dry. 
 
 This method of deep planting and 
 shallow covering forces the plants to 
 take root deeply- — at the bottom of 
 the mellow soil, which retains mois- 
 ture for a long time without addition- 
 al rains; and, hence, I say tliat I can 
 make an average crop of corn with 
 one or two rains after it comes up. 
 The ample distance I give corn, like- 
 wise helps to economize the water 
 supply and keep the crops green and 
 growing during drought. 
 
 The most palpable sources of fail- • 
 ure in the production of the corn crop 
 are four-fold: 
 
 1st. Not keeping a sufficient quan- 
 tity of vegetable mold in the land. 
 
 2d. Ploughing too shallow in pre- 
 paring for the crop. 
 
 3d. Planting too thick. 
 
 4th. Cultivating too deep. 
 
CULTIVATION OF CORN. 
 
 43 
 
 "With slave labor before the war, 
 my last crop was as follows: On one 
 thousand acres of thin pine land, 
 eighteen bushels of corn per acre was 
 the lowest average. The highest 
 average I ever made on this land was 
 twenty-six bushels and one peck per 
 acre. The lowest acre produced 
 twelve bushels, and the highest thir- 
 ty-eight bushels on upland, with two 
 thousand stalks per acre. It was 
 easy to find ears of corn that weighed 
 twenty ounces. 
 
 Pulling Blades. 
 
 There is great diversity of opinion 
 as to the pulling of fodder. I have 
 foimd by practice, that if the "Com- 
 pound" is used, especially salt and 
 plaster, the corn will be fully ma- 
 tured before the fodder begins to 
 damage, and it will be much heavier 
 than if it w'as not used, and there will 
 be no loss of corn whatever from pull- 
 ing the blades. There is no food that 
 stock like better than well-matured 
 fodder, nicely cured. Those who 
 have a different opinion, and have 
 made a test of the corn, have always 
 pulled the fodder too soon. The ob- 
 ject is, first, to cultivate corn for the 
 sake of the corn; and when the corn 
 has made all it can make, there can be 
 no objection to saving the fodder. 
 
 With deep preparation, liberal ma- 
 nuring, and the ground kept clean 
 by shaving off the grass with the 
 sweep, the corn will be made and 
 hard, while the fodder is still green 
 and good. Then the fodder may be 
 pulled off without hurting the corn in 
 the least. Fodder may be kept green 
 on the stalk two or three weeks after 
 the corn is hard, by using salt and 
 plaster around the hill as a manure. 
 There is no better food for stock than 
 fodder well saved. 
 
 Preserving Corn. 
 
 Having been often called upon to 
 answer the question, how to preserve 
 corn, and not having had time to an- 
 swer such letters, I will give my prac- 
 tice. No other corn can be kept long 
 but sound, pure corn. Use the yel- 
 low flint variety for long keeping. 
 That corn you wish to keep the long- 
 est, let it thoroughly cure in the 
 field, pull it when^it is thoroughly dry, 
 from the middle *of November to the 
 
 middle of December, put into a dark 
 house, fill it full. This corn will stay 
 till you use it. I should have men- 
 tioned that I always put it up in 
 shuck, put it in as close as possible; 
 and if a rat-proof house is used, so 
 much the better. 
 
 Time for Planting. 
 
 In deciding this question, you must 
 be governed by the season and the 
 weather. From the 10th of March to 
 the 1st of April, corn planting may be 
 commenced. A mild and favorable 
 winter, with flattering indications of 
 opening spring, will invite you to com- 
 mence your planting as early as the 
 10th of March. But should the spring 
 be a little late, the ground still cold, 
 and the weather unfavorable, you may 
 safely and with better policy, defer 
 planting till the middle, 20th, or 
 even to the last of March. These in- 
 structions apply to sections on or 
 near the .33d degree north latitude. 
 Of «ourse, further south corn can be 
 planted earlier; and further north 
 much later. According to my expe- 
 rience, the farmer only gains hard 
 work and more of it, by very early 
 planling. 
 
 In the Southern and Middle States, 
 the corn-growing season is abundantly 
 long to allow the planter to select 
 his planting time. Corn is an annual, 
 and under proper system of culture 
 makes and matures its crop speedily. 
 Planted while the ground is still cold, 
 it does not spring up and grow off 
 promptly; but the plant, loitering for 
 want of warm sun and soil, becomes 
 puny and more or less stunted in its 
 growth, and can never make such a 
 luxuriant crop as when it gi'ows oft 
 promptly. There is no sense in plant- 
 ing a summer crop in the winter. As 
 a single crop, to make the heaviest 
 yield, I would plant in April, but only 
 advise the earlier planting to con- 
 form its culture to the combined 
 schedule of corn and cotton together. 
 The best crop I ever made was plan- 
 ted about the first of May. 
 
 Distance. 
 
 The first thing is to settle the capac- 
 ity of your land to produce corn, as to 
 the number of bushels in an ordinary 
 year, and never exceed one hundred 
 
44 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 and thirty-three stalks to the bushel. 
 Seventy-five stalks can be made to 
 yield a bushel, and I have made a 
 bushel off of fifty stalks the field over. 
 Taking land that will make from ten 
 to thirty bushels of corn to the acre, 
 I would have rows seven feet apart, 
 and drop the grains three feet dis- 
 tant in the distance given above, there 
 will be twenty-one square feet for each 
 stalk of corn. If there should be enough 
 soluble matter in that space for two or 
 even three ears, one stalk will take it 
 up; but if there is only matter enough 
 for one ear of corn, and you put two 
 stalks, and water is scarce at earing 
 time, you will miss gathering — even 
 that one ear. Again, if it be a dry 
 year, thin planting will always beat; 
 and corn always commands a better 
 price such years. 
 
 The higher the latitude where corn 
 will ripen before frost the thicker it 
 may be planted, and the more it will 
 make per acre — other things being 
 equal. But I contend that two thou- 
 sand stalks are enough for one acre in 
 the latitude of Middle Georgia. Under 
 no circumstances would I advise more 
 than one hundred and thirty-three 
 stalks to the bushel of corn the land 
 ought to make per acre. I have made 
 one bushel of corn for every fifty-two 
 stalks in the field. In planting richer 
 lands, that would bear say three 
 thousand stalks or more per acre, I 
 would lay the rows six feet one way 
 and regulate the distance in the drill, 
 so as to give the number of stalks de- 
 sired. 
 
 The most universal, fatal error in 
 raising corn is, planting it too thick! 
 Give it distance, and seek to make ear 
 not stalk — grain instead of fodder. 
 
 Planting. 
 
 Lay off your rows with a long 
 shovel plow, on a level, seven feet 
 apart. Commence at the opposite 
 end with a longer shovel, and open 
 out the same furrow. The reason for 
 running this second furrow in the op- 
 posite direction is, you get up to the 
 trees and stumps, and make a better 
 finish at the end. 
 
 Whether you use compost, cotton- 
 seed, guano or my compound, let 
 each hand have a three-foot measure, 
 and by it deposit the manure in the 
 bottom of the furrow just three feet 
 apart. Then drop the corn within 
 three or four inches from the manure 
 — one or more grains in the hill — 
 dropping on the near side of the ma- 
 nure as the dropper goes. With a 
 very light harrow, cover the corn one 
 or one and a half-inches deep. The 
 harrow should go the same way the 
 dropper goes to keep from pulling the 
 manure on the grain, and thus de- 
 stroying its germinating powers. 
 
 The corn is now in the ground eight 
 inches deep, and covered from one to 
 one and a half inches. It will germi- 
 nate and quickly come up, and send 
 out not only its tap-root to the depth 
 of broken soil, but lateral roots in 
 every direction seven inches below 
 the common surface. 
 
 Peanut, Natural Size — A Fine Crop for Hogs. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Cultivation of Cotton. 
 
 Distance of rows. — As, in my plan 
 of preparing land for corn and lay- 
 ing off the rows, the question of dis- 
 tance occurs. My early impressions, 
 dictated by reason and knowledge of 
 the natural history of the cotton plant, 
 its nature, habits, etc., decided me to 
 give the crop good distance in the 
 row, to allow room for proper culti- 
 vation, and free access of air and sun- 
 light to this sun-plant. 
 
 I prefer to have my rows wide 
 apart, and leave the plants thick in 
 the drill, for this reason: All land 
 has its capacity, with or without ma- 
 nure, but greater in proportion to ma- 
 nuring and deep preparation, to sus- 
 tain a certain number of plants. The 
 cotton plants, when still small, com- 
 mence to take on and mature bolls, 
 and continue until they exhaust the 
 soluble matter, or reach the full ca- 
 pacity of the land. Two stalks will 
 do that much sooner than one, and 
 will so avoid late droughts, caterpil- 
 lar, boll-worm and early frosts. For 
 all good medium and thin grades of 
 lands I find that four feet is near 
 enough to have the rows; richer lands 
 require more distance. 
 
 In very rich land the distance be- 
 tween the rows may be from four to 
 six feet; probably some of the Mis- 
 sissippi bottoms may want eight feet. 
 No land is so poor that the rows of 
 cotton should be nearer than four feet. 
 If you have not land enough to plant 
 as much as you wish, purchase more. 
 A four foot row will make more than 
 
 a three foot row; it is just as easy 
 cultivated, if the season is favorable, 
 and more easy if they are not. 
 
 Preparation. — With large shovel 
 plough lay off your rows four feet 
 apart, running them as near on a level 
 as possible. Run a second furrow 
 with same size but longer shovel, in 
 the bottom of the same row, opening 
 it well out and to the depth of seven 
 or eight inches. In this furrow de- 
 posit the fertilizer intended to be 
 used, with the hand or fertilizer 
 sower, at the rate of from four hun- 
 dred to a thousand pounds per acre. 
 With a long scooter plough, run 
 deeply on each side of this row, cover- 
 ing the manure and leaving a imall, 
 sharp ridge in the center. Run the 
 same plough deeply in these furrows 
 a second time, or, a good subsoil 
 plough, if preferred. Now. with a good 
 turnplough. run on the sid(> of each of 
 these scooter furrows, and scooter 
 furrows in each of these turn-plough 
 furrows. Split out the remaining 
 middle with a large shovel as deep as 
 the team will pull it. That finishes 
 the bed. Continue this process the 
 field over; nine furrows finishing 
 each row. It will leave a broad, flat 
 bed, just over the middle of which 
 the seed are to be planted. 
 
 I will now give you a plan that will 
 carry the cotton plant through eight 
 or ten weeks of drought with safety, 
 and enable it to get ahead of the cat- 
 erpillar — the boll-worm may come 
 too soon for a full crop — but one need 
 
46 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 not fear the caterpillar, if they do not 
 come before the first of September. 
 Always remember the soil must be 
 good and deep and subsoiled six inches 
 deeper, and furnished with a good sup- 
 ply of guano, dissolved bones, plaster 
 and salt. A cotton plant to stand two 
 weeks must have four inches of 
 soil and six inches subsoil; three 
 weeks, six inches soil, same sub- 
 soiling; four weeks, eight inches, 
 same subsoiling; and for every week 
 of dry weather, you will need an ad- 
 ditional inch, with the same six inches 
 subsoil, broken below. So, you will 
 see, to stand a ten weeks' drouth you 
 must have a soil sixteen inches 'deep, 
 with six inches broken below. 
 
 This plan will hold the forms and 
 bolls during the whole time, and not 
 give them up when it rains; but 
 should you not prepare right, and your 
 supplies give out, or surrender one 
 week before reinforcements come, in 
 form of water, much is lost, and it 
 may be too late to start anew. If you 
 prepare and carry out this plan well, 
 you may expect from four hundred to 
 twelve hundred pounds of lint cotton 
 per acre, according to the character 
 of the laud, locality, etc. 
 
 Time for Planting. — From the 10th 
 to the 25th of April, I consider the 
 best time for planting cotton in this 
 latitude. But, in round numbers, any 
 time from the first of April to the 15th 
 of May will do to plant cotton. You 
 may plant with high manuring as 
 late even as the first of June. By ex- 
 tending your planting over the long- 
 est periods, you can raise the larg- 
 est crops, the bulk being put in about 
 the 15th or 20th of April. The 
 earlier cotton is planted the lighter 
 it must be covered. 
 
 Planting. — When the proper time 
 arrives, and the land is ready, open 
 with a short bull-tongue, sow the seed 
 with hand, and cover with a light har- 
 row. But a cotton planter is prefera- 
 ble. When this is used it finishes the 
 whole operation at once — opening, 
 dropping and covering the seed. 
 
 First Working. — In the first working 
 of the cotton, side with a twenty-two- 
 inch sweep — with the right wing tol- 
 erably flat, going very close to the 
 plant, and not exceeding a half inch 
 
 in depth in the plowing. Let the 
 sweep be sharp. 
 
 In ten days, commence hoeing witli 
 a sharp. No. 2 Scovill hoe, scraping 
 through the drill very lightly, and 
 leaving from two to three stalks in 
 the hill, the width of the hoe. I pre- 
 fer two stalks in a hill. Leave no 
 grass to bunch and cause a future bad 
 stand. In many instances, it is best, 
 when half over the first time, to turn 
 back and clean what has been hoed. 
 The shaving of the grass with the hoe 
 will act as a second working of the 
 crop. It will always be safe, if you 
 can, to return to the cotton once in 
 three weeks. 
 
 Do not chop out cotton but shave 
 it out with the hoe. You must not 
 dig down about its roots, but scrape 
 it off, not tearing up the soil around 
 it and exposing its roots to the sun. 
 
 Second Working. — At the end of 
 about three weeks, side your cotton 
 again with the same twenty-two-inch 
 sweep, the right wing a little up, run- 
 ning close to the row, and shallow. 
 Cotton ought to be ploughed about 
 every three weeks. If the work be 
 well done, it will, in most cases, stand 
 four weeks. By this plan the cotton 
 will be kept clean, and get the advan- 
 tage of frequent stirring, which should 
 be surface stirring. Continue plough- 
 ing till the 15th to 20th of August, nor 
 more than one-eighth to one-quarter 
 inch deep, and in the same manner, 
 and with the same sweep as for first 
 and second ploughing. Once or twice 
 during the season run out the middle 
 with one furrow to keep the land 
 level. 
 
 Cotton may be made with two to 
 three ploughings. Four sidings and 
 two middle splittings are all that it 
 ever wants under the most favorable 
 circumstances. The greatest amount 
 of work the cotton requires is only 
 ten furrows to the row for all culti- 
 vation. The whole ploughing occu- 
 pies just one and a fourth day's work 
 per acre, under favorable circum- 
 stances; and it may be completed 
 with three-fourth day's work per acre. 
 It is essential that each of those 
 ploughings should be done very shal- 
 low and close, never stopping for dry 
 weather. If the ground stays wet, 
 
CULTIVATION OF COTTON. 
 
 47 
 
 you may stop a few hours and hoe. 
 The hoeing and ploughi-ag during the 
 cultivation of the crop closes up the 
 land sufficiently to cause the fruit to 
 set finely. At the beginning of the 
 planting it was sufficiently porous for 
 the roots to penetrate in every direc- 
 tion, and to any desired depth. The 
 cotton plant is like the cultivated 
 plum or cherry, requiring the land to 
 be pretty close around the roots to 
 set its fruit well, and prevent its 
 drowning in excessive rains. To 
 cause early maturity the rows of the 
 cotton should be one way four feet 
 apart, and there should be from two 
 to three stalks in a hill, at the dis- 
 tance of every nine inches. When the 
 cotton fruit commences to bloom, 
 each stalk will bloom and take on 
 just as many bolls as if there were 
 only three stalks to the yard. This 
 system, stated above, will insure 
 eight stalks to the yard, if hoed with 
 care, which is one hundred and sixty- 
 six per cent, more stalks than if one 
 stalk is left for every twelve inches. 
 By placing the stalks thick in the 
 drill, and wide apart, the land is less 
 shaded, and gets more light and sun. 
 If you wish to shade with a given 
 number of plants, the more equally 
 the land is divided the more com- 
 pletely it is shaded. 
 
 Prepared, manured, planted and 
 cultivated, as directed, there never 
 J has been any reason, any year, to pre- 
 vent you from having a good average 
 crop. The driest year I have ever 
 known has satisfied me of this fact. 
 If you pursue the above plan, and get 
 three favorable weeks from the 20th 
 of July, you will get a good average 
 crop. Thin planting, as a general 
 thing, latens the crop. If seasons 
 have been regular, and the above di- 
 rections have been carried out, the 
 plant will be completely checked by 
 the 20th of August, and need no top- 
 ping. Topping is advantageous where 
 we find the bolls have not come on 
 soon enough, and, if topped, should 
 be done from the 5th to the 10th of 
 August. 
 
 The heavier the cotton bolls the 
 more care is necessary, by previous 
 preparation and manuring, to sustain 
 the plant. Care should also be taken 
 
 not to skin or bruise the shanks of 
 the cotton with the hoe. The hoe 
 should never be raised more than 
 eight inches from the ground to hoe 
 cotton. The hoe should be kept 
 sharp, and grass should be cut just 
 below the crown. Scratch out the 
 word chop, and use the word hoe or 
 scrape. This matures cotton earlier, 
 and renders it less likely to be dam- 
 aged by boll-worms and caterpillars, 
 Rust in Cotton. 
 
 Rust is simply poverty' of the land. 
 This poverty is produced from vari- 
 ous causes, such as wet lands that 
 leach, lands that are too porous to 
 hold water, that receive too much 
 rain at one time and get too dry at 
 another, and letting it get grassy so 
 as to rob the plant of what little 
 nourishment that is there. The hilly, 
 sandy land can be improved by mix- 
 ing with them a vegetable mold, and 
 using a sufficient quantity of "Dick- 
 son's Compound" with surface cul- 
 ture. The wet lands have to be 
 drained to increase their fertility. 
 Red and post-oak lands that are suf- 
 ficiently dry need nothing but enrich- 
 ing; and the true system for every- 
 body is, to make the land as near vir- 
 gin soil as possible. I have never 
 known in this section new lands to 
 rust. The black prairie lands I am not 
 acquainted with, but I understand 
 they are liable to rust; but I believe 
 the same system of keeping them full 
 of vegetable mold up to the virgin 
 standard, and the use of the "Com- 
 pound" manure, would succeed in 
 making cotton in them. The sul- 
 phuric acid that is in the plaster 
 might to some extent supply the place 
 of carbonic acid that is deficient by 
 long cultivation. The above is true 
 in my practice. As to the black prai- 
 rie land, it is a mere suggestion, but 
 I believe that it will succeed. 
 Picking Cotton. 
 
 Picking should commence as early 
 as the cotton commences opening, 
 and the cotton should always be sun- 
 ned when picked before the seed ma- 
 tures or hardens. If the crop ap- 
 pears to be large, it will have to be 
 picked by the hands. Hurry them 
 up; admit a little trash to increase 
 the quantity picked. The falling off 
 
48 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 in price by picking a little trash, is 
 not so disastrous as to let the cotton 
 stay and waste, and turn black for the 
 sake of picking it clean. 
 
 No system can prosper without 
 teaching all the operatives and labor- 
 ers to be experts, whether agricultu- 
 ral, or manufacturing, or anything 
 that is done requiring labor. The 
 first thing to do, in regard to any of 
 the operations of labor, is to teach the 
 laborers how to do it; the next thing, 
 to do it with more ease' and efficiency, 
 and to learn to do better and better 
 work every day. For instance, take a 
 boll of cotton. They must be taught, 
 with the greatest speed, how to throw 
 the hand into the boll, and to pull out 
 all of the cotton with one lick, not 
 waiting to see whether any was left in 
 the boll or not, always having in mind 
 to strike but one lick at a boll, and as 
 soon as that is done to strike at 
 another boll. I have, in five minutes, 
 learned a hand to pick one hundred 
 pounds more of cotton per day than 
 he had picked on the previous day, 
 and from that point he will continue 
 to improve. The greatest efficiency I 
 have obtained in hands picking cot- 
 ton was seven hundred pounds — equal 
 to three good bales a week. 
 
 Selection of Cotton Seed. 
 
 To raise cotton for seed, the best 
 boiling plants should be selected that 
 is on the plantation. Manure it well, 
 and cultivate as directed above. Plant 
 in it the most select seed on hand, 
 and in working the cotton you should 
 always pull up the stalks that prove 
 unprolific, even if it makes a vacuum. 
 When matured, from the second and 
 third pickings, select the best stalks, 
 those that have limbs sufficiently well 
 to contain from six to seven bolls 
 from a half inch to an inch apart. 
 The best known variety to commence 
 with is the "Dickson's Select." this 
 variety having outlived every other 
 in productiveness and popularity. 
 
 The cotton for seed should be 
 picked when dry, and put up when 
 dry. This will always insure a 
 healthy plant. If the seed is partially 
 damaged, the plant will continue to 
 die out for weeks after it comes up. 
 
 and sometimes fail even to make its 
 appearance after sprouting. 
 
 I would select cotton for seed every 
 year. Select enough every year to 
 plant to make seed to plant the entire 
 crop the succeeding year. 
 
 There is a belt of land running 
 through Georgia and other Cotton 
 States, that I consider the home of the 
 cotton plant — possibly the bottoms in 
 the West may be better adapted to it. 
 The southern line commences in Geor- 
 gia above Augusta, and ends just above 
 Columbus, embracing the Southern 
 granitic region — mulatto, pine, and 
 oak and hickory lands, and extending 
 about one degree north. I prefer the 
 southern part of this belt. The north 
 end of my farm in included in this 
 southern part.. Planters living south 
 of this line, would do well to obtain 
 seed from this region once in three or 
 four years. South of this belt, the cot- 
 ton plant is inclined to produce too 
 much weed and too little fruit. In it, 
 with proper preparation, rotation, ma- 
 nure and rest, you can make the cotton 
 plant just what you please, as gentle- 
 men from all parts of Georgia can 
 testify, who have seen my crop — mak- 
 ing two bales per acre on cotton from 
 twenty-six to twenty-eight inches 
 high. 
 
 To improve the cotton plant, you 
 should select seed every year, imme- 
 diately after the first picking, up to 
 the middle of October, selecting (in 
 the case of Dickson seed) from stalks 
 that send out one or more suckers 
 near the ground, sometimes called 
 arms. These arms need not be looked 
 for on poor land. Secondly, from 
 those that send out limbs thick with 
 three to six bolls, from a half-inch to 
 one and a half-inch apart on the 
 limbs. If you do not keep your land 
 well charged with humus, the cotton 
 limbs will be too short; if you cut 
 the cotton roots, you will make stalks 
 instead of bolls. On all farms there 
 are some acres that produce cotton 
 better than others. Seed for plant- 
 ing should always be selected from 
 these spots. 
 
 Thinking it best to tell what I have 
 
CULTIVAxfON OF COTTON. 
 
 49 
 
 done, instead of giving advice that 
 I do not follow, I will give you tiie de- 
 tails of the preparation, manuring, 
 planting, cultivation and production 
 of a sixteen-acre lot, planted in cot- 
 ton; and as many may desire to know 
 all the particulars, I will be explicit 
 as I can be in a letter. 
 
 First, the land is good pine land, 
 and has been under the plough nearly 
 seventy years, and as many as fifty- 
 five years in cotton. About twelve 
 years ago, it was sown in oats, with 
 two hundred pounds of guano and 
 bones mixed with salt and plaster, 
 and made thirty or thirty-five bushels 
 per acre — all fed off my turning stock 
 in the field. Four years ago, I left it 
 uncultivated until the middle of July; 
 there was then a heavy growth of 
 weeds on it, just grown. I turned 
 them in, and dropped peas in every 
 third furrow. The result was a large 
 crop of vines, and at least fifteen 
 bushels of peas per acre. These were 
 fed off by beef cattle. 
 
 That, if you call it rest, is all the 
 field ever had. The lot lies between 
 two branches, running north and 
 south; on one slope, next to the 
 branch, is a second growth of pines; 
 the other is a peach orchard. The 
 cotton was planted on the top of a 
 level ridge, lying within one-fourth 
 to one-half of a mile of Little Ogee- 
 chee. It was planted in cotton in 
 1866 — manured with about one hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds of bones and 
 Peruvian guano each, and one hun- 
 dred pounds of plaster. I commenced 
 third day of May, with two horses, to 
 prepare the land; cotton rows four 
 feet apart; ran two furrows in the 
 middle of each row, which stood open 
 about eight-inches deep, an'd applied 
 to each acre two hundred and fifty 
 pounds soluble bones, one hundred 
 and sixty-five pounds No. 1 Peruvian 
 guano, and one hundred pounds of 
 plaster. Salt being too high, I omitted 
 that. The mixture was deposited 
 in the bottom of the furrow; then 
 covered with a long scooter plough. 
 
 going about as deep as the other 
 two furrows; then covered with a long 
 scooter plough, going about as deep 
 on the side of each scooter furrow, 
 with a good turning-plough, going 
 seven inches deep. After preparing 
 about six acres in this way, I opened 
 with a small buU-tongued plough;, 
 dropped the seed and covered lightly 
 with a board, part of it with a har- 
 row. I continued in this way until 
 the lot was planted, finishing the 15th 
 of May. The land being freshly pre- 
 pared, and a little dry, it did not come 
 up well. The 25th of May, had a 
 fine shower, and on the first morning 
 of June I turned the ploughs back to 
 finish the preparation, running a 
 scooter, twelve inches long, in the bot- 
 tom of each turn-plough furrow, going 
 seven inches deeper; then ploughed 
 up the old stalks with a large, long 
 shovel plough, going under the old 
 cotton stalks — making nine furrows 
 to the row in preparing the land, tak- 
 ing nine days, with one horse, for 
 every eight acres, which was equal 
 to a full subsoiling. You observe 
 that the preparation was not expen- 
 sive. Including planting, it was 
 eleven days" work to eight acres. 
 
 The cotton soon stretched up well. 
 The first ploughing was done with a 
 heavy twenty-two inch sweep (right 
 wing towards the end nearly flat, the 
 back edge of the wing about one and 
 a fourth of an inch above the front 
 edge in elevation). I then hoed out 
 to a stand, the width of a No. 2 Sco- 
 ville hoe, leaving one to three stalks 
 in a hill. Cotton standing thick in 
 the drill will be more forward than 
 that which is thin. Give it the neces- 
 sary distance between the rows. 
 
 The second ploughing was done 
 with the same kind of sweep, with 
 both wings elevated. The second 
 and last hoeing followed in a few 
 days. The third ploughing ran one 
 furrow in the middle of the rows. 
 The cultivation with the plough occu- 
 pied one horse five days for each 
 eight acres, which makes two days 
 ploughing for each acre, and about 
 two days hoeing for the same. 
 
50 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEk OF FARMING. 
 
 The cotton grew so rapidly, it did 
 not need any more work. I hired the 
 picking of most of it, at forty cents 
 per hundred pounds. The lot aver- 
 aged about three thousand (3,000) 
 pounds per acre, but owing to a 
 storm and other causes, I gathered 
 only twenty-seven hundred (2,700) 
 pounds and a fraction, which will 
 make two good bales to the acre. I 
 picked out one hundred bolls in two 
 separate parts of the lot, at four 
 o'clock in the evening of a dry day. 
 Each weighed twenty-one ounces. In 
 the lot was an Irish potato patch that 
 had been manured and mulched with 
 straw twice. I think that portion 
 made at the rate of six thousand 
 pounds per acre. The next best 
 place was about one acre of old pine 
 field, first year, which made, I think, 
 about five thousand pounds. 
 
 If you expect such results, you must 
 not cut the roots of the cotton. Cot- 
 ton is a sun-plant, as you will see by 
 it turning its leaves to the sun, as the 
 latter moves through the heavens. 
 So have a deep water furrow in the 
 spring, work flat by hot weather, and 
 on level land run the rows north and 
 south. 
 
 The cotton would have been much 
 bettor, planted the 10th of April. The 
 seasons were as fine as they could be 
 up to the 28th of July. After that, 
 too much rain. The hands I had 
 were all new, and very sorry; the 
 manure was badly mixed and badly 
 put on. 
 
 I found during the wet weather, 
 where the most manure was put, it 
 stood the test best — especially the 
 part that had the most Peruvian gu- 
 ano on it. There was some rot, ow- 
 ing to the density of foliage and wet 
 weather; some boll-worm and cater- 
 pillar on about one-half of the patch. 
 
 The result of this experiment on 
 sixteen acres of land, manured with 
 250 pounds soluble bones, 165 pounds 
 Peruvian guano, and 100 pounds land 
 plaster, per acre, was as follows : It 
 made 32 bales of cotton, the last one 
 being a bale and a half. The crop 
 selling for $125.00 per bale brought 
 $4,000, a net dividend of one thou- 
 sand dollars and more per acre. The 
 following is an itemized statement of 
 
 actual expenses and calculation as to 
 net proceeds : 
 
 Below is the cost of one acre: 
 
 COST OF MAISTURE AT PLAJS'TATIOX. 
 
 250 pounds soluble bones .... $8.25 
 
 165 lbs. No. 1 Peruvian Guano. 6.25 
 
 100 pounds of plaster 1.25 
 
 Mixing and putting on 25 
 
 . $17.00 
 
 Horse 2 days, $1 per day $2.00 
 
 Plough hand, 2 days, .50 per day 1.00 
 
 Hoe hand, 2 days, .50 per day . . 1.00 
 
 Dropping seed 25 
 
 Picking 10.80 
 
 Manure 17.00 
 
 Whole expense per acre ....$32.05 
 
 XET PROCEEDS. 
 
 Proceed sales of 32 bales . .$4,000.00 
 Less expenses $32.05 per acre 502.20 
 
 Clear dividends $3,487.20 
 
 This shows a clear dividend, per 
 acre, of $217.95 * * With slave labor, 
 my cotton crops averaged from ten to 
 twelve bales per hand, with other 
 crops in proportion. 
 
 I am for the plan that preserves the 
 capital best, and pays the largest divi- 
 dends. I have no doubt, that on good 
 cotton land, a fair year, I could make 
 one hundred bales of cotton, with one 
 No. 1 mule: Commence operations 
 the first day of December; subsoil 
 every acre; use twenty-five dollars' 
 worth of manure per acre; and finish 
 planting the 1st of May; cultivate 
 sixty acres. 
 
 Note by the Editor. 
 For the purpose of illustrating cer- 
 tain points in the teachings of Mr. 
 Dickson, I desire to report a field of 
 cotton, that I visited on his original 
 farm — a part of the 266 acres upon 
 which he first started farming, and 
 which cost him fifty cents per acre. 
 This field of cotton had been planted 
 on the 13th of June. Every boll, to 
 the very topmost was open, with beau- 
 tiful white cotton. Not a green boll was . 
 to be seen, and as not a boll had been 
 picked, it was, indeed a beauty, and 
 looked like a snow-bank. 
 
 As stated, this crop was planted 
 on the 13th day of June, and I saw it 
 on the 10th day of November. The 
 crop had grow.n, matured and opened. 
 
CULTIVATION OF COTTON. 
 
 51 
 
 to the last top boll, before the 10th of 
 November. By actual count, it had 
 on it 1,400 pounds per acre — nearly 
 a bale. This land was a blowing 
 sand, without clay subsoil, the lowest 
 grade of land known to Middle Geor- 
 gia. It had refused to yield a living 
 to its owner, and he had sold it for the 
 paltry sum of flftiy cents per acre, and 
 moved off to keep from starving. 
 
 This field of cotton, which I remem- 
 ber was about twenty acres, had been 
 treated^ planted and cultivated by 
 Mr. Dickson, and fertilized to the ex- 
 tent of about $15 per acre. Cotton 
 was then selling for about 20 per 
 pound. Hence, this 20 acre field netted 
 him fifteen hundred dollars, less the ex- 
 pense of cultivation. Now, what does 
 this crop demonstrate? 
 
 1st. That, under proper treatment,. 
 culture and fertilization, paying crops 
 
 can be grown upon poor lands, even 
 upon blowing sand, which is the very 
 lowest grade. 
 
 2d. That the seasons in this lati- 
 tude are sulficiently long for the cot- 
 ton crop, and that the planting may 
 be delayed, even to the 13th day of 
 June, with the possibility of a full 
 crop. It shows the folly of planting 
 summer crops in the winter. 
 
 3d. That even the very lowest 
 grades of land can be made to pro- 
 duce paying crops by liberal use of 
 commercial fertilizers, with proper 
 culture. 
 
 4th. That real success in farming 
 depends not so much upon the quality 
 and strength of the land as upon the 
 scientific attainments and executive 
 ability of the farmer who cultivates 
 
 it. EUITOR. 
 
 A Country Home. 
 
(JHAPTER IX. 
 
 Growing Wheat. 
 
 Wheat, as all other annual crops 
 requires deep, mellow and productive 
 soil, and hence deep preparation is 
 indispensable to large crops. The 
 popular impression, that wheat is a 
 surface root plant, and requires no 
 deep breaking or subsoiling, leads to 
 practical error and failure in the cul- 
 ture of this crop. These advocates 
 claim that for wheat the surface soil 
 should not be turned under, nor 
 should the subsoil be broken, because 
 the plant is supported in its growth 
 by roots that spring ' out laterally 
 near the surface and simply traverse 
 the surface soil. But what are the 
 facts in regard to this plant? 
 
 Wheat has two sets of roots: the 
 first springing from the seed and 
 penetrating downward, while the sec- 
 ond set push themselves laterally near 
 the surface of the ground from the 
 first joint! Hence the roots of wheat 
 penetrate and traverse the entire 
 depth of the broken and fertile soil, 
 and extract their food from every 
 part of the soil. The product of the 
 crop will be found to be in the ratio 
 of its extent and fertility. It likewise 
 requires, as do corn and other 
 crops, a deeply broken soil to gather 
 and retain a sufficiency of moisture to 
 enliven the plant in its growth and 
 fruitage — to keep it from famishing. 
 
 The same class of land that grows 
 cotton will grow wheat. In this sec- 
 tion of Georgia I would select a brown 
 or mulatto soil with a moderate 
 
 gravel; but wheat will succeed better 
 on heavier lands than cotton. 
 
 In my system of rotation of crops, 
 wheat follows the corn crop. As soon 
 as the corn has been gathered, and 
 the field grazed off by the stock, 
 broadcast the land with two or three 
 hundred pounds of my "compost" to 
 the acre, and sow from a half to a 
 bushel of wheat to the acre, accord- 
 ing to the strength of the land. With 
 a small-sized turn-plow turn over the 
 land about four inches deep, following 
 in each furrow with a good subsoiler. 
 When finished, drag a fine brush over 
 the land with a pair of horses, always 
 moving the brush on a level, if it re- 
 quires to cross the plowing. With 
 me this plan has succeeded well. 
 
 Another plan is to break deep, sub- 
 soil and harrow the land. Then sow 
 the wheat and manure, and harrow 
 in, then roll it. 
 
 Still a third plan may be tried, 
 which looks simply to raising grass, 
 with a prospect of having a crop or 
 not of wheat: Sow the seed and the 
 manure, if you intend any, at the same 
 time. Turn over the land with a 
 turn-plow, four inches deep. Brush 
 or not as you may have time. If the 
 wheat comes sufficiently to pay for 
 cutting, do so, if not, turn the stock 
 on it — xising it as a pasture during 
 the balance of the year. 
 Rust in Wheat. 
 
 Rust damages hill and dry land less 
 than wet or low lands. So far as my 
 
GROWING WHEAT. 
 
 53 
 
 observation has been, rust is entirely 
 from the atmosphere, increased by 
 the condition of the land, and I know 
 of no preventive for it. The early 
 varieties are less subject to it. Later 
 varieties produce more per acre, pro- 
 vided they are not attacked. 
 
 Wheat can be saved with a com- 
 mon scythe blade, or more profitably 
 where the reaper can be used, always 
 using a thresh as the means of get- 
 ting it out. The main profit derived 
 from the culture of wheat is the fact, 
 that it leaves you, after cutting, a 
 large quantity of vegetable matter, to 
 be incorporated into the soil, to in- 
 crease the quantity of cotton per acre 
 the succeeding year. Patriotism says 
 make your meat and bread at home 
 and be independent. 
 
 All of the above plans are applica- 
 ble to every ^other species of small 
 grain. 
 
 The cultivation of small grain is 
 necessary to carry out a system of 
 rotation of crops and if you do not 
 sow them you must rest your corn 
 lands. Now choose between the two 
 systems. Sow small grain, or rest 
 your corn lands. You can hardly fail 
 to make less on them than the worth 
 of the seed in sowing. 
 
 The reader will observe that I have 
 not attached much importance to the 
 wheat culture as a crop on my farm; 
 nor do I advocate its culture as a 
 crop, in the cotton belt, because cot- 
 ton as a crop, pays much better. I 
 only advise it as a part of my rota- 
 tion system, for the benefit of my 
 cotton and corn lands. This field 
 that I put in wheat would rest any- 
 how the next year. The manure and 
 the breaking in the fall will contri- 
 bute to the production of a fine crop 
 of grass and weeds the next spring, 
 even should the crop of wheat prove 
 unworthy of the scythe. The land had 
 to be rested, and it paid to prepare 
 and fertilize it for a crop of vegetable 
 matter to recuperate the soil for the 
 next cotton crop. But my crops of 
 wheat have paid directly in results 
 and ten fold in improving my land for 
 other crops. Under the policy that 
 I advocate as a farmer — "Let us be 
 independent," I do advise every 
 farmer to plant, at least, a few acres 
 
 in wheat. These few acres, heavily 
 manured, will give him his supply of 
 Hour, and, in addition the rest, and 
 crop of stubble and grass will wonder- 
 fully recuperate the land, and return 
 the profit in the cotton crop next year. 
 Note. — I would emphasize some of 
 these points, as stated above for the 
 wheat culture, illustrating two cardi- 
 nal principles as components of my 
 system of farming: 
 
 1. In contra-distincticn to the popu- 
 lar theory, that wheat is a surface 
 root crop, and hence, must be 
 scratched in with a scooter plow. I 
 advise the practice of turning under 
 v/heat land to the depth of, at least 
 four inches, putting the surface soil 
 that many inches deep under, and, 
 in addition, breaking the subsoil be- 
 neath. I advise this upon the broad 
 fact relating to vegetable life — that 
 all annual plants, for thin growth and 
 fruitage, utilize and appropriate the 
 soil nutriment of the entire available 
 depth and area of pulverized and fer- 
 tile soil allotted to them by space. 
 The surface scratching in leaves the 
 plants no depth to traverse for the ob- 
 tainment of food, and hence the crop 
 is practically impoverished, and the 
 yield a failure in results. It appropri- 
 ates the strength of an inch depth of 
 soil, whereas, it could as easily have 
 appropriated the entire fertile proper- 
 ties of four inches depth. This prin- 
 ciple is as sound in regard to the 
 wheat crop as with corn and cotton. 
 
 2. The wheat crop, the same as 
 other annual crops, requires a depth 
 of broken and mellow soil to imbibe 
 and retain a sufficiency of moisture 
 to prevent the crop from famishing 
 during accidental spring drought. 
 
 These facts which are true in prin- 
 ciple with other crops, hold good in 
 the wheat crop. Hence I advise farm- 
 ers to sow in wheat, oats and rye, one- 
 third or one-fourth of their tillable 
 land, and for the following reasons: 
 
 1. With the fertilization, turning 
 and brushing as first directed, the 
 crop will pay, per se, a handsome 
 dividend* 
 
 2. It indirectly pays a large per- 
 centage in the way of permanent im- 
 provement of the land by furnishing 
 an abundant supply of vegetable mat- 
 
54 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 ter from the straw stubble and ac- 
 companying crop of grass and weeds, 
 which the land, more than anything 
 else, needs. 
 
 3. The turning into the soil in the 
 fall a good supply of manure, greatly 
 increases the crop of spontaneous 
 growth that springs up the next 
 spring, the year of rest, to shade the 
 land, protects it from the summer's 
 sun, and adds an additional supply of 
 vegetable mold to the soil. The 
 profits, then, may be counted — not 
 only in the crop of grain raised, but 
 in turning under of vegetable matter 
 
 in the fall, and the more luxuriant 
 crop of weeds during the year of rest, 
 promoted by the manuring of the 
 wheat crop. It will leave the land in 
 doubly, a better condition for the fol- 
 lowing cotton crop, than if it had not 
 been sown in wheat, as directed. 
 
 Hence, in carrying out the rotation 
 system suggested, I repeat the in- 
 junction — sow wheat and oats, if not 
 for the sake of the grain crop, do it 
 for the good and permanent improve- 
 ment of the land — recollecting that 
 the general treatment of lands may 
 not be neglected by any farmer ex- 
 pecting real ultimate success. 
 
 Hereford Yearling. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 f 
 
 Potatoes, Turnips and Vegetables, 
 
 On !he two Field System to Save Labor. Select 
 two Plats of Land lor this Purpose. 
 
 Turnips. 
 
 FVom the 20th of July to the 15th 
 ,of August is the best time to sow tur- 
 nips. 
 
 Lay off the rows three feet distant, 
 opening the furrows six inches deep. 
 Use compost and commercial ma- 
 nures, with ashes sufficient to make it 
 very rich. Bed the land the same as 
 for planting cotton, and strike it off. 
 Open by hand with a little hook. In 
 the small furrow deposit the seed and 
 cover them about an inch deep. 
 When they have three or four leaves, 
 shave through the drill with a hoe, 
 four inches broad, leaving from two 
 to four plants in a hill. A few days 
 afterwards, side as you would cotton. 
 When the leaves are about three 
 inches long, go over and cut any grass 
 that may have been left, and thin the 
 plants to one plant in a hill. In case, 
 afterwards, there should be any grass 
 or pusley, it must be taken up clean, 
 leaving nothing to come to seed but 
 the turnips. The next spring this is 
 to be the potato patch. 
 
 Sweet Potatoes. 
 
 If the land be not rich enough for 
 potatoes, some commercial manures 
 may be added in the bed, as for cot- 
 ton. Plant the potato draws twelve 
 inches apart in the ridge. I prefer 
 them thick, as they will not grow so 
 large, and will make more bushels 
 per acre. Cultivate the potatoes with 
 a sweep as you would cotton. 
 
 When you wish to lay by, you can 
 use a sweep to set the hill. Side 
 with a sweep, and with an old sweep 
 whose point has been worn short, and 
 putting your clevis on the top side of 
 the beam of the plow, run out the 
 middle. Hold the plow handles well 
 up, and make the team move briskly; 
 and if the first furrow does not throw 
 the bed out sufficiently, run your 
 sweep back in the same furrow, mak- 
 ing two sweeps to each middle. You 
 will have a nice Hat bed; and if this 
 work has been well done no hoe will 
 be needed in the potato patch. 
 
 After frosts in the fall is the proper 
 time for digging and saving potatoes. 
 The work should not be commenced 
 till after the morning frost has melted 
 away, as the least frost will prevent 
 them from keeping. 
 
 With a long scooter plow run on 
 each side to show the potatoes, and 
 then with a long shovel plow run in 
 the middle, splitting out the potato 
 ridge, and throwing all the potatoes 
 out. The hands should follow the 
 plow and carefully pick them up. 
 Potatoes should be handled without 
 bruising. I prefer good open dry 
 weather for digging. There are many 
 ways to save potatoes. I will give 
 only one method. 
 
 Dig a hole, a round circle, about 
 six inches deep, where the water will 
 not settle; fill it full of straw; pour 
 about fifteen or twenty bushels of 
 potatoes on top of the straw; and then 
 round them all. Cover the potatoes 
 
DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 with straw; a few corn stalks may be 
 laid around the straw, but this is not 
 essential. Set up your forks, and 
 cover well. In one or two days, put 
 dirt around the hill one-half way up, 
 as thick as you intend, but not less 
 than seven or eight inches; and as 
 the potatoes sweat and dry out, you 
 can continue to add dirt until you get 
 to the top of the hill. They keep 
 either with a small hole left at the 
 top, or none, about equally well. 
 
 By having two lots, the two lots 
 will produce three crops each year — 
 a crop of wheat, a crop of potatoes, 
 and a crop of turnips — wheat first, 
 turnips second, and potatoes third. 
 Sow wheat as soon as you dig pota- 
 toes; as soon as the wheat is off plow 
 the land for turnips; plant the tur- 
 nips the last of July or the first of 
 August; use them out, except a few 
 rows for seed, by the time to plant 
 potatoes. 
 
 Sugar Cane. 
 
 My experience in the growing of 
 this crop has been very limited, but 
 quite successful. I have found a rich 
 alluvial soil, moderately dry, or a 
 rich heavy clay land the best for su- 
 gar-cane. Thinner land, a little more 
 sandy, I have found produced cane 
 that contained more sugar to the size 
 of the stalk, but not yielding so much 
 in quantity. About the middle of 
 Februarj-, is about the best time to 
 plant in this latitude. The land 
 should be manured heavily by broad- 
 casting compost or commercial ma- 
 nures. Turn this under deeply and 
 follow with subsoiler. Make the rows 
 with a large shovel six feet wide, and 
 plant the cane, covering with two 
 small shovel furrows. Sugar cane 
 has a greater quantity of roots than 
 corn, and hence more care should be 
 taken not to destroy them by deep 
 culture. Plow lightly with a large 
 sweep. 
 
 In bedding down the cane, for seed, 
 it should be stripped of all the fodder, 
 to prevent its heating the cane and 
 thus destroying the eyes. Occasion- 
 ally lay cross-pieces to keep the cane 
 from lying too close together and 
 causing it to heat. Cover it sufficiently 
 deep to protect from cold. This is 
 only to instruct those who wish to 
 
 make small quantities. Those who have 
 followed it as a business must cer- 
 tainly know more about it as a busi- 
 ness than I do. 
 
 Ground Peas. 
 
 Ground peas are sometimes culti- 
 vated between corn, for stock. For 
 a patch for family use, choose a plat 
 of good mulatto land, clay subsoil, 
 moderately rich, with a little addition 
 of the "Compound." Lay off about 
 three feet distant, three inches deep, 
 and drop the seed in the ground four 
 inches apart, and cover lightly. The 
 time to plant is as early as they will 
 escape the frost. Cultivate on a 
 level with a sweep. Keep the ground 
 loose under the vine, and never cover 
 the vines when they begin to run. 
 Tliere is one sort that runs up 
 straight. Top them off. If the land 
 is too sandy, or too rich, the pods will 
 fail to have the fruit in them, and 
 make what is called pops. 
 
 The Vegetable Garden. 
 
 The vegetable garden should be 
 made intensely rich by hauling on 
 compost or barn-yard manures every 
 year. This should be trenched in, or 
 turned in with a large turn-plow and 
 deeply subsoiled every year. This 
 will keep the soil rich and deeply mel- 
 lowed, and thus prepared for every 
 garden crop. The barn-yard manures 
 will furnish an ample supply of vege- 
 table matter, and the ammonia and 
 other fertile elements incorporated 
 with it will keep the soil sufficiently 
 rich for the production of any garden 
 vegetable. But during the planting, 
 other chemical manures may be ad- 
 ded to the several crops planted. As 
 the safest practice, if you wish unfail- 
 ing success in garden crops, keep 
 your garden spot well enriched and 
 deeply subsoiled. It will thus be 
 ready all the time for any crop and for 
 any succession of crops during the 
 year. Remember you must manure 
 every year if you wish a fine garden. I 
 will only mention the culture of a few 
 of the most usual vegetables grown for 
 family use. 
 
 Irish Potatoes — Require a rich 
 loamy soil, a little inclined to clay. 
 Prepare, plant and cultivate as fol- 
 lows: After making the land rich. 
 
VEGETABLES— TWO-FIELD SYSTEM. 
 
 break and subsoil deep. Lay off the 
 rows four feet apart, and six inches 
 deep. Put in compost or commercial 
 manures around the potatoes after 
 dropping them about fifteen inches in 
 the hill. They may be dropped whole 
 or cut in halves; cover level with the 
 surface. 
 
 The crop may now be mulched with 
 pine or wheat straw, eight inches 
 deep. Or wait till the crop is well 
 up; then give it one working, with a 
 small hill made round the potatoes, 
 and then mulch with straw. When 
 the year is seasonable, the crop suc- 
 ceeds finely without mulching; but 
 the mulching obviates the disastrous 
 effects of drouth and secures, without 
 failure, a good crop of potatoes. 
 
 Two or three different plantings 
 should be made^in October, the first 
 of January, the first of February, and 
 the last planting about the first of 
 March. A fall crop may be planted in 
 June, but it will not succeed unless it 
 is seasonable. They do not keep well 
 in this climate, but may be kept suffi- 
 ciently well by treating them as you 
 would sweet potatoes. There should 
 be less quantity put in the hill, which 
 must always be sheltered and kept dry. 
 
 Cabbage. — This crop only succeeds 
 as a summer crop in this latitude, as 
 I have found it very difficult to raise 
 fall cabbages. The land must be clay, 
 and made rich with manures and 
 phosphates. The soil must be deep 
 and mellow so as to make the growth 
 of the plant luxuriant. If the crop 
 does not grow off rapidly, the plants 
 will not head well, and hence will 
 prove a failure. In planting, give 
 them four feet by two in the drill. Cul- 
 tivate very shallow, and work them 
 frequently to keep the surface fresh 
 and readily permeable to the atmos- 
 pheric gases. If sowed early, look for 
 cabbages from the middle of May till 
 September. The common collards 
 are cultivated in the same manner. 
 
 Beets. — For the cultivation of this 
 crop I have a peculiar way, prefer- 
 ring the small young, tender beet, 
 never to exceed an inch and a half in 
 diameter for the best in quality. To 
 obtain this j'ou must have a rich soil, 
 and very deep preparation. Plant 
 
 once a month. Sow your seed quite 
 thick, and you may commence eating 
 by the time they are half an inch in 
 diameter. The more thrifty plants 
 will grow ahead, and you can take 
 them out and thus thin the balance. 
 I prefer the long blood beet, but the 
 turnip beet for forwardness. The 
 beet crop needs the same shallow cul- 
 tivation as other crops. 
 
 Tomatoes. — The enriched and deeply 
 prepared soil as advised for •^'ow 
 garden will grow tomatoes luxuriantly. 
 They require nothing but rich land, 
 planting and cultivating. I pre 
 fer the small cone, not to exceed an 
 inch and a quarter or an inch and a 
 half in diameter. They are always 
 the' best on the fresh vines. To ob- 
 tain the young vines plant frequently. 
 If you do not have the plants, you 
 may cut off the limbs and transplant. 
 This crop needs brushing or framing 
 up to support the vines during fruit- 
 age. This is absolutely necessary. 
 
 Onions. — Are easily made, requir- 
 ing only a rich, soil, deeply prepared. 
 In addition to other manures, ashes 
 and hen manure are fine. Mark off 
 the land after preparation, twenty in- 
 ches. Set your plants about two in- 
 ches in the ground, four inches apart. 
 With light culture, keep the crop 
 clean. 
 
 Melons. — Should be made on. a 
 large scale, both watermelons, nut- 
 megs and muskmelons. A patch 
 should be planted every two weeks, 
 from the first of March to the first of 
 August. Fresh vines always produce 
 the best melons. Moderately sandy 
 or loamy land is best adapted to their 
 cultivation. Old fields, or pine lands 
 that have been cut down and let lie 
 for one or two years for straw to rot. 
 is one of the best varieties of soil.. 
 The ground should be laid off about 
 twelve feet each way. 
 
 After it has been deeply ploughed, 
 dig a hole about three feet square, 
 and put in eighteen inches of manure. 
 Thus prepared and planted, it should 
 be cultivated as other crops. Use as 
 much manure as you would for ten or 
 twelve hills of corn. Plough them as 
 long as the vines will admit of it; 
 even when they are three or four feet 
 
58 
 
 • DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 long you can turn them up and plough 
 them. 
 
 Almost any variety of land will 
 make watermelons. First year's land 
 I have never thought quite so good 
 for watermelons. If you wish to 
 make large watermelons, leave but 
 one vine in the hill; watch your patch. 
 
 and pull off those that have a runted 
 appearance early; let them get ripe 
 before pulling. 
 
 The cantaloupe, nutmeg and musk- 
 melon may be all cultivated the same 
 way, requiring only less distance, say 
 six feet. 
 
 Only Good Stock Pay. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Fruit Culture and Care of Stock. 
 
 STOCK. 
 
 Apples require a strong, clay land. 
 They succeed well in coves and val- 
 leys. They should be planted about 
 three or four inches deeper than they 
 are in the nursery, to prevent their 
 blowing down. Train the body four 
 feet high. Pruning should be done 
 annually, before the limbs become of 
 any size, and kept moderately open. 
 The land should be cultivated every 
 other year in cotton, and the succeed- 
 ing year turn under two green crops 
 of peas. It will do well if you ma- 
 nure highly every year in cotton, al- 
 ways returning as many seed back as 
 were taken off. Caterpillars should 
 be taken off clean every year before 
 they eat the leaves off. Examine for 
 worms about the roots and other 
 places. If the plough traces skin the 
 trees while young, a black bug will 
 get in the bark and kill the tree. Ap- 
 ples do not succeed very well in this 
 latitude; but enough can be made for 
 home use for cider, and supply the 
 vinegar. 
 
 Cotton succeeds much better under 
 apple trees than it does under peach 
 trees. Plant apple trees twenty feet 
 each way. I have no particular va- 
 rieties that I can recommend with cer- 
 tainly. Summer fruits do better than 
 fall and winter fruits. 
 
 Peaches require strong, clay rolling 
 land, riot very rich, planted ten feet 
 in the row, and sixteen feet apart. No 
 crop can be raised to any profit on the 
 land, except peas be turned under. 1 
 
 find this thick planting always to pro- 
 duce less rotten peaches and sweeter 
 ones; the reason, as I suppose, is, 
 that the trees evaporate the excessive 
 moisture by being planted thick, to a 
 greater extent than when they are 
 planted thin. I have found by obser- 
 vation, that peaches in an orchard 
 thickly planted, rot a great deal less 
 than an open tree out in the field. The 
 late varieties require richer land than 
 the forward kind. 
 
 I have entirely failed to raise pears 
 in the sandy lands. 
 
 Strawberries. — Strawberries require 
 a mulatto soil inclined to clay. They 
 require a deep cultivation. The manure 
 should be scrapings from rich lands, 
 ashes and phosphates, with a small 
 sprinkling of salt and plaster; and as 
 land is cheap in this country, I would 
 recommend a large patch, since by 
 working them they could be repaid, ft 
 is left to the taste of the cultivator 
 whether he will have his strawberries 
 near his house or near a stream. 
 
 After the ground is thoroughly 
 spaded or subsoiled, ploughed deep 
 and levelled, lay off the rows by a 
 small mark four feet apart; plant each 
 hill from eighteen to twenty inches 
 apart. Cultivate level, and clean as 
 you would cotton. They may be either 
 mulched in the spring by straw, or 
 kept clean by cultivation, as the cul- 
 tivator may choose. One plat will an- 
 swer the purpose. The second year, 
 make a mark in the middle of the row 
 and spade it up deep, adding fresh ma- 
 
60 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 nures and vegetable matter. Late in 
 the fall, or early in the spring, set out 
 a row in the middle, and at the end of 
 tile bearing season the old row may 
 be hoed up. Every fall the patch 
 should be ploughed, subsoiled and 
 levelled, and a small quantity of ma- 
 nure added. Repeat the operation an- 
 nually, as long as you wish to eat 
 strawberries, cream and sugar. 
 
 Raspberries require n deep, loamy 
 soil. Plant them in rows six feet 
 apart. Set up sticks to keep them 
 straight. Keep them clean by hoeing" 
 and ploughing, as you would corn. Af- 
 ter bearing, cut down all the old 
 canes. 
 
 Another mode is to plant them 
 around the edge of the garden, and 
 tie them back to the garden fence, 
 and keep them worked clean. If you 
 plant sutliciently, and cultivate them 
 either way, you will never fail to 
 have a plenty. They are a certain 
 fruit. 
 
 I have had but little experience 
 with the other small fruits. 
 Vinegar IVlaking. 
 
 Put the cider into a very tight bar- 
 rel, and at the end of two or three 
 months draw it off, and put it into a 
 new barrel. If it does not have the 
 appearance of a sufficient body and 
 proper acidity, add a little whisky 
 once a month, till you give it a suffi- 
 cient body. Time will convert it into 
 first-rate vinegar. 
 
 Cider Making. 
 
 Cider, in a great measure, depends 
 on the quality of the fruit from which 
 it is obtained. A variety of crabs, 
 known as cider apples, is of the first 
 class for cider; many other varieties 
 of apples make good cider, such as 
 the Shockley, Romanite. It is neces- 
 sary that apples should be sound and 
 fully ripe to make a first-class article 
 of cider. Beat or grind fine, and let 
 it remain twelve hours without press- 
 ing. Press out all the juice, and 
 strain it into a clean barrel, it will 
 keep better when the barrel is full, 
 and stand the weather better. To let 
 it ferment like wine will improve the 
 quality of the cider. 
 
 To make cider to keep through the 
 winter, put into it one pound of clari- 
 
 fied sugar to the gallon. To make it 
 for bottling, and long keeping, put 
 two pounds sugar to the gallon, and 
 let it ferment. . At the end of six 
 months, it may be bottled, and will 
 keep till used. I have some now that 
 is fourteen years old. If you desire 
 to make fresh cider of it at any time, 
 put small quantities of it into a jug, 
 add about half the quantity of water, 
 let it stand till it begins to ferment, 
 and it will be ready for use, having 
 the appearance and taste of cider just 
 pressed, only a purer article. 
 
 Note — By the Editor — A little pleas- 
 antry over a bottle of wine. — A few 
 years since, I was dining with Mr. 
 Dickson, with a number of other gen- 
 tlemen. After we had been served 
 with a sumptuous feast, according to 
 the style and habit of the "prince of 
 farmers," we were tendered a glass 
 of fine wine, accompanied with tiie 
 question which was extended to al! 
 the gentlemen present at the table: 
 "What wine do you take this to be?" 
 The gentlemen, one by one responded, 
 some guessing one brand and some 
 another of the finest known brands 
 of wine. Mr. Dickson smilingly an- 
 swered: "This is nothing but apple 
 cider, and the glass of sweet cider at 
 your plates is exactly the same, with 
 the addition of water and a little su- 
 gar. It is cider that I made several 
 years ago, and it is constantly improv- 
 ing in flavor and richness of taste." 
 The ruse was enjoyed by all the gen- 
 tlemen present, and a social compro- 
 mise effected by telling us the pro- 
 cess of making it, wiiich was as above 
 described. 
 
 But the joke was enjoyable withal; 
 for the gentlemen unanimously de- 
 clared that they had never tasted finer 
 wine than was Mr. Dickson's cider. 
 
 Care of Horses. 
 
 To get the greatest amount of la- 
 bor from mules and horses without in- 
 juring them, requires the greatest care 
 in feeding, watering and housing. 
 Where oats can be easily made, half 
 feed on oats and half on corn, with 
 fodder and hay, is the best food for 
 horses. I have long contemplated 
 grinding the corn or oats, and baking 
 it into bread for horses, but never 
 tried the experiment. I think that 
 
FRUIT CULTURE AND CARE OF STOCK. 
 
 61 
 
 would be the best preventive of colic 
 of anything that has ever been tried. 
 
 Large, dry and open stalls, one mule 
 to each stall, I consider the best mode 
 of housing them. It is necessary to 
 take all the advantages for working 
 them with ease. Kindness is neces- 
 sary, the horse doing much better 
 when treated kindly than when fret- 
 ted and abused. If a mule or horse 
 is well treated by those who work 
 them, he will become attached to them 
 and do better service. 
 
 Raising hogs. 
 
 I will simply give my practice un- 
 der slavery, which will be equally etR- 
 cient now, when freedmen become 
 more h-onest. Always select the 
 best boars and sows out of the best 
 breeds. Having carried the laud 
 through a state of improvement with 
 guanos for a number of years, incor- 
 porating bone dust into the soil, it 
 will produce a fine growth of weeds 
 on the land after laying by, which 
 will grow finely until they are turned 
 in. The practice is to move the hogs 
 along before the plough, from field to 
 field giving them only a bushel of 
 corn to a hundred in number. Let 
 them feed on the supply of turnips 
 during January, February and March, 
 and on the rye and grass until about 
 the first of May, then return the liogs 
 to their permanent pastures, and let 
 them run on lands that have been at 
 rest. They will not injure the weeds 
 at this time, and having such a fine 
 start they will continue to improve. 
 Having sown the previous year some 
 of my corn land in wheat, oats and 
 rye, and saved what I could of them, 
 being on an average of about two- 
 thirds of the crop, I turn the hogs on 
 this field, where they will be well sus- 
 tained until pea-time. 
 
 If you wish to fatten early, plant a 
 field in early peas; turn your stock 
 into the corn and peas. I have al- 
 ways been accustomed to put peas in 
 every corn row, and corn land being 
 in good heart with former manuring, 
 would make peas sufficient to last un- 
 til February. Peas never kill hogs; 
 but particular kinds of soil in the field 
 may kill them, such as clay, pipe-clay, 
 and pfairie lands. The best preven- 
 tive is a plenty of vegetables, such as 
 
 potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, and a 
 plenty of salt and copperas. On my 
 land, none die from eating peas. 
 
 About the middle of August, select 
 out your hogs you wish to fatten; 
 feed them with corn awhile, say three 
 or four weeks, or until the pea field 
 is ready for them. When they have 
 eaten off the peas, put them up in 
 pens, well littered, three or four in a 
 pen, and feed them on corn. The 
 best way is to have the corn ground, 
 and cook it for them. 
 
 Under this system, I used to raise 
 from eight to twelve hundred pounds 
 of pork per each hand. By fencing 
 the whole lands, many things accumu-^ 
 late that sustain hogs, which amount 
 to a great deal in the whole. Stock 
 should never run on the same field 
 two years in succession, but shguld be 
 changed, in order to allow an accumu- 
 lation of worms, bugs, mussels, fish, 
 and many kinds of roots — all of which 
 hogs devour greedily. They are also 
 fond of herbs and wild fruits. 
 
 Hogs in the swamp feed to a con- 
 siderable extent on leaves that have 
 been rafted up, and are in a decaying 
 state under the water. Tliis I know 
 from killing wild hogs in good order, 
 and, on opening their maws and in- 
 testines, have found nothing in them 
 but these decayed leaves and muck, 
 and from having often seen them eat- 
 ing these leaves in branches and 
 swamps. 
 
 Saving Bacon, 
 
 When you kill your pork hogs, cut 
 the bacon, spread it, and let it lie long 
 enough to get out all the animal heat. 
 Then salt it down — covering it thor- 
 oughly with salt. When it has salted 
 long enough, hang it and let it well 
 dry; then subject it to the following 
 process to keep it sound and sweet 
 by keeping off the skipper fly: 
 
 Get you some ashes, by burning 
 sweetgum, hickory, and maple, either 
 separately or all mixed. Take down 
 your meat about the first of March, 
 wipe it well to get all the skipper eggs 
 off. Have a rack of round sticks, on 
 which other sticks are laid twelve 
 inches apart ; lay the meat on it, and 
 cover over the fleshy part well with 
 ashes. As soon as the skipper fly 
 makes its appearance, use the com- 
 
62 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING, 
 
 mon fly poisons in smokehouses, made 
 up just as for house flies; renew it 
 twice a week, and it will attract the 
 attention of the skipper flies, and kill 
 them, and run out the rats, too. If 
 the above receipt is followed strictly, 
 tuere will never be a skipper in the 
 whole number of your hams and 
 shoulders. A dark and tight house is 
 always preferable, so that the venti- 
 lation comes down through the top of 
 the house, which should be well wired 
 to keep the flies from coming down. 
 Honey and the Habits of Bees. 
 Honey may be obtained in sufiicient 
 quantities for the use of families, by 
 boxes simply being made of twelve- 
 inch plank, two feet, four inches long. 
 A little attention is requisite in order 
 to keep the worms from collecting 
 ground the edge of the boxes, and doing 
 up and eating the honey. Always 
 have hives ready when the bees 
 swarm in the spring of the year, and 
 a good place for them to settle on; 
 saw off the limb when they have set- 
 tled, place it r J the mouth of the empty 
 gum, which should be elevated 
 about four inches. With a little at- 
 tention, the bees will soon go in. At 
 night, move the gum to the bench 
 where it is to stand permanently, 
 which should always be in a shady 
 place, and protected from the rain. 
 
 About the 10th to the 15th of May, 
 is the proper time to take the honey 
 out, which may be done by tying a 
 sheet around the mouth of the gum, 
 laying it on a table, with the head a 
 little the lowest, blowing in a lit- 
 tle smoke, then with a knife, with a 
 little blade, cut across the honey, and 
 take it out in squares, scrape the 
 sides of the gum clean, and return it 
 to the bench from whence it came. If 
 handled nicely, the hive will be equal 
 to a new hive. 
 
 This is the easiest and plainest way 
 to obtain honey. The improved hive, 
 with supers on top, furnishes a more 
 neat and easy way of taking it. 
 
 Honey is obtained from flowers, 
 and from the honey-dew that comes 
 on a dry year. The comb is secreted 
 from the abdomen of the bees: young 
 bees only being capable of producing 
 wax. 
 
 No hive has more than one queen. 
 
 I have sometimes known two queens 
 to come out, which fact you can as- 
 certain soon by the bees being agi- 
 tated. Looking under the gum, or 
 around the hive, you will find one of 
 the queens taken a prisoner. If you 
 take her out from the gum, all will be 
 quiet. In other instances, I have 
 found the hives without any queen, by 
 the agitation of the bees. Look round 
 on the ground and other places, and 
 you will find the queen with a small 
 knot of bees on her; take her up and 
 carry her to the gum, and all will be 
 quiet. 
 
 Bees have not changed their habits 
 in the memory of man. They raise 
 'quite a number of queens in swarm* 
 ing time. If any of them have the 
 least blemish in the world, they are 
 put to death, and thrown out of the 
 hive. I have often found as many as 
 six or eight of them in front of the 
 hive. On examination, I could see 
 the fault for which she was killed — 
 she having been imperfect in some 
 particular. The same thing is true of 
 the neutral bee; each one is exam- 
 ined, and should the least blemish be 
 found on it, it is put to death. When 
 the swarm is perfect, and the queen 
 also, the first favorable day they 
 swarm out. 
 
 There are many other habits I have 
 noticed in the bee. Some ventilate 
 the hive, in hot weather, by fanning 
 with their wings; some carry in wa- 
 ter, and some compound it with bread 
 to make food for the young bees; 
 some bring the honey, and the others 
 the bee-bread; but no two kinds of 
 bread are ever deposited in the same 
 cell. Everything is order, system 
 and industry. All the cracks in the 
 gums the bees seal with sweetgum. I 
 have, when a boy, often taken it from 
 the gums and chewed it. 
 
 Our Present System of Labor. 
 
 The present system of labor does 
 not exceed sixty per cent, of slave la- 
 bor, involving a loss of fully one-third 
 of the labor by the men going to vil- 
 lages, railroads, mining and other en- 
 terprises. One-half of the women and 
 children are absent, housekeeping, 
 idling, and other things. Under the 
 slave system, the women and children 
 were the mainspring of cotton-rais- 
 
FRUIT CULTURE AND CARE OF STOCK. 
 
 63 
 
 ing. The loss of labor and ineffi- 
 ciency of labor, are about equally 
 compensated by the increased price 
 of our products. One of the reasons 
 why there is a deficiency of labor is, 
 that the men take Saturdays to go to 
 public meetings; they do not work as 
 many hours in the day as they for- 
 merly did, and their work is not of as 
 good a character. Each family must 
 have its housekeeper and washer, and 
 must send to mill, if they only send a 
 half-bushel of corn. A great loss in 
 their labor also results in their hav- 
 ing to stop to gather fire-wood, and 
 attend to their gardens and patches. 
 
 The only partial compensation we 
 will ever get for this loss and ineffi- 
 ciency of labor, is the increased price 
 of our products — the high price of 
 cotton. I submit, is it good policy to 
 encourage immigration to bring down 
 these prices, and lose the only bene- 
 fit that we can ever derive from* the 
 result of emancipation? 
 
 The best method of hiring, I con- 
 sider to be wages — a contract setting 
 forth the duties of each party. The 
 policy of managing freedmen is, to 
 act firmly, and truly, and honestly 
 with them, and require them to do 
 the same; and as a good stimulus to do 
 this, never pay them more than half 
 wages till the end of the time for 
 which they contracted to work. On 
 plantations of any considerable size, 
 the actual necessaries should be kept, 
 and sold to the freedmen at a profit 
 suflBcient to pay all risk and interest 
 on the money. Those who work on 
 shares should divide the profits and 
 responsibilities with the land-owner. 
 The rent of the land should be one- 
 third of all the crops gathered; an- 
 other third should pay for the horse- 
 power, machinery and tools. The la- 
 borer should have one-third, he find- 
 ing his own hoe and axe, it being im- 
 possible to keep such things as plan- 
 tation tools. The whole direction of 
 the labors, the management, gather- 
 ing and the sale of the crop should be 
 held by the land-owner. What is left 
 on the fields, and the use of the pas- 
 ture, should be the land-owner's, after 
 the hands cease to gather the crops. 
 As the land-owner furnishes the land, 
 and all the expenses of the tools, the 
 
 laborer should pay him two-thirds 
 the value of all the days that he was 
 not employed. 
 
 One objection to the cropping is 
 this; you can not carry the improve- 
 ment plan to the extent that is desir- 
 able. The laborers are unwilling to 
 do as deep ploughing as is required — 
 to purchase as much fertilizers as will 
 pay a profit. You would lose the serv- 
 ices of the laborers on rainy days, 
 and at other times between crops, 
 that might be used to great advantage 
 on a farm. 
 
 In hiring laborers, a man should 
 nevf^i' allow less than fifty per cent, 
 profit on the labor, for he is taking 
 the risk, and paying for the laborer, 
 the land always coming in for a third. 
 Where the farm is rented to parties 
 of capital that furnish everything, the 
 land should be kept up by manuring, 
 the fences should be repaired, all the 
 droppings of the farm saved and ap- 
 plied to the crops, the buildings 
 should have all the repairs done on 
 them where mechanics are not re- 
 quired; the land should retain one- 
 half. No renter or cropper should 
 ever think of having stock to the ex- 
 tent of depredating on the employer's 
 land; should the contract be made 
 for raising stock, I know of no reason 
 why the land should not draw an 
 equal proportion of stock as well as 
 of crops. Seed and shucks should 
 never be removed from the land. 
 When new renters come, furnish 
 them seed, and let them use the 
 shucks; when they leave, let them 
 leave the shucks. If they make more 
 than one crop, let them use the seed 
 for manure until they leave. The 
 way to make the estimate to get the 
 fifty* per cent, on the work, is to take 
 off one-third of the cotton crop for 
 the land, one-third for the fences, in- 
 cluding the machinery, and then give 
 the laborers, in wages, what would be 
 equal to two-thirds of one-third of an 
 average crop. The reason for reserv- 
 ing this one-third is. that the em- 
 ployer takes all the risks of storms, 
 drouths, worms, caterpillars and boll- 
 worms, and of prices lessening and 
 of every other disaster. Let the la- 
 borer share the risk and insurance. 
 * * * All of my trained hands 
 
64 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 have now applied to come back, pre- 
 ferring one-third of the crop gathered 
 on my place, to one-half on the places 
 worked last year. Whilst I owned 
 them, they told me to plant thirty- 
 eight acres in corn and cotton, and 
 seventeen acres in wheat and oats, 
 and they would cultivate it with my 
 aid, in preference to twenty acres un- 
 der an overseer, and could do it with 
 more ease. My crops before the war, 
 averaged me $1,000 per hand. I di- 
 vide thus: $200 for manure, $200 for 
 horse-power, tools, etc., $300 for land 
 and $300 for labor. My estimate is 
 now, when hands work well, to di- 
 vide as follows: First, take my pay 
 for all purchased manvires; the bal- 
 ance to go — one-third for land rent, 
 one-third for horse-power, and all 
 tools, including gins, wagons, carts, 
 wheat thresher, etc., hoes and axes 
 excepted, which each hand should 
 furnish, and one-third to the laborer, 
 being divided among the hands that 
 produce; the cottonseed to be re- 
 turned to the land, and all crops left 
 in the field ungathered to go to the 
 owner of the land. 
 
 The farmer should, by all means, 
 save a portion of his income accumu- 
 lated from year to year, and get in a 
 condition to buy everything for cash. 
 Sell cotton for cash. Other things 
 may or may not be sold on time. 
 When you mortgage your crop, you 
 lose your independence to that extent. 
 Keep a cash capital equal to one 
 year's expenses. Invest in stocks 
 that are readily converted into mon- 
 ey; it will enable you to hold your cot- 
 ton until you can get a price that will 
 be remunerative. Make all supplies 
 at home that can be made; and as you 
 accumulate capital, you can e/iter 
 into joint stock companies for manu- 
 facturing, banking, discount(ing — fill- 
 up the whole vacuum, so that a for- 
 eigner's dollar can find no investment 
 here. But having a mortgage on 
 your property, will create a tax for 
 all future labor. 
 
 In the course of time, the planters 
 will have the capital here to export 
 their cotton directly fo Europe — bring- 
 
 ing goods directly here, and saving 
 all accumulations of profit, freight, 
 and other contingencies. The plan- 
 ters in the Cotton States can save 
 forty millions of dollars annually, 
 without feeling the loss of necessaries 
 or luxuries. This forty millions of 
 dollars, if invested in railroads and 
 manufactories, would soon put us on 
 a par with any portion of the world. 
 In a few years, this forty millions of 
 dollars, w'ith the interest on the first 
 forty millions, would enable us to 
 purchase a large portion of the bonds 
 of the world. Tribute would come 
 from every portion of the world to 
 the cotton regions, instead of going 
 out as it now does. We are making 
 about three hundred millions of dol- 
 lar's worth of cotton a year, at the 
 prices It has ruled for the last three 
 years. This forty millions of dollars, 
 counted as income, will amount to 
 near fourteen per cent, of the aggre- 
 gate value of the cotton crop, and any 
 people that can save such per cent, 
 can certainly become independent. 
 
 Cotton does the best in this lati- 
 tude, but to continue to make it pay, 
 the cotton planter should make his 
 whole supplies — corn, cotton, meat, 
 and everything necessary to run the 
 farm; then the balance of the labor 
 will make more money than if the 
 Vt^hole labor was engaged in making 
 cotton, by the increased price of the 
 cotton. What corn you wish to use 
 at home, you should not count the cost 
 of making, but make it, and you will 
 be remunerated in the increased price 
 of the cotton. 
 
 Encourage manufactories, that they 
 may be supplied with the products of 
 your farms, spinning up the cotton, 
 working up the raw hides into shoes, 
 that you may get them without any 
 carrying trade to any distant portion 
 of the world to be manufactured and 
 brought back — get them at a less 
 price, and make a profit on the prod- 
 ucts furnished them. Take this la- 
 bor from the cotton field, and increase 
 the price of your cotton in the same 
 ratio. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 On Immigration 
 
 Editor 
 
 Spaeta, Ga., June 10th, 1869. 
 Southern Cultivator: 
 
 I wish to call the attention of the 
 cotton planters of the South to the sub- 
 ject of immigration. It is one of great- 
 est interest, and if successful, I think 
 will prove destructive to the cotton in- 
 terest. I do not wish my views to pre- 
 vail unless they are right. I wish both 
 sides to be heard, and hope those who 
 can wield the pen, and who agree with 
 me, will be heard; the other side has 
 been heard already, and we have been 
 taxed to promote this cause. The 
 State of Georgia is moving for our de- 
 struction. 
 
 The negro we have with us, and we 
 can not get rid of him if we would. 
 They will not die out, as most of our 
 Northern friends and many of our peo- 
 ple think. The next census will show 
 a large increase. The only way to 
 make it tolerable for them to live 
 amongst us is to give them employ- 
 ment. With full employment they will 
 steal less, be more law-abiding, and a 
 less nuisance in every way. Do we 
 want more labor, and for what? The 
 agricultural interest at the South is 
 chiefly valuable for its production of 
 cotton, tobacco and rice. Can we make 
 more money by doubling the quantity 
 of labor than we can out of what we 
 now have? Do numbers increase the 
 quantity of labor pro rata, or will the 
 dividends be greater for all concerned? 
 Can the first million of people in Geor- 
 gia, having the first choice of lands to 
 cultivate, and the balance for pasture. 
 
 make more or less than the second mil- 
 lion, having the poorest half to culti- 
 vate, and no waste land for stock to 
 graze on? Is the second million likely 
 to be more skillful, industrious, law- 
 abiding and enterprising, etc.? I think 
 history teaches us that a population, 
 with plenty of room and land, are more 
 cheaply governed than a dense popu- 
 lation — can live better, and can have 
 more labor to spare for improvements. 
 What country has built the same 
 amount of railroads and factories as 
 the United States? The United States 
 having plenty of lands to cultivate, by 
 selecting the best, can, with one-half 
 of its laborers, make a plenty of all 
 the products of the soil, whilst the 
 other half can build railroads and ma- 
 chinery of all kinds and work them. 
 The Cotton States, with their present 
 labor, can build more railroads, erect 
 more factories, develop more mines, 
 carry education and refinement to a 
 higher point, than if the population 
 was increased four-fold. With cotton 
 at twenty-five cents per pound, you have 
 money to do whatever you wish col- 
 lectively. In 1848 and '49, with nine 
 hundred thousand to one million bales 
 of cotton in Liverpool, cotton sold in 
 Augusta at four and half to five and a 
 half cents. With three hundred and 
 fifty thousand to four hundred thou- 
 sand bales at present in Liverpool, cot- 
 ton is selling in Augusta from twenty- 
 five to twenty-nine cents per pound. 
 Why do you wish to make the change? 
 Our Northern friends say if we do not 
 
66 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OP FARMING. 
 
 produce cotton cheaper, we will lose 
 the trade. I am willing to lose it, if it 
 can only be held by making cheap cot- 
 ton. If they, would take a little , 
 more interest in preventing the 
 loss of our liberty, instead of the 
 loss of the cotton trade, it would 
 inure to the benefit of both sec- 
 tions. Give us our liberties and consti- 
 tutional rights, with our best men to 
 represent us in all departments, and we 
 can make as much cotton as the world 
 wants, at fair prices, if it be ten mil- 
 lions of bales, without an outside man 
 or dollar. Good government would do 
 more to develop this country than all 
 the men and money in the world. 
 
 Cotton planters, it is not to your in- 
 terest to sell your land at a mere nomi- 
 nal price. How can you invest your 
 money to any better advantage? Land 
 must advance in price. In thirty years, 
 without a single immigrant, Georgia 
 will have a population of two millions 
 of people, the sons and daughters of 
 the present population. Be patient; 
 wait for the natural increase, and what 
 may voluntarily come. Do not spend 
 your money to hasten an over-popu- 
 lated country. It will come soon 
 enough; and when it does come, you 
 will have no outlet. Some are willing 
 to cut their lands up into small lots, 
 and give every alternate lot to immi- 
 grants, thinking it will more than dou- 
 ble the price of the balance. What do 
 you care what your lands are worth, 
 if you have none to sell — besides, it 
 would reduce the price of cotton more 
 than one-half, and the land you have 
 left would not pay per acre one-half of 
 the dividends they do now — reducing 
 your profits three-fourths. You have 
 a plenty of native poor people to sell 
 land to if you wish to part with any. 
 
 Do those who have no land wish 
 competitors in labor, and in the land 
 market — reducing your wages one-half 
 or more? Do you wish a great in- 
 crease of money capital, reducing the 
 rate of interest to the standard of Eu- 
 rope, causing all property to rise in 
 proportion to the fall of interest? Your 
 wages are fixed by the surplus of cot- 
 ton you have to export, and the price 
 it will bring in Liverpool. Your pros- 
 perity depends upon the scarcity of ^a- 
 bor and a high rate of interest. You 
 
 have nothing but your labor— you can- 
 not borrow money, even if it gets down 
 to two per cent. The value of your la- 
 bor being fixed by the value of cotton 
 in Liverpool, where interest is low, you 
 can, by residing where it is high, ac- 
 quire proportionally much more land 
 in a given time. 
 
 To those who have land to sell, or 
 more than can be worked, let me say, 
 the very scarcity of labor will make 
 one-half of your lands bring in an- 
 nually more money than if all was 
 planted; the other half is worth five 
 per cent, to grow broom-sedge for graz- 
 ing, and will advance more than five 
 per cent, annually. For the safety of 
 the manufacturing interest, especially 
 in cotton, it is not prudent to push it 
 too fast — not faster than markets can 
 be found for the products manufac- 
 tured. Just a6 sure as the winds re- 
 turn the water, to be condensed and fall 
 again above the shoals, the people here 
 will possess the money, and energy, 
 and skill, to put the water to work; 
 and to effect this most speedily, we 
 want a scarcity of labor, that there may 
 be a scarcity of cotton, and correspond- 
 ingly good prices. 
 
 With cotton at twenty to twenty- 
 five cents per pound, we can in Georgia 
 appropriate ten dollars towards increas- 
 ing our manufacturing interest with 
 more ease than one dollar, with double 
 the labor, and cotton eight to twelvfe 
 cents. Where are the laborers best 
 fed and clothed? — where labor is 
 scarce. Where does land pay the best 
 profits? — where labor is scarce; and the 
 reason is, the products of the farm 
 bring the best prices under these cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 I am equally opposed to begging for 
 money to be brought to the South to be 
 invested. If capitalists come of their 
 own accord, let them come, but it is 
 not to our interest that they should. 
 You now own the property of Georgia; 
 if you sell one-half of it, you will own 
 but the other half. It is very difficult 
 to transfer real property from one 
 country to another. The most you 
 would get would be the means to live 
 and dress fine for a few years. 
 
 What we want is a system of saving 
 and properly investing each year. We 
 could and ought to save annually fif- 
 
ON IMMIGRATION. 
 
 67 
 
 teen millions of dollars, to be invested 
 in machinery. That would pay future 
 dividends, to be reinvested: I am for 
 more labor too; but I want such as we 
 may never regret acquiring. Accumu- 
 late all sorts of labor-saving machines; 
 improve your land to a capacity double 
 its present rates; improve your systems 
 fully double of what they now are. 
 Learn to do fully fifty per cent, more 
 work with the same labor than is now 
 done, and with more ease; learn to ap- 
 ply your labor to greater advantage 
 than is now done; do all this, and more 
 too which can be done, and you will 
 find your products ample, without any 
 increase of population. I am for non- 
 action by Georgia — non-action of our 
 people. Leave the subject of immigra- 
 tion to time and the free will of those 
 who wish to come among us and be of 
 us. 
 
 We owe our prosperity at this time 
 entirely to the scarcity of labor — many 
 negroes having refused to work; 
 others being employed in repairing 
 torn-up railroads and building new 
 roads. If all the negroes had gone 
 to work on the farms, and done full 
 work, it would have taken twenty 
 years to reach our present situation. 
 The scarcity of labor is the only bless- 
 ing we now enjoy as a result of the 
 war. 
 
 The scarcity of labor in the South 
 gives us the proceeds of the very la- 
 bor some people wish to transfer here. 
 The profits of one hand in the cotton 
 field give us the labor of two in Eu- 
 rope. Transfer him here, and he will 
 compete with the labor we now have, 
 or he will labor with those we now 
 have, to lessen their profits, and bring 
 about a state of things which will get 
 up strikes. You must recollect, a 
 strike in the cotton or harvest field is 
 not like one in a cotton mill or on a 
 railroad. If the mill stops, what has 
 been done is not lost; if the hands re- 
 fuse to move any more dirt, what has 
 been, remains. Not so with wheat 
 and cotton: all is lost, unless you con- 
 tinue to advance. The guano must be 
 pumped up into the cotton bolls, and 
 they must be gathered by uninter- 
 rupted labor. 
 
 The press of the South has labored 
 earnestly to get the cotton planter to 
 make all his supplies at home, urging 
 
 it as being the cheapest policy. Now 
 every cotton planter knows that noth- 
 ing pays as well as cotton, and all the 
 presses in the world cannot change 
 his opinion. But if the press will 
 strike at the root of the evil, they may 
 do incalculable good. I will state 
 what it is; I have always practiced it; 
 both the true interest of the cotton 
 planter and patriotism should make 
 all adopt it. Apply one-half of all la- 
 bor and land to the making of full 
 supplies of all kinds that are needed 
 on the plantation, and enough to 
 spare for those engaged in other pur- 
 suits. Do this, and you will get more 
 money (take ten years together) for 
 the other half of labor and land en- 
 gaged in cotton culture than if the 
 whole was employed to produce cot- 
 ton. If this is true, immigration is 
 certainly not to our interest, and why 
 should not the cotton planters consult 
 their interest as well as other people. 
 Verv respectfully,. 
 
 DAVID DICKSOM. 
 
 IMMIGRATION-NUMBER II. 
 
 Spakxa, Georgia, October 7th, 1869. 
 Editor Southern Cultivator: 
 
 I could not finish what I had to say 
 on immigration in my first article. I 
 will not reply to any criticism on my 
 views hereafter, as I have no interest 
 to serve that is not common to every 
 planter, to-wit: the prosperity of the 
 South. I have never held any office, 
 and do not wish to do so. I speak 
 and write simply what I believe is the 
 true interest of the cotton planter, 
 without regard to pleasing or dis- 
 pleasing. 
 
 I will use round numbers; these will 
 be near enough for all purposes. It 
 has been about ninety years since the 
 close of the Revolutionary War. The 
 population then was estimated at 
 about three millions; to this original 
 number a few have been added since, 
 by purchase of territory and annexa- 
 tion, but not enough to alter the re- 
 sults materially. During these nine- 
 ty years, we have been engaged in 
 wars (including the Indian wars) as 
 much as one-sixth of the time, and 
 what is the result? The population 
 of the United States has increased 
 
68 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 thirteen-fold, reaching now, probably, 
 thirty-nine millions. Taking the nine- 
 ty years together, there has been an 
 increase of population equal to the 
 original number, once in about evei-y 
 seven years, including the limited im- 
 migration. Who can want a greater in- 
 crease of population than that? And 
 as long as there is sufficient room to 
 produce all the necessaries of life, the 
 increase will keep up to these figures. 
 Is there any one that wishes to en- 
 courage a system that would stint the 
 food of their own children so as to 
 stop the natural increase of a well 
 provided population? Taking thirty- 
 nine millions as the number of per- 
 sons in the United States at present, 
 let us see what they will be in ninety 
 years more, or in ,1959 (and" some who 
 are children now will be alive then) : 
 thirteen times thirty-nine millions 
 makes five hundred and seven mil- 
 lions of persons. 
 
 Messrs. Editors, we will now try the 
 figures in the case of Georgia, and what 
 is true of Georgia is true of all the 
 Cotton States. The population of 
 Georgia is now about one million two 
 hundred thousand; thirteen times 
 that amount is fifteen millions six 
 hundred thousand. Now, is there any- 
 thing that will prevent the ratio of 
 increase for the next ninety years be- 
 ing equal to the past ninety years, 
 but a scarcity of food, and clothing, 
 and room? It is often said that the 
 South is the garden spot of the world. 
 Heretofore we had permanent and 
 limited labor, and the cotton plant, to- 
 gether with an extensive forest before 
 us. All is changed now; the best of 
 the forest is gone and it requires a 
 greater number of acres in the South 
 to support its people than in regions 
 farther North. It is much more diffi- 
 cult to retain the soil and improve it. 
 Here the land is not frozen and 
 covered with snow six months in the 
 year; the summers are much hotter 
 and longer; heat hastens exhaustion 
 when under the plough; and the heavy 
 rains damage the land the year round; 
 therefore, we need more land that we 
 may rotate the crops and give the soil 
 rest. Labor is chiefly valuable, not 
 on account of the aggregate of what 
 it produces, but the money value af- 
 ter paying for labor and all expenses. 
 
 The amount of labor that will pro- 
 duce the greatest net profit is what I 
 want. I contend we now have it in 
 the Cotton States. The laborer and 
 his family have to be first fed and 
 clothed, no matter what the price 
 agreed on for labor, before capital 
 gets anything. 
 
 It is said we want more labor. Can 
 we get more laborers without at the 
 same time getting more consumers? 
 Or is it meant we want more persons 
 without capital? If so, I am opposed 
 to that plan. I had rather have less 
 labor, and have a majority of the peo- 
 ple interested in property, morals, 
 true religion, and everything that is 
 desirable. A large population has a 
 tendency to develop a central govern- 
 ment and a standing army. I will 
 leave it to some divine to say what ef- 
 fect the introduction of Chinamen 
 would have on religion, morals, etc. 
 
 Had it not been for the clause pro- 
 hibiting slavery, which Virginia put 
 in the articles ceding the Northwest 
 territory, and the immigration of Eu- 
 ropeans, we would not have had the 
 late war and its results; and even if 
 the war had come, there would have 
 been no "lost cause." Immigration 
 is the chief cause of the changed char- 
 acter of the Government of the Uni- 
 ted States, and a continuances of the 
 former will hasten the overthrow of 
 the latter, with all its attendant con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Cotton planters! the whole capital 
 of Europe, including money and ma- 
 chinery, together with that of the 
 North, is striving to increase the 
 quantity of cotton, and to reduce the 
 price. You have no concert of ac- 
 tion; a panic increases your anxiety 
 to sell cotton. This feeds the panic 
 still more. Your only remedy is to 
 make only what is wanted at paying 
 prices; keep out of debt, be the credi- 
 tors, make the most of your' supplies 
 at home — then, and only then, will 
 you have power. 
 
 Messrs. Editors, there is a great 
 deal said about the capital the immi- 
 grants bring to this country. I do 
 not think they bring any, except 
 enough to exchange during the first 
 year's residence for articles that would 
 be exported during that year, if not 
 consumed by the immigrants, such as 
 bacon, cheese, corn, flour, lard, etc. 
 
ON IMMIGRATION. 
 
 Q9 
 
 The gold returns to Europe, in place 
 of the above articles, to pay for their 
 clothing, etc. 
 
 A country being rich is a very dif- 
 ferent thing from a population being 
 rich. Suppose Georgia had five hun- 
 dred millions of taxable property, and 
 one million of inhabitants, and you 
 add two hundred millions taxable 
 property and one million of popula- 
 tion, the people would be poorer than 
 at first. Population does not lessen 
 taxes. Thirty years ago, with one- 
 half of the present population, we did 
 not pay more than one-tenth of the 
 present tax. Under the Adams' ex- 
 travagant administration, a tax of 
 about two dollars and fifty cents per 
 head, with a population of five millions, 
 was paid. Under Mr. Johnson's admin- 
 istration, with an average population of 
 thirty-five millions, nearly five hun- 
 dred millions were paid to the govern- 
 ment, or sixteen dollars per head. Let 
 each reader figure for himself and 
 make up his mind accordingly. 
 
 One of the benefits of scarcity of la- 
 bor is, it gives high prices for cotton, 
 and thereby gives us a monopoly of 
 all commercial manures; and only 
 one-half the land being required to 
 produce the same amount of cotton; 
 deeper ploughing can be done — this 
 will hold moisture, to keep the manure 
 soluble, and make the insoluble solu- 
 ble. More care in cultivation follows; 
 the best and most level lands will be 
 selected; the worn and gullied lands 
 will go into forest again to equalize 
 the seasons as to cold and hot, wet 
 and dry. The very scarcity of labor 
 will enable planters to acquire a cash 
 capital, and with that, if they are 
 true, they can dictate terms. I feel 
 no apprehension that the negro will 
 or can force the planter to sell his 
 land. 
 
 I do not believe that the increase of 
 price of grain in the great Northwest 
 is due to the hundreds of thousands 
 of immigrants annually settling there. 
 If it was true, I would not want such 
 immigrants; they could not make 
 bread for their own consumption. It 
 must be found in other causes, as de- 
 preciation of the currency, conversion 
 of grain into meat for cities, for ex- 
 port, and the gradual impoverishment 
 of land. 
 
 I take issue again on the amount of 
 labor that can be spared from a dense 
 population, compared with a sparse 
 one. European experience shows that 
 only about one man out of each hun- 
 dred of the population can be spared 
 without creating a scarcity of the nec- 
 essaries of life. The United States, 
 taking both sections, furnish from six 
 to eight to the hundred. If the South, 
 previous to the war, had taken the na- 
 tive white man and negro to build 
 her railroads, instead of employing 
 immigrants, cotton would have ad- 
 vanced to such an extent as would 
 have twice paid for the whole work, 
 thus getting the roads for nothing, 
 and still have enough to pay for all 
 iron, etc. Georgia, for the last four 
 years, has repaired and made more 
 miles of new roads, built more facto- 
 ries, shops, houses, etc., (all with Geor- 
 gians), than any one million two hun- 
 dred thousand people ever did since 
 the creation of the world, and in this 
 lies the secret of our success. 
 
 I will only touch upon one more 
 item, viz: low rate of interest. Dense 
 population has a tendency to center 
 property in a few hands — property in 
 the hands of a few has a tendency to 
 lower the interest, because the few da 
 not consume the whole interest; if 
 more generally diffused, all would be 
 consumed. Low interest at home 
 causes capital to seek investments 
 where interest is high. For instance, 
 Europe purchases bonds here that pay 
 five to seven per cent, interest to be 
 reinvested year after year, still mak- 
 ing money center to the lowest point 
 of interest, and rendering it more dif- 
 ficult for those to live who have no 
 money. This country, in less than 
 ten years, will pay a tribute in inter- 
 est to Europe of more than one hun- 
 dred millions of dollars on bonds hav- 
 ing been principally consumed in lux- 
 uries. 
 
 I am no apologist for the negro. I 
 would be glad for him to feel the 
 stimulating effects of immigration, if it 
 could be done without injuring the 
 white race. 
 
 I shall now take final leave of this 
 question, commending it to the calm 
 and thoughtful consideration of the 
 thousands of planters at the South 
 who have as deep an interest in it as 
 I have. My object has not been to 
 
ro 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 provoke controversy, but to caution 
 my fellow-countrymen against a pol- 
 icy which, in my humble judgment, is 
 fraught with ruin to the South. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 DAVID DICKSON. 
 
 IMMIGRATION-NUMBER III. 
 
 Si'ARTA, Georgia, March 31, 1870. 
 Lr. J. Dickson Smith: 
 
 Deai: Sik — You wish to have my 
 further views on the policy of immi- 
 gration to the Cotton States. I should 
 have answered sooner; but every time 
 1 set apart a few hours for that pur- 
 pose, I have been interrupted by com- 
 pany. 
 
 The great cry of the friends of im- 
 migration is to develop the resources 
 of the Cotton States. That might do 
 if it did not increase the recipients as 
 well as products. I entirely disagree 
 with them. The people of the Cotton 
 States own the soil, mines, water- 
 power, etc., and I contend that we 
 have the labor to develop these re- 
 sources more effectually than if we 
 had more, and receive all the profits. 
 It is our first duty to provide for our 
 own household, and take care of our 
 own poor. We can do it more effec- 
 tually, and with greater profits to our- 
 selves, than we could with an increase 
 of labor. Under our present sparse 
 population, there is plenty of land and 
 room for all, and abundant employ- 
 ment for our children. This will not 
 be the case when once our country be- 
 comes flooded with immigrants. Our 
 own children may even want that dai- 
 ly employment necessary to earn 
 them a scanty subsistence of being en- 
 couraged and stimulated, as they now 
 are, by all those incentives to action 
 that spring from remunerative labor, 
 as well as from the innumerable open- 
 ings for enterprise now presenting 
 themselves in our Southern States. 
 
 One writer, who objects to my views, 
 asks, "Who built the railroads of the 
 South?" and answers, "Immigrant la- 
 bor built them." That is too true; 
 but it was a great evil and loss to the 
 South. Under the old system, we had 
 too much labor. It reduced what we 
 had to export to too low a figure. Su- 
 gar five to eight cents, cotton seven to 
 
 ten cents! Instead of building our 
 railroads with immigrant labor, we 
 should have done it with our slaves, 
 to the extent of one-fourth of all la- 
 bor employed in producing cotton, 
 rice, sugar, and tobacco. Who will 
 say that if one-fourth of the labor had 
 been employed in building railroads, 
 factory dams, fish dams, ditching, im- 
 proving homesteads, planting or- 
 chards, etc., we would not have made 
 fifty per cent, more clear money than 
 we did with all the labor? The fifty 
 per cent, clear money would have pur- 
 chased all the railroad iron, cotton 
 machinery,' etc. Under that system, 
 we might have spun and woven one- 
 half of the cotton, and had as many 
 roads as we wanted — all of which 
 would have been clear profit, getting 
 as much money, all the time, for three- 
 fourths of the cotton as we would for 
 the whole. These are no new ideas 
 of mine. They were formed and ex- 
 pressed early in my cotton career. The 
 first full cotton crop that I ever made 
 (1847), I held my cotton eleven 
 months, and sold the entire crop at 
 four and a half cents per pound. Now, 
 if not more than one-fourth a general 
 crop had been made that year, or 
 three-fourths had been burned after 
 it had been made, the balance would, 
 in all probability, have brought ten to 
 fifteen cents. Would it not have been 
 better to have taken cotton hands in- 
 stead of immigrants to build those 
 railroads, and saved the money, by in- 
 crease of prices, to pay them, instead 
 of paying the immigrants out of low- 
 priced cotton? 
 
 When you get immigrants, you get 
 competitors for the labor we have, as 
 well as their own labor. 
 
 In a former article on this subject, 
 I showed that a sparse population 
 could be governed more cheaply than 
 a dense population; that there were 
 less forgeries, less robberies, and less 
 of all the vices of the day. If you 
 get immigrants, you get all the isms 
 known in the world. If you wish a 
 standing army, encourage immigration. 
 All dense populations require a stand- 
 ing army to preserve peace and to pro- 
 tect life and liberty. Public liberty is 
 near enough gone now; but a dense 
 population would preclude all possibili- 
 ty of its ever returning. Reflect on 
 
ON IMMIGRATION. 
 
 history and the present population of 
 the world. Look to China, for in- 
 stance. If people can live cheaper 
 and better in a dense population, why 
 do they leave a dense population and 
 their homes to go thousands of miles 
 to find a sparse population? It is be- 
 cause plenty of land and room insures 
 plenty of all that is needed. 
 
 I see it stated, since the war with 
 the American Colonies, that England 
 has lost, by emigration, six million 
 five hundred thousand persons; yet 
 she has, to-day, more than four times 
 the agricultural products that she had 
 then. The loss of the surplus popula- 
 tion gave the balance room to work 
 and accumulate. How was this done? 
 By improving the soil with manures: 
 doubling it by going down twice as 
 deep; making it produce four times as 
 much; putting one portion of the sav- 
 ings in improved implements of farm- 
 ing, and another portion in manufac- 
 turing. Now, this is the kind of la- 
 bor I want. It produces dividends, 
 and the owners get them. 
 
 Two tons of good guano will pro- 
 duce more cotton than an immigrant 
 would, even if he belonged to you, like 
 the guano. Both pay in their own 
 cost. This is the only evil in guano: 
 likely to cause an over production; but 
 in the case of guano, you only have to 
 cease buying it. You haven't it to take 
 care of. The immigrant you must 
 work and feed. In the case of ma- 
 chinery you must work and feed. In 
 the case of machinery, all you have to 
 do is to cease to apply the water and 
 steam until the surplus is consumed. 
 Give me guano and machinery for 
 ever, instead of immigrants. I con- 
 tend we can get more of both without 
 immigrants than with them 
 
 Cotton from twenty to twenty-five 
 cents per pound leaves a large amount 
 each year, to invest in machinery and 
 guano, if we will. Immigrants, and 
 cotton at eight to twelve cents, will 
 leave nothing. Since the war. I have 
 paid about ten cents per pound for la- 
 bor alone to produce cotton. Say cotton 
 has averaged twenty-four cents; one- 
 third is eight cents, and the use of 
 houses, wood, teams, etc., are equiva- 
 lent to two cents more — making ten 
 cents per pound. Some give more. It 
 makes no difference what terms you 
 
 agree upon with labor, you have to 
 feed and clothe the laborer and his 
 family. Suppose you had double the 
 number of laborers, and you employ 
 them at the lowest wages, feed and 
 clothe ihem and their families, and 
 sell your cotton crop at ante-war 
 prices, where would be your profits? 
 
 Again, scarcity of labor and high 
 prices for cotton give us a monopoly 
 of the guano market. Guano, applied 
 to crops, at the rate of from eight to 
 twelve dollars per acre, will more 
 than double the crops — producing 
 more than the labor, land, stock and 
 machinery, and the cost of the guano 
 not much above the loss in machinery, 
 mule feed and tools, to say nothing 
 about the expenses of the labor. Then, 
 think of the difference! By doub- 
 ling the number of laborers, without 
 guano, you would exhaust and ruin 
 the soil. Guano, to produce the same 
 amount, will improve the soil in more 
 ways than one. Whoever uses guano 
 will break his land deeper and pre- 
 pare it more thoroughly. 
 
 As I claim to be the first who intro- 
 duced guano in the Cotton States, I 
 will caution you against over-produc- 
 tion of cotton. Use guano and leave 
 off immigrants! Produce about two 
 million five hundred thousand bales 
 only, till priQes above twenty cents 
 per pound stimulate a farther in- 
 crease. Prepare for a panic by con- 
 stant investments in stock, securities 
 and machinery, even if not more than 
 one hundred dollars annually. It will 
 be a beginning. Keep at least six 
 months' cash on hand for necessaries, 
 that you may not have to force cotton 
 sales. Should a cotton panic occur 
 now, or after this, it would produce, 
 in many cases, starvation. Make all 
 your supplies, and the balance of your 
 labor in cotton will bring more mon- 
 ey than ail would. Every man be- 
 lieves this, yet some say. "give us im- 
 migrants." If you want to change a 
 wrong principle permanently, strike 
 at the evil in truth. All the writers 
 say, "make your supplies at home, and 
 thereby keep your money at home." 
 I must admit, I cannot see it in that 
 light. IIow can money be kept at 
 home, and what good would it do if 
 kept there? Money is only valuable 
 as the cheapest and most convenient 
 medium of exchange. These are my 
 
72 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 views. The cotton plailt is a great 
 power for good, and a rich legacy for 
 us. How to mal<e the most of it 
 should be serious study and action of 
 all. This is the remedy: Do not let 
 it come below twenty cents, and, if 
 possible, keep it up to twenty-five 
 cents. I do not think it to our inter- 
 est to carry it beyond that price. How 
 is this to be done? Make all your sup- 
 plies at home, and you will get the 
 same amount of money for the bal- 
 ance of the labor that you would get 
 for the whole, devoted to cotton. You 
 would have less use for money and 
 more to put in machinery; and hav- 
 ing more resources, you would suffer 
 less in any panic. 
 
 Money will go where it can buy 
 most, and center where it is worth 
 the least rate of interest. A man hav- 
 ing money in Europe, where it is 
 worth only three per cent., will come 
 here for securities at five and six per 
 cent. Continued for years, it centers 
 all dividends to that point on securi- 
 ties. 
 
 Some complain that labor is scarce, 
 and a few get all; but they are better 
 off under a scarce system than they 
 would be under an abundant supply. 
 This labor would be worth double; 
 
 whereas, if there was an abundance of 
 labor, it would produce cheap exports. 
 In this case, none but large and skill- 
 ful capitalists could work and feed 
 the labor, and it would be the means 
 of centering capital in a few hands. 
 A man of capital and skill could work 
 labor at a profit, when a small capi- 
 tal and less skill would lose money. 
 What now prevents the land from get- 
 ting into a few hands but the fear and 
 uncertainty of getting labor? 
 
 I will venture my advice: Hold on 
 to your land; plough deep; manure; 
 rest; improve your homes; make your 
 supplies; save money to invest; and 
 finally, when called from the world, 
 leave your land to your children, that 
 it may support them and their chil- 
 dren, as it did you! The cotton plant 
 is a power that, if used right, will in 
 a short time give us all the capital we 
 wish, and make us the creditors of the 
 world! Let us strive to be the credi- 
 tors. It is a much more preferable 
 situation than to be the debtors. Be- 
 ware of foreign capital. It will only 
 displace your own, and be a growth 
 that will ever keep you in the back- 
 ground. Very truly, 
 
 DAVID DICKSON. 
 
 Three Profits — 'Milk, IVIeat and IVianure. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Best Extracts trom the Writings ot Dickson. 
 
 1. Never let it be said by posterity, 
 tliat it is harder for them to live be- 
 cause you lived before them. 
 
 2. An over-estimate as to the prac- 
 tical importance of deep and thorough 
 breaking of lands for the cultivated 
 crops can not be made. 
 
 3. I always consider preparation the 
 half, and the heaviest half, of making 
 the crop. 
 
 4. I consider it just as deleterious 
 to cut the roots of a plant as I would 
 to cut the veins of an ox when I have 
 him fattening. 
 
 5. The product of the crop will be 
 found to be in the ratio of the fertili- 
 ty of the soil. 
 
 6. Patriotism says, "make your 
 meat and bread at home and be inde- 
 pendent." 
 
 7. I have made money by giving my 
 land one year in four to gather am- 
 monia and humus. 
 
 Ammonia is the foundation of Eng 
 lish agriculture. 
 
 With a little ammonia we can 
 gather large amounts every year, and 
 put it at compound interest. 
 
 8. I believe in natural laws. Study 
 nature; trace all things from cause to 
 effect, and effect to cause. 
 
 9. There are just as many ways to 
 improve land as there are to waste it. 
 
 Nature helps to waste, and helps to 
 return. 
 
 10. Providence intended the earth 
 
 to improve in fertility as it increases 
 in population. 
 
 11. The richer you make land the 
 more you can draw from the atmos- 
 phere annually. 
 
 12. If the guano comes in contact 
 with the seed you will have a bad 
 stand. 
 
 13. Annual manures are preferable; 
 they ought to double the investment. 
 
 Soluble bone and Peruvian guano 
 will square up accounts with one hun- 
 dred per cent, profit. 
 
 14. All vegetable matter placed on 
 your fields will, in due time, turn to 
 cotton and corn. 
 
 15. Handle manure as little as 
 possible; but handle a great deal of 
 it. Manure loses every time it is 
 turned over and piled. 
 
 IG. Of all manures, ammonia is the 
 cheapest and best crop grower, and 
 does not exhaust the lands. 
 
 17. The best time to break land for 
 planting corn is ten days before plant- 
 ing; but the rule is, commence in 
 time to break it. 
 
 18. Land must be well broken before 
 planting. Commence in time to do 
 do it; but the later done — in this lati- 
 tude — the better for the land. 
 
 19. A man only gains hard work 
 and more of it by very early planting 
 
 20. The word stimulate is improp- 
 erly applied to manures; this effect is 
 owing to its solubility. 
 
74 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 21. Be vigilant to save all home- 
 made manures possible. 
 
 22. Manipulate your land with vege- 
 table mold. 
 
 23. Plough deep, rotate your crops 
 and rest your lands. 
 
 24. There is only so much corn and 
 cotton in any manure, and the sooner 
 you get it the better. 
 
 25. I have made one bushel of corn 
 to every fifty-two stalks in the field. 
 
 26. Turn in the weeds, grass, peas 
 and clover; make the land mellow. 
 
 27. Plough deep, cultivate shallow, 
 and you will have no trouble in grow- 
 ing crops. 
 
 28. Clay lands will bear the same 
 treatment as sandy lands, and with 
 less difficulty. 
 
 29. No matter the color of land, or 
 whether sand or clay, keep up a full 
 supply of vegetable mold; break up 
 deep before planting, cultivate light- 
 ly — the result will be good. 
 
 30. Four distinct errors keep plan^ 
 ters from making good corn crops — 
 
 1. Not keeping sufficient mold in 
 the land. 
 
 2. Ploughing too shallow in prepar- 
 ing for the crop. 
 
 3. Planting too thick. 
 
 4. Cultivating too deep. 
 
 Keep your land in good heart. 
 
 Two hundred pounds dissoilved 
 bones will produce all the fertilizing 
 effects of one thousand pounds of bone 
 dust. 
 
 31. To manure land with peas, sow 
 the peas the first of July. Drop the 
 peas and guano in every third furrow, 
 as you break the land. If a good crop 
 be made, feed off with stock — other- 
 wise turn under. 
 
 32. The true policy is to secure the 
 greatest possible amount of soluble 
 vegetable mold you can accumulate 
 with the least cost. 
 
 33. The true system of manuring is 
 to get the manure back the first year, 
 with a living profit. 
 
 34. We are only tenants at will, and 
 have no right to use the soil in a way 
 to destroy its capacity to maintain the 
 present population and its future in- 
 crease. 
 
 35. Subsoil one-fourth of your land 
 every year. 
 
 36. Use the guano on all lands you 
 plough or cultivate — or everywhere, 
 except in a hole of water or on a 
 rock. 
 
 37. Let sandy soils rest to accumu- 
 late vegetable mold and fasten the, 
 particles of sand together. Rest a 
 clay soil for the opposite purpose of 
 disintegrating the particles of clay. 
 
 38. Increase the fertility of the soil 
 in a greater ratio than the population 
 increases. 
 
 39. The use of commercial ferti- 
 lizers gives the farmer the means of 
 making double the quantity of home- 
 made manures. 
 
 40. Success is the only test that will 
 do to try a farmer by. 
 
 41. Mr. Dickson has made as high 
 as fourteen bales of cotton per hand, 
 besides other produce, stock, etc., to 
 the market value of $1,000 per hand. 
 
 42. Manuring will not exhaust land, 
 if you put back each year more than 
 you take from it. 
 
 43. Improve agriculture, so that a 
 given quantity of labor may produce 
 double what it now does; double the 
 capacity of the land. 
 
 44. With poor land but little ma- 
 nure will be accumulated without the 
 purchase of manures. 
 
 45. That land pays best with guano 
 that pays best without it. 
 
 46. Drain wet lands; ditch hill- 
 sides; then deepen your soil to the ex- 
 tent of your ability. 
 
 47. Humus, clay, and a due propor- 
 tion of sand, constitutes the best of 
 soil to succeed under all circum- 
 stances. 
 
 48. A cotton plant to stand two 
 weeks' drought must have four inches 
 soil and six inches subsoil; three 
 weeks, six inches soil and same sub- 
 soiling; four weeks, eight inches and 
 same subsoiling, and for every week 
 of dry weather, an additional inch, 
 with the same six inches subsoiling. 
 
 To stand a ten weeks' drought, 
 break the land sixteen inches, and 
 six inches subsoil. 
 
 49. Keep your labor at home. 
 
 50. Always come to time. 
 
EXTRACTS. 
 
 75 
 
 51. It is hard to transfer knowledge, 
 and harder to transfer art and judg- 
 ment. 
 
 52. The planter should follow the 
 laws that govern the universe. 
 
 53. Not only can a living be made 
 on poor land, but large fortunes. 
 
 54 By training, hands can do dou- 
 ble the amount of work with more 
 ease, and less sweat and muscle. 
 
 55. Mr. Dickson's hands used to 
 pick three hundred pounds of cotton 
 per day, and some as high as seven 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 56. The planter should mix his own 
 manures, and save the profit of ma- 
 nipulating. 
 
 57. Fertilizers bring a crop of bolls 
 on the cotton early. 
 
 58. To improve the cotton plant, se- 
 lect seed every year, after the first 
 picking, up to the middle of October, 
 taking the best stalks and the best 
 bolls on the stalks. 
 
 59. In selecting the Dickson cotton, 
 which is the most prolific cotton of the 
 day, select those stalks that send out 
 one or more suckers from the ground, 
 som(*times called arms. Secondly, 
 from those that send limbs thick, with 
 three to six bolls, from a half-inch 
 to one and a half inches apart on the 
 limbs. 
 
 60. On all farms there are some 
 acres that produce cotton better than 
 others; seed should always be selected 
 from those spots. 
 
 61. I do not approve of hill-plant- 
 ing; nor would I have a row nearer 
 than four feet for cotton. 
 
 62. Leave two or three stalks in 
 every hill, the distance of nine inches. 
 
 Cotton planted thick in the drill ma- 
 tures and opens earlier. 
 
 Cotton requires distance but one 
 way. 
 
 63. As manure, I consider ammonia 
 the first, soluble bone the second best, 
 salt and plaster good preventives of 
 rust in cotton, besides possessing good 
 fertilizing properties. 
 
 64. To command nitrogen you must 
 have all the necessary salts contained 
 in the various plants. 
 
 The more minerals, the more nitro- 
 gen you can command. 
 
 The more nitrogen you store away 
 in your land, the more you can obtain 
 from the atmosphere. 
 
 65. When land begins to tire with 
 excess of lime and other minerals, 
 sow it down in nitrogenous plants, 
 such as peas, clover, etc., and turn 
 them under. 
 
 66. I advocate mixing the valuably 
 manures, to grow perfect plants; but 
 if you use only one, let that be am- 
 monia. It is the cheapest and best 
 crop grower. 
 
 67. To be successful in agriculture, 
 you must know where all the elements 
 of plants are, and how to control 
 them. 
 
 68. With bull-tongue ploughs, divi- 
 dends are impossible. 
 
 69. Do not be afraid of a little clay 
 on top, or subsoiling generally. 
 
 One inch of clay each year, over a 
 good soil, will do no harm in any land. 
 
 70. If my system of farming is car- 
 ried out, there is no use to break the 
 ground but once a year. 
 
 71. It requires till the 1st of May to 
 do it right, and that is soon enough 
 to finish. 
 
 72. Fill your land with humus, to 
 stick the sand together and to darken 
 it. This will prevent its reflecting 
 the heat, and will cause it to receive 
 it gradually, and part with it the same 
 way. 
 
 With clay lands, do the same thing, 
 to make it ploughable at all times. 
 
 73. My system, both with hoe and 
 sweep, is to shave off the grass. 
 
 74. You cannot tell till the seasons 
 pass over what is the best time to 
 plant cotton. 
 
 There is nothing made but hard 
 work by planting summer crops in 
 the winter. 
 
 75. From the 10th to the 20th April 
 is the best time to plant cotton; but 
 if you can not plant sooner, plant in 
 May. 
 
 76. In 1868 I planted a twenty acre 
 lot, finishing the fifth day of May; 
 used eight hundred pounds of my com- 
 pound per acre. It made thirty-two 
 bales. The lint paid a net dividend 
 on one thousand dollars or more per 
 acre, after paying all expenses, and 
 
76 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 improving the capital ten per cent, on 
 what it would sell for. Including the 
 sale of the seed, it paid a dividend on 
 four thousand dollars per acre. 
 
 I have no doubt that, on good cotton 
 land a fair year, I could make one 
 hundred bales cotton, with one No. 1 
 mule; commencing operations the 1st 
 day of December; subsoil every acre; 
 ose twenty-five dollars worth of ma- 
 nure per acre, and finish the 1st of 
 May; cultivate sixty acres. 
 
 77. Accumulate all manner of labor- 
 saving machines; improve your land 
 to a capacity double its present rates; 
 learn to do fifty per cent, more work 
 with the same labor; learn to apply 
 your labor to greater advantage, and 
 you will find your products ample 
 without any increase of population. 
 
 78. Apply one-half of all labor and 
 land to the making of full supplies of 
 all kinds that are needed on the plan- 
 tation, and enough to spare for those 
 engaged in other pursuits, and you 
 will get more money than if the whole 
 was employed in making cotton. 
 
 79. Leave no grass to bunch and 
 cause a future bad stand. 
 
 Plough cotton every three weeks, 
 and let the hoes come ten days be- 
 hind, cleaning it perfectly. 
 
 Continue ploughing cotton till the 
 loth or 20th August. 
 
 80. Once or twice during the season 
 shove out the middle with one furrow, 
 to keep the land level. 
 
 The ploughing of cotton requires 
 one and a fourth days per acre. 
 
 81. All land has its capacity, with 
 or without manure — greater when ma- 
 nured and prepared deep, to sustain 
 a certain number of plants. 
 
 82. Cotton plants commence when 
 small to take on and mature bolls, 
 and continue until they exhaust the 
 soluble matter, or reach the full ca- 
 pacity of the land. Two stalks will 
 do that much sooner than one, and 
 will so avoid the late drought, cater- 
 pillar, etc. 
 
 83. Eighty bolls of well-cultivated 
 and matured cotton will make a 
 pound. 
 
 In four feet rows, there will be eight 
 stalks per yard and ten bolls on each 
 stalk will make three thousand six 
 
 hundred and seventy-five pounds, or 
 two bales per acre. 
 
 84. The vegetable mold must be 
 kept up to a good standard, approach- 
 ing virgin soil. 
 
 Cotton will grow after cotton a 
 number of years in succession, with 
 plenty of manure. 
 
 85. Rust is nothing but poverty, 
 caused by the land being too porous, 
 springy, sandy, not regularly worked, 
 or want of vegetable mold, potash, etc. 
 
 The remedy is — ^drain the surplus 
 water off, close the particles of sand 
 or clay with vegetable mold, and the 
 use of the "Dickson Compound," with 
 the addition of jjotash in some form. 
 
 86. I find where salt an'd plaster 
 were used, the cotton has stood the 
 drought best, and has less rust. 
 
 87. Make just the amount of cotton 
 wanted, at paying prices^ keep out of 
 debt, be the creditors, make the most 
 of your supplies at home; then, and 
 only then, will you have power. 
 
 88. Make the corn for the sake of 
 the corn; but when the corn is made 
 and hard, and the fodder still green 
 and good, pull it off — it will not^hurt 
 the corn. 
 
 89. In breaking land, commence at 
 the foot of the hill, and circle round 
 on a level, and finish on top. 
 
 All litter will be put out of the way, 
 and the grass seed covered so deep 
 that they can not come up. 
 
 90. Any land will make corn, if 
 ploughed and cultivated right. 
 
 91. For cotton, use from four hun- 
 dred pounds to eight hundred pounds 
 of the compound per acre. The more 
 used up to eight hundred pounds, the 
 greater will be the profit. 
 
 92. With fifty-six hands, Mr. Dick- 
 son made and gathered in 1859, six 
 hundred and sixty-seven bales cotton 
 — over twelve bales per hand, besides 
 one hundred dollars worth per hand 
 of corn, bacon, etc., making fifty-five 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 93. Mr. Dickson once bought a 
 plantation in Washington county, 
 \vith the negroes, stock and everything 
 complete, and paid for the whole with 
 one crop. 
 
 94. Experience has shown that 
 
EXTRACTS. 
 
 77 
 
 land when cultivated in cotton after 
 rest, will produce a healthier weed, 
 and will retain water better to keep 
 the g_;ano soluble. 
 
 95. The reason that I prefer rest 
 succeed small grain is because the 
 land is then smooth not open furrows 
 to wash, and it is covered with stubble 
 and small grass to protect it. 
 
 96. Rotation of crops, deep and 
 deeper ploughing every year, incor- 
 poration of vegetable mold returning 
 the whole proceeds of the cotton plant 
 except the lint to the soil, making as 
 much manure as possible — comprise 
 my system of improving lands. 
 
 97. Large ears of corn are more 
 easily gathered than small ones, and 
 the same is true of perfect bolls of 
 cotton. 
 
 98. Compost manure should be 
 spread on the ground, and applied im- 
 mediately, so that the decomposition 
 shall take place exactly where it is 
 wanted. 
 
 99. In manure, as in all other 
 things, the great consideration is to 
 economize labor; and one of the great 
 objects of using commercial manures 
 is, that it gives you the means of in- 
 creasing your compost. 
 
 100. Almost all flesh and oil are ob- 
 tained from the atmosphere. 
 
 101. From every source, let as muc^h 
 atmosphere into the land as possible. 
 
 102. In fifteen years, Mr. Dickson 
 doubled his capital twenty times by 
 planting. 
 
 103. TTie three great cardinal points 
 in the Dickson system of farming are 
 — deep preparation, thorough manur- 
 ing, and surface culture. 
 
 104. To be successful in planting, 
 you must study the habits of plants, 
 their wants and soil adapted to them. 
 
 10."). The higher the latitude, the 
 thicker corn may be planted; but even 
 then it may be over-seeded. 
 
 106. The great object of study and 
 practice is to know how to vitalize 
 the atmosphere, and to work up the 
 manures into the soil. 
 
 107. There is no such thing as fail- 
 ure, when man does his duty in the 
 cultivation. 
 
 108. During the cultivation, the 
 
 rain on the land settles the soil to the 
 roots of the plants and enables them 
 more completely to draw all the solu- 
 ble matter out of the soil. 
 
 109. Where the soil does not reach 
 more than from four to ten inches, I 
 prefer the common long scooter of 
 four to five inches width to subsoil 
 with, because it mixes a portion of the 
 soil every year with the subsoil. 
 
 110. Breaking must be commenced 
 in time to do it full and well by plant- 
 ing time; and the better the break- 
 ing is done, the easier the land is 
 cultivated and the larger the crops. 
 
 111. One of the objects of cultiva- 
 tion is to keep the surface broken, so 
 as to let in light, heat and air. 
 
 112. One reason why we should have 
 a large extent of soil, and depth of 
 pulverization, is because the roots are 
 many times longer than the limbs or 
 stalks, sometimes five or six times 
 their length. 
 
 113. All the labor required to culti- 
 vate corn is less than one day per 
 acre. 
 
 114. Corn manured and cultivate'd on 
 my plan will be fully matured before 
 the fodder begins to damage, and there 
 will be no loss of corn from pulling 
 the blades. 
 
 115. How to preserve corn. By 
 proper preparation, maturing and cul- 
 tivation, the ears will be sound and 
 heavy. No other corn can be kept 
 long. Use the yellow flint variety. 
 Let it thoroughly cure in the field. 
 Pull it when dry, about the last of 
 November. Put it up in the shuck, 
 in a dark tight house and fill the 
 house full. 
 
 116. The earlier cotton is planted, 
 the lighter it must be covered. 
 
 117. In cultivating cotton never stop 
 your ploughs for dry weather. 
 
 118. The hoeing and ploughing of 
 cotton, during the cultivation of the 
 crop closes up the land sufficiently to 
 cause the fruit to set finely. 
 
 119. By Placing the stalks thick in 
 the drill, and wide apart, the land is 
 kss shaded and gets more light and 
 sun. 
 
 "120. When I make a good crop, 1 
 always admit a little trash in picking 
 
78 
 
 DICKSON'S SYSTEM OF FARMING. 
 
 — trashy cotton selling better than 
 the blue cotton. 
 
 121. In picking cotton, make but 
 one pick at a boll. Pick the odd seeds 
 left in the winding up of the season, 
 if you have time. 
 
 122. Teach your laborers how to 
 work; how to do it with ease and effi- 
 ciency; and to do better and better 
 work every day. 
 
 123. Save, a portion of your income 
 every year, and buy everything for 
 cash. 
 
 124. Keep a cash capital equal to 
 one year's expenses. 
 
 125. Make all supplies at home that 
 can be made. 
 
 126. The cotton planter should 
 make his whole supplies — everything 
 necessary to run the farm. 
 
 127. Tlie premium cotton crop, ex- 
 hibited at the State Fair in Macon, in 
 1869, of eighteen bales on six acres, 
 was cultivated according to the Dick- 
 son plan. 
 
 128. We want system of saving and 
 properly investing each year. 
 
 Oats in Furrows Stand the Frosts. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 0DDlfl42TlbD 
 
 -^-^ 
 
 
 
 iki^HH 
 
 'jBinl 
 
 IIM