Horizontal plowing and hill-side ditching

Preface

This Essay was published in pamphlet form, and in the Transactions of THE North Carolina State Agi; [cultural Socikty, and in the North Carolina Planter, in 1858; and in the Southern Planter, Va., and in the American Cotton Planter and Soil of the South, in 1859.

In order to correct the errors of those issues, and extend its usefulness further, the author has consented to publish a cheap edition of it. It has been pronounced the " best Essa3' ever written on the subject," but as we are all liable to err, the author will be thankful to have any error or ambiguity of language pointed out to him, so that in a future edition theA may be corrected or explained.

THE PUBLISHERS.

By NICHOLAS T. SORSBY, M.D.

OF ALABAMA.*

Dedication

This nnpretending production is respectfully dedicated to the Farmers and Planters of the State of North Carolina, as a testimony of his tender regard for them, and love for his native State, by

THE AUTHOR.

FoEKLAND, Green County, Alabama, October, 1857.

Introduction

It has been but a few years since the subject of this Essay was brought to the notice of the American Farmer.

It now occupies an important and prominent position among the scientific operations of the Southern Farm.

It may be considered as a new branch of agricultural science, founded upon correct and well established principles of the sciences of Engineering and Hydraulics ; and essential to the welfare of the farmer, to the preservation of the soil, and to good husbandry.

Forced, almost by necessity, and the strong sense of selfinterest and foresight, a few intelligent minds have been brought to discover the urgent need of reforming the old destructive

INTRODUCTION. Vll system of plowing in straight rows up and down hills, and of substituting the better mode of horizontal culture.

The absurdity of the old method is really a subject of astonishment and mortification to those who practice the new methods. The arable lands of the South have been nearly exhausted by it and a careless and wasteful culture.

The beauty and simplicity of the principles and practice, as well as the advantages of the new methods, can only be realized and brought home to the farmer and planter, by observation, study, and practice, and when once understood, they will wonder at their past folly of land-killing, and grieve to know they practiced it so long, when a different and better system is so easily learned and pursued.

When we reflect upon the disasters to the soil, occasioned by the pursuit of the old method, and see the apparent apathy to, and indifference with which the more perfect and better system is viewed by some intelligent farmers and planters, at the present enlightened era and golden age of agricultural science, we feel alarmed for them, for their lands, and the succeeding generations.

What a poor inheritance to hand down to an industrious son, an old dilapidated homestead, with an old worn-out, galled and gullied farm ! Think of it, farmers and planters !

The very sight of decay all around, excites in the mind of the young man, disgust, despair, a disposition to abandon the old place, once so dear to him, and the family, now so much abused, and seek a newer and better place, richer land, among strangers. He has no desire to cultivate the worn-out old fields, and perhaps there is no new land to clear. The old method of plowing up and down hill, has much to answer for ; it has driven many a young man to the South-west, and perhaps, eventually, to prison, or the gallows, who might have been a useful citizen, could he have remained at home, and made a living.

Whilst the horizontal culture and the ridge and furrow system are attracting the attention, and being adopted by intelligent planters and farmers, its principles must be studied scientifically and practically, and new discoveries in the art applied, tested, and settled in the minds of men, or else there will be no end to the diversity of opinions that may arise, and lead to discussions that may retard the advancement of the new science.

It would require much time and space to elucidate the different methods of the horizontal culture, as fully as some men may desire, perhaps.

We have endeavored to simplify it, and should some of our readers not comprehend it perfectly, all that we can say to them is, study the principles laid down here, and then take the level and follow the plumb, and it will lead them over more tortuoua

Vm INTRODUCTION.

and obscure lines than we have penned here, and a few horizontal rows run with patience and care, will teach them more about it than was ever dreamed of in our philosophy.

Our aim has been, in writing this Essay, to collect together our ideas on this subject, to compare them with others, and deduce from them correct principles, and upon these principles establish with fidelity, practical rules, and thus accomplish by a general survey of the subject, and a brief enumeration of the details founded upon our own experience and observation, all that we think the State Agricultural Society of North Carolina, requires of the writer.

HISTORY OF HORIZONTAL CULTURE.

We regi'et to state that we have not been able by a careful research of all the Agricultural works that we have been able to examine, in the English and French languages, to find the origin of this system of culture.

Mr. Thomas Jefferson, who was a close observer of improvements in Agriculture, in a letter dated " Monticello, 6th March, 1816," says, " My son-in-law. Colonel Thomas M. Randolph, is, perhaps, the best farmer in the State ; and by the introduction of the Horizontal method of Plowing, instead of straight furrows, has really saved this hilly country. It was running off in the valleys with every rain, but by this process we scarcely lose an ounce of soil.

" A rafter level traces a horizontal line around the curve of the hill or valley, at distances of thirty or forty yards, which is followed by the plow ; and by these guide-lines the plowman finishes the interval by his eyes, throwing the earth into beds of six feet wide, with large water furrows between them. When more rain falls than can be instantly absorbed, the horizontal furrows retain the surplus until it is all soaked up, scarcely a drop ever reaching the valley below.

" Mr. Randolph has contrived also, for our steepest hill-sides, ^Ol'J a sin pie plan which throws the furrows always down hill. It is made with two wings welded to the same bar, with their planes at a right angle to each other. The point and the heel of the bar are formed into pivots, and the bar becomes an axis, by turning which, either wing may be laid on the ground, and the other then standing vertically, acts as a mould-board. The right angle between them, however, is filled with a sloping piece of wood, leaving only a cutting margin of each wing naked, and aiding in the ofiice of raising the sod gradually, while the declivity of the hill facilitates its falling over. The change of the position of the share at the end of each furrow is effected in a moment by withdrawing and- replacing a pin."

It seems Colonel Randolph introduced this method of plowing into Virginia, previous to 1816, as Mr, Jefferson states he was acquainted with it two or three years previous to writing this letter.

lO DR. N. T, SORSBY's ESSAY

This is the earliest notice that we have seen of the use of the horizontal culture, as practiced in the South at the present day. It would be gratifying to know from whence he introduced it, and where it originated.

In " Taylor's Arator," published in Virginia the beginning of this century, on the subject of plowing hilly lands, it is stated " that such lands will admit of narrow ridges, as well as level, by a degree of skill and attention so easily attainable, that it has existed in Scotland above a century past under a state of agriculture otherwise execrable, and among the ignorant Highlanders ! It is effected by carrying the ridges horizontally in such inflections as the hilliness of the ground may require, curved or zigzag, preserving the breadth. The preservation of the soil is hardly more valuable than that of the rain water in the successive reservoirs thus produced to refresh the thirsty hill-sides, instead of its reaching to and poisoning the valleys."

It is very strange, if this system was pursued in Scotland so very long ago, that there is no mention made of it in English works.

During an extensive tour, and residence of over three years in Europe, from Great Britain to Naples, Italy, through Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and parts of Germany, we never saw, heard or read of its being pursued in any of those countries as it is done here, and we cannot conceive how it could have ever been practiced in Scotland and not kept up now-a-days.

In our travels throughout the United States, we have seen it pursued from Mississippi to North Carolina. We have been to Monticello several times, when a student at the University of Virginia, and though remarking the productiveness of the soil there, and around Charlottsville, we were too young to notice the mode of culture, but we are sure we never saw a rafter-level or any other level applied to land in Virginia. Had we seen it we should have noticed it, because we had followed it before we went there to school, in 1836.

In " Thaer's Principles of Agriculture," a standard German work, in speaking of plowing ridges, he says : " The most advantageous disposition of them that can be made on an inclined surface, is to give them a horizontal or standing direction ;" but he says nothing more on the subject. Had he been acquainted with the method as pursued in the South, he would have written considerably on it.

We are inclined to believe the Horizontal system of plowing is of Southern invention. We are astonished at the fact, since the Southern planters and farmers have the reputation of being such careless and wasteful cultivators of the soil.

We consider it the most important discovery of the modern agricultural era. So important is it to the South, and to the soil in evfiiy part of the world where it rains like it does here, that the discoverer of the method deserves the lasting gratitude of the Southern people, and a place upon the tablet of memory next to that of the father of our country.

Hill-side ditching and guard-drains, were discovered subsequent to the origin or introduction of the horizontal system into Virginia. They were first introduced into that State soon after the introduction of the horizontal method, about 1815 or 1816 ; by whom, we do not know.

Tlie first written notice of the horizontal culture and hill-side ditching that we ever saw, was in the pages of the " Southern Cultivator." Major E. D. W., our step-father, first introduced the method of Horizontal Plowing on the level system into this county, In the spring of 1834. He had read a notice of it in some paper, which induced him to try it on some hilly land at the Dial Place.

He used the rafter-level and plummet-line, and ran off rows to be plowed four feet apart into beds for corn and cotton. We were a boy then, and carried the hoe and made the chop marks for him. He was so well pleased with the results of it, and with his experiment, that he has continued it ever since with great success on two plantations. He has a thousand or more acres under the plumb. He has tested it thoroughly, and has preserved the fertility, retained the soil, and improved his lands, aided by a pro]ier ap|)lication of manures, under a severe course of cropping. Without this system, all th*- manure he could make would not preserve half of the land in its present state of fertility for five years. He would as soon abandon planting as to abandon the horizontal system of culture.

We have assisted him in the work a good deal, and induced him to try guard-drains and hill-side ditches about 1851 or 1852. in order to lighten his labor and lessen his care and attention to it, as he is getting old and the confinement to the field and exposure to the cold during the winter and spring, are injurious to his health. But, he says, he could dispense with the drains and ditches if he could attend to the plowing in person every spring, aud direct the work and correct tbo errors of the previous year's work.

An old negro horizontaler lays off the rows, and attends to one plantation where there are between six and seven hundred acres under the plumb ; and manages it astonishingly well for a man of his understanding.

His lands were originally of a good quality, and are of a mixed character. On one plantation, the grey and mulatto sandy land prevails, the subsoil being yellow and red clay a foot, and eighteen inches originally, in parts of it, beneath the surface soil. — The balance of the land is a chocolate loam on a red clay subsoil.

Some of it is considered stiff red clay land. On the other plantation, the chocolate loam prevails with a close, stiff red clay subsoil, requiring a long and sharp pointed plow to penetrate it when moderately dry. The rest of the land on this plantation, is grey and gravelly sandy soil, loose and porous. Most of the land on both places, is gently undulating ridges. Some of it hilly, and some knolls. The stiff red' clay land is the most difficult and expensive to cultivate, and is the best land for grain. It is also the most difficult of his land to manage on the level method of culture.

I took my first lessons under him in the science, and owe him a debt of gratitude which can never be paid. He taught me the level culture, and I taught him the grading method. I commenced ])lanting in 1844, in Hinds county, Mississippi, near Jackson, in copartnership with a brother. The level culture No. 1, and the grading method No. 1, both combined, without drains and hill-side ditches, had been in use a few years on that plantation. The soil, a close, tenacious, marly clay, of a yellow color, changing into an ashy colored soil, when thoroughly disintegrated and cultivated a year or two. I was partial to the level culture, and he to the grading method. 1 found out after a better acquaintance with the land, that the level culture retained the water too long, and mdde the land too wet for cotton. The grading method drained, but washed the land a good deal. After testing both methods to my satisfaction, I gave into his views rather from an avaricious motive than otherwise, to make better crops, though at a sacrifice of some land that took the streams and disappeared. From one to three inches fall were given to each row, when practicable, and the short inside rows plowed on a level. The land was rolling, and di'ains between the ridges conveyed the water into ditches and branches. We continued both systems until I left in December, 1850, and moved back to this place. The grading method has been kept up by him. I commenced a mixed system here in 1851, and have practiced both of them to a certain extent.

My land is chocolate and grey sandy land on a red and yellow clay subsoil. The grey land is of a fine texture, and much of it runs together and bakes. The chocolate land is loose and porous. It is generally a little undulating, some rolling, and some flat basins and ponds. It requires much ditching and surface drainage, and some under-draining. Forest growth, pine, oak, hickory, chestnut and poplar, with a variety of undergrowth.

My experience and observation teaches me, that the level culture is the best method ever discovered to prevent arable land, of the majority of soils in the South, from washing by rains, but not the best always to secure good crops. The grading method is the safest as a general rule for the culture of cotton, and can

ON HOKIZONTAL PLOWING AND HILL-SIDE DITCHING. 13 be pursued to ^reat advantage on many soils that could be cultivated well on the level method, when one is willing to lose a little soil to make a better crop, by draining the land. No one system of culture is, then, applicable to all soils ; and on large plantations of mixed soils, both the level and grading systems should be applied. He is a fortunate man who understands the different methods well enough to apply them to the best advantage to the different soils, on a large plantation. It requires close application to field study, a good knowledge of the geology of the soil and the agricultural character of the land, with years of experience, to know how to cultivate land to the best advantage to the soil, and to the increased size of the purse .

Section I. Definition Of Horizontal Culture

Horizontalizing^ Cirdinri, and Leveling land are different terms employed by Agriculturists, in the South, to mean the same thing ; viz.: cultivating land in parallel lines run by a leveling instrument to direct and control rain water with the j)low.

Section II. Its Objects

Tlie objects of the System of horizontal culture are, to irrigate to drain, and to preserve arable soil, in the simplest and most economical manner. •

1st. By collecting, maintaining, and distributing rain water on the surface of arable land, it effects natural irrigation.

2d. By conveying it away, by artificial channels, it effects drainage.

3d. By a proper system of irrigation and drainage, the soil and the food of plants are retained, and the fertility of the land is preserved.

Section III. General Considerations

Rain water being a solvent of the food of plants, and the medium of supplying tbsm with many of their elements, the system of horizontal culture teaches us to control, and diffuse it in the soil, and distribute it in such a manner that the food of plants it contains, may be made available to the utmost degree, in promoting their growth ; and, when it exists in excess, to remove it without injuring, or washing away the soil.

Hence, we conclude that a correct system of manuring and improving land, depends greatly upon a proper regulation of water by the horizontal culture.

We perceive, then, that the horizontal culture is a beautiful branch of the science of Agriculture ; that it is a mixed art, a combination of irrigation, drainage, and manuring. We cannot, therefore, study it well, appreciate it properly, and practice it successfully, without some knowledge of agricultural engineering, of the geology of the soil, and hydraulics, and the application of them to irrigation and drainage.

We can then realize and appreciate the several advantages and connections of these branches of science with each other, in developing the chemical and physical properties of soils, and in the improvement of the fertility of land. To practice it scientifically, and successfully, we must study and understand the geological formation, and the agricultural character of the soil, and ascertain by observation and experiment what plants grow on it best, and are most profitable to cultivate.

Drill-husbandry, that is, the cultivation of crops in drills, by the ridge and furrow method, is indispensable, and the check and hill-culture are inadmissible except on level lands, as a general rule, by the system of horizontal culture. Of course, the broadcast method can be employed, as well with one method as with the other. The horizontal culture, by the ridge and furrow method, conflicts with the practice and opinions of many farmers, in the oldest of the Southern States, who advocate the check and hill culture ; but an acquaintance with the horizontal culture changes their practice and opinions.

Section IV. The Different Methods Of Hoeizontalizing

LAND

Are divided into two principal systems : viz : 1st. The level Method of Culture. 2d. The Grading Method of Culture.

Tlie Level Method, {or Irrigating System,) is divided into two methods ; viz :

1st. Horizontaling with an instrument, on the level culture, without the aid of guard-drains, and hill-side ditches ; and,

ON HORIZONTAL PLOWING AND HILL-SIDE DITCHING. l5

2d. The level culture, aided by those drains and ditches.

The Grading MetJwd, or Draining System, is divided into four different systems, viz :

1st. HorizoDtaling with an instrument, giving a grade to the rows, without the assistance of guard-drains, and hill-side ditches.

2d. With a grade to the rows, the same as that given to the drains and ditches, accompanied by those drains and ditches.

3d. With a grade given to the rows so as to empty their water into the drains and ditches.

4th. The straight-row method. The rows runup and down hills, and empty into hill-side ditches.

Besides the above methods, there is the old mode of horizontaling with the eye, without the aid of an instrument, or guard-drains, or hill-side ditches.

Section V. The Different Methods Explained

The old method of hill-side plowing by running the rows around hill-sides with the plow, directed with the eye, is mere guess work, and only an approximation to accuracy, and of course is very imperfect.

It is done with the object of retaining the rain water in some instances, and of removing it in others ; in either case, it cannot effect the object in as perfect a manner as the new methods of level and grade work done on correct principles, by the leveling instrument.

When the object is to retain the rain water, it answers tolerably well in some countries, on porous, poor, sandy soils, where the showers are not frequent and are light, and where the luguminous crops are cultivated mostly on high beds and lands, as a substitute for artificial irrigation, and where the spade and hoe are used, generally, for the purpose of forming the ridges.

When adopted to drain hill-sides by the plow, unless^ the soil it not disposed to wash, it is very liable to do more injury to the land by washing it away than benefit by removing the water.

It should not by any means be resorted to now, since we can substitute better methods for it. It is the first step towards the horizontal culture from the straight-row method ; and was perhaps invented for the purpose of retaining instead of removing water.

1. Level Cidture or Irrigating System. — By this method the rows are laid off with a leveling instrument on a perfect level, and the land cultivated without the aid of guard-drains, or hillside ditches.

16 Dr. N. f. SdftSBT'S ESSAt

Here, science steps in to correct the imperfections of the eye.

It is impossible to lay off a level row by the eye. The most skillful horizon taler cannot judge with accuracy the degree of inclination of lands, and discover all the inequalities of surface well enough to horizontal land on a level by the eye. But, with a rafter-level properly made and adjusted, it can be done, on an even or uneven surface with perfect accuracy, on a dead level ; and if the land be properly plowed the rows will hold all the water that falls on them.

It is the best and only system ever invented to prevent comparatively level, and gently undulating lands, from washing.

It is intended to retain all the water that falls on land just where it falls : this is natural irrigation . We all know the value of water for the nourishment of animals and plants. They cannot live without it. Crops often fail for the want of it. By this method none is wasted. Enough water is absorbed during winter and spring rains by land cultivated on this system, to almost make some crops, especially when aided by light summer showers, that would fail to do so, cultivated by the grading method. This method is most applicable to all poor, thirsty, porous sandy soils, whether they rest on clay or sandy subsoils ; and to many varieties of clay soils not too compact and retentive of water.

We think we may say with truth, that we never knew, in this country, but one kind of clay soil, on uplands, that this system was not applicable to, on the ground of making it too wet for profitable culture. That is the fine, close, tenacious, marly-clay soil, resting on a retentive yellow clay subsoil, of the black-jack, post-oak, and hickory ridges of Hinds, Madison, Yazoo, Carrol, Holmes, Warren, artd other parts of Mississippi.

Besides this kind of soil to which the level culture is objectionable, are the compact red and yellow clay soils of some hilly lands, and the blue and white clays of low-lands.

The red and yellow clay lands may be cultivated by it, if they admit of subsoiling to advantage. It is seldom that the level culture is objectionable for corn and small grains, and the root crops. But when it causes the soil to become too wet during the cultivation of crops, to plow well, and hastens a rapid growth of grass and weeds that destroy the crops, it is an evidence that it should be abandoned, and a grading method substituted for it.

2. Level Culture with Guard-drains, or Hill-side Ditches. — The rows are plowed on a level, and guard-drains, or hill-side ditches are added, with a slight grade to correct the evil of the excess ot water, and remove it, should the ridges break. Some soils, such as close tenacious clays, though plowed deep, may absorb a great deal of water during heavy and repeated rains, until the plowed soil becomes well saturated ; the water will then sink until it reaches the impervious strata, not broken by the plow, and move along that strata on steep hill-sides, until it accumulates in such quantities as to break the ridges, and flow downhill, carrying the soil with it.

Again, in clay soils, plowed shallow, a heavy rain succeeding another heavy rain, that had run the lanc^ together, and baked by the sun, and closed its pores, may cause the water to accumulate in level rows until the volume and weight of water makes a breach, and some of the ridges give way, and the water is precipitated from row to row till it reaches an outlet.

A mole, a stump, bad plowing, the wheels of a cart or wagon, and other causes may break the ridges, and cause the land to wash. To prevent such a disaster, guard-drains and hill-side ditches have been invented, to aid and protect the level culture, and to correct the ignorance and errors of the inexiierienced horizontaler, and save his time, labor, and soil. But, in many instances, they encourage careless work, and are sometimes evils to the system. They should not be relied upon too much ; the remedy is sometimes worse than the disease.

1. The Grading Metliod, {or Draining System.)— The great object of this method is surface drainage, of arable land : hence it is divided into,

1st. Horizontaling with a grade given to tiie rows, without the aid of guard-drains and hill-side ditches.

Every row is designed to drain itself, and of course the other drains are unnecessary. l! is a kind of self-sustaining system, and a substitute for straight nms. It is beautiful in theory, but diflicult to practice in a general system, on all soils. Some fields, and parts of fields, no grade is necessary, whilst different grades are required according to the inclination of land, and the physical properties of soils, and tlie length of rows. The length of rows is very irregular by this method, and short rows emptying into long ones, ])0uring tlieir water into them, force them to wash into gullies. Hence, it is impossible to prevent the soil from washing by this method. It should be confined to close clay soils. This method, combined with level culture, answers a better purpose.

2d. Horizontaling loith a grade given to the roios the same as that of guard-drains and hill-side ditches. This method was adopted, doubtless, to correct the evils of the preceding metliod.

When the drains are well made, they check the flow of water descending down the hills from the broken rows, and thus convey it away and protect the land beneath them. Without their aid much mischief might take i)iace, but if the work by the preceding method be well done, there is no need of the drains to aid it. Imperfect work, then, excuses their employment. But they are indispensable evils to the system they are used to protect, , and are much employed.

18 DR. N. T. SORSBT'S ESSAY

3. Horizontaling with a grade given to the rows so as to empty their water into guard-drains and hill-side ditches.

This is truly a draining process, employed on clay-up-lands, and low-lands, and answers a good purpose when the rows are not too long, and the fall is con-ect. Of course the drains and ditches require considerable fall, and to be very capacious. It is popular with those planters who have clay soils, and trust much to overseers, and negroes, and kind Providence for gentle showers, to make them crops. But overseers make mistakes, plowmen do bad work, and the clouds pour down heavy rains, and the soil, as it were, melts and runs rapidly away. To answer a good purpose, the overseers, plowmen, and drains require strict attention, or the land will be injured by this method.

4. The Straight row Method, luith Hillside Ditches. — The ditches in this instance are cut on hill-sides with considerable fall, and the land is plowed on the old straight-row method, the plowman raising his plow over the ditch banks as he passes them. It is evidently a troublesome business to raise the plow over the ditches, and keep them clean. If the soil be sandy, and disposed to wash, the ditches must be deep and large, the fall great, and the plowman careful, which is contrary to negro character, or else every heavy rain will fill up the ditches with sand, break their banks, and cut the land into gullies and galls. However, it has the recommendation of being simple, and better than the old up and down hill method, without the protection of ditches.