70 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



" Fanns with about thirty per cent, cleared can be bought here for $6 to $10 per acre^ ao- 

 cording to quality or proxiojity to market or roads. Wild lands, in lots to suit purchasers, 

 from ^'2 to $8 per acre. Lands near the Noitlnvestem Branch railroad bring comparatively 

 high prices, in part from tlio value of the timber, which is generally of superior gruwth and 

 quality. Mineral lands are higher. 



"A correct statement of the average amount of grain produced per acre, in any given 

 oouuty of the State, would not give an accurate estimate of the producing capacity of our 

 soil, because on all recently cleared land, stumps, roots, and loose stones on the smface, and 

 also the vermin of the adjacent forest, materially contribute to diminish the yield to be ex- 

 pected from the quality of tho soil ; while on the other baud there is a wide ditl'erence in pro- 

 fessional skill and industry among oiu- farmers. We have still among us a goodly number 

 of the old hunter pioneers, or of their immediate descendants, who are content to live almost 

 from hand to mouth, and never used any other plough but the one-horse shovel. 



"The bottoms of rivers, with few exceptions, yield, under good cultivation, from fiftj- tiO 

 one hundred bushels of corn, and an average of about twenty bushels of wheat, from twenty 

 to thirty-five of rye and oats, one liundred and fifty to two hundred bushels patotocs, and 

 from two to two and a half tons of timothy hay. Turnips sown on fresh cleared land, barely 

 scarred by the shovel-plough, have been known to produce near 800 per acre. Tobacco, on 

 new-made land, also proves to be very remunerative, and certainly grows most luxuriantly, 

 though 1 have not at hand any figures under this head to show cash results. 



" Hillside lands of the same quality of those bottoms, except in depth, must naturally 

 yield less on account of their unadaptedness to the same thorough cultivation, and also be- 

 cause of the diminished number of plants growing on declivities, yet a great portion of those 

 lands, when lying towards the sun, produce for many years in succession from fifty to sixty 

 bushels of corn, and other grain in proportion. In the yield of grass, this diflerence is not 

 so sensible, and rolling or steep lands are generally sown in grass after two or three grain 

 crops and devoted to grazing. 



"The yield of wheat, which does not average over thirteen or fifteen bushels per acre in 

 the rougher portions of the State, would be greater if its cultivation was confined to lime- 

 stone land or to dry upland or table land. As it is, wheat is sown there on rich porous soil, 

 in order to get in sod, the grass seed being generally sown with it, and on such soil, par- 

 ticularly on hill-sides, and when put in late after cutting up the corn, wheat is exposed to 

 freeze out during a severe winter. 



"When devoted to grazing and in good sod, more or less mixed Avith blue grass, which 

 comes up spontaneously on limestone land and old grazed pastures, from two and one-half 

 to three acres are allowed for the fattening of a three-year-old steer per season, say from 1st 

 o£ April to middle or end of August, and the weight thus gained by the animal is estimated 

 at a minimum of $10, ranging from that to |1.5, while the latter figme is realized on many 

 cattle grazed from March till Juno only, when properly cared for during the preceding 

 winter." 



The grain produced is uniform] j consumed upon the farms, with few excep- 

 tions, in localities favored by river transportation with good facilities for reaching 

 good markets and high prices. Feeding surplus grain to stock is wisely pre- 

 fei-red to selling it, not only because it thus transports itself to the railroad and 

 a market almost without trouble or expense, but because a large per-centage of 

 its value is returned to the soil as manure, furnishing one of the surest, mo&t 

 feasible, and valuable modes of fertilization known. This mode of manuring 

 must ever commend itself to West Virginia, with its uneven surface and liability 

 to wash, which will tend to increase with increasing thoroughness in pulveriza- 

 tion. It is fair to say, however, that the excessive liability to wash existing 

 in some soils does not characterize those under consideration. The rearing and 

 fattening of stock is destined to be the principal business of the fanner, as it 

 is the most profitable everywhere — a fact attested by the dependence placed 

 upon it in England for paying the high rents of that country. The yield of 

 the cereals is equal to the average throughout the west, but they are less remu- 

 nerative than hay and grass, except in very rare instances of accidental fluctu- 

 ations in price. 



Mr. Debar refers to numerous instances in his knowledge in which the fer- 

 tility of the soil has been tested by annual products for fifteen years of 50 t» 

 75 bushels of corn per acre, without manure ; then, after clover two or thr-ee 

 years, and ploughing ten or twelve inches deep, and one good crop of wheat, it 

 has yielded from two to two and a half tons of hay per atre. 



West Virginia, in fine, though particularly adapted to meat and wool pro- 

 ducing, dau-ying and fruit-growing, is suited to the production of almost every 



