STATUS OF VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE IN 1870. 281 
Separators of the latest style have been freely introduced, and are super- 
seding the old thrashing-machines to a great extent. Corn-planters and 
wheat-drills are also used with very satisfactory results.” ‘‘ Perhaps 
half the hay made in the county is cut with mowers. In some cases, 
_ parties make it a business to go from farm to farm and cut on shares.” 
Pulaski: Owing to the want of means, and other causes, labor-saying 
implements are used to only a limited extent. Wythe: Reapers and 
mowers have been introduced, but not many other improved imple- 
ments. Bland: Manual labor is being largely displaced by improved 
implements, which are rapidly growing in favor, as they perform the 
work of many men in a day, besides doing it in the proper season. 
Carroll: The surface of the country is too rough and broken to justify 
the adoption of reapers and mowers, but thrashing-machines are used 
exclusively for cleaning grain. Grayson: Most of the farmers have 
availed themselves of the use of mowing-machines and hay-rakes, with- 
out which it would be impossible to save the hay crop of the county. 
Fully one-half the expense of securing the crop is saved, as compared 
with the old method. Washington: ‘ Within the last three or four 
years, labor-saving implements have been rapidly on the increase, both 
as to quantity and quality. Their advantage over labor by hand is won- 
derful. One man, with the improved plow, wheat and corn drill, a buggy- 
cultivator, mower, reaper, and horse-rake, will, in one summer, perform 
the labor of at least six good hands. In addition to these, other imple- 
ments, of minor importance, are taking the place of hand labor to a great 
extent.” Scott: With the exception of mowers and reapers, only a few 
labor-saving implements have been introduced. 
USE OF FERTILIZERS. 
Tide-water district, (Northside.\—Henrico: “ Commercial fertilizers 
are now used only to a limited extent, the quantity purchased decreasing 
every year; but more attention is being paid to home-made manures. 
The use of pure bone-dust is increasing. About one-third of the land 
tilled is fertilized in some way; if with bone-dust or guano, about two 
hundred pounds to the acre; if with home-made manure, about four 
hundred to five hundred bushels to the acre. The home-made manure 
is much more valuable than guano, and quicker, though not so lasting, 
perhaps, as bone-dust; the effect of the one being immediate, the 
other not acting fully till the second or third year; product about 
doubled by the application of five hundred bushels of home-made 
manure or six bushels of bone-dust.” Charles City: ‘Fertilizers are 
much used, and greatly on the increase; at least one-third of the 
tilled acreage has fertilizers of some kind applied to it.” Several 
experiments go to show that with Whann’s superphosphate, one 
hundred pounds to the acre, or fifty pounds with an equal weight 
of leached ashes, both applied to the hill, the yield: of corn is 
increased from five to fifteen bushels per acre, the former being the 
product where none was applied. A shovelful of home-made manure 
produces about the same effect. New Kent: Guano is the principal 
fertilizer for wheat; ashes, plaster, and barn-yard manure, (with marl 
containing some greensand,) for corn. No attention paid to getting 
statistical results, though the improvement is marked in the action of 
guano on wheat and clover. Relative proportions of manufactured and 
home-made manures about equal. York and the Peninsula generally : 
“Fertilizers applied to an extent so small as not to admit of a definite 
reply.” King William: “‘ Manipulated manures are less extensively 
used than they were two years ago; the majority of them are regarded 
