336 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



though not in their present condition. — No ! I would urge 

 them to improve them. If their soil is not fertile, make 

 it so. Lime, the great source from which fertility can be 

 drawn to all the Virginia lands, is in inexhaustible abun- 

 dance in your marl beds and oyster shells, or of easy 

 attainment from the calcareous rocks of the north. Then 

 there is Guano, the most concentrated manure in the 

 world which can be procured in every city, and is certain 

 to be fully paid for out of the first crop. Upon all your 

 sea coast you have the cheapest of all manures in fish, 

 sea weed and swamp muck. And you have even within 

 twenty miles of Norfolk, natural soil, still covered with 

 the original growth of timber, as rich as the far cele- 

 brated bottoms of the Wabash. And even your light 

 lands, such as most of those upon the Eastern Shore, can 

 be easily made more profitably productive than the grand 

 prairie, because you can cultivate two acres of that land 

 with the same force that j^ou can one of stiff land, and by 

 a judicious system of rotation of crops, provided one of 

 them shall be grass or clover, you can keep the land for- 

 ever productive. But above all other considerations, the 

 lands of lower Virginia, throughout almost the whole 

 extent, possess greater facilities for getting produce to 

 market than any other equal extent in the United States. 

 Nearly one half of the farmers might load their own 

 vessels, and in two days have them in New York or Bal- 

 timore. 



And notwithstanding all these advantages, one half of 

 your farms are so badly cultivated that land and owners 

 are growing poorer every year, and talk of emigrating to 

 the West. Thousands of acres of land are covered with 

 forest trees, from the product of which thousands of men 

 manage to keep soul and body, and wife and children in 

 existence, but with very few of the comforts of civilized 

 life in or around their dwellings, or upon their tables or 

 person. 



You need not tell me that the country is unhealthy. 

 Cut down these immense forests ; drain the swamps and 



