9 



we have to reclaim an exhausted soil, or simply to maintain 

 fertility by a judicious management of its powers. As be- 

 tween the maintenance and reclamation of soils, the latter 

 frequently requires more than three times the labor and ex- 

 pense, and always involve much loss of time. Some soils, 

 once exhausted, become irreclaimable by any reasonable 

 amount of labor. 



Let any one travel through the less fertile districts of our 

 State, and mark the tale told by the numerous deserted 

 homesteads and waste fields, overgrown with blackberries 

 and "broom sedge.' 7 He will scarcely escape the conviction 

 that even with us it is not too soon to take measures pre- 

 ventive of an evil which almost laid waste whole districts 

 of Virginia, once the centre of tobacco culture ; which, 

 have been and are now being reclaimed by the aid of marls 

 precisely similar to those so abundantly found in our own 

 state. Had those marls been known earlier, Virginia would 

 never have experienced the decline of population and pros- 

 perity which at one time created such apprehensions, and 

 resulted in the loss, by emigration, of thousands of energetic 

 and enterprising citizens. 



I might also call attention to the fact that the results of 

 the survey will serve as a guide to purchasers of land, since 

 it will inform them, not only of its momentary condition and 

 character, but also of the prospect of permanency of fertili- 

 ty, and the means of improvement. Had the survey been 

 called into existence earlier, it might have saved some money 

 to those unfortunate speculators who, allured by the prairie- 

 like levelness of the Tippah, Pontotoc and Chickasaw "flat- 

 woods," invested their capital in a kind of stock which to 

 their amazement, has remained utterly unproductive. 



It would be easy to adduce many more cases where the 

 results of the survey are immediately available ; while the 

 ultimate importance is too manifest to be questioned. But, 

 taking it for granted that a sound policy in national econo- 

 my bids us develop all the resources of a State at the ear- 

 liest period possible ; that a geological and agricultural sur- 



