1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



31 



the owners of these lands; and they have, within 

 a lew year!?, clovered, resteil, and partially resusci- 

 tated iheni. It. is a mere beginning, however, of 

 iuiproveniont. 



Altliouirh Mr. \'enable resides in the county of 

 Prince Edward, at a di.-lance ol' nearly lurty miles 

 li'oni his |)lantatiun, yet, he has adopted sirictly 

 ll>e improving system. lie iulbrmed me when lie 

 first purciiased this estaie, the cleared high land 

 ■was too pour to |)roduce good, or even ordinary 

 corn. The flat land was badly drained, very much 

 exhausted by hard eidlivatiou, and injured by be- 

 ing repeatedly |)louglied wet. He has, by perse- 

 vering in a system of manuring, and cultivating 

 the grasses, made nearl}- the whole ol' his cleared 

 high land rich; capable ol" jtroducing larce to- 

 bacco ; more than doubled the [iroducts of some 

 of his low grounds, and reaped durinu the lime, 

 tine annual profits. His plantation strikingly illus- 

 trates the hict, that judicious improvement, so far 

 Irom beini; incoinpatible with yearly profits, con- 

 duces to theirincrease. He told me, when he took 

 his estate in Iiand, he Ibund the high land too 

 j'oor for tobacco, and he considered the fiat land, 

 (the little of it capable of producing tobacc",) too 

 ))recarious, on account of its liability to overflow, 

 tor its culture. He set about manuring a lot lor 

 tobacco. He conunenced with a space suflicient 

 to receive the whole of the year's manure, and in- 

 creased this lot every year, scattering the land, 

 after it was once thoroughly manured, with a very 

 thin dressing. He contmued to enlarge and culti- 

 vate this lot tor sixteen years in succession ; during 

 which lime, it never rested from tobacco cultiva- 

 tion. And thus, lor at least tor one good reason, 

 Mr. V. is an unbeliever in the doctrine that the 

 excrement of a plant renders land nu'apable of 

 producing in perfection the same plant many suc- 

 cessive years. The tobacco that has been raised 

 on his lot, has generally been of fine size and of 

 superior quality. His lot continued to increase 

 until he could spare a part ol' it to put down in 

 grass. He thinks he has now ground lor more 

 than two hundred and fifty thousand tobacco hills, 

 [4000 to the acre] of lot land, in fine tobacco 

 heart. He now alternates his lot with wheat, 

 grass, and tobacco, preserving, however, no regu- 

 lar rotation, either on his lots, or any part of his 

 farm. 



It may be considered surprisino; that Mr. V. 

 could have raised so nujch manure as to keep such 

 large lots in progressive improvement. In an- 

 swer to the question, how he effected this, he said, 

 that he used litter from the woods, weeds from the 

 low grounds, and made every exertion to increase 

 the quantity of manure from the ordinary resour- 

 ces of a liirni. But the principal source of ma- 

 nure, imUrectly, was his meadow. His meadow, 

 by the way, is a fine scene. I would suppose that 

 it covered about fifteen acres. It is very level and 

 extremely productive. He is of opinion that land in 

 grass intended to be mown or pastured, if it is in 

 tolerably good condition, should rather be im- 

 proved by care tnid manure, than ploughed up 

 and resown. His meadow has been standing 

 twenty years, and is as productive as ever it was. 

 It has been occasionally infested with broom straw, 

 but that was grubbed up from the root before it be- 

 came too thick, and the meadow, ai present, seems 

 to be almost entirely free from it. He thinks there 

 is no limit to the time a meadow, on good land, 



will last; he instanced one near Farmville that 

 has been mown, reijularly, forty years. When 

 meadows become int(-sled with broom straw, Mr. 

 V. thinks it an indication that they have been 

 grazed too close, and he recommends a top dress- 

 ing with manure, as effectual to eradicate it. 



There seems to hitve been a great deal of judg- 

 ment and forecast displayed in Mr. V.'s arrange- 

 ment of his houses, and management of his plan- 

 tation. His barns are all situated in and around 

 his lots, which are consolidated, excefit that a road 

 divides them. And but a small p,ortion of his to- 

 bacco is raised elsewhere, 'i'lie labor saved by 

 this arrangement in hauling his tobacco to his 

 barns, in curing time, is immense. The mostla- 

 borious part of tobacco cultivation, is housing U: 

 and I think it has been partly owing to the arrange- 

 ment of his barns, that Mr. V. has been able to 

 take care of such large crops, for his Ibrce. 



Nearly all the land I saw, that vvas not under 

 preparation for a crop for the present year, is set 

 m grass. Mr. V. bestows irreat attention to 

 grasses, generally, and particularly to herds grass. 

 He makes it a profitable crop on a thin iiuin, 

 I where he resides, and which he has very niiudi 

 I improved by its use. He cultivates orchard, Pcru- 

 viLin,and herds grass, but prefers the latter. At 

 1 his piantaiion, now under review, he never sui- 

 ters land to be grazed that has not been lying 

 j an year, at least, in grass. This is his system ; 

 j but, doubtless there have been occasional depar- 

 j lures from it, under circumstances of emergency. 

 I He thinks but little improvement can be effected, 

 i vvhere arable lands are grazed, and where even 

 I well set lands are grazed early in the spring. He 

 ! considers it essential that his grass should get a 

 I start before it is trodden by the hoof. Tliis system 

 compels him to feed his stock later than is usual 

 in the spring, and renders it somewhat difficult to 

 keep them up in good condition. The rest of the 

 year, the stock are in fine condition, and are am- 

 ply compensated, belbre the summer is out, for 

 this privation in spring. 



Mr. Venable's plantation is one of the lew 

 where tobacco culture has been profitably carried 

 on, and inqirovement has progressed at "the same 

 time. But he has never made tobacco an all-ab- 

 sorbing crop. He cultivated small crops at first, 

 and increased the crop as he inc-eased the fenilily 

 ol his land. The arrangement of his lots has been 

 a singular departure from the custom of this sec- 

 lion of the country. They lie unusually level, and 

 have not washed perceptibly. Many tobacco cul- 

 tivators, who have devoted their time and labor to 

 opening l^ind, for the last ten or twenty years, and 

 have paid no attention to manuring and the 

 grasses, have, perhaps, made less tobacco than 

 Mr. Venable, in the aggregate, while his planta- 

 tion has become rich, and their's are nearly ex- 

 hausted. 



When Mr. V. was asked what was the best 

 moile of getting grass to stand on poor land, his 

 reply was, to lake up the land and cultivate it, 

 one, two, or three years in succession, and give 

 it manure and properly mix and pulverize the soil. 

 He insisted on the importance of briny:ing o-rass 

 land to a degree of fijrtility sufTicient to produce 

 irrass by the above process, before grass seed is 

 wasted on it. His mode of gathering grass seed, 

 (herds,) is to go in the best parts of his meadow 

 when the seed have matured, and cut the grass 



