1837] 



FARM ERS' REGISTER 



119 



cesslul cultivator of corn and tobacco: and a short 

 account of lus nianagenient, may not be uninter- 

 estinij;. Tlie plantation on whicli he resides, is 

 situafed on Bircli Creek, a tributary of tlie Oiiu; 

 and constitutes a portion of the lands above desiir- 

 naied, as coniaininij marl. The [)lantation is di- 

 vided into lour fields lor corn, and lour lor tobacco. 

 His rotation on his corn shilis, is, 1st corn — 2 id 

 oats — 3rd clover — 1th clover. His rotation on his 

 tobacco iields, is 1st tobacco — 2ntl wheat — 3d clo- 

 ver — ttli clover. Although he has pursued this 

 system tor many years on his corn shifts, yet he 

 has improved his corn land very little: owing to 

 excessive hard grazing of his clover in the third 

 and fourth years of his rotation. He has never 

 grazed his tobacco lots, and they have improved 

 perceptibly. In fact, some of his tobacco lots 

 seem to produce larger crops than they did when 

 they were first cleared; and he has put no manure 

 on them worth estimating. He admits that it is 

 very injurious to graze ott'his clover from his corn 

 land, and is preparing to dispense with this part of 

 his management, by providing a standing pasture 

 for his stock. 



Mr. Edmunds generally beds his corn land in 

 the fall, upon two coulter furrows. The dagon and 

 coulter are drawn by two strong horses. He is a 

 great advocate for deep ploughing. He rolls his 

 seed corn in plaster, and plasters his corn when 

 the stalks reach two or three inches in height. 

 A large portion of the labor of his iarm has, lor 

 many years, been directed to reclaiming and 

 clearing a large body of flat land, on Birch creek, 

 which IS now exceedingly productive. He found 

 the course of this creek very circuitous, as it me- 

 andered through his plantation — 'the banks very 

 low, and the flat land covered over with a number 

 of ponds. His first elibrc at draining was, to cut 

 a canal for the bed of the creek. This he cut 

 twenty feet wide, with an average depth of two 

 feet eleven inches. Its length is two miles. The 

 ordinary cost of such a work, he estimates at filty 

 cents a yard; although particular circumstances 

 enabled him to have this work executed for a less 

 sum. This ditch was cut as straight as the na- 

 ture of the flat would allow, in order to promote 



abrasion at the sides and bottom of it. Mr. E 



considers it very important in straightening streams 

 to have as few angles as possible; to avoid all sud- 

 den turns; and to throw those turns that cannot be 

 avoided, (if possible,) against hill sitles, that jut 

 against the stream. The object of this last pre- 

 caution, is to prevent excessive washinir, which 

 would be caused in a freshet, by the whole cur- 

 rent of the stream being thrown against a weak 

 bank of the ditch. Soon after the completion of 

 this ditch, Mr. E perceived that it had com- 

 menced washing at the lower extremity; which, 

 gradually went up, about a foot at a time, until it 

 has reached, now, a depth of seven feet from the 

 surlace of the earth to the surface of the water. 

 He found the washing at bottom greatly facilitat- 

 ed by removinir obstructions of trees, that fell in 

 the ditch by being undermined as it widened, and 

 logs, that are constantly commg to view, at a dis- 

 tance of three, tour, five, and seven feet from tiie 

 surf^ice of the earth. I observed ten or fifteen of 

 the latter, within a distance of one hundred yards, 

 that have been buried, perhaps, lor centuries, and 

 protected from decav by their seclusion from the 

 atmosphere. Mr. E occasionally used the 



spade, in removing small beds of blue pipe clay, 

 which he Ibund too tenacious to wash. He thinks 

 that if such obstacles had been timely removed, as 

 they occurred, that the stream would have washed 

 to its present depth in one year. The beneficial 

 effects of this ditch have exceeded his highest 

 expectations. The sites of many ponds, that for- 

 merly abounded in fish, are now cultivated in to- 

 bacco and grass; the stream is sunk to such a 

 depth, that sulfijient fall for all the draining ditch- 

 es has been obtained; and the soil of the flat is soft 

 and dry. Formerly, no crop was sale from fresh- 

 ets, on this flat; now, a cro|) is very rarely injured 



by them. Mr. E thinks that a corn crop is 



entirely safe, from the elfects of fl-eshets, on this 

 land. He anticipates extending this ditch lower 

 down the stream; and expects to gain by it a toot 

 or two, additional, of deptli; which, when obtained, 

 will put his flat etuirely out of the reach of high 

 water, from freshets. 



Mr. E thinks that the drainingof this land 



has produced a great eiFect on the health of his 

 f imily. Nearly the whole of this flat was for- 

 merly covered by a mill pond, which was so near- 

 ly situated to Mr. Edmunds' residence, that bilious 

 and intermittent levers, lor many years, with much 

 fatality, visited his family. But since the pond has 

 been drained, the stream straitened, and the flat 

 also entirely drained, his residence is as healthy 

 as any other in the county. 



Mr. E has recently erected a mill (suppliel 



with water by a canal) near the site of the old mili. 

 The new mill is better than the old one; one hun- 

 dred acres of fine flat land has been reclaimed, and 

 the health of the neighborhood much improved, 

 A good expedient, to prevent the bad efliicts of the 

 check-dam, that throws the stream in this canal, 



is adopted by Mr. E . To prevent the water 



li-om being thrown out above the check-dam, in 

 freshets, he has thrown up a dike, about eight feet 

 high which commences at one extremity of the 

 dam, and terminates at the foot of a hili, that runs 

 up to the channel of the creek. If dikes of suffi- 

 cient height, were thrown up in all similar situa- 

 tions, and a small ditch cut on the lantl-side of the 

 dike, and parallel with it, as a draining ditch, the 

 flat land lying above the check-dams might be 

 made as valuable as any other flat land. 



The drainage of creek and river flats, and draw- 

 iniroff pond water, have produced the most deci- 

 deii beneficial efl'ects on the health ol'the county ol 

 Halifax. Bounded on the north-east by Staunton 

 river, and intersected by the rivers Banister, Dan, 

 Hycootee, and their numerous tributaries, the 

 county of Haliliix was, perhaps, as much inlesied 

 by malaria, as any county in middle Virginia. The 

 quantity of flat land, covered with stagnant water, 

 bore an unusually large proportion to the dry land; 

 in consequence of which, Halifax county, was, lor 

 many years, visited with autumnal fevers to a great 

 extent. A very intelligent physician, who has 

 been long acquainted with the topography and 

 diseases of the county, inlbrmed me that tiie tall 

 fevers have diminished in the ratio of the quantity 

 of land left undrained, and uncovered by stagnant 

 water. It was formerly the case, that a man's 

 residence might be almost accurately guessed at, 

 by lookiuir over a physician's accounts; so much 

 more numerous were the visits made to settlers on 

 the rivers and creeks, than to the settlers on the 

 ridges. Dr. A informed me that the only 



