1S37] 



IWRMERS' REGISTER 



127 



urn of 8, 10 or 12 per cent. ExchKn^e on Enir- 

 Jand, when undoubted bills can be found, is ut 15 

 to IS per cent, proniiuin. 



JNl any works of public utility, which had been 

 coMiaioncod, art- puspondcd, and may i^o lo decay 

 and those who depended on them lor employment 

 are lett destitute. 



The importations of i^rain from !*]urope continue 

 to be verylarire. In the course of two days, about 

 200.000 "bushels of wheat and rye arrived at N. 

 York from various parts. 



Comparative statement of banks in the U. States. 



Jan. 1, 1830. Jan. 1, 1837. 



320 677 



$ 145, 192,268 $ 324,240.392 



61,323,598 185,762,506 



Number of banks, 

 Capital, 

 Circulation, 

 Deposites, public 



anci private, 

 Discounts, 



55.559,928 

 200,541,2 14 



154,541,894 

 590,892,661 



Quotations in New York at an interval of six 

 months. 



PROSPECTS OF AGRICULTURE IN VIRGINIA. 



In all the wide field now opened to our view of dis- 

 tress, bankruptcy, or ruin — agricultural, as well as com- 

 mercial, and public as well as specially bearing on in- 

 dividuals — there is one sign and promise of a future 

 better state of agriculture in Virginia — a state of more 

 solid prosperity than has appeared for some years. 

 The madness of speculation in western lands, and the 

 consequent unusual flood of emigration from the old 

 states, will be effectually destroyed by the absence or 

 destruction of their immediate causes, viz: the late ex- 

 travagantly high prices of cotton, and the means of- 

 fered by the enoi-mously extended bank paper circula- 

 tion, in aid of all the mad operations of speculators. 

 Had there been no western country, or had the relative 

 advantages of both regions been truly known, Vir- 

 ginia would already have reached a high state of agri- 

 cultural improvement and prosperity. Now, while 

 the western states will continue to offer all their real 

 advantages, those which were merely imagined, by 

 speculators and their dupes, will disappear. The land- 

 holders of Virginia will, by a severe lesson, be taught 

 the propriety of remaining.at honie, and improving the 

 abundant resources of their own country. Let this 



but be felt, and properly acted on, for ten years, and a 

 new face will be presented by agriculture. We are 

 now a century in the rear of what would have been the 

 improved condition of our territory, if this madness 

 had not been continually operating to drain away the 

 wealth, population, enterprise and talent of the state, 

 and to reduce to the lowest possible grade the value of 

 all that was leil behind. It will now be found that 

 most of those persons who have gone to the south- 

 west, during this time of general delusion, have lost 

 more than they have gained, and far more than they 

 might have gained, by improving their land and re- 

 sources in Virginia. Circumstances will now force 

 our people to look to home for their chances for wealth 

 and happiness — and they must, as soon as they begin 

 to rise from the present state of prostration and des- 

 pondency, begin also to improve, instead of hastening 

 to abandon the land of their birth. 



Perhaps, owing to our peculiar situation, no other 

 individual has had such full opportunity to estimate 

 the enormous amount of injury inflicted on agriculture 

 by the spirit of western speculation, and the expecta- 

 tion of emigrating at some future time held by very 

 many, who themselves actually have not yet carried, 

 and now will not cany that expectation into effect 

 No man will make improvements with spirit, zeal, or 

 to much profit, however cheap and certain may be the 

 means, who expects to sell his land at some future 

 lime, and is sure, from the continually falling prices, 

 that he cannot then be repaid in purchase money for 

 the costofhis most profitable improvements. We have 

 felt the consequences of this state of things to bear 

 heavily on this journal — both in affecting its pecuniaiy 

 income, and still more in "discouraging and frustrating 

 its struggles to promote improvement. In a different 

 condition of things, this journal, even though no better 

 conducted, and no better aided, than it has been, could 

 not have failed to do much positive and manifest good to 

 agricultural improvement, and agricultural interests, 

 throughout Virginia and the neighboring Atlantic 

 states. To have added some millions of dollars to both 

 the intrinsic and market value of lands, in lower Vir- 

 ginia alone, might have been safely reckoned on, but 

 for the baneful adversary action of emigration. But 

 all the good that it has been actually permitted to do, in 

 the four years of its existence, has not been enough to 

 counterbalance the enormous injuries caused by emi- 

 gration, speculation, and the consequences of both. 

 All the efforts made through the Farmers' Register, 

 have not served to push the car of agriculture higher up 

 the hill of improvement; they have merely "chocked" 

 the wheels behind, and helped to prevent a more rapid 

 downward career. Let but the efforts of all be now 

 directed together, and to this one end, and the agricul- 

 tiire and the general condition of the commonwealth 

 will yet, and speedily, be so elevated, and its territory 

 be made so profitable and delightful a place of resi- 

 dence, as to prevent its desertion when the nation 

 shall again go mad in speculation, even though wes-- 

 tern lands may be again the main field of operations. 



In the general fall of prices, (which if not already 

 exhibited, v/ill certainly be so, soon or late, in every 

 thing that speculation had improperly or fictitiously 



