230 



F A R M E R S' R E G 1 S T E R. 



[No, 4 



istry, mineraloory and geology — and yet no man | 

 of science has discovered and announced a single 

 important itnprov^ement in agriculture, vvliilst by 

 false deductious tliey iiave countenanced many 

 great and dangerous errors. The importance of 

 such a connexion ami combination of knowledge 

 is ton little considered, even by the lew who have 

 thought of it at all. The important discovery 

 of vertical draining, chance-made by the igno- 

 rant farmer Elkingion, was easily deducible from 

 a knowledge of geology and of hydrostatics. All 

 the original and useful discoveries in regard to the 

 nature and management of soils and manures 

 oufht tq have been made still earlier by chem- 

 ists; yet for not one are we indebted to the learn- 

 ed. And as drainers ought to derive aid from ge- 

 olosy, and cultivators ti'om chemistry, so men of 

 science sometimes might profit by the aid of igno- 

 rant though practical men. Of this trutii, an illus- 

 tration is close at hand. On the Greensville and 

 Roanoke railway a deep cut struck a vein of' water 

 passing through quicksand — and the continual ca- 

 ving in of the earih deltirred the completion of the 

 work for months, and caused an increased expen- 

 diture of thousands of dollars. The source of 

 this water had been previously readied by a well 

 du^T by a conh actor at the highest point of eleva- 

 tion, and the hydrostatic pressure was even theire 

 so (Treat as to cause the water to rise almost to the 

 top of the well. If the inclination and direction of 

 the strata were such as to permit the operation, a 

 ditcher, possessed of Elkinglon's [jractica'l know- 

 ledge, would have known at once where to tap this 

 sprmg, at some other point, perhaps a mile li-om 

 the railway, and have drawn away the water by 

 a lower and prefi'.rable outlet, and at a very small 

 expense. As soon as the vent was opened by the 

 railway excavation, the water in the well sunk, and 

 the supply to the well was either nearly orquite lost. 

 The larger crops cultivated in Warren, are corn 

 and oats lor home consumption, a little wheat for 

 market, and on the best lands, tobacco generally 

 in the upper, and cotton in the lower half of the 

 county. The length of the land carriage to mar- 

 ket( Petersburg) has heretoliire kept down the pro- 

 duction of vvheat; but the Raleigh ami Gaston rail- 

 way will atiord sufficient tiicility and cheapness of 

 carriaije to make this, what its soil fils it to be, a 

 verv fine wheat country. 



Tliere is nothing worth the name of a rotation of 

 crops — iniless such should be called the continued 

 succession of some of the above five crops, chosen 

 each year merely according to views of present 

 profit, and kept up as long as the land is thought 

 worth tilling — say from ten years on the poorer, to 

 fitly or more on the best lands. If, before the final 

 exhaustion and "turning out" there is at any time 

 a single year of rest afforded to a field, (and that 

 is no rest from grazing the scanty cover of grass 

 that may fjrow,) it is not by design, nor for the 

 purpose of improvement, but because the annual 

 clearings of the farmer have a little outstripped 

 his annual wearing-out of soil, and that therefore 

 he has more land worth the labor of tillage than 

 he has hands to work. However, such short rest- 

 ing times rarely occur, and scarcely affect the gen- 

 eral system. The little manure that is made is 

 criven entirely to the tobacco and cotton fields. 

 No grass crop is sown, and none reaped, except 

 on a very small proportion of natural wet meadow 

 around. 



The exhausted lands, when turned out, though 

 bearing no pines among their former virgin growth, 

 produce them in preliirence to other large second 

 growth of trees. Still however pines spring very 

 slowly and thinly — and scarcely begin to cover 

 what had once been good lands, until aHer thirty 

 or flirty years. Briers and sumach bushes pre- 

 cede the pines; and all do not prevent, for many 

 years after the cessation of tillage, the growth of 

 sweet and nourishing grass, which though a very 

 scanty crop for the great extent of surface, fur- 

 nishes an abundant supply of early summer food 

 for the cattle. The cattle seen on the old fields 



on Mr. B 's land on Great Fishing creek, 



(where I made most of my observations,) were 

 remarkably fiit, (on the 7tli of July) — and I un- 

 derstood that the first month of grass was gene- 

 rally enough to make them fat. Yet the cattle 

 must be badly prepared by the severe suflerinas 

 of the previous winter for speedy liittening. Mr. 

 B. staled that the wintering of their cattle was 

 generally very badly effected, that all 'suffered 

 greatly before the spring, and that a large pro- 

 portion on most farms died — and that he himself 

 calculated on losing five or six, on an average, out 

 of his small number of stock every winter. 1 infer 

 that it would be a fiir more profitable course to sell 

 (or consume) as beef, in summer, when they are 

 very fat, at least as many as the average number 

 expected to die of poverty and lice during the next 

 winter. I cannot pretend to point out tlie precise 

 causes of these losses in cattle; but there can be 

 no question but that it is from management as bad 

 for the cat'tle as the system of cropping is for the 

 land. This must be a very excellent grazing coun- 

 try; and if proper sustenance and care are atlbrded 

 lor winter keeping, and proper markets are opened, 

 at home or abroad, cattle and sheep will be here a 

 more profitable object tor the farmer's care, than 

 any ol' the now staple crops. 



Judging from the report of others, and from my 

 own slight personal observation of his property, I 

 inter that my friend Mr. B. is a successful and pro- 

 fitable cultivator, upon this very bad general sys- 

 tem of cultivation. But lie altogether disclaims 

 any pretension to the character of a farmer — and 

 for my part, I certainly cannot consider any one as 

 a good farmer, who does not increase his capital of 

 itiriility, by improving the soil, as well as obtain 

 sufficient annual returns from liis tillage. Accord- 

 ing to this definition, then, whilst there are very 

 many industrious and money-making cultivators 

 in Warren, there is not one good firmer. 



The Raleigh and Gaston railway will be com- 

 pleted from the Roanoke as fir as Chalk Level, 

 about forty-five miles, by next July, thus afford- 

 ing to all Warren and [)art of Granville county, 

 railway transportation to Petersburg. This valu- 

 able public work will aild greatly to the nett profits 

 of agriculture, and of course to the value of lands, 

 and the wealth of" the proprietors in this region. 

 But notwithstanding, the importance of this pub- 

 lic improvement has not yet been duly appreciated 

 and adequately supported by the many wealthy 

 people of the neighboring country. It is viewed 

 by most persons simply as an interest-paying fund, 

 and valued merely according to the dividends, or 

 money profit, expected. It is true that this is all 

 that foreign or distant subscribers can look to; and 

 the very liberal subscriptions made, without the 

 borders of North Carolina, show the hiah estimate 



