744 



FARMERS' REGISTER—PAPERS OF NO, 9. 



occasional insertion, all those putrid exhalations 

 Ironi corrupt sources which are so constantly con- 

 tributing to render our political atmosphere poi- 

 sonous to the moral health of all who voluntarily 

 Inhale it. 



Dr. R. R. Earton's remarks on the neglect of 

 agricultural education are perlectly just and true. 

 If agriculturists in our own state would only re- 

 gard them as they ought, a very i'ew years would 

 suffice to give our good old Mother Virginia an 

 entirely new — rich, and most beautiful suit of 

 clothes, instead of the rags that her sons now keep 

 her in, until many of them get so ashamed of her, 

 as to run away in search of some new foster-pa- 

 rent, to be treated probably in the same way. Pat- 

 tern and experimental larms, connected with 

 schools and colleges on the manual labor system, 

 would indeed be a reform of infinitely more im- 

 portance to our national welfare, than all which 

 our political parties put together seem ever likely 

 to accomplish towards its achievement. 



The extracts from the Complete Grazier are ve- 

 r}^ interesting in themselves; but before we self- 

 Batisfied farmers of Virginia can derive much prac- 

 tical benefit from them, we must become a little 

 more anxious to convert our hereditary broom- 

 straw old fields into rich pastures; and a little less 

 dependent upon the hides of our winter and spring- 

 starved cattle for leather to make our negroes' 

 shoes. 



Horizontal ploufrhing was practised, to my cer- 

 tain knowledge, in the county of Essex, Virginia, 

 nearly or quite half a century ago, by a Mr. Spin- 

 dle, and some few of his neighbors. Still Mr. 

 Thomas M. Randolph was the first, I believe, to 

 make any publication about it, and with him jn'ob- 

 ably the plan was original, as well as it had been 

 with Mr. Spindle. This kind of ploughing, how- 

 ever, unless very accurately performed, and unless 

 the land be also coultered as deep as practicable, 

 with a single coulter or substratum plough, is but 

 a very partial remedy, (if it be one at all,) for the 

 evil it is designed to prevent. By the way, it has 

 given rise in some "benighted corners" of our 

 good old state, (for she also has a few such places,) 

 to the practice of "laying of!" our dead levels with 

 the same crooked flirrows that we "lay oti"" our 

 hills, under the very sagacious and mathematical 

 calculation, that, because oue crooked row between 

 any two points is certainly longer than a straight 

 one would be between the same two points, there- 

 fore, the whole level thus laid oft' must contain 

 more corn hills ! Ye who govern yourselves by 

 the dogma — "vii'Z admirarij^'' keep from stretching 

 your eyes at this fact — if you can ! 



as I recollect, has ever been found for any of these 

 diseases, any more than for too much drought, or 

 too much rain. The smut- perhaps, is an excep- 

 tion. But be it remcndjered, that burning and 

 liming was ascertained to be a preventative long, 

 long before any person so much as even dreamed 

 of the wonders said to have been performed by 

 Mr. Francis Bauer with his smut-balls; and in 

 regard to which, I shall take the liberty, at least 

 to suspend my opinion, until fartlier evidence be 

 exhibited. 



Far be it from me altogether to deny the use of 

 such investigations; for I know well that diseases 

 both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms are 

 not to be cured, unless by accident, without a pre- 

 vious knowledge of their causes. But I would 

 liave such researches after the origin of these dis- 

 eases more frequently accompanied than they are, 

 by details of apparentl}' successful attempts to cure 

 them. It is chiefly owing to the want of the lat- 

 ter, that "book-farming," (as it is ofien scoffingly 

 called,) is in such bad odor with thousands of ag- 

 riculturists, who cannot be persuaded that it is 

 any thing better than mere speculation. Read to 

 them as many as you please of such achieve- 

 ments as Mr. Bauer's, and such dissertations as 

 treat solely of such mat ters as the origin of those dis- 

 eases which often destroy our crops, and they are 

 ready with Sancho Panza's answer to his master 

 Don Quixote, who, after Sancho's drubbing at the 

 celebrated braying adventure, undertook to explain 

 to him very learnedly, why it was that he felt so 

 grievously sore. The squire's reply was; — "Before 

 God, your worship has brought me out of a grand 

 doubt, and explained it in very fine terms. Body 

 'o me! was the cause of my pain so hid, that it 

 was necessary to tell me, that I felt pain in all 

 those parts, which the pole reached? If my ankles 

 ached, you might not, perhaps, so easily guess 

 why tlie}' pained me: but to divine, that I am pain- 

 ed because beaten, is no great vialter.''^ 



As to the causes of rust, smut, and other diseases 

 in wheat, corn, &c., the dissertations on them, of 

 which A. N's. is as good as any, and of which I 

 believe that I have read some hundreds, have 

 always seemed — to say the least of them — 

 very useless s[)eculations, unless accompanied by 

 some remedy. Indeed, in regard to several of the 

 diseases treated of, the investigation of their causes, 

 even when deemed succescful, has appeared ciuite 

 as profitless as would be a demonstration of the 

 causes of dry and wet weather. No cure, as far 



Friend Jeremiah's association of "hogs, legis- 

 lators, and manure making," seems, to say the 

 least of it, a very queer one. Hashe ranked them ac- 

 cording to his scale of' merit, or is the climax acci- 

 dentaU This is a question I should like him to an- 

 swer, for verily I suspect him in these plotting times, 

 ofsomeinsidious designs against the honor and dig- 

 nity of our legislative bodies — either state or feder- 

 al.* His Jeremiads about "stump and barrel love of 

 country," and "stump and barrel legislators," 

 chime in with my notions on these subjects so mar- 

 vellously Avell, that I should like to have some 

 more of them. I have always considered such 

 things full as grent enemies to good legislation, as 

 cut-worms, chinch-bugs, and Hessian flies are to 

 good crops. 



Shenstone, in my humble opinion, is more ^^eqval 

 to the task''\ to which he seems to think himself in- 

 adequate, than he supposes. For one, therefore, 

 I should like to hear more from him. 



* As our correspondent Jeremiah has been thus called 

 on to explain or defend the title to his communication, 

 it is proper to state, that the offence was not his, but 

 ours'. His communication had no heading — and, as in 

 all similar cases of omission, we attached such as seem- 

 ed suitable. — Ed. Farm. Rjcg. 



