1S3S] 



FARMERS' REGIS!' i: R 



2ir 



ral difference between the presence of these dis- 

 orders, in low, wet, or nnirshy coinitrii's, and their 

 absence, or scarcit\% in mountainous and dry re- 

 fjions, is so irrea', liiat none can niislake, or diller 

 aboui, the s;('iicr(il cansos and ('llocts. But irom 

 this (fenoral ofiinion, which i.< true in the main, 

 (Ihonixli iiavinij: numerous and important exccp- 

 lion.'^,) there, is deduced tlie erroneous conclusion, 

 I hat tliese opposite ijcneral effects produced on 

 heakh, in extensive regions cither generally low 

 and wet, or <j;enerally hilly and dry, arc produced by 

 these op|)osile natural features, aiiil cannot be very 

 materially altered by art; as art cannot materially 

 alter the natural characterof the land. Or, in other 

 words, that nature has made one great region 

 low and sickly, and another high and healthy; 

 and that man cannot do much to counteract the 

 law of nature in either case. Perhaps none may 

 maintain this position, in argument, without ad- 

 milting partial exceptions in numerous particular 



ty; and the whole subject has been so little ex- 

 amined, or tlioughl of, that to moat readers the 

 position here assumed may be entirely new. 

 There are no statistics of health to whicli we can 

 refer for proof. But general and historical tiicis, 

 few as they are, if iiurly consiilered, will suffice to 

 place the question beyond dispute. 



Before proceeding liullier in this part of the ar- 

 gument, let me remark, that I am opposed in the 

 outset, and shall be opposed throughout, by the 

 reluctance felt by every individual to believe, or if 

 believing, to admit, that his particular property^, 

 or place of residence, is more sickly than others, 

 or has become more so than in former times. 

 This self-delusion, and consequent, though per- 

 haps undesigned eflbrt to deceive others, is almost 

 universal. Each man claims for his own place 

 more healthiness than in truth ought to be ad.Tiit- 

 ted ; and the combined effect of all these individu- 

 al claims, is to maintain that the whole country is 

 more healthy than is true, and more so than each 

 individual would have claimed for it, with the ex- 



cases and localities. Indeed, every man will say 

 that care may lessen the causes and mitigate the 



operation of malaria, in a sickly region, or increase j ception of his own farm and his own neighbor 

 both in a healthy one. But, judging from the ac- hood. It is against this universal prejudice and 

 tion of both the people and their laws, which obstruction that I have had to contend in seeking 

 speaks more strongly than words, it may be infer- ' for facts, and shall have to contend in argument ; 

 red that it is a general belief that such bendings i and, with such opposition, there is but small hope 

 of nature fioni her course can be but slight, in ' o( maintaining my ground, or producing convic- 



particular cases, and scarcely worth estimating on 

 a broad scale, or through an extensive country, 

 fn entire conformity with this supposition, it is a 

 notorious fact that very few individuals in Virginia 

 have done any thing considerable, or on system, 

 to protect their dwelling places from malaria; and 

 the government has not only done nothing for 

 general protection, but has actually caused the 

 worst of the existing evils, and is encouraging 

 their continueil increase and aggravation, by the 

 fixed legal policy of the country; which permits 

 the raising of mill-ponds, which are productive of 

 little else than malaria and disease; and indirectly, 

 but effectually, forbids the drainage of exten- 

 sive swamps. The production and deadly efiijcts 

 of malaria, in eastern Virginia, for the greater 

 part, is to be charged, not to the laws of God, but 

 to the laws of man; which, in this respect, ope- 

 rate to put away or sacrifice some of the most 

 precious of God's blessings, offered to all, to gratify 

 the whims, or the blind and often mistaken avarice 

 of a kw individuals. There are, doubtless, great 

 natural differences as to the sickliness of diflerent- 

 iy situated regions; as between the low tide-water 

 region of Virginia, the central or hilly, and also 

 the mountainous region. But, in their natural 

 state, before damaged by mill-ponds and other of 

 man's miscalled improvements, the low-country 

 was probably less afflicted by malaria, than the 

 hilly parts now are, or may be rendered by the full 

 extension of these injurious operations of man. 

 This is a matter of mere supposition, and cannot 

 possibly be subjected to the rigid test of proof by 

 known facts. But, from reasoning, and inferences 

 from such fiicts as are known, it seems most proba- 

 ble that some of the now most sickly counties on 

 tide-water were, at the first settlement of the 

 country, less sickly than the hilly and originally 

 very healthy county of Brunswick, for example, 

 has become in latter years. 



Even the very important fact of increased and 

 increasing sickliness in this country, is entirelv 



liun of the soundness of my views, in the minds of 

 those who have so prejudged the case. 



One of the strongest proofs of the greater former 

 healthiness of the low country, was the settlement 

 of our English ancestors having been made and 

 continued at Jamestown. It was on May 1.3th, 

 when they landed; and now, a residence on that 

 spot, or in that region, continued for five months 

 alter that time of the year, would be fatal to half 

 of the strangers from a northern climate, even 

 though provided with all the comforts and neces- 

 saries which a long-settled country affords, and all 

 of which the first settlers most deplorably needed. 

 It is true, that for some years after the first settle- 

 ment, there was much sickness, and numerous 

 deaths; and that in fiict the infant colony was 

 more than once on the point of extinction. But 

 these diseases and deaths do not seem, from the 

 direct and the still stronger indirect testimony of 

 history, to have been attributed by the sufferers to 

 an unhealthy location ; and there were sufficient 

 other causes for all that was suffered, in the usual 

 and unavoidable privations of the first colonists of 

 a new and savage countiy, added to the extreme 

 improvidence and mismanagement of these set- 

 tlers, and their government, as detailed in history. 

 Even after several years had passed, and though 

 cultivating a very fijrtile soil, and aided by annual 

 supplies of food from England, and with all the 

 resources of trade with the savages, hunting, and 

 fishing, still, want of food was one of the greatest 

 causes of disease and death. Of course, there 

 must have been, under any circumstances, more 

 or less of disease caused by malaria ; and although 

 any predisposition to such disease, naturally in- 

 duced, must have been violently urged to action, 

 and aggravated to ten-fold malignity, by hunger, 

 intemperance, exposure of every kind, depression 

 of spirits, and every other painful emotion of the 

 minds of men in such desperate straits — still, even 

 with all these aids, the prevalence of autumnal 

 diseases, the effect of malaria, was not so conspicu- 



without support from any known written auihori- I ous as to stanif) ihe charactef of .sickliness on the 

 Vol. VI.— 2S 



