224 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 4 



which would sweep over many hundreds of acres 

 more tliari the floods of the natural stream could 

 have reached. Besides the inuiieiise damage 

 caiiped to cultivated land by these floods, (and 

 which l<iiid of damage is rarely eslimaied or 

 thoiiirht of by juries, when mills are established 

 above,) there are numerous hollows made, and 

 filled with water, Avhich, on the retreat of the 

 flood, (as hasty as its inroad,) remain so many 

 stagnant pools, until made dry by evaporation. 

 The whole land, thus covered, is saturated with 

 water; and, from the nature of the rich alluvial 

 soil, is throughout, as it dries, made a producer of 

 malaria. 



But the worst part of this evil, by far, is when 

 these artificial floods of fresh-water pass over salt- 

 marshes — which happens in all the country in 

 which the fresh and salt waters meet; and this 

 combination of causes I consider the most efilcieut 

 producer of disease in that part of the country, and 

 the thinsT which ought most especially to be 

 guarded aijainst. According to the views before 

 presented, the passage of fresh water over salt- 

 marshes, no matter to what extent, is one of the 

 most sure producers of malaria, and ol' a particu- 

 larly malignant kind. The mill-ponds, alone, 

 tijrm other and fiir more extensive, if weaker 

 sources of the poison ; and by the union of the 

 two, the mill-ponds exert all their usual bad influ- 

 ence above the dams, and spread ten-fold more 

 pestilential effects below, by inundating the wide 

 salt-marshes, which by natural streams would 

 scarcely have been affected. 



On Nansemond river there are lands already 

 rich, and having inexhaustible supplies of the best 

 marl, which have been sold at .'^lO the acre. 

 There are hundreds of estates in the same belt of 

 country, which cannot be sold for as mucli as the 

 cost and present value of the buddings. And this 

 otherwise fine country, so accursed by disease, 

 owes its condition principally to the streams 

 which flow into the salt tide-waters, and which 

 are so numerous, and their sources so interlocked, 

 that there is no spot safe, by remoteness of posi- 

 tion, fi'om these combined effects of mill-ponds 

 and salt-raarshes. It is therefore sufficiently evi- 

 dent why that otherwise finest part of the state, 

 lor agricultural improvement and profit, should 

 stand among the lowest in both these respects. 

 Yet this part of Virginia might be rendered both 

 healthful and fi-uiifui, and the delightful region 

 which God has permitted it to be made, if man 

 would accept and avail of his bounties^ by merely 

 using half the e.Kpense lor improving, which has 

 been lavished to inflict pestilence and poverty on 

 the country. 



These statements and expressions of opinion 

 will be unpalatable, if not ofl'ensive; and perhaps 

 may subject the writer to the charge of being 

 willing to injure the residents of the region Jbr 

 whose relief in this respect he is most anxious, 

 and of the facility and cheapness of obtaining 

 relief, by the use of proper means, he feels most 

 confident. If the exposure and probing of the ul- 

 cer be never so painful, let it be remembered that it 

 is done solely lor the purpose of seeking for, and 

 ai)plying, a sure remedy. 



There is still another source of malaria, which 

 it is necessary to touch on in connexion with the 

 above-mentioned, though it has been already i 



treated more fully elsewhere, and therefore will be 

 but slightly mentioned here.* 



From the vegetable matter upon the driest land, 

 as it ferments and decays, there must be extricated 

 more or less of the gaseous matter, which, when 

 in excess, is injurious to health. According to 

 this view, the whole surface of the country, and 

 especially that most heavily covered with vegeta- 

 ble matter, nray furnish malaria. The degree of 

 hurttlilness of this product will depend on the 

 power of growing vegetables to feed on, and of 

 the soil to absorb and fix in it, this matter, which, 

 according to its directiomand quantity, may cither 

 enrich land, feed plants, or poison men. In earlier 

 publications I have slated at larire my reasons lor 

 believing that all the products of vegetable decom- 

 position, on naturally poor lands, are lost to the 

 land ;t and as the ultimate results of decomposi- 

 tion are gaseous, or aeriform, they must go off in- 

 to the air. These products constitute or cause 

 malaria, and its injurious effects on the health of 

 the inhabitants. But calcareous matter serves ef- 

 fectually to fix there the enriching principles of de- 

 caying vegetable matter, until they become the 

 food of growing plants. Hence the deduction that 

 a naturally poor soil, made calcareous, will no 

 longer throw off gaseous products, or malaria, 

 into the air ; but will store it up as fertilizing ma- 

 nure. The sure remedy for the irregular and ge- 

 nerally slight degree of sickliness thus caused, is, 

 to marl or lime all, the land that requires calcareous 

 earth. But that remedy would not be suthcient, if 

 mill-ponds or marshes in the neighborhood conti- 

 nued to send out large additional supplies of the 

 aeriform poison. t 



The correctness of my deductions as to the very 

 injurious effects of mill-ponds on health, will be 

 denied on several ^rounds, which, so far as ex- 

 pected, I will anticipate as objections, and stale 

 with the answers, as follows : 



Objection 1. Admitting generally, and to some 

 extent, the ill effects of mill-ponds in producing 

 noxious exhalations, and autumnal diseases, it 

 does not appear, that these effects can be either so 

 great, or so sure, as is charged above. The resi- 

 dents on the farms nearest to mill-ponds are not 

 always, and often not at all, more sickly than 

 those who reside several miles distant. The house 

 of the slave who acls as miller, is usually near 

 the mill, and close to the pond ; yet families so 

 situated are generally as healthy as any others, 

 and sometimes are healthy in a remarkable de- 

 gree, compared to the neighborhood generally. 

 "' Jlivixoer. Near the mill-dam, or the lower end 

 of the pond, may well be less affected by the ex- 

 halations fi-om it, than places a mile or two more 

 distant. That part is the deepest of the pond, and 

 of which also the banks are steepest ; and perhaps 

 half a mile in length of the bottom of the upper 

 and shallowest part of the pond, and of alluvial 

 mud, might be left naked in drought, before a mar- 

 gin of steep hill-side, of three feet width, could be 

 exposed near the mill. Further — from the greater 

 lightness of the malaria, it will rise high in the air, 

 and would soon be carried far away by a moderate 

 breeze. If the wind be moderate, and steady to 



* See "Essay on Calcareous Manures," 2d etl., 

 chap, xix., and " Essay on the Police of Health," com- 

 menciiig p. 154, Vol. V. of Farmers' Register. 



f Essay on Calc. iVIan., eh. iii., viii., and xii. 



