658 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



pies of the Union, Wheat and Indian corn, assuredly youra is that district. The same may 

 be said of Frederick and Washington Counties in Maryland. 



Pennit me gentlemen, to quote you a single passage from the last number of " Personal 

 Obeervatious " by Rev. Mr. Colmaii, on European Agriculture. 



" On the estate of the late Mr. Coke, afterward Lord Leicester — where, when he came to reside 

 on hie property, il was thought, on account of the thinness, and poverti/ of the soil, nkeat icould 

 not grow — the average yield is from forty to forty-eight bushels per acre; and I have already re- 

 fen-cd to a large farm wliere the crop ou the whole farm, iu 1844-0 — a most favorable season — 

 averaged fifiysix bushels per acre. These are most encouraging results ; bat since, beyond all 

 question, in an instance referred to, eighty bushels have been yiroduced, who will say that the limits 

 of improvement have generally been approached ? Ah tins too has been, without doubt, the etfect 

 of improved cultivation." 



And let me refer you also to the progress of agiicultural improvement in Mid-Lothian, Scot- 

 land, as you will find it described in the next (July) Number of the Fanners' Library. 

 When I add that all writers agree that these gi-eat improvements, and average increase of 

 fertility have resulted in these old countries and are still progi-essing from the apphcation to 

 practical Agricvdture of the sciences with which God and Nature have allied and dignified it, 

 I shall have adduced enough to justify your honorable solicitude for the establishment in our 

 country, of institutions which shall secure for it here the same results. 



Were it practicable, as I hope it is, to prevail with the general Press to urge the rights of 

 the landed interest m tliis respect, it would not be long before its Representatives would be 

 made to recognize its claim to paramount udluence in the legislation of the country. Com- 

 pare, for one moment, the agricultural concerns of Virginia with all other branches of iudua- 

 try combmed : 



Employed in her Agriculture 318,771 



In ail other pursuits in the State — commerce, manufactures, mining, navigation, 

 internal and external, and the learned professions 74,903 



Excess of agriculturists 243,768 



or more than four to one. 



Then look at the produce of her agricultural industry, put down at only $59,685,821 



All other branches of industry united 17,085,821 



Since the last war with England there has been paid in like propoi-tions, by the agricul- 

 turists of the country, little if anything short of .500,000,000 doUai-s for military operations, 

 surveys, schools and machineiy ! But what has been done for insti-uction in Agincultiu'e 1 

 Yet is it not as improvable as the art of war, or any other art or manufactm-e, if we could 

 have secured to it, too, out of its own contxibutions to the common treasure, the means of 

 diffusing a better knowledge of the sciences that belong to it, such as the principles of Me- 

 chanics, as involved in the stincture of agricultural machinery ; of Mathematics, as employed 

 in surveying and mapping land ; of Civil Engineering, as it teaches the art of road-making 

 and bridge-building and rural architecture ; of Geology, to ascertain the nature of soils ; of 

 Animal and Vegetable Chemistry, Botany, &c. ? 



Suppose the other particular classes, (all useful in their way, and to Agriculture itself,) 

 which on all occasions so easily and promptly combine for their own especial welfai'e, were 

 represented in Congress iu the proportion to agiiculturists that they are now in proportion 

 to these other classes, as respects both numbers and productiveness ; would they yield every- 

 thing and demand nothing, as farmers do ? Why, gentlemen, the very corn-blades of Vir- 

 ginia, regarded as the mere otlid of her agi'lcultural industry, and not even idluded to in the 

 census of national wealth, allowing 20 pounds to the bushel of corn and 20 cents to the hun- 

 dred wei^t, would amount to neaily $3,000,000, and actually entitle her to more influence, 

 comparatively, in the appropriation of the public funds than she has ever claimed or exer- 

 cised ui the rivalries to which the various classes have given rise in Congress. 



What is needed, let me repeat, is to get the general Press of the country to entertain and 

 evince the sympathy that is justly due to this great, paramount concern of the country. 

 What lever so poweriid as it in controlhiig the public sentiment and policy of the nation ? 

 Yet see in Virginia more than fifty papers iievote<l to i):irty politics and other objects, and one 

 only appropriated to the cause of Agriculture', and that one left to linger along belweeu lilo 

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