The farmers^ register. 



155 



all the debts I ever contracted, 1 found money 

 plenty and cheap; but when I undertook lo pay 

 them orf', I Ibund it Bcarce and difficuk to obtain : 

 paying a debt is always up-hill work ; it is a hard 

 row to weed, try it who will. 



I will now go further and say that, aa a general 

 rule, no farmer ought ever to Ititter himself with 

 debt. No man haa a right to make a slave of 

 himselfj and this every man does who contracts 

 an unnecessary debt. Hence it is that the pre- 

 sent is a time of peculiar distress. Go where I 

 may, I meet vvith long (aces, and hear complaints 

 of hard limes. And who is it that is in such dis- 

 ire.^s? It is the debtor, and the debtor alone. 

 Where there is no debt to weigh him down the 

 farmer is in comfortable circumstances. Hie 

 Crops for several years in succession have been 

 good, and the prices obtained remunerating. 

 Merchants tell me, that such is the nature ol 

 their business that they cannot avoid debt. It 

 may be so ; but then they, in common with others, 

 cannot avoid another thing, the thousand vex- 

 atious sliills and contrivances, Cidled ''raising the 

 wind,'" to which they conslantly resort to pay 

 them off. 



And now I hope thai it will not be considered 

 as an improper departure from my present un- 

 dertaking, if I arraign and expose some of the 

 intolerable evils under which we farmers are now 

 laboring. And this I do not as a whig or demo- 

 crat, but I do it over my own proper signature, 

 as an oppressed and aggrieved tax- payer. If 

 any responsibiliiy be incurred, I hereby exonerate 

 the editor and every body else, and take it upon 

 myself alone. At the same time I believe there | 

 is independence enough in the press of 'the Farm- j 

 ers' Register, to incur every responsibility where j 

 the honor of Virginia is concerned. And here,' 

 without intending to flatter the editor, (I would 

 not insult a high-minded man with a thing so 

 fulsome,) 1 must say that Mr. Ruflin has received 

 a very unworthy return for the valuai le services 

 he has rendered to his country. This then is the 

 first charge that I make, that the farmers, yes, 

 I am sorry to say, the farmers have not appre- 

 ciated the services of the editor as they ought to 

 have done. He saw and felt a great and sore 

 evil infiicted upon the community by the banks, 

 and he had the firmness and independence to 

 arraign it ; ami because he made use of a farm- 

 er's work to tell the Carmers their grievances, pa- 

 tronage, I am told, to a small amount, has been 

 v^ithdrawn from him. Now I am no apologist 

 of the editor, nor have I his permission to say one 

 v;ord about his affairs ; yet I must in justice lo 

 him say, that though he values not the' loss of a 

 few subscribers, yet he must leel the disgust and 

 mortification which belonij to every hiirh-minded 

 and independent man.* But J have other changes 



to make to which I proceed forthwith. My next 

 charge then is that the banks have suspended 

 the payment of their debts, when they will not 

 allow me to suspend the payment of mine. I 

 hold, for instance, a note of the bank, in which 

 they promise to pay me a certain sum. I present 

 it for payment. The reply is, perhaps in an in- 

 sulting manner, "we have suspended and therefore 

 do not pay our notes." Now suppose this same 

 hank holds one of my notes, and on presentment, 

 I tell them that /have suspended, not from whim, 

 as in their case, (for they tell us all the time that 

 they are able to p:iy,) but from actual necessity. 

 Oh ! say they, if that be the case, we shall soon 

 try what stuff you are made of. The next thing 

 is that formidable affair called a protest, the ope- 

 ration of wiiich is to destroy my credit, and thus 

 disgrace me. Nor docs the thing end here, but 

 if I have ahorse or negro, or even a cow to give 

 milk for my children to eat, the whole goes to 

 pay the uttermost farthing. 



I charge further that, in consequence of this 

 suspension of payments, money, or rather bank 

 notes, are made of unequal value, so that if I 

 get a draft on a paying bank, I lose my bread in 

 the operation. 



* Our much esteemed correspondent is not mistaken 

 as to the fact of the injurious operation of bank in- 

 fluence, through its bought tools and slaves, on this pub- 

 lication ; but he is greatly mistaken if he supposes 

 that the amount of injury from that source, malignant 

 as it may be, would alone be of much detriment. If 

 that alone were all that opposed the success of the 

 Farmers' Register, the editor might well disregard all 

 effects of such influence of swindling banks and the 



fraudulent banking system of Virginia, as much as he 

 despises all the hatred and malice of the individuals 

 who are either so base or so duped as to be thus di- 

 rected by bank rule and influence. The great and 

 unceasing and all-important obstacle to the proper 

 maintenance, and consequent full measure ot utility 

 of the Farmers' Register, is the general apathy and 

 want of all public spirit, and even of enlightened 

 self-interest, by the agricultural community of this 

 state. The proportion of the agricultural class of 

 Virginia is amazingly small, who participate in the 

 generous feelings expressed above by one who mere- 

 ly feels and thinks as every member of that class 

 should do, and would do, if true to their own and their 

 country's best interests. The pecuniary support afford- 

 ed to this publication has never been enough to compen- 

 sate the editor for the risks and losses necessarily in- 

 curred; and for the last few years, there has not been 

 enough of clear profit to pay for a capable clerk. 

 Nearly half the actual support of subscribers is fur- 

 nished from beyond the borders of Virginia — and the 

 arrears of subscription now due, and of which the 

 payment is desperate, amount to more than all the clear 

 profit ever derived from the adventure. Under such 

 circumstances, the work has been continued less in 

 regard to any hope of its being properly sustained, than 

 for other considerations. But with the close of this 

 volume will end the editor's labors (or ten of the best 

 years of his life ; and he will no longer obtrude, on 

 the agricultural public, services which seem to be so 

 little appreciated, and which have been so little aided 

 by the sympathy of the great body of the members of 

 the itderest designed to be served. In the mean time, 

 his own labors and efforts will not relax ; and he trusts 

 that the tenth and concluding volume (under his direc- 

 tion) of the Farmers' Register will be not less valuabU 

 than the best of its predecessors. — Ed. F. R 



