THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



Vol. X. 



JUNE 30, 1842. 



No. 6. 



EDMUND RUFFIN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 



REPORT TO THE STATE BOARD OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE, 



ON THE MOST IMPORTANT RECENT IMPROVE- 

 •MENTS OF AGRICULTURE IN LOWER VIR- 

 GINIA—AND THE MOST IMPORTANT DE- 

 FECTS YET REMAINING. 



By Edmimd Ritffin. 



The lime can yet be remembered by many 

 persons now living, when the jroprovement ol 

 ihe general or average rale of product of" land 

 by its fertilization was scarcely attempted, or even 

 thought of, in the lower and middle regions ol 

 Virginia. The efforts to increase the amount 

 of the products and profits of agriculture, viG.re. 

 not wanting then, more than now. But it was 

 by adding to the cultivated surface by new clear- 

 ings of wood-land, and by thus substituting fresh 

 and richer ground for such as w9s worn-out and 

 totally worthless. The manuring was almost 

 limited to the partial saving and use of the ex- 

 crement of the live-stock ; no more vegetable 

 matter, as litter, being used, or thought worth the 

 labor of using, than would srrve to absorb and 

 retain the animal juices. Perhaps only the more 

 ignorant cultivators believed that vegetable mat- 

 ter was not manure of itself ; but. of the more 

 intelligent, but few would have deemed that the 

 doubling the ordinary small amount of litter in 

 their farm yards and stables, would not have been 

 of more labor than profit, even for lands the best 

 adapted to be benefited by such manures. With 

 very few exceptions, there was no more litter used 

 than necessary to prevent the cattle from suffering 

 by the wetness and filth of their pens and beds; 

 and to serve to soak up partially the fluid matter, 

 of which otherwise the waste was manifest. The 

 straw of the wheat and oat crops, and Ihe stalks 

 of the tobacco, were necessarily brought to the 

 barns to be separated ; and, with greater or less 

 waste, these materials were in some manner neces- 

 sarily converted to manure. But the much larger 

 quantity of corn-stalks were left in the field, to be 

 afterwards burnt out of the way of the next 

 ensuing crop ; and still less was any other supply 

 of coarse litter sought or desired. Even this 

 small extent of manure-making was a great im- 

 provement on the older practice. Thomas Adams, 

 an observant and respectable old farmer of Prince 

 George, vvho died about 20 years ago, told me 

 that he remembered the first beginning, in that 

 county, of keeping up the work horses at niah', 

 on litter, for the purpose of increasinir the ma- 

 nure, instead of turnmg them out to graze in the 

 pastures. The practice was introduced by a new 

 overseer on Old Town farm, then one of the 

 "quarters" of the head of the Carter family; 

 and it attracted much more of notice for censure, 

 than for applause or imitation. The comment of 

 one of the neighbors was, that " whenever he 

 should be obliged to make manure for his land, 

 he should think it full time for him to move to 

 the back rooods,^^ — the name by which the more 

 western settlements were then called. 

 Vol. X.— 33 



With a few honorable exceptions, very kw 

 of the wealthy land holders, attended personally 

 or regularly to the management of their farms, 

 previous to the last 30 years. Still, some few ex- 

 cellent cultivators, and judicious managers of 

 their farms, were profiling by pursuing a different 

 course. Such were Philip Tabb of Gloucester, 

 Fielding Lewis and John Minge of Charles City, 

 and John Taylor of Caroline. The writings of 

 the latter subsequently gave an impulse which 

 may be considered as being the commencement 

 of our improving state of agriculture, and with 

 which the following recital will set out. 



The 'Arator' of John Taylor, was published 

 in a volume in 1»13, and soon acquired a popu- 

 larity, and a ueady acceptance of its worst errors 

 as well as its most valuable truths, which no other 

 agricultural publication has obtained. The two 

 most important improvements which the author 

 thus made generally known, were both in ret^ard 

 to the using of vegetable matters as manure. ° 



/. The making of farm-yard and stable manure, 

 in which the^ vegetable materials are in very 

 large proportion to the animal matter. 



The first of these lessons, and great improve- 

 ments on previous general opinion and practice, 

 was the almost unheard of plan of using as litter all 

 the vegetable offal of the crops, no matter how ex- 

 cessive the proportion might be to that of the 

 animal excrement ; er, in teaching a reliance on 

 the fertilizing properties of vegetable, matter as 

 manure to soil, and food for plants, without regard 

 to the amount of admixture of animal matter. 

 And this, however universally understood now, 

 80 much, indeed, that the former state of general 

 opinion can scarcely nov/ be realized, was then 

 totally new doctrine to nineteen in twenty of those 

 who to it soon became converts. And the im- 

 proved practice, thus brought about, was made 

 the more extensive by another then novel lesson 

 taught by Taylor, that the fermentation of ma- 

 nure belore application was unnecessary and 

 wasteful. Belore that time, ihe little farm-yard 

 manure which was made, was left exposed first 

 on the yard, and next heaped, and in both states 

 wasting, and the use lost, for a whole year before 

 being used for the next crop of tobacco. The 

 advantages and disadvantages of the diflferent 

 modes of preparing farm-yard and stable manure, 

 of the different conditions when applied, will be 

 again adverted to under a subsequent head, when 

 the still newer practice of top-dressing on grass 

 will be considered. 



//. Manuring by " enclosing'^'' or non-grazing^ 

 or excluding stock from fields when in grass, or 

 not cultinated. 



The next great improvement, and innovation 

 oil previous opinions and practice, was the plan 

 of manuring fields by leaving on them, to die and 

 decay, their own vegetable growth, whether of 

 artificial grass, or, in its absence, of the weeds 

 and other natural growth, whenever tillage crops 



