510 



THE FAlliVlERS' REGISTEK. 



ing to hia particular posilion, and his own views of 

 profit and loss. For niysell, ! will only say, that 

 1 have always found the best application I could 

 make, of money derived from the land, was lo re- 

 turn it back to the land, in the shape of improve*' 

 ment. There is no inyesiment of capital which 

 can be more sale, and in nineiy-nine out ofa hun- 

 dred cases, none half so profiiable. If by laying 

 out five dollars in manure, on an acre ol lasid, yon 

 make it produce you twenty bushebof wheat, 

 worth a dollar a buehf I, when it produced but five 

 bushels before, and this product is renewed to you 

 every (bur years, in an ordinary rotation of crops, 

 have j'ou not secured an interest of one hundred 

 per cent, on the out!ay you have made, and, at 

 the same lime, increased the value of your land 

 four hundred per cent.'? And yet results such 

 as these, extravagant as they may seem, and 

 though we may be unconscious of ihem ourselves, 

 are often achieved by a liberal and spirited system 

 ofimprovement. The passion o!l us Virginia far- 

 mers is to acquire more land — not to make the land 

 we already possess more productive. If a farmer 

 should add yearly to his possessions a hundred 

 acres of land, he would doubtless consider 

 himself getting along very prosperously in the 

 world. But if at no greater expense lie can make 

 a hundred acres of land twice or thrice as produc- 

 tive as they were before, is he not doing much 

 better, with the great advantage of having a more 

 compact surface on which to concentrate his labor 

 and care. 



The misfortune of our Virsinia agriculture is. 

 that we have already too much land lor the labor 

 we can bring to cultivate it. As we are not likely 

 to make a voluntary curtailment of the extent ol 

 our farms, the greatest practical reform that can 

 be introduced into their management is to curtail 

 the arable surfaca on each, and to lay down a 

 larger portion of our lands to grass. Instead of 

 wasting the energies of our soil by annually 

 spreading over a wide surface a superficial, neg- 

 ligent, and teazing cultivation, yielding compara- 

 tively nothing, how much better would it be to 

 cultivate one-half or one-third of the space we 

 now do, to concentrate upon that all our resources 

 of labor and improvement, and to leave the rest 

 to recruit itself by the healing processes of Nature. 

 Liebig has explained in a very ingenious and 

 philosophical manner the process by which lands 

 laid down to grass are constantly renewing and 

 improving themselves, and has thus confirmed the 

 deduciions of our own observation by the demon- 

 Btrations of science. Should any one doubt whe- 

 ther we should derive from the reduced surface, 

 better cultivated, a product equal to that of the 

 whole under inadequate culture, let him recollect 

 the instructive story told by old Columella, in his 

 jDe re rustica, of a Roman vine-dresser who had 

 a vineyard and two daughters. When his eldest 

 daughter was married, he gave her a third of the 

 vineyard for a portion, and yet he had the same 

 quantity oflruit as before ; when his second daugh- 

 ter was married, he gave her the half of what°e- 

 mained, and still the produce of his vineyard was 

 undiminished. This anecdote of the Roman 

 agriculturists, gentlemen, points the full force of 

 its moral against that fatal mania for emigration 

 which has hitherto carried off so large and valua- 

 ble a portion of our population to seek wider do- 

 mains for themselves and their families in the 1 



prairies of the west, ft is not more land that we 

 need. We have enough and more than enough 

 already, if properly cultivated and improved, lor 

 ourselves and our children after us. Ft is industry, 

 improvement, good husbandrj' we want, to deve- 

 lope the natural capabilities of our soil, and to 

 make it adequate to every reasonable wish, and 

 even to the lontlesi dreams of prosperity and 

 wealth. With these, seconding iho eilts of Ej;o- 

 vidence by which we are surrounded, we shall 

 have nothing to envy to the untamed abunlance 

 of the west, ten^.piing us from the cherished 

 scenes of our childhood, and the hallowed tombs 

 ol our ancestors. I am happy to believe, gen- 

 tlemen, that a brighter day ia now dawning 

 upon us, and thai the eminent natural advan- 

 tages and superior capabilities of Virginia are be- 

 ginning to be appreciated at their true worth, by 

 the citizens of our sister states, as well as lo be 

 more and more (ieU by her own children. While 

 emigration (rom our borders has, in a great mea- 

 sure, ceased, other states are beginning, in their 

 turn, to send to us tributes of their moral, industri- 

 ous, and enterprising population, attracted hi- 

 ther by the advantages of our climate, our nume- 

 rous navigable rivers, our water power, our rainer- 

 ral resouices, our favorable geographical position, 

 our kind and improvable soils. Ofthese welcome 

 swarms from kindred hives, I have recently be- 

 come acquainted wiih one of so interesiincr a cha- 

 racter, embracing persons of great respectability, 

 from one of the oldest and most l)if;hly improved 

 counties in the state of New York, (the. county of 

 Dutchess,) that 1 cannot deny myselfthe gratifi- 

 cation of reading to you a letter I have recently 

 received from an intelligent citizen of the county 

 ol Fairfax, in answer to some inquiries I address- 

 ed to him, giving me the particulars of their set- 

 tlement anil establishment in that county. 



(Here Mr. Rives read the letter referred to, as 

 follows :) 



I proceed to make the following answers to your 

 inquiries : 



How many citizens of New York have pur- 

 chased land in your county 1 



Ans. From ihe best information I can obtain, 

 there are about fifty-six families that have pur- 

 chased land, some of which have not removed, 

 but the greater part of them now reside in the 

 county ; these families average from three to five 

 persons, making about two hundred persons in 

 all. 



How much land in all have they purchased 1 



^ns. Thirteen thousand five hundred and thirty 

 two acres. They have very generally preferred 

 small sized farms, from one hundred and fifty to 

 two hundred acres, but they have been compelled 

 to purchase large farms, or rather large tracts of 

 land, which they are cutting upas fast as they 

 can. 



Have they been sufficiently long established to 

 indicate what their system of larming may be? 



Answer. — I do not think they have. But their 

 system, so far as i have observed it, is in favor 

 of the cultivation ol grass, over that of grain, and 

 thus fnr, they have made rapid improvements in 

 Ihe appearance of their farms, if nothing else. 

 They remark, that if clover will grow well, they 

 are satisfied they can make the land rich. 



Have they u^ed lime, and with what efl'ect ? 



Answer. — I do not think they have used lime 



