22 CALCAREOUS MANURES-THEORY. 



cumstances, a surplus population, with all its deplorable consequences, is 

 only prevented by the great current of emigration which is continually 

 flowing westward. No matter who emigrates, or with what motive — the 

 enterprising or wealthy citizen who leaves us to seek richer lands and 

 greater profits, and the slave sold and carried away on account of his 

 owner's poverty — all concur in producing the same result, though with very 

 different degrees ol" benefit to those who remain. If this great and con- 

 tinued drain from our population was stopped, and our agriculture was not 

 improved, want and misery would work to produce the same results. 

 Births would diminish, and deaths would increase; and hunger and disease, 

 operating here as in other countries, would keep down population to that 

 number that the average products of our agricultural and other productive 

 labor could feed, and supply with the other necessary means for living. 



A stranger to our situation and habits might well oppose to my state- 

 ments the very reasonable objection, that no man would, or could, long pur- 

 sue a system of cultivation of which the returns fell short of his expenses, 

 including rent of land, hire of labor, intei*est on the necessary capital, &c. 

 Very true ; if he had to pay those expenses out of his profits, he would 

 soon be driven from his farm to a jail. But we own our land, our laborers, 

 and stock; and though the calculation of net profit, or of loss, is precisely 

 the same, yet we are not ruined by making only two per cent, on our capi- 

 tal, provided we can manage to live on that income. If we live on still 

 less, we are actually growing richer, (by laying up a part of our two per 

 cent.,) notwithstanding the most clearly proved regular loss on our farming. 



Our condition has been so gradually growing worse, that we are either 

 not aware of the extent of the evil, or are in a great measure reconciled 

 by custom to profitless labor. No hope for a better state of things can be 

 entertained, until we shake off this apathy — this excess of contentment, 

 which makes no effort to avoid existing evils. I have endeavored to ex- 

 pose what is worst in our situation as farmers ; if it should have the effect 

 of arousing any of my countrymen to a sense of the absolute necessity of 

 some improvement, to avoid ultimate ruin, I hope also to point out to some 

 of their number, if not to all, that the means for certain and highly profitable 

 improvements are completely within their reach. 



The cultivators of eastern Virginia derive a portion of their income from 

 a source quite distinct from their tillage — and which, though it often forces 

 them to persist in their profitless farming, yet also, in some measure, con- 

 ceals, and is generally supposed to compensate for its losses. This source 

 of income is, the breeding and selling of slaves ; of which, r(though the 

 discussion of this point will not be undertaken here,) I cannot concur in the 

 general opinion that it is also a source of profit. 



It is not meant to convey the idea that any person undertakes as a re- 

 gular business the breeding of slaves with a view to their sale; but whether 

 it is so intended or not, all of us, without exception, are acting some part in 

 aid of a general system, which taken altogether is precisely what I have 

 named. No man is so inhuman as to breed and raise slaves, to sell off" a 

 certain proportion regularly, as a western drover does with his herds of 

 cattle. But sooner or later the general result is the same. Sales may be 

 made voluntarily, or by the sheriff"— they may be met by the first owner, 

 or delayed until the succession of his heirs— or the misfortune of being sold 

 may fall on one parcel of slaves, instead of another ; but all these are but 

 different ways of arriving at the same genei^al and inevitable result. With 

 plenty of wholesome though coarse food, and under such mild treatment 

 as our slaves usually experience, they have every inducement and facility 

 to increase their numbers with all possible rapidity, without any opposing 



