236 



FAHMEHS' REGISTER. 



[No. 4 



*he foregoing condemnation of slavery should have 

 been admitted to our pages. The former, proba- 

 bly, suppose that southern men and slave-holders 

 fear, and therefore object to, the expression of opin- 

 ions contrary to their own on this subject ; and 

 many in the south, in their violence against north- 

 ern anti-slavery fanaticism, show themselves to be 

 as bigoted and fanatical in opposition, and are dis- 

 posed to regard any expression of such opinions 

 as both insulting and designing injury to them- 

 selves. But we are not of this class. Maintain- 

 ing as we do, and as staunchly as any can do, the 

 rights of slave-holders, both private and political 

 — maintaining too, that the institution of personal 

 slavery, under certain circumstances, (and which 

 are in full operation in the greater part of the south- 

 ern states,) is politic, and proper in itself— main- 

 taining too, that the institution, in general, has 

 been highly beneficial to the world, in increasing 

 labor, wealth, civilization, and refinement, and 

 even in spreading good morals and religion — still, 

 we neither object to others considering these opin- 

 ons as altogether erroneous, nor to their endeavor- 

 ing, by argument and evidence, to sustain their op- 

 posite opinions. Domestic or personal slavery, 

 even upon our own view, like every other wide- 

 spread and widely operating institution, has its evil 

 as well as its good effects ; and in regarding it, 

 perhaps we may allow too little weight to the for- 

 mer, and too much to the latter— just as we deem 

 that our northern correspondent errs in the oppo- 

 site manner. But no matter how erroneous may 

 be his views, and those of his countrymen in gen- 

 eral, on this subject, it is always well for us to 

 learn and know the opinions of intelligent and ob- 

 serving strangers concerning what they may sup- 

 pose to be both the good and the evil of our agri- 

 cultural condition. Their correct views will do us 

 good — the incorrect will certainly do us no harm. 

 Mr. Kenrick is is a nursery- man of extensive 

 business near Boston, and the author of several 

 agricultural and horticultural works, (the 'Ameri- 

 can Orchardist,' 'American Silk-Grower's Guide,' 

 &c.) Until receiving the foregoing letter, the last 

 correspondence which we had had with him oc- 

 curred more than three years ago, when he wrote 

 to ask our advice as to a then novel scheme of his, 

 for establishing his nursery for the morus multicau- 

 lis in lower Virginia, instead of on his own land, 

 and under his own personal direction, in Massa- 

 chusetts. His inducement, stated in his letter, 

 was that he knew that the growth of the multi- 

 caulis of one season in our climate, was equal to 

 that of three, or perhaps more seasons in Massa- 

 chusetts. We concurred in his views, urged his 

 carrying them through, and gave such information 

 as could be offered in aid of his plan. But we 



further urged on him to extend it to the establish- 

 ment of silk-culture in Virginia, and gave such 

 views for it, as have been often stated in the Far- 

 mers' Register, as sufficient inducements to invite 

 northern silk-culturists to settle here. As a strong- 

 er inducement for an establishment, which we even 

 then thought so desirable, both for public and pri- 

 vate interests, in Virginia, we offered, in the same 

 letter, to sell to him, or to a company formed for 

 the purpose of making silk, a marled farm of 600 

 acres of land, and to vest the purchase money in 

 the joint stock ol'the adventurers. We quote from 

 memory, but believe with no material variation 

 from the substance of the letters ; and the opin- 

 ions then 80 expressed, and the investment 

 which we were then (in advance of all other ad- 

 venturers in Virginia) ready to make in silk-cul- 

 ture, if some practical and experienced culturists 

 loould undertake the management, may serve as 

 strong proof, in addition to others of another kind 

 recently adduced, that we have long and earnestly 

 advocated the advantages of silk-culture in this 

 region, and would have risked much of our pro- 

 perty on the soundness of that opinion. It should be 

 observed, that at that time no one anticipated the 

 multicaulis speculation, and the enormous prices 

 which have since been obtained — or counted on 

 profits from so strange a circumstance. For our 

 own part, we had not then theslighest expectation 

 of ever selling a plant from the silk-farm then pro- 

 posed to be established ; and Mr. Kenrick, in his 

 scheme, probably counted on merely making the 

 usual sales and profits of that branch of his gene- 

 ral nursery business, to be increased in product 

 and amount, however, by his availing of our more 

 genial climate. To that operation he limited his 

 following of our advice ; and though at the end of 

 two years, he sold plants (as we have heard from 

 other authority,) from a few acres of land near 

 Richmond, for S 30,000, that enormous profit was 

 a result beyond all previous calculations, and 

 for which we claim no credit in having encouraged 

 the scheme by our advice. As we failed in in- 

 ducing the commencement of silk-culture as the 

 main object, we cared nothing about the mulber- 

 ry culture alone ; and did not then set out a single 

 plant, nor until a year afterwards, when it was 

 caused by accident, and not by design, or by cal- 

 culations of profit. 



It was under these circumstances that Mr. Ken- 

 rick became a cultivator to some extent in Vir- 

 ginia, though still continuing a resident of Massa- 

 chusetts; and we have thought that the statement, 

 though a digression, might be interesting and 

 useful, as exhibiting, in a strong light, the practi- 

 cal proof of the superiority of our climate. For 

 the adventurer has not only labored under all the 



