660 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 11 



in my self-satisfied estimate of my own better in- 

 formation and plans. 



Just about the time that ray business as a culti- 

 vator was commenced, Col. John Taylor's 'Ara- 

 tor' was published ; and never has any book on 

 agriculture been received with so much enthusi- 

 astic applause, nor has any other had such wide- 

 spread early efl'ects in affecting opinion, and stim- 

 ulating to exertion and improvement. The ground 

 had before no occupant, and therefore this work 

 had to contend with no rival. Tlie larger land- 

 owners, of lower Virginia especially, had pre- 

 viously treated their own proper employment, and 

 their only source of income, with total neglect; 

 and very few country gentlemen took any personal 

 and regular direction of their larming operations. 

 It was considered enough for them to hire over- 

 seers, (and that class then was greatly inferior in 

 grade and respectibility to what it is now,) and to 

 leave the daily superintendence to them entirely. 

 The agricultural practices, and also the products, 

 were consequently, and almost universally, at a 

 very low ebb. The work of Taylor appeared 

 when these evils had become manifest ; and it was 

 received with a welcome which in warmth was pro- 

 portioned to the magnitude of the evil, and to the 

 exaggeration of the promises of speedy and efl'ec- 

 tual remedy which the author made, with so much 

 good faith no doubt, but which proved any thing 

 but true to the great majority of his sanguine fol- 

 lowers. 



Of course, I vt^as among the most enthusiastic 

 admirers of'Arator;' and not only received as 

 sound and true every opinion and precept, but 

 even went beyond the author's intention, (per- 

 haps,) and applied his rales for tillage to lands of 

 surface and soil altogether different from the level 

 and originally rich sandy soils of the Rappahan- 

 nock, where his labors and system had been so 

 euccessful. However, this error was by no means 

 confined to myself; for his other disciples fully as 

 much misunderstood the directions, and misap- 

 plied the practices. 



It was my main object to enrich my then very 

 poor land ; and, for that, Taylor offered means that 

 seemed to be sure and epeedy. According to his 

 views, it was only necessary to protect the arable 

 land from all grazing, and thus let the vegetable 

 cover of the land, when resting, serve as manure — 

 to plough deep, and in ridges — to convert all the 

 cornstalks and other ofTal to manure, and plough it 

 under, unrotted, for the corn — to put the farm un- 

 der clover, as fast as manured — and the result 

 ■would be sure. I hoped at first to bp. able to ma- 

 nure, say 10 to 15 acres a year, very heavily, with 

 the barn-yard manure, and expected that such 

 manuring would give a crop of 50 bushels of corn 

 to the acre. The space, so enriched when in the 

 succeeding crop, of wheat, would be laid under 

 clover — and its acquired productivenes be made 

 permanent, by the lenient rotation of two crops 

 only taken from the land in four years. But utter 

 disappointment followed. The manure was put 

 on the poorest (and naturally poor) land; and it 

 produced very little of the expected effect in the 

 first course of crops, and was scarcely to be per- 

 ceived on the second. Clover could not be made 

 to live on land of this kind ; and even on much 

 belter, or where more enriched, was a very pre- 

 carious crop, and which, where the growth was 

 best, certainly yielded the entire occupancy of the 



ground to natural weeds after one year. The 

 general non-grazing of the fields under grass, or ra- 

 ther under weeds, produced no visible enriching ef- 

 fect, and the ploughing of hilly land (as mine most- 

 ly was,) into ridges, caused the most destructive 

 washing away of the soil by heavy rains. These 

 results were not speedily made manifest; and be- 

 fore being convinced of their certainty, I had la- 

 bored for four or five years in using these means 

 of supposed improvement of the soil, but all of 

 which proved either profitless, entirely useless, or 

 absolutely and in soine cases greatly injurious. 

 And even after trying to avoid the first known er- 

 rors, and using all other supposed means for giv- 

 ing durable and increasing fertility to my worn 

 and poor fields, at the end of six years, instead of 

 having already achieved great improvement, I 

 was compelled to confess that no part of my poor 

 land was more productive than when my labors 

 commenced, and that on much of it, a tenfold in- 

 crease had been made of the previously large space 

 of galled and gullied hill-sides and slopes. 



When more correct opinions had been formed in 

 after time of the actual condition and requirements 

 of such poor soils, it seemed an astonishing delu- 

 sion that would have been altogether ludicrous 

 but tor its serious effects, that I should have counted 

 on so much improving such a soil, and by such 

 means. With the exception of a small part near 

 the river banks, (perhaps one-fifth of the then 

 cleared and cultivated land,) which had been 

 originally of very fine quality, and, however abused 

 and exhausted, was still good land, the farm gen- 

 erally consisted of a soil of sandy loam,usually about 

 three inches deep, and through which a single-horse 

 plough could easily penetrate and turn up the barren 

 and more sandy subsoil. Grazing the fields, when 

 not under tillage, had been the practice, and un- 

 der it, very little growth was to be seen except the 

 light and diminutive "hen's-nest grass," which 

 formed the almost universal cover of the poor 

 fields of lower Virginia, in the intervals between 

 tillage. Add to these circumstances of very poor 

 and shallow soil, and barren and sandy subsoil, and 

 almost no vegetable cover to turn under, that every 

 field was more or less hilly, and liable to be washed 

 by heavy rains — and the judicious reader will see 

 nothing but false confidence and ignorance dis- 

 played in my bold adoption of Taylor's system. 

 Nor was I convinced of my error until after nearly 

 all the fields had been successively thrown into 

 ridges by two-horse ploughs, and all the hilly and 

 more slightly inclined surface had been awfully 

 washed and gullied, by the exposure of the loose 

 subsoil to the action of the streams of rain-water. 



While these my supposed measures of improve- 

 ment were in progress, I was in habits of frequent 

 and familiar intercourse with my oldest and best 

 friend, and former guardian, Thomas Cocke, who 

 resided then on his Aberdeen farm, and since and 

 now on Tarbay, adjoining my own land. My 

 friend was a man for whose mind and mental culti- 

 vation I could not but entertain a very high esti- 

 mation. But, though all his life a practical and 

 assiduous cultivator, and finding his greatest plea- 

 sure in his farming labors, he yet was a careless, 

 slovenly, and bad manager, and of course an un- 

 profitable fiirmer. Therefore, on this subject I 

 held in but light esteem the opinions which he 

 held opposed to my own. One of these, (and 

 which he had first gathered from some old and ig- 



