48 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No.l. 



to remain unenclosed has always appeared to me 

 as a very preposterous one. In those countries 

 where the law of enclosures is not known, and 

 where fencing is infinitely more expensive than 

 with us, their arable lands are all carefully en- 

 closed. Conceive for a moment, a country inter- 

 cepted in every direction by public roads, filled 

 constantly with travellers and way-faring men. It 

 would be impossible under such circumstances, to 

 determine whether depredation, upon the unpro- 

 tected crops of the country were the result of ac- 

 cident or design. A drove of hogs or bullocks 

 would fill the country with consternation and dis- 

 may. The adoption of such a system would in- 

 deed be a happy contrivance tor the drover. It 

 would save him the expense of feeding his stock 

 from the time he passes the Virginia border until 

 he sells out. When the supplies on one route have 

 been exhausted he will lake another: and when 

 the highways have failed, he will take to the by- 

 ways. And after he has thus consumed the 

 whole growing crop of the state, he will then sell 

 his meat at his own price, to the very people at 

 whose expense it had been fattened. 



It would be in vain to talk of legal restrictions 

 and penalties: they would have no other effect 

 than that of throwing the charges incident to such 

 restrictions upon the shoulders of the buyer. Or 

 of putting a final stop to the importation of live 

 stock. 



We insist that agricultural reform calls for no 

 legislative enactment. The existing legal policy 

 throws no obstruction whatever in the way of the 

 individual who sincerely wishes to place his stock 

 management upon a profitable fooling. And we 

 feel constrained to condemn all such attemps on 

 the part of the legislature as gratuitous and un- 

 called for; and as oppressive in the extreme to the 

 whole body of small farmers who constitute so 

 large a portion of the agricultural community. 



The foregoing remarks 'were suggested by an 

 editorial essay on the law of enclosures, in the 

 March number of the Register. We concur 

 fully with the author in the impolicy and injustice 

 of giving legislative preference to any particular 

 branch of industry. But when he asserts that 

 the law of enclosures is of this description we 

 beg leave to put in our humble dissent. This 

 law says he "and its effects exhibit a striking ex- 

 ample of the long continued operation of the pre- 

 ference given by our law to the business of cattle- 

 raising at the expense of grain raising — of a pre- 

 ference of grazing to tillage." We think that by 

 referring to the circumstances which have given 

 rise to these laws they will be found to have their 

 origin in motives directly opposite to those ascribed 

 by the author. 



It is a fact familiar to every tobacco planter at 

 least, that the annual clearings which he finds lei- 

 sure to make, are utterly inadequate to his imme- 

 diate demands. We speak advisedly when we 

 assert, that according to the practice which pre- 

 vails upon tobacco estates no planter expects to 

 release any part of his arable land until it has 

 been cultivated at least eight or ten years in suc- 

 cession. We will explain the "modus operandi." 

 And as the history of a single plantation will an- 

 swer for that of every other, we will take, for in- 

 stance, one of 500 acres, with a complement of ten 

 hands. To each of these hands, the planter will 

 assign 15 acres for annual cultivation; if he has a 



sufficient quantity of open land. The size of his 

 whole crop will then be 150 acres; 20 of these are 

 allotted to his tobacco, the remainder to his grain 

 crop. All the newly cleared lands are invariably 

 assigned to his tobacco, the first year they are cul- 

 tivated: and where the lands are very good, 

 they are tended in this crop at least three years in 

 succession. This practice relieves the planter 

 from the necessity of clearing land for his entire 

 tobacco crop; which he cannot do, and tend a full 

 crop of grain at the same time. Upon estates 

 where a great portion of the lands have been 

 opened, the annual "clearings" hardly ever ex- 

 ceed half an acre to the hand. But as our re- 

 marks have reference to rather an earlier period of 

 operation, we will take it at a stage when they can 

 accomplish at least a full acre each. At this rate 

 then ten hands will be employed fifteen years in 

 opening as much land as is allowed usually for 

 annual cultivation. We have reduced the period 

 to eight or ten years, because the three or four first 

 years of settling a plantation are devoted almost 

 entirely to the labor of clearing and fencing, as 

 preparatory steps to the introduction of regular 

 and systematic operations. 



So then for the first ten years there is no open 

 land to be spared for pasturnge. By this time the 

 fields that were first cleared are so much exhaust- 

 ed as to stand eminently in need of a little respite, 

 if indeed they are not already irretrievably gone. 

 In the mean time stock must be raised, .During 

 our earlier history the forest afforded an ample re- 

 source. Common interest dictated <he propriety 

 of enclosing all the arable land in order to secure 

 the benefits of the tooocls range. And the legisla- 

 ture aimed at nothing more than to restrain the 

 abuses to which the common worm fence of the 

 country was liable. 



But we will follow the history of the 500 acres 

 farther, and see if there is any subsequent circum- 

 stance which can justify the inference of the au- 

 thor, that pasturage is preferred to tillage. We 

 have seen that arable lands are consigned through 

 necessity, to eight or ten years of constant cultiva- 

 tion. After this period, the three-field system is 

 gradually introduced: viz. first year corn; second 

 oats, or other small grain; third, rest, with pastur- 

 age: a eystem for a long time the boast of our 

 agriculture, and the ultimate object, to which the 

 eifforts of the planter were directed with the most 

 anxious solicitude. It was indeed found eminent- 

 ly serviceable to stock raising, but it w T as ultimate- 

 ly discovered that lands deteriorated almost as fast 

 under this system as they did from annual cultiva- 

 tion. Many planters, especially those upon thin 

 lands, were therefore induced to relieve their lands 

 altogether from the hoofj and to devote them ex- 

 clusively to the purposes of tillage. And as a se- 

 curity against ihe temptation to pasturage whilst 

 cross fences existed, they w T ere removed, and the 

 rails appropriated to strengthening the outward 

 enclosure. A number of planters however still 

 persist in the three-fie'd system. Others again 

 have established standing pastures. But under 

 every system yet adopted in the tobacco region, 

 there is some radical defect which compels the 

 planter to resort to the importation of live stock 

 to supply deficiencies. This is a succinct but 

 true history of agricultural operations, wherever 

 at least the tobacco culture has been introduced. 

 And we discover in every circumstance connected 



