1835.] 



F ARMEKS' REGISTER. 



113 



and damped tobacco — the mine and overthrow of 

 body and soule ! " 



If "I. E. T." will take the trouble to visit any 

 of the gardens in the city of Washington, espe- 

 cially that of Mr. Jesse Brown, the worthy land- 

 lord and proprietor of the excellent hotel which 

 bears his name, he will learn a thing or two about 

 the culture of celery that will cause him to change 

 his method entirely, unless he happens to be one 

 of those gentlemen, who, if they can say of any 

 thing — "this is my method," will not so much as 

 listen to any other. 



The kind of corn recommended by William 

 Carmichaelj on Wye, Eastern Shore of Mary- 

 land, is evidently the kind lately called "twin-corn" 

 in that state. What he says of Mr. Edward 

 Lloyd's opinion of it makes me sure that it is the 

 same. 



I agree perfectly with "A Radical" from Nor- 

 folk county, as to Ihe lence law; but beg him, and 

 all who think with us on this subject, to bear con- 

 stantly in mind the old adage, "what can't be 

 cured must be endured." If he can suggest any 

 sure method to rid ourselves of that pestilence, 

 demagogueism, we shall soon get rid of the fence- 

 law grievance; but until then, I deem our case ut- 

 terly hopeless. 



With due deference to Dr. Prout and Professor 

 Autenrieth, I must believe that the new plan of 

 the latter lor making bread out of wood ! will ne- 

 ver be available in any country where either 

 wheat, rye, oats, or Indian corn can be made. — 

 Even on the score of economy, I should say, that 

 our old fashioned bread was the cheapest, to say 

 nothing of the difficult}- we Virginians should have 

 in training our grinders to masticate, and our sto- 

 machs to digest wooden bread. "Wooden nut- 

 megs" perhaps, has suggested the idea to the 

 learned professor — if indeed he has ever heard of 

 this ingenious American invention. But to make 

 bread of the same article would be carrying 

 the matter rather too far, in any other region than 

 Lapland. 



Your correspondent "T. B. A." has drawn a 

 most wo-begone picture of the farming in Vir- 

 ginia on land naturally poor, or, as I have heard 

 it called "born poor. 1 ' 1 Of this kind there are 

 thousands of acres in his country — poor enough, 

 as I was once told an Irishman said of certain hills 

 in Stafford, "to make a rat cry." Bad however, 

 as his picture is, I verily believe that it is literally 

 true, and furnishes a case past remedy, unless by 

 the application, which you suggest, of calcareous 

 manures. But these are* attainable only by a com- 

 paratively small portion of the owners of such 

 lands. To let them grow up in wood seems to be 

 the only good use to which they could be applied, 

 as their profitable culture is out of the question. 



There is one part of his letter where he appears 

 (if he will pardon me for saying so,) less at home. 

 1 1 is the paragraph wherein he propounds a ques- 

 tion or two on certain topics of political economy. 

 Had he consulted the most approved writers on 

 this subject, or statistical comparisons of the two 



Vol. Ill— 15 



methods of conducting internal improvements, by 

 private chartered companies, or entirely on state 

 account; or had he availed himself of notorious 

 facts within our own country, applicable to -this 

 subject, I cannot believe that his opinion would 

 have been what here appears. It is well known, 

 for instance, that one of' our sister stales has tried 

 the latter plan until she has involved herself in a 

 debt of some fifteen or twenty millions of dollars, 

 (or works, many of which have been made politi- 

 cal party jobs — given of course to incompetent un- 

 dertakers and superintendents; undertaken some- 

 times where none should have been attempted; 

 and carried on at an expense far exceeding any 

 that a private company or companies ever would 

 have suffered to be incurred. TJiey never, or very 

 rarely indeed, make turnpikes, rail roads, and ca- 

 nals, unless upon the strongest presumptive evi- 

 dence that they will be profitable to themselves, 

 and of course, advantageous to the public; for the 

 two things, like cause and effect, are inseparable. 

 On the other hand, in a country like ours, which is 

 destined, I fear, to be forever governed by political 

 party under one designation or another, almost all 

 matters of internal improvement when underta- 

 ken on public account, are forced to subserve, in 

 locality, in the choice of agents to conduct them, 

 and in the expenditures lavished on them, the 

 popularity of the occupants for the time being, of 

 political power. 



One of your own remarks upon T. B. A's. com- 

 munication furnishes, I think, a strong argument 

 against your apparent preference of the four-shift 

 system to the three-shift system. You call the 

 former "milder;" although you stated that in a 

 certain trial of it for nearly twenty years, "there 

 has been an actual and co-nsiderable lessening of 

 the product. 1 '' 'Tis true you say, "this diminution 

 is supposed to have been caused by the ploughing 

 having been too deep (six inches) for so shallow a 

 soil." But if it was too deep at first, would not 

 the injury have been curing in the frequent rever- 

 sal of such ploughing during the period mention- 

 ed? Query: have the two systems ever been 

 fairly tested and compared by the same persons, on 

 the same soils? All the statements which I have 

 seen, have been ex parte; they have been made 

 by the four-shift advocates, and have generally re- 

 minded me of a tale told upon a certain jocular 

 merchant of the olden time, who tried to persuade 

 a half-witted customer, that his, (the merchant's) 

 fist weighed exactly a pound. The fist, of the 

 four-shift advocate has always been thrust into the 

 scale that he evidently wished should preponder- 

 ate. To try both systems properly, each should 

 exclude grazing; the small-grain fields should be 

 clovered in both, and the manure made on each 

 farm applied in the same manner — say, on the 

 corn land in each. Although the comparisons 

 which I myselfhave made, have not been suffi- 

 ciently numerous and accurate to satisfy myself 

 which system is best, yet they have convinced me 

 that the three-shift plan, if pursued in the best 

 practicable manner, possesses two or three advan- 

 tages which nothing in the four-shift system has 

 counterbalanced — at Jeast_ in any case that has 

 fallen under my observation. I deem myself an 

 impartial judge, because I really have not "com- 

 mitted myself" (as the politicians say,) on 

 either side. These advantages are, that one-third 

 instead of one-fourth o{ the land is always pro- 



