1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



233 



For the Fanners' Register. 



NOTES OF A HASTY VIEW OF THE SOIL AND 

 AGRICULTURE OF PART OF THE COUNTY 

 OF NORTHAMPTON. 



The county of Northampton, which forms the 

 lower part of the peninsula called the Eastern 

 Shore of Virginia, presents a remarkable appear- 

 ance of uniformity, in the level surface and gene- 

 ral qualities of the soil, and in the mode of tillage 

 and general management. The land has but little 

 elevation above the water which almost surrounds 

 it; and the level of the surface is rarely changed 

 so much as to effect tillage or labor injuriously — 

 and nothing deserving to be called a hill is found 

 any where, unless the abruptly rising (though low) 

 borders of creeks be so designated. The soil is 

 universally sandy, and differs very little in texture 

 or appearance, and is not more than three or four 

 inches deep. On the bay side, below the sandy 

 subsoil, there is generally a yellowish clay, lying 

 from twelve to sixteen inches below the surface, 

 and which is open enough to permit the filtration 

 through of rain water. Below the clay is a barren 

 white sand. The clay is generally deficient en- 

 tirely elsewhere, or is not found within several 

 feet of the surface. The rate of fertility, though 

 made different by nature, and still more so by the 

 difference of treatment under tillage, is yet more 

 uniform than any other considerable tract which I 

 have observed. No one acre seems to have been 

 very far below the medium grade of natural pro- 

 ductiveness, and not many are very much above 

 it. No land was seen which appeared half as 

 rich as the best soils west of the Chesapeake — 

 and none as poor as the worst — which are i'ar more 

 abundant than the rich, on both sides of the bay. 



Flat and narrow as the county is, (the mainland 

 varying between two and eight miles in width,) 

 there is a central ridge of a little more elevation, 

 and of worse and poorer soil than the lands on the 

 bay and the sea side. Of the two last, the lands 

 on the bay are generally the best. But a very 

 large proportion of all the lands lie on the bay and 

 the Atlantic Ocean, or on the creeks and inlets. 

 It is said, that there are very few farms in the 

 county distant more than a mile from navigable 

 water. This is an immense advantage enjoyed 

 by the farmers — and another connected with it is, 

 that every Atlantic market is open to their choice. 

 A string of long, narrow and low islands, barely 

 separated from each other by inlets, serve to pro- 

 tect the mainland from the fury of the ocean, and 

 in the navigable sounds, between eight to twelve 

 miles wide, keep comparatively smooth water, 

 when the wind is producing awful effects at the 

 distance of but a few miles. These islands are 

 part of the chain which reaches from Florida to 

 Delaware, and offers between it and the mainland, 

 a safe inland navigation for stout sea vessels, which 

 is scarcely interrupted by too shallow water, or too 

 open sea, during the whole distance. 



The waters bordering on and intersecting North- 

 ampton, are not more valuable for navigation, than 

 l'or furnishing in great plenty and variety, fish and 

 wild fowl. The greatest delicacies for the table 

 which salt water yields, are here common and 

 cheap: and coarse fish, which are prized in our 

 fresh waters, are here caught in such numbers, 

 that they form a valuable resource for manure, 



Vol. Ill— 30 



which a few enterprising farmers have already 

 begun to profit by using. 



Though the soil is sandy, andalmost universally 

 so, it is less so than is generally reported. I saw 

 but little land that seemed as sandy as much of 

 the county of Surry — and the greater portion of 

 the soil is not more sandy than part of Lower 

 Weyanoke in Charles City, the farm of the late 

 Fielding Lewis, which, since being limed, is so 

 productive under wheat, as well as in the crops 

 more suited to light land. Yet scarcely any wheat 

 is made in Northampton — and from the very few 

 trials of this crop on a small scale, it has been 

 decided generally, (and no doubt correctly,) that 

 the soil is quite unfit for the profitable growth of 

 that crop. The use of lime, or other calcareous 

 manure, would probably remove the existing ob- 

 stacle to wheat culture: though even then it might 

 not be so profitable as the crops now preferred. 

 Wheat has been often raised with sufficient suc- 

 cess to encourage the farmer to persevere in the 

 culture. But he has invariably found that there 

 was a great diminution of product when wheat 

 was sown a second time on the same land, in its 

 proper turn in the rotation. I have heard of a like 

 result on the sandy land of Sussex, as ascertained 

 by two rounds of the rotation of a very intelligent 

 practical farmer. 



The rotation of Northampton, which may be 

 almost said to be universal, is 1st, corn — 2nd, 

 oats — and so on every year as long as Cultivation 

 is continued on the same land — and that has 

 been known to be, on some fields, and those 

 never manured at all, for more than sixty years. 

 The only material variations are in the manage- 

 ment of the land in the interval of time between 

 reaping and stacking the oat crop, and ploughing 

 the land in the next winter, or early part of spring, 

 for the succeeding crop .of corn. Some very lew 

 larmers permit no grazing: a greater number 

 graze during that whole time, but not so closely 

 but that much of the volunteer growth of vege- 

 table matter remains to be turned into the earth 

 by the plough. The others, and they are the far 

 greater number, graze as closely as can be done 

 by all their live stock. Some even believe that 

 the closest grazing is most beneficial, and leave 

 the fences down that their fields may be a com- 

 mon pasture for all the roaming stock of the 

 neighborhood, between the removal of the oats 

 and the beginning of preparation lor corn. Ten or 

 twelve years continuation of this latter practice, 

 in at least one case, has not served to prove so 

 satisfactorily, to the individual who has pursued it, 

 the evil of tire practice, as to put a stop to it. But 

 the grazing in general, is not so close as might be 

 supposed from the unrestrained access of each far- 

 mer's live stock, because their number is kept 

 small by the nature of the land and mode of til- 

 lage. There is but little grazing land before the 

 oat harvest — and the products of live stock, as 

 well as their numbers, are smaller than usual 

 elsewhere. This fault in their husbandry, (as it 

 may be considered in one respect,) perhaps has 

 saved the fields from exhaustion. 



Whoever may for the first time hear this rota- 

 tion described, will be ready to pronounce it as 

 having been devised and commenced in ignorance, 

 and carried on in direct and manilest opposition to 

 all the established principles of agricultural science 

 — and that persisting in it lor any considerable 



