1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



263 



parts where tobacco is cultivated, several crops of las possible after harvest; and this is frequently at- 

 ii are taken on first clearing the ground, before any 

 grain is sown upon it; now and then a crop of 



oals intervenes, perhaps instead of wheat, per- 

 haps following it; clover and lucern are yet little 

 known, though there is reason lor supposing thai 

 they- would be as beneficial here, as the first is, in 

 the other states, or perhaps more so; since, on ac- 

 count of the increasing heat of the climate, pas- 

 tures and meadows are more precarious, and less 

 frequent. Where crops of wheat, of not more than 

 five or six bushels per acre, are expected, it is not 

 usual to sow more than half a bushel of seed, and 

 no where in this state more than one bushel. The 

 average of all that part of Virginia- lying east of 

 the Blue Ridge, 1 am satisfied I state at the utmost, 

 at seven bushels per acre; no one states the ave- 

 rage of that extensive flat country in Virginia, 

 lying below the head of the tide, at more than five 

 or six bushels; it therefore requires much better 

 crops in that naturally fertile, but worn out, and 

 not extensive tract of red land, at the foot of the 

 mountains, to raise the average to seven bushels. 

 In those lertile and beautiful vallies that lie among 

 the mountains, in which ignorant cultivators have 

 not yet resided sufficiently long to have entirely 

 exhausted the soil, lavored with a temperate and 

 delightful climate, it yet produces crops equal to 

 any in America; I have reason to believe not less 

 than twelve bushels per acre; but the surface, ca- 

 pable of cultivation, when compared with the rest 

 of Virginia, is very small indeed: with the country 

 beyond them I am unacquainted. The average 

 ol maize, in the eastern part of Virginia, is not to 

 be reckoned at more than fifteen bushels; of the 

 vallies, at twenty bushels; of oats, from one and a 

 half to two bushels of seed to the acre, will be a 

 return of from twenty to thirty. 



All the back country of America is very favo- 

 rable to the growth of rye; crops, producing from 

 twenty to thirty bushels, are commonly met with; 

 this grain is entirely consumed in the distillation 

 of whisky, chiefly for the consumption of the Irish 

 frontier-men, except among the Germans in Penn- 

 sylvania, who use. it for bread. 



Much of the wheat of this state is of a very infe- 

 rior quality, some so bad as scarcely to be of any 

 use, though that which is good, naturally much re- 

 sembles the wheat of Maryland; but the slovenly 

 management of the farmers considerably lessens 

 the value of it 



The use of the flail is scarce known here; al- 

 most, all the wheat is trodden out in the field by 

 horses upon the bare sandy soil, with which much 

 of it gets incorporated, and afterwards is separated 

 from it by sieves, or some other means that an- 

 swer the purpose; the consequence of" this is, that 

 a considerable quantity of dust adheres to the sur 

 face of the grain, and insinuates itself into the 

 groove on one side of it, so that no art can entire- 

 ly clear it away; and thence I am told millers are 

 unable to make superfine flour from Virginian 

 wheat; and on that account, that it bears a price, 

 inferior to what the quality would otherwise de- 

 mand. A weevil, or some other insect, greatly 

 infests the wheat of this state when in the straw, 

 which makes it necessary to tread it out as soon 



tended with inconvenience and loss. In unload- 

 ing the wheat of this state from shipboard, or 

 otherwise working among it in the granaries, the 

 people employed are frequently so affected with a 

 prickling or nettling on the skin, as to be unable to 

 go on with their work, but without being able to 

 account for the cause of it. I recollect a similar 

 circumstance happening, in unloading a vessel la- 

 den with Virginian wheat, some years since at 

 Liverpool, when it was said to be caused by a mi- 

 nute insect. Oats are not extensively cultivated 

 in any part of America, and are every where bad, 

 but those of this state, of the worst possible qual- 

 ity; they have certainly kernel sufficient to enable 

 them to veo-etate, but are, notwithstanding, light 

 as chaff". The cultivated oat appears again re- 

 turning to the. original grass. [ never saw any 

 oats that would be marketable in England, except 

 some in the German tract in Pennsylvania, and 

 they would admit of comparison with such only as 

 Ave should esteem very moderate. 



I am unable to discover how profit is to be de- 

 rived from such crops, unless, that people being 

 actually possessed of the soil, and of the slaves to 

 cultivate it, abandoning all expectation of profit lor 

 their capital, look upon all as nett profit that is re- 

 ceived from the land. The land owners in this 

 state are, with lew exceptions, in low circum- 

 stances; the inferior rank of them wretched in the 

 extreme. The evils of slavery are now rapidly 

 and forcibly recoiling from the slave upon his own- 

 er. Tobacco and maize, which heretofore have 

 been the curse of the slaves, are now, with the 

 slaves, allowed by all men in Virginia, to have 

 been the ruin of themselves and their country: the 

 almost total want of capital, among this descrip- 

 tion of people, forbids all improvement on a great 

 scale, and want of -the knowledge of agriculture, pre- 

 vents its slow but certain progress. To show what 

 some of this land would submit to before it became 

 exhausted, and the mode pursued to accomplish 

 it, I will take the cultivation of a gentleman, pos- 

 sessing a considerable tract of land, originally as 

 fertile as any in nature, on the loot of the Blue 

 Ridge, who complained that much of his estate 

 was worn out. Alter clearing and burning the 

 woods, seven crops of tobacco were taken, in as 

 many years; in some instances, ten crops; four 

 crops of wheat; and ten crops of maize and wheat 

 alternately, in ten years. After twenly-one years, 

 the land refused to yield any more grain; but in a 

 twelvemonth, too benignant nature clothed his 

 property with a malchless sheet of white clover. 



To such modes of cropping, the poverty of the 

 people, and sterility of the soil must be attributed: 

 crops may be seen where each ear, frightened at 

 its neighbor, keeps that awful distance, which 

 would admit of a person's walking through the 

 field without breaking down a stalk, in a climate 

 and soil well calculated for the. produce of wheat. 

 In many of the states, the Hessian fly bears the 

 blame, which, if properly placed, ought to stand to 

 the account of the. ignorant and greedy land owner; 

 but no one pretends to say, that this insect has 

 committed any material (if any) depredations on 

 this state. 



