THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



Vol. in. 



FEBRUARY, 1836. 



No. 10. 



EDMUND RUFFI.X, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 



For the Fanners' Register. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT AND 

 PROFITABLE CULTURE OF POOR LAND. 



To t. b. a. of Caroline. 



Dear Sir — - 



The strongest sympathies are said to arise from 

 community of suffering; if this be true, you and 1 

 should be friends. Your communication in the 

 March No. of the Register, produced so mucfi in- 

 terest, that I commenced a loiter to you goon after 

 reading it. Being interrupted by business, it was 

 lost while in an unfinished state. But the interest 

 has been kept up, and incog, as you are, I still 

 feel disposed to address you, although conscious 

 that my letter will contain little worthy of notice, 

 besides an expression of good feeling. 



The detail of your situation so exactly depicted 

 my own, except in small matters of time and lo- 

 cality, that some of my friends suspected me of 

 writing ir. I too am a poor land farmer, and fo! 

 low a profession which requires that I keep horses 

 not used in the plough — more of them, I fear, than 

 I manage to render profitable. If, however, I 

 were the owner of the richest lands, my feelings 

 of regard would be called forth towards him, who 

 rnight be striving to leant the means of fertilizing 

 the extensive portions of our state, which are im- 

 poverished, and which have, as yet, defied efforts 

 at improvement. 



While I fully subscribe to nearly all the doctrines 

 of the Editor of the Farmers 1 Register in relation 

 to the constitution of soils, my first thoughts, ou 

 reading his remarks, and those of "Commentator" 

 on your communication in the MarQh No., were of 

 Job s comforters. By this, I by no means intend 

 disparagement on either of these gentlemen, my 

 feelings of regard for the first of whom I would 

 not attempt to express, in his own periodical; and 

 the latter I suspect to be a gentleman, to whom 



—a happy and virtuous people. Prove that this 

 can be done, and it will be the most effectual mode 

 of arresting the awful tide of emigration, going 

 on from our beloved land. And if it cannot be 

 dime without calcareous manures, we should, with 

 all possible despatch, construct rail roads to the 

 most convenient points for obtaining them. "Don't 

 give up lite ship." 



When 1 suggest some steps towards effecting 

 an object so desirable, (however dogmatic, for the 

 sake of brevity, may he my manner,) I beg you 

 not to suspect me of the vanity of aiming to in- 

 struct my incognito friend, from whom I should 

 lie glad to learn. Through you, I address many, 

 some of whom may meet a useful suggestion. 

 But lest my suggestions should prove like the 

 Frenchman's dinner, too short for the long grace 

 preceding it. 1 will wave further introduction. 



In attempting to improve our soils, we should 

 never forget, that the great defect in their consti- 

 tution, consists in a deficiency of calcareous mat- 

 ter; this should lead us — 



1. To seek out, at all times, every available 

 mode of supplying such matter. 



2. To diffuse manures over our fields, accord- 

 ing to their powers of retention, or their natural 

 grade of fertility, recollecting that the redundant 

 manure applied to any spot, beyond its power of 

 retention, will be converted into gas, and escape 

 as soon as complete decomposition occurs. This 

 evaporation takes place also (though more slowly) 

 in calcareous soils, rendering occasionally melio- 

 rating crops necessary, to prevent its injury. Our 

 soils need greater attention to such crops, as from 

 them evaporation is more rapid. 



3. We should remember that a soil defective 

 in calcareous matter, is, according to the degree of 

 that defect, less adapted to the production of grain, 

 and grasses producing granular seed, and the bet- 



r ■ tited to the growth of weeds. The truth of 

 the first clause of this proposition is indisputable. 



(though personally unacquainted with him,) I Every kind of grain, and especially wheat, is 

 that I owed much, both lor h po-| pro j uceiJ ;,-, g rea ter quantity and with greater cer- 



litical and agricultural writings 



When the great question arises, "should 

 tempts to improve the lands in Virginia, naturally 

 poor, and denied the benefit of calcareous ma- 

 nures, be relinquished?" too much is invol 

 treat it lightly, or fo form hasty conclusions. 

 Some of the finest specimens of populai 

 earth may be found in various parts of Vir 

 on lands "born poor." Perhaps the nece. 

 exertion, produced by this poverty of soil, has 

 contributed to the improvement of their morals. 

 I would not argue from this, that poverty of soil is al- 

 ways a blessing. But that, like many other evils 

 in this world, it may be converted into the means 

 of doing good, if connected with proper disposi- 

 tions in those who have to contend with it. The 

 same people, on the same soils, if they could dis- 

 cover any mode of more extensively improving 

 them, would improve with them. But here is the 

 dilnculty. Can poor lands be improved without 

 calcareous manures, on a scale sufficiently exten- 

 sive to render them the abiding places of a thriving 

 Vol. Ill— 73 



tainty, on calcareous lands. The latter clause is 

 equally clear to observation, and, possibly, very 



ant inferences may be drawn from it. We 



find that fepge corners, and other places so much 



i with weeds id Eastern Virginia, are al- 



lear of them in the neutral soils of the Val- 

 ley. No land yields more luxuriant tobacco than 

 that covered with tHe heaviest coat of broom- 

 s'.raw, if properly manured. This weed grows 

 also in its higlr st perfection, in some districts, 

 which yield nothing else well, now cultivated. 

 Chapfal, while treating of the cultivation of woad, 

 (Isatis FinctoriG,) a weed raised in France, from 

 which indigo is extracted, observes — "The nature 

 of the manure which is employed in the culture 

 of woad exerts a powerful influence, not only upon 

 the vegetation of the plant, but upon the quantity 

 ■and quality of its coloring principle. 



"The manures which consist of well decompo- 

 sed animal and vegetable substances are the best, 

 and for this reason, night soil, the dung of she r o 

 and cows, the decayed fragments of woo! and silk 



