1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



685 



any expense, and thus enable the government to 

 pay contractors less, and postmasters more, than 

 they do at present. At the same time they will 

 relieve the public lrom a heavy burthen. Exempli 

 Gratia. Pennsylvania is about to advance money 

 to some amount to her canals: New York the 

 same: New Jersey virtually the same. What 

 is to prevent then, annexing this condition to their 

 acts? 



I wish an early and immediate attention to be 

 paid to the request about the survey and the mail, 

 and shall feel obliged by your exertion in ils favor 

 with your congressional friends, and through them 

 with their correspondents in the different state le- 

 gislatures. And I would hope tor the relinquish- 

 ment of the opposition to the Lynchburg and the 

 Weldon Rail Roads, and the adoption of those of 

 which I have spoken. 



ADDRESS TO THE AGRICULTURAL, CONVEN- 

 TION OF VIRGINIA. 



Delivered by the President, James Barbour, Esq., 

 in the Hall of the House of Delegates, 1836. 



Communicated for publication in the Fa' mers' Register by re- 

 quest of the general committee of the Convention. 



Gentlemen — For the kindness you have vouch- 

 safed to me in calling me to preside over your de- 

 liberations, I return my thanks, and assure you 

 in sincerity, that there is no distinction to me more 

 grateful, than that of standing well with the tillers 

 of the earth. To this station custom has assigned 

 the duty of explaining the object of our meeting: 

 with your leave, I will proceed to its fulfilment. 

 You will have to content yourselves with a desul- 

 tory discourse, from one long disused to public 

 speaking — and whose only pursuit for years past, 

 has been the superintendence of the plough. 



A general conviction exists, that the system of 

 our agriculture, as well as the general condition 

 of Virginia, especially this side the Blue Moun- 

 tains, are far below the level to which they are 

 entitled. 



I should indeed have lived to little purpose, had 

 I not long since have known how infinitely more 

 agreeable it is, alike to the speaker and to the au- 

 dience, to descant on a palmy state of prosperity, 

 than to give utterance to the Jeremiads on misfor- 

 tunes — as different indeed as between the cry of 

 the warder on the tower of some beleagued city 

 that "all is well," and the fearful note that "the 

 Philistines are upon thee." Standing here as the 

 organ of the tillers of the earth, whose deep sense 

 of the existing and increasing calamities of their 

 country have gathered together, I should ill repay 

 the confidence wherewith I have been honored, did 

 I not fearlessly perform the duty assigned me — and 

 take for my example the good physician, who 

 probes, (careless of the pain he produces, if ne- 

 cessary) the wound he has been called to cure — 

 and applies the proper remedy — though it should 

 be the severe one of the cautery, or the knife. In 

 this spirit I shall proceed. 



What is the condition of our country? In 

 answer to this, I call your attention to a spec- 

 tacle, without an example in any other part of the 

 globe. Vast regions, once the abode of a numer- 



ous population, of plenty, and of social happiness, 

 have, been re-committed to the forest — and their 

 original inhabitants, the wild beasts, re-established 

 in their primitive dominion. That a result of this 

 kind has occurred where a barbarous conqueror, 

 Attila like, has swept the lace of the country with 

 the besom of desolation, or where dread mis- 

 rule has caused the population to recede before 

 the rod of the oppressor is true — but in no in- 

 stance where the hoof of the conqueror has not 

 defiled the land, and where peace and freedom 

 have held undisturbed sway, as in our case, has 

 such a thing occurred. Other large portions of 

 the commonwealth — though not in this extreme 

 condition — still present the most discouraging pros- 

 pects — wasted fields, houses threatening their in- 

 habitants with their fall — and depopulated dis- 

 tricts—while our people by thousands and tens of 

 thousands, are leaving us, as they hope, to better 

 their condition — and these evils are daily in- 

 creasing. When and how these great mischiefs 

 are to be stayed in their career, are questions that 

 address themselves with an irresistible pathos to 

 every lover of his mother land. We have met to- 

 gether to ponder on these fearful questions — to in- 

 terchange our views and opinions, and to contrib- 

 ute our share to their remedy — ifj indeed, remedy 

 be possible; this is the object, and the only object 

 of our meeting. 



In pursuit of this, it is indispensable that we 

 should discover, if we can, the probable causes of 

 the ills we deplore. To refer to them all would be 

 beyond the occasion; to point to those the most 

 prominent will be all I shall undertake — leaving 

 others, without a comment, to the intelligence of 

 the Convention. 



Were I to select the most disastrous of all the 

 causes which have contributed to our misfortunes, I 

 would say at once, it was the lack of capacity of pro- 

 prietors to manage their estates. Instead of per- 

 sonally superintending them, with the qualification 

 essential to such a situation, they have deputed 

 their management to hireling superintendents, not 

 unfrequently as ignorant as themselves — and to 

 complete their ruin, have paid these hirelings with 

 a share of the crop. These, as was natural, look- 

 ed only to the present year — the future being left 

 to take care of itself. The lands capable of pro- 

 ducing, were annually cultivated till exhausted; 

 improvements of every kind neglected, and in ef- 

 fect, the whole country by this simple process 

 was as though it had been under an annual rack- 

 rent — with no restrictions on the tenants, and with 

 no supervision by the proprietors. Now, were we 

 told of a country that had been tenanted out in 

 this wise for two centuries, it would be no matter 

 of surprise to us to be told further that it presented 

 one wide field of desolation. Such, in effect, has 

 been our system, and such have been its effects. 

 In support of this view, we have only to refer to 

 instances where a contrary course has been pur- 

 sued; where an intelligent proprietor has superin- 

 tended in person his own estate, and where almost 

 invariably, the result has presented the most pal- 

 pable contrast to the waste and desolation grow- 

 ing out of the former custom. While these ex- 

 ceptions (and I am sorry they are so rare,) prove 

 the justness of the position I have advanced, they 

 furnish at the same time, a well grounded hope, 

 that if the latter practice could become general, it 

 would tend much to repair the injuries of whicn 



