1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



753 



from necessity, what might be veined a pattern 

 farm, would prove to be any thing but an exhibi- 

 tion ol* good and profitable husbandry. Instead of 

 attempting such an establishment, it would be 

 better to make use of, as an additional course of 

 practical instruction, the now existing (arms of 

 many private individuals, which are truly patterns 

 of good and profitable management. Many such 

 farms might be named, deserving this character, in 

 various parts of Virginia. It is evident that no 

 one of them, even ii managed in the most per- 

 fect manner, according to its location, and the pe- 

 culiar circumstances of its proprietor, could serve 

 as a general pattern firm. But one, for example, 

 might exhibit a pattern for clover fallow and wheat 

 culture, on the singular and valuable "red land 1 ' 

 of the Southwest Mountain slopes — another for the 

 same, on the rich, Hat loams of James River— ano- 

 ther, would show the profitable, combination of 

 tillage and grazing west of the Blue Ridge — 

 another, the best mode of tilling and enriching 

 the more sandy lands of Lower Virginia — and all 

 might accord in some common points of resem- 

 blance, in addition to the merit of excellent gene- 

 ral management. The proprietors of such farms 

 might very properly be considered as adjunct and 

 practical professors of agriculture; and would ren- 

 der important, services as such, by each receiving 

 in turn, as pupils, two or three of the young men 

 who had previously passed through the course of 

 theoretical instruction. On these farms, and un- 

 der such instructions, a young man could learn 

 more of practical and profitable agriculture in a 

 few months, than from his own solitary and unas- 

 sisted efforts continued throughout a long life. [B.] 



IV. Another and very important source of in- 

 jury to agriculture is presented in the frequent and 

 extensive changes of the boundaries of (arm?, 

 which are necessarily made by the conflicting "see- 

 saw" operations of our law of descents and law of 

 enclosures — the first, for the purpose of legal divi- 

 sion among heirs, compelling single farms to be 

 cut up into several distinct shares of far less pro- 

 portional value, because each is totally unfit for a 

 single property — and the second, compelling the 

 impoverished owners to sell their shares as they 

 successively come to possession, or can find rich 

 and contiguous purchasers, and thus to form new- 

 ly arranged large farms out of four or five small 

 ones. I mean not here to dispute the alleged po- 

 litical benefits of this cutting-up and piecing sys- 

 tem — nor to inquire whether national liberty and 

 popular rights might not have every existing secu- 

 rity, without paying this ruinous tax, this never 

 en ling tribute from individual and national wealth, 

 for their preservation. It is enough hereto state 

 that this impediment to agricultural prosperity ex- 

 ists — and it. will scarcely be required to maintain 

 the assertion, by argument or illustration. It is 

 not the old and long debated contest as to the 

 comparative advantages of liums being either 

 generally large, or generally small. Both kinds 

 have their respective advantages, and also their 

 disadvantages, and the agricultural interest of the 

 country demands that there should be farms of 

 every size, not too large for one man's superin- 

 tendence, or too small for one man's profitable 

 employment. It is not to the sizes and boundari ss 

 of farms, as existing at any one time, that the ob- 

 jection applies — but to the continual changes of 

 both, not required by the interests and wishes of 



Vol. Ill— 95 



proprietors, but compelled by the operation of law. 

 A well arranged farm, whether large or small, can 

 rarely be divided, or be consolidated with others, 

 without great loss of labor expended for previous 

 arrangements, which are rendered useless by the 

 change of limits. This loss is compensated by 

 no gain whatever, to other individuals, or to the 

 commonwealth. When one-tenth of the value of 

 a farm is destroyed by ils being divided, or of a 

 cluster of distinct farms, by consolidation, (and 

 how rarely is the loss of less amount? — ) that loss 

 is absolute and complete to all parties — to sellers, 

 buyers, and lo the nation — as much so as if one- 

 tenth of the land had been swallowed by an earth- 

 quake. The labors of another generation may, 

 by new improvements, create a new, and even 

 greater value — but cannot recover any part of 

 what was lost. It would be ;'ar better if every 

 farm, which was not divided by the will of its de- 

 ceased owner, was sold entire, with its stock of 

 every kind, and the proceeds divided among the 

 heirs. 



V. The inducement and bounty offered in the 

 cheapness of lands, for emigration, forms another 

 evil of great magnitude to the agriculture and wel- 

 fare of Virginia. Every dollar taken off of the 

 price of the government land in the west, proba- 

 ble serves to take, twice as much from the selling 

 price of ours'. If the present minimum price, $1 

 25 for public lands, was reduced to nothing, the 

 lands ol' inferior quality in Virginia would not sell 

 at all. This long existing, and probably increasing 

 evil, is not only beyond the control of individuals, 

 but also of our state government. We have only 

 to hope for the best, and fear the worst results, in 

 this respect, from the liiture action of the federal 

 government. 



But it is not the cheapness of the new western 

 lands, nor their rich products and profits, that 

 alone would serve to prostrate the prices and esti- 

 mation of ours', and to discourage the most profit- 

 able investments and improvements, ifthese causes 

 were not. given a ten-fold strength by a generally 

 prevailing madness for emigration, compounded 

 of discontent, with the really attainable advan- 

 tages of our native land, and a credulous and too 

 confident faith in the remote and untried blessings 

 that are promised in the west. It is in vain that 

 rich blessings are offered to our acceptance at 

 home, if they are undervalued and despised. The 

 fact cannot be disguised — Virginia is losing by 

 emigration, not only in the population and wealth 

 that are pouring out as a flood, but because what 

 goes out of the state serves to lessen the value of 

 all that is left behind. The most signal improve- 

 ments that have been made in our agriculture, 

 and the greatest profits thence derived, do not 

 cause any general enhancement in the market 

 price of lands, or serve to give a new impulse to 

 general agricultural improvement and prosperity. 

 Such particular improvements have merely served 

 in some measure to stay our downward career, 

 and therefore, their effects, however great and 

 profitable, are not properly estimated, and indeed 

 are not extensively known. Virginia is likely to 

 be reduced to a condition that will need all the pa- 

 triotism, zeal, and talents, of her rem lining sons, 

 to prevent their country becoming waste, and al- 

 most abandoned. 



There is only one little spot in Virginia over 

 which this mania for emigration has not spread 



