THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



681 



exertions in its behalf? I am eiire you will an- 

 6vver ye?. Give me then your aid, jiive me your 

 hearty co-operation, ami we shall soon make the 

 Asiricultural Sucieiy of Fredericksburg, what every 

 association of the kind ouirht to ho, the prolific 

 Bource ol' increasins: propperiiy to every trride, 

 profession and calling within the sphere of iis 

 influence. 



Can there be a man who ever reflected a mo- 

 ment on (he subject, prepared to deny the verity 

 of this brief eulogium on our profession'? Il 

 there ie, I have never yet met with iiim. Where- 

 fore then, it may reasonably be staked, does the 

 belief in its truth have so little influence on the 

 great majority of its followers? I will endeavor 

 to tell you why. They are not only ignorant of 

 its inseparable connexion with all the great in- 

 terests of society, of the direct dependence of 

 some, and the indirect dependence of others of 

 these great interests upon aaricultural prosperity, 

 but ihey Ibllovv their profession, not so much from 

 choice, as because their parents have been culti- 

 vators of the soil, and have made them eo, not 

 only without consulting their inclination or aptitude 

 for such business, but without giving them any i 

 preparatory education to fit them for it. The con- t 

 sequence in most of these cases is, either an j 

 actual distaste to their profession, or a total apathy 

 in regard to the various means of improving in] 

 the knowledge and practice thereof I 



Another reason is, that becoming possessors { 

 of a worn- out soil, (for the fathers of such sons I 

 are generally land skinners,) and knowing no- j 

 thing of the science of agriculture, they are inca- 

 pable of so practising the art, as to inspire them ; 

 with any reasonable hope of renovating their | 

 lands in such a manner as soon to render them i 

 a source of great and increasing profit. They j 

 are utterly incredulous as to the capacity of these 

 exhausted soils for improvement, the only means 

 generally known to them being lew in number i 

 and small in proportion to the necessity of the ! 

 case, and therefore such as they deem it hardly | 

 worth while to attempt to apply. This produces 

 — first lukewarmness, next despondency, and this j 

 is soon Ibllovved by an abandonment of their j 

 native homes, for new and far distant lands, which j 

 they fancy will yield superabundant crops, almost | 

 without care or culture. For this evil there is j 

 but one remedy, and that, I fear, we shall never j 

 learn to apply, (if we ever do,) until a very large j 

 portion of our lands are nearly depopulated by j 

 emigration. This remedy is — to make our sons 

 scientific as well as practical farmers. They 

 would then very soon learn, not only to have 

 entire confidence in a variety of easily accessible 

 means for improving their farms, of which means 

 they at present know nothing, but they would 

 also become thoroushly convinced, that to lay 

 out whatever money they could spare from neces- 

 sary expenses in purchasing and applying those 

 means, would be actually to lend it to their lands, 

 which would soon pay them a higher and far more 

 certain interest, (often cent, per cent,) than any 

 usurious or gambling process in which they could 

 possibly employ it, even if there was no law either 

 of God or man against such investments. Ol 

 this I could give you innumerable proofs, but let 

 three suffice lor the present. In an excellent ad- 

 dress by John Sanford, esq., President of the 

 Onondaga Agricultural Societv, which he was 

 Vol. IX.-69 



so kind as to send me lately, there is the following 

 ptaipinent of the cnpacitv for improvpm»'nt of 

 the lands in thai pari of Nfvv Yoik. lie says — 

 •' In our sl.ne 53 buslif k of wheal, 68 of barley, 

 .60 of peas. 132 of oatts, 135 of corn, 750 ol' pota- 

 loes, and 5 tons of hay, hav(» hern grown per 

 acre. In 1S37. I grew, (3iy.s he,) 1400 bushels 

 of potatofp on 3 acres, riita baga 1000, mangel 

 wurtzel 1150, carrots 1200, and sugar-lieei at the 

 rate of 2100 bushels per acre, making 6000 bush- 

 els; and in 1838, I cut 40 lojis of clover and 

 herds-grass from 10 acres." This proof is taken 

 li-om New York ; and now for the two within 

 my own knowledge. The first is, that several 

 years ago, I knew 108 bushels of wheat and a 

 fraction, 'o be made from only two acres of land, 

 manured from the cow-pens, and this too in the 

 county of Stafford, which is as remarkable for po- 

 verty of soil, as almost any in Virginia. And in 

 my own county, I have known 30 bushels of 

 wheat — at the rate of 604 bushels of Irish pota- 

 toes per acre, and 75 bushels of corn per acre, (0 

 be made from a soil similar to that which was 

 within a hundred yards of it, but unmanured, and 

 which produced barelj' 15 bushels. Here was an 

 increase of more than Iburlbld, at no other ad- 

 ditional expense than carting out and applying 

 the manure made on the farm, to land which had 

 certainly been cleared more than 70 years. I 

 could state many more cases of still greater pro- 

 ducts, but deem it needless, as this sufllces to 

 prove an increase of more than 4 hundred per 

 cent., which far exceeds any shaving that I have 

 every yet heard of. But instead of pursuing this 

 most obvious way to wealth, such of our furmers 

 as abide by old Virginia, and make any pruilid 

 Irom their farms, invest them in more land — much 

 of which lies unctiltivated, and of course produces 

 nothing, rather than a[)ply these profits to im- 

 prove what they already possess. The mevitable 

 consequence of this is, to increase their demand 

 lor labor, and the difficulty of employing it pro- 

 fitably over such an increased surfijce, wiihout 

 any proportionate augmentation of net income. 

 They never seem to reflect — even for a moment, 

 that to increase the quantity of their crops merely 

 by cultivating more land, is very often to decrease 

 their clear profits ; for such crops — when sold and 

 all expenses deducted, rarely, if ever, leave so 

 large a net balance to go to the credit of (he 

 farm, as would accrue from the sales of these 

 crops — had they been made — as (hey easily 

 mifjhi have been, from the same farms, before 

 their enlargemen(, if— instead of adding more 

 acres (o them, the purchase money had been judi- 

 ciously expended in (heir improvement. 



Another reason why so many of our Virginia 

 brethren undervalue their profession and take eo 

 little interest in improving it — is, that a vast pro- 

 portion of us are (00 much in the habit of charg- 

 ing (he short comings of their income to 'he in- 

 creasing impoverishment of our lands, although 

 I am inclined to believe that the whole revenue 

 of the people of Virginia, li-om agricultural pro- 

 ducts, is greater in proportion to our population 

 tliao it ever has been. But the truth is, that the 

 disproportion between our expenditure's ;-.nd in- 

 comes has been incren^-ing tor n'aiiv years most 

 enormously the wrons way. If the fact could 

 certainly be ascertained, I am perfectly confident 

 that there is scarcely now a man, woman or child, 



