362 



Prospects in Eastern Virginia for new Settlers. 



Vol. X. 



the New York market; and the quantity of 

 green peas, tomatoes, potatoes, green corn, 

 &a, sent from that region, is surprising to 

 many — during the present year large quan- 

 tities of peaches will also be sent. This 

 business is only in its very infancy in Vir- 

 ginia, and is, as yet, confined to the neigh- 

 bourhood of Norfolk and Portsmouth, where 

 much of the soil is admirably adapted to 

 these productions. 



On the upper part of James river, say 

 half way from Old Point Comfort to Rich- 

 mond, the banks become high, the country 

 is free from marshes and swamps, and situ- 

 ations are abundant where there is no dan- 

 ger to Ijealtli to be apprehended. The same 

 remarks apply to the peninsulas between the 

 James and the York rivers, the York and tjje 

 Rappahannock, and between the latter and 

 the Potomac. 



In answer to my inquiries respecting the 

 health, &c., of these peninsulas, a highly 

 respectable physician says, " our climate is 

 delightful, our summers tempered by the 

 sea breeze, which is as regular as the trade 

 winds, are much less oppressive than at 

 the north; and our winters are short, and so 

 mild, that many farmers do not house iheir 

 slock, or feed them at all. 



"Our bills of mortality will compare fa- 

 vourably wilii those of any other part of the 

 Union below the mountain range. We have 

 110 epidemics, no consumption, rarely pleu- 

 risy or rheumatism. It is notorious, that 

 before the Revolution, when this was really 

 a garden spot, persons from the upper coun- 

 try came here annually in the summer for 

 health." 



Tlie same intelligent writer says, "It 

 must be pleasing to a Virginian to see the 

 attention of respectable and enlightened 

 strangers directed to the valuable but ne- 

 glected lands of the State. That the im- 

 portance of her soil and locality are becom- 

 ing daily more and more appreciated, admits 

 of no doubt. Already a considerable emi- 

 gration from the north has been directed to- 

 wards us; and in Fairfax county lands which 

 were thrown out as valueless, have been so 

 improved by the judicious management of 

 their new proprietors, as to rival in produc- 

 tion our best farms; producing from ten to 

 fifteen bushels of wheat, and tiiirtyand forty 

 of corn. 



" If this can be effected in what has al- 

 ways been considered almost the poorest 

 part of our State, what might not be ex- 

 pected from a district of country, which as 

 you justly say, has been, and may again be 

 made the garden spot of the United States. 



"In this region shell marl abounds, and is 

 used wit!) the most decided benefit. I know 



of farms in the vicinity of Williamsburg, 

 which ten years ago, would not produce ten 

 bushels of corn to the acre, now producing 

 thirty, from no other assistance t'lan marl. 



"We have no scarcity of excellent water, 

 and our soil is based upon clay. White 

 clover is indigenous, and with the slightest 

 assistance from lime and animal manures, 

 red clover grows most luxuriantly. I have 

 raised as fine as I ever saw in Pennsylva- 

 nia." 



A letter from Westmoreland county says, 

 " from four to six thousand acres can be had 

 in the same neighbourhood, where it is 

 healthy and convenient to the Potomac and 

 Rappahannock rivers; the unimproved land, 

 from $3 to $;4, and that which is improved, 

 from $5 to $(10 per acre." 



Another describes a "farm of 300 acres, 

 with a new comfortable dwelling, on the 

 main road — price $6 per acre." 



Other letters describe lands in almost any 

 quantity, in this region, at prices varying 

 from $1 to $.5 or $6 per acre. It may be 

 asked how it can be, that in a country so 

 blessed by nature, with the most genial cli- 

 mate, watered by a profusion of rivers and 

 streams, which abound with the finest fish 

 and oysters; and with a soil which, wherever 

 it is properly used, produces equal to any 

 other — has become so poor as to be aban- 

 doned, and thrown out, as waste and value- 

 less? 



Intelligent Virginians can easily give a 

 satisfactory answer to such questions ; and 

 they are becoming awake throughout the 

 State, to the necessity of applying the only 

 remedy to redeem their beautiful country, 

 and restore their noble "old dominion" to 

 her proper and rightful rank in the great 

 confederacy, of which she was once at the 

 head.* 



* The great drawback upon Virginia's prosperity— the 

 incubus that lies with deadly pressure upon her thrift, 

 is the institution of slavery. We are not going to dis- 

 cuss this point, eithei in its moral or political asperl : 

 the Farn)crs' Cabinet is not the place for it, were v^•e 

 so disposed. W^e lay it down, however, as a dogma a? 

 incontrovertible as her own mountains are immova- 

 ble, that Virginia can never attain the degree of pros- 

 perity and the position in our confederacy which na- 

 ture seems to have intended for her, until labour shall 

 become honourable to the white man, and she shall 

 recognize heartily and in good earnest, the important 

 proposition that no idle white population can flourish. 

 Our very heart yearns for the regeneration of Virginia. 

 Great as her star unquestionably is among the greatest 

 of the Union, she finds others by unprecedented strides 

 passing her, and usurping the place she of right should 

 occupy. And why, but because she paralizos her 

 strength and impedes her progress by clinging to— or '- 



perhaps we should rather say, by not shaking off— that ff 



