No. 5. 



Virginia Lands. 



161 



Virginia Lands. 



A FRIEND who feels a lively interest in the resusci- 

 tation of Virginia lands and tlie proniotion of Virginia 

 interests, has copied the following from the American 

 Farmer o{ last month, and forwarded it for insertion 

 in the Cabinet.— Ed. 



Mr. Editor, — I herewith give you some 

 extracts from a letter I received from a friend 

 of mine, who is now living' in Surry county, 

 Virginia. You are aware that much is said 

 and a great deal written and published about 

 the advantages of going to Virginia to buy 

 land, and farm — feeling an interest in giving 

 the experience of others well calculated to 

 judge, for the benefit of your readers, I have 

 copied part of the letter in order that some 

 might be benefited. The writer is a gen- 

 tleman somewhat advanced in life, raised a 

 farmer, and always followed it ; he had a 

 good training and good land to operate on, 

 in a part of Chester county, Pa., that will 

 compare with any other land in the State, 

 at least in any other part of Chester county; 

 added to this, he is an agricultural statistic, 

 a plain blunt man, who writes what he 

 thinks and sees, without fear of being called 

 in question by any. I had written to him 

 and stated several points that I wished in- 

 formation on ; his letter takes these sepa- 

 rately, and answers them very satisfactorily. 



"Sept. 1st, 1846; Never in my recollec- 

 tion, have I enjoyed good uninterrupted 

 health so long, as since I came here, and 

 all the family have been well except M., 

 who has had something of her old complaint 

 — I believe Erysipelas. I see nothing here 

 indicative of sickness; if people anywhere 

 would live as many do here, they would be 

 sickly; out late at night hunting, and going 

 home drunk and reckless of every means 

 to preserve health ; if not so, why the un- 

 due proportion of sickness and death among 

 the males, which is about four to one; in 

 most countries they are about equal. I do 

 believe, all things considered, there cannot 

 be a better place to live, or a more delightful 

 climate ; I have felt far warmer weather in 

 Pennsylvania than here, and my Philadel- 

 phia newspaper says it has been warmer at 

 New York than here. We have as kind 

 neighbours as ever honoured a neighbour- 

 hood; some of them have endeared them- 

 selves to us, beyond what you could imagine. 

 I speak advisedly when I say, a man can fix 

 himself here better for SIOOO than he can 

 for $10,000 in Pennsylvania. Two gentle- 

 men, one from near Lancaster and one from 

 Franklin county, were here to see the place, 

 through a letter I wrote to the Rev. M. B. — 

 they all like the place very much, and won- 

 der why I should be the first discoverer; one 



of them was looking at a place of 600 acres, 

 price $4000; he told me while looking at 

 the land, that he could sell his place of 120 

 acres, before he got home for $!l31 per acre, 

 $15,720, and he was sure if he was a young 

 man, in seven years he could make the place 

 here as good as his own ; only look at that! 

 he is a man of intelligence, and owns one of 

 the best farms in Lancaster county, and was 

 attracted here by M. B. sending to him a 

 paragraph of my letter. Why sir, there are 

 inexhaustible marl beds here, that on ana- 

 lyzation contain 97 per cent, pure lime. Pe- 

 qua lime, Chester county, Pa., contains 20 

 per cent, magnesia, a very deleterious arti- 

 cle in agriculture. I have seen the western 

 part of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the 

 eastern part of Ohio, and have read and 

 heard much of other parts, and am free to 

 say, there is none equal to this. One Penn- 

 sylvanian has already bouglit 1300 acres 

 here for $2,600, and is to move here in Oc- 

 tober; he is now on his way, and stopping 

 in your city at present. I have built myself 

 a small house, cleared some of the land near 

 it, and planted some corn, oats, vines, &c. ; 

 much of it had a stump, or perhaps two, to 

 every square yard, and it was almost impos- 

 sible to scratch up the soil ; the soil is far 

 beyond anything I could expect, beans and 

 field-peas excellent, pumpkins not good, po- 

 tatoes tolerable, oats poor; you can hire a 

 man, horse and cart, to haul for about thirty 

 cents a day. Hay, there is none in the 

 county; blades sell for seventy-five cents 

 per hundred. In fact there is no such place 

 in the United States, where the Supreme 

 Being has done so much and man so little. 

 Slavery or something has paralized every 

 nerve, and the choicest blessings are over- 

 looked and unappreciated ; some have marl 

 lying on the top of the ground, which is 

 about equal to a heap of dung and one of 

 lime, inexhaustible in their nature, and will 

 not use it, because those who do use it, 

 make use of a great deal of dung; and say 

 they, if marl is what it is said to be, why 

 do they use dung. There are some great 

 bargains in land offered here, such as would 

 astonish the most sceptical ; the people here 

 are aware of their deficiency in farming, 

 and are anxious for Northern men to settle 

 among them ; continual applications are 

 made to me to sell land for them ; there is 

 an apple-still in blast now on about every 

 other farm, most of them are without shel- 

 ter; they set up attending to them all 

 night; they are fifty years behind the age; 

 in proof of this they count their money in 

 shillings and pence, think there is no hospi- 

 tality without spirits; big-hill their corn, as 

 was done when I was a boy ; they are igno- 



