No. 9. 



Agricultural Address. 



271 



Thus, even at this late day, your practice is 

 far from having the general support either 

 of the practical farmers, or the scientific 

 writers and agriculturists of the North. 

 Then as to practice, and in regions more 

 like your own, and nearer home ; in North 

 Carolina, where the marl beds are rich and 

 extensive, but little use has been made of 

 them ; and none at all in Georgia, where 

 tliey have been much more bounteously be- 

 stowed. In South Carolina also, very little 

 of thought and less labour had been given 

 to this source of wealth before the present 

 year. But, it is just and proper to add, that 

 however late in beginning, most of the in- 

 telligent planters of South Carolina are now 

 well awakened to the value of this improve- 

 ment, and many have already commenced 

 marling, and some of them are making un- 

 exampled progress. The planters of that 

 State will not long be behind any in Vir- 

 ginia in the extent, at least, of their marling 

 and liming operations. 



The few among this company who are as 

 old residents of Prince George county as 

 myself, can as well remember our agricul- 

 tural and social condition, before there ex- 

 isted either practice, knowledge, or even 

 hope of profitable or abiding improvement 

 of our land, or our agricultural condition, 

 whether from marling or liming, or from 

 ajiy other source. And the former condition 

 of things, and the strong contrast to the 

 present, can hardly be realized by those 

 who were then children, or unborn. Twen- 

 ty-five years ago, there was scarcely a pro- 

 prietor in my neighbourhood, and deriving 

 his income from his cultivation, who did not 

 desire to sell his land ; and who was not 

 prevented only by the impossibility of find- 

 ing a purchaser, unless at half of the then 

 very low estimated values and prices of 

 lands. All wished to sell — none to buy. If 

 a stranger had been inclined to settle among 

 us, he might have chosen almost any farm 

 in the county, and would scarcely have 

 failed to find the owner glad to sell, and at 

 a low price. And if so strange a fancy had 

 possessed one or more persons, as to wish to 

 buy twenty contiguous farms, and the wish 

 and intention had been advertised, so far 

 from the market price being raised by so 

 sudden and large a demand, the previous 

 prices asked, would probably have been 

 even reduced, by the eager competition of 

 those desiring to be among the lucky sellers 

 and fearing to miss so rare a chance ; and 

 all of whom, so soon as thus released from 

 their previous tie and encumbrance, would 

 have gone their way, rejoicing, to aid in fill- 

 ing up the great Western wilderness. 

 Now mark the contrast since presented. 



In all of this my old neighbourhood, and, so 

 far as I know, throughout the whole county, 

 not one individual, after beginning to marl, 

 has emigrated, or desired to emigrate. Yet 

 within the same space of time, the rage for 

 emigration has passed over other parts of 

 Virginia like a pestilence, leaving marks of 

 desolation which will scarcely be eflfaced by 

 twenty years of subsequent industry and 

 prosperity. The prices of lands here have 

 greatly increased, though less than their 

 true value. But I know not how to estimate 

 the rate of increase, because sales are now 

 even more rare than formerly, though for 

 the opposite reason. Then it was that no- 

 body would buy. Now nobody will sell. 

 This I have cause to know to my sorrow, so 

 far as personal feeling and interest are con- 

 cerned. For I have been anxious for some 

 years to buy some farm in my old neigh- 

 bourhood, and near to the homes of my older 

 and settled children, and to pass the remain- 

 der of my declining years near where I was 

 born, and have lived and laboured longest. ' 

 And my anxious eflx)rt to buy has been in 

 vain; no proprietor being willing to sell any 

 farm worth the buying as a residence. And 

 in consequence of this disappointment, and 

 despair of doing better, I have recently 

 bought a farm so remote, that, with all its 

 great advantages, I shall go to it with the 

 reluctant feelings of an exile. 



But estimates of increased production, and 

 increased values and prices of your marled 

 land, even though the one or the other may 

 be tripled or quadrupled, do not indicate all, 

 or the most important benefits you have de- 

 rived from marling. There has been pro- 

 duced a still more valuable improvement in 

 the people themselves — in industry, general 

 habits, demand for and acquirement of edu- 

 cation, and in all the results which are sure 

 to proceed from these causes. Up to the 

 time so often referred to, twenty-five years 

 ago, and still later, the former large estates 

 of this county, in every successive genera- 

 tion, had been more and more reduced in 

 size, as well as all lands in their rate of 

 production. Almost every man was grow- 

 ing poorer, or the prospects of his family 

 becoming woise. The grade of society had 

 been, and still continued to be, decidedly on 

 the decline. And the proprietors having no 

 hope of the improvement of their lands, or 

 of being remunerated for ever so great in- 

 dustry and devotion to their business, thought 

 it as well to bestow very little. Accordingly, 

 like the inhabitants of a city ravaged by the 

 plague, and from the like motives, they 

 thought more of present enjoyment, than of 

 providing for future wants; and there pre- 

 vailed generally, habits of idleness and im- 



