1S36.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



61 



cents per bushel,) which is a high price when the 

 iibunilance of the lust crop is considered; and ba- 

 con is also very hiyii, being wortli 13 to 13^ cts. 

 per pound. 



A severe pressure for money has prevailed in 

 the large commercial cities generally, and two per 

 cent, per month was readily obtained f()r the use 

 of it. Exchange on England fi'JI to 5^ percent., 

 and stocks of almost every description declined in 

 the northern cilies materially. This pressure is 

 ascribed to various causes, and among them may 

 be enumerated the lar<re amount of property de- 

 stroyed by the fire in New York, and the heavy 

 investments required to rebuild houses, and to re- 

 place the goods destroyed ; the great accumula- 

 tion of surplus funds in the National Treasury, or 

 its depositories, amounting to thirty-five millions 

 ofdollars;The substitution ofcash paymentsor short 

 credits for the long credits Ibrmerly allowed on du- 

 ties on importation; the vast sums invested in public 

 lands, in city lots and works of internal improve- 

 ment ; the protracted length of the winter, which 

 prevented an immense quantity of produce being 

 brought to market at the usual time, and ol sup- 

 plies of goods being sent to the interior ; the wind- 

 ing up of the branches of the United States' 

 Bank, and the cautious policy necessary to be ob- 

 served by that bank and other institutions, from 

 the apprehension of government influence being 

 used to the annoyance of the former ; the inter- 

 ruption ol"supplies of specie from Mexico, in con- 

 sequence of" the revolution in Texas ; the demand 

 for specie to be sent to Cuba, and other islands, 

 for the purchase of sugar and eotliije, and to the 

 British West Indies for the purchase of bills of 

 exchange at a very low rate, being the indemnity 

 paid by the government under the Emancipation 

 Act; and to conclude, the many temptations for 

 investments, ofliering a prospect of profitable re- 

 sults, in the wide scope presented by the ra|)iddeve- 

 lopements of the vast resources of our coiuitry. In- 

 and exchanges are deranged, and remittances 

 cannot be made with facility, nor at par. 



Articles of foreign produce and manufaclure 

 generally command high prices. Sugar, particu- 

 larl}', has advanced beyond any former rate in 

 time of peace; and this may be ascribed to the 

 diminished cultivation in the British West Indies, 

 under the free labor system, and to the failure oftiie 

 crop in Louisiana. Cofliee, now fiee of duty, bears 

 as hicrh a price as it did when taxed with two and 

 a half cents per pound. Teas have not declined 

 in any proportion to the amount of duty from 

 which they are relieved. The immense demand 

 for iron, has raised the price of that article in Eng- 

 land nearly 100 per cent. 



The stock for a rail-road from Richmond to Pe- 

 tersburijf was filled during the past week, and 

 nearly double the amount required was subscribed. 

 The formation of this work, and of others now 

 in progress, will complete the line from the Poto- 

 mac to RaleitJ-h. 



3fay 1, 1836. 



X. 



STATEMENTS OF PRACTICE I!V TILLAGE AND 

 IMPROVEMENT, ON RAPPAHANNOCK LANDS. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Feeling as I do the inadequacy of my annual 



pittances to the discharge of the debt contracted 

 to yourself; and the useful and zealous collabora- 

 tors of your Register, a sense of justice prompts 

 me to consider whether a life of 20 years, devoted 

 with such assiduity as circumstanceB have permit- 

 ted, to agriculture, might notfiirnish some glean- 

 ings worthy of lessening its obligation. A mind 

 "desultory, studious of change, and fond of novel- 

 ty," and impressed with distaste or disgust fbrsys- 

 teiTis which, fi'om their history and developements, 

 seemed to promise results meagre and stationary, 

 if not retroirressive, fi'equenlly urged me in the 

 very outset of my career, far fioni the beaten track, 

 into others, wliich the want of an enlightened 

 judgment caused me to pursue to nay frequent dis- 

 comfiture and loss. Such being in the main the 

 mortifvino' results of my experimental wanderings, 

 the oflspring of a too euger and indiscriminating 

 credulity in their inception, and perhaps, in their 

 issue, oi' want of care in their execution, it was but 

 too natural that I should settle down into the op- 

 posite extreme of scepticism, and to regard as im- 

 practicable, that which my bad practice alone per- 

 haps had fiiiled to attest. Indeed, Mr. Editor, the 

 extreme paucity of precise results to which my 

 most carefully conducted experiments have led me, 

 has tended to a confirmed distrust of those which 

 are every day announced as results of the experi- 

 ments of one farmer, and contradicted by those of 

 another, said to be similarly made. And why ? 

 Because I am satisfied from personal knowledge, 

 that my own history is pretty much that of the 

 whole class of gentlemen farmers in Virginia, and 

 that nine times out of ten, experiments are made 

 either under some prejudice, or that owing to the 

 neglect or absence of the proprietor, they are aban- 

 doi;ed in perhaps their most important stages, to 

 the carelessness of overseers and slaves, leaving 

 room for nothing but vague conjecture at last. And 

 thus, Mr. Editor, are we still, and for a long time 

 to continue, I fear, at sea, in regard to many of 

 the most important principles and practices of our 

 neglected and abused profession, unless, indeed, 

 we hasten to profit by the obvious and the only re- 

 medy, so ably enforced by the patriotic president of 

 the late Agricultural Convention, viz. an agricul- 

 tural proflessorship in connection with an experimen- 

 tal farm at our University. Then, indeed, may we 

 expect to see, the mists of uncertainly w^hich now 

 envelope the arcana of our science, flee before the 

 torch of experimental knowledge, and our agricul- 

 turalists no longer groping in the dark, boldly ad- 

 vancing with an assured ste|) to its richest rewards. 

 Shrinking with instinctive reluctance from a mi- 

 nuter record of my failures, with whatever denial 

 of amusement, or instruction to your readers, I 

 proceed brieliy to sketch such of my agricultural 

 operations as may seem to have a chance of aflbrd- 

 ing any portion of the latter. The subject of thern 

 consists of 2,000 acres, of which about 250 acres 

 being chiefly a light, sandy soil, from 6 to 8 inches 

 deep, has been cultivated in 3 fields, in corn, f()l- 

 lowed by wheat, and the hoof entirely excluded. 

 The balance contains about 400 acres of flat, of 

 about the same average quality, though a portion 

 of it, say 50 acres, is a very light, poor sand, and 

 perhaps, as much more is a deep sandy loam of a 

 superior quality; about 100 acres of swamp land, 

 subject to fr-equent overflows, and seldom produc- 

 ing from that cause half a crop, with about 200 

 acres of cultivated hills, some of them precipitouis 



