JL50 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



appear not yet, on the eastern side of Thornton's Gap especialljs to have 

 awakened to the revolution in the commercial circumstances of their position, 

 which has been effected by the extended a])plication of steam and the construc- 

 tion of works of internal improvement — works Avhich have raised up competitors 

 in their old branches of husbandry, against whom it is obviously impolitic if not 

 impossible for them to contend. How is it possible to follow g7-am-gro\ving suc- 

 cessfully, and as a j)rincipal business, at such a distance from all available mar- 

 kets, and at such cost of transportation, on land that does not average more than 

 seven bushels of wheat and twenty of Indian corn to the acre ? and especially 

 where there is resident in the soil neither lime nor plaster, and yet more, where 

 not one farmer in one hundred pursues systematically any means of supplying 

 the want of mineral and artificial fertilizers, by collecting materials to augment, 

 and by saving every particle of, his stable and barn-yard maruires. To the more 

 economical farmers in other parts of the country, a plain statement of the uni- 

 versal waste of these materials in the South would be as incredible as it is inju- 

 rious and disparaging to those who commit it. A farmer of the highest order 

 of intelligence, in Rappahannock County, on a beautiful estate of a thousand 

 acres, with sixty or eighty head of cattle and horses, besides hogs and sheep, 

 himself observed that he made hardly manure enough for his garden ! while 

 his hundred acres of wheat, very near his homestead and stables, was not 

 expected to yield more than seven or eight bushels to the acre, and that 

 on land with a due portion of clay, and otherwise well adapted to grain as 

 well as grass. It would not, however, be fair even to allude to this case, were 

 it not believed to be a fair specimen of general improvidence as to the ac- 

 cumulation and use of home-made manure. I must, therefore, be permitted 

 to declare that in all my route, as far into Western Virginia as the Seat of 

 Government of Greenbriar County, and anxious to find the contrary, 1 have not 

 yet seen an instance of proper, systematic, farmer-like solicitude and attention 

 on the score of home-made manure. The greatest progress in improvement, 

 and the best management on a considerable scale, as far as I had an imperfect 

 opportunity to judge, is at the Warm Springs. But if on this point the neigh- 

 boring farmers were, as' they ought to be, as watchful as a hawk for a partridge, 

 you would not see at the hotels, all along the road from Newmarket to Lewis- 

 burg, large piles of manure, the daily cleansing of the stables, thrown out and 



pUmts, and the action of mineral, animal, vegetable and atmospheric agencies — that in Eng- 

 land the average increase in the wheat crop per acre has been brought from 17 up to 26 

 buslieLs, since 1821, or an increase nearly equal to the average aggregate produce of the 

 United States. 



We are aware that General Washington instituted extensive inquiries to ascertain the 

 probable average product of the United States, and that these mquiries led to the impression 

 that it might be put down at about 17 bushels ; but we are well convinced that either there 

 has been a great reduction in the acreable product of the whole country since, or that some 

 delusive information led to an overestimate at that time. We have lately had occasion to 

 show that the average in Ohio does not go above 20 bushels, and we much doubt if it 

 exceeds 17. Official returns show the average in New- York in 1845 to be under 14 ; and it 

 may well be questioned whether in Mai-yland, which gave 3,345,783 bushels in 1839, the 

 average exceeded 8; or whether in Virginia, which gave 10,109,716, it came up to 10. At 

 the rate of 8 bushels for Maryland, it would rcquii-e about 418,222 acres to produce 3,345,783 

 bushels. Now her whole surface, exclusive of water, is put down by Darby at 7,040,000 

 acres — and according to this calculation it would require only eveiy sixteenth acre to be in 

 Wheat to produce the number of bushels stated above, at 8 bushels to the acre ; that is, sup- 

 pose the whole State to be divided into famis of 322 acres, and allowing 8 bushels to the acre 

 it would require only 16 acres to each of those fanns to give the 3,34.j,783 bushels. Allov^'ing 

 12 bushels to the acre as an average of the U. S., it would require but about 7,000,000 of 

 acres to bo in Wheat to produce the 84,823,272 bushels, the whole produce of the Union iu 

 1839 ; and we ventiu-e the behef that the average does not exceed 12 bushels. Finally, we 

 have no doubt that the course recommended by Mr. Minor would, in ten years, go near 

 to double the Wheat crop of the State, adding $10,000,000 to its income. Ed. Farm. Lib.'] 

 (342; 



