SANDY-POINT FARM. 459 



The question is a highly interesting one, and we shall owe thanks, in the name of 

 the agricultural interest, to any one who will throw light on it. For ourselves, we 

 strongly suspect that the late general act of incorporation, if not too much em- 

 barrassed and trammeled with vexatious and forbidding restrictions, will do more 

 to augment the products of Agriculture in New- York, in the next twenty years, 

 than all the Agricultural Societies and Institutes of the State have done in the 

 last fifty. Why we think so, we shall explain hereafter. It is not by a hun- 

 dred or a thousand paltry premiums, scattered here and there, that you can have 

 rich and waste lands cleared, and ditched, and drained, and made to yield heavy 

 crops. You must establish, in your public legislation, a policy that will draw 

 the consumer to come and settle down alongside of the producer. 



SANDY-POINT FARM, 



ON THE Ji?MES RIVER, VIRGINIA. 



Several interesting sketches have appeared, particularly those from the pen 

 of S. S. Griscom, of Moorestown, New-Jersey, setting forth the cheapness of land 

 in the southern and eastern tide-water portions of Virginia, and their great im- 

 provability, with apparently very impartial and just remarks on their resources 

 and natural advantages. Mr. Boiling's celebrated estate called Sandy Point has 

 been particularly described. On the whole, it would seem to be the naked result 

 of the grossest prejudice or downright ignorance, that carries people away from 

 the conveniences, social comforts, proximity to market, and cheap lands, to be 

 found in the old Atlantic States, to struggle with exposure and privation in our 

 distant frontier settlements. 



As to the profits of Agriculture in States as new even as Iowa, where Corn is 

 the great staple, let the reader turn to an account of the profit and loss in that 

 branch of Agriculture, as exhibited in another part of this number, taken from 

 an agricultural journal on the spot, to show what is lost at corn making, when 

 valued even at 25 cents a bushel. And yet, if our memory does not fail us (a 

 thing, alas ! too likely), we heard Mr. Clay say, last summer, that if always as- 

 sured of 20 cents a bushel for corn, he would sooner make that crop at Ashland 

 than any other, with a view to profit. 



.45 to the health of the region referred to in Virginia, about which so much ill- 

 founded prejudice exists, Mr. Griscom says : " I may remark here that, in the 

 latter part of the 8th month (August), I found the people generally throughout 

 this region in the enjoyment of health quite as good, and I think better, than in 

 Burlington county, when I left home ; and although every one agreed that the 

 weather was more oppressive than it had been at any time previously during the 

 summer, I did not find the mercury above 85°, and I was careful to observe the 

 temperature. At home, in New-Jersey, at the same time, it was often above 

 90°." 



As to Sajuly Point, he says : 



" It contains over 7,000 acres of land, of excellent neuti-al mulatto soil — considered, in the 

 Essay on Calcareous Manures, as the best quality for agiicultiiral purposes generally ; it has 

 a river front of near twelve miles ; the river banks are high, with a beautiful, clean beach, 

 and no marsh or wet land worth naming — affording many most beautiful situations for resi- 

 dences. The river is navigable for the largest ships, and a full mile in width, abounding in 

 (859) 



