156 



FARMERS' REGISTER— YELLOW LOCUST. 



love for Virginia may have induced him to soften 

 bis denunciations as he has done. 



There is, perhaps, no country in the'world which 

 contains a larger proportion of land tliat will re- 

 pay the expense of cultivation than eastern Virgi- 

 nia. Some portions of it are poor — and so are some 

 portions of Egypt and Mexico — but I rather think 

 that the whole country included between the me- 

 ridian of Richmond, (extended to Maryland and 

 North Carolina,) and the Atlantic ocean, would 

 be found, on experiment, to produce much more 

 than the same number ofacres included in one body , 

 in any other region of the slate. And so v,'Ould 

 the writer of your article have thought if he had 

 consulted some public documents, and taken the 

 trouble to drav/ correct inferences. 



What opportunities of information this writer 

 possessed, I do not know. But he could not have 

 been ignorant of the sources from which an accu- 

 rate acquaintance v/ith some statistics, essential to 

 a knowledge of this subject, could be derived. The 

 auditor's office would furnish an account of the 

 taxes paid by the diilerent sections of the state into 

 the public treasury — the census would show the 

 amount of population — and it would not be dif- 

 ficult to ascertain the superficial measurement 

 of every county in the state. Even Mr. Boye's 

 small map supplies this — and the rule of three 

 would do all the reasoning that would be needful. 

 Thus, by consulting the census of 1831, we find 

 the population of the state distributed in the pro- 

 portions of the following table. [The sections are 

 taken according io their boundaries as fixed by the 

 constitution.] 



Free Negroea, 



4745 



120-26 



28y£0 



Slaves. Total. 



186fi5 204117 



34772 174308 



230SC1 451542 

 135457 3S1433 



Whites. 

 Western Section, 183854 

 Valley Section, 134791 



Front Blue Ridge to 

 head of tideioater, 208656 

 Tidewater, 167001 



And the follov/ing table exhibits the number of 

 square miles, and the amount of taxes paid in 

 1831, when the census was taken. 



Square Miles. Taxes paid in 1S31. 



Westerr\,, • - 20006 $^;"'S49 09 



Valley, . - 10294 46654 48 



Middle, ■ • 15160 l!5-cOO 43 



Tidewater, - - 11534 85311 33 



Now, let comparison be instituted on the num- 

 bers furnished by these tables, and some certain 

 conclusions may be arrived at, to take precedence, 

 I trust, in the minds of the candid, of the indefi- 

 nite conjectures set afloat by the prejudices of such 

 writers as the contributor to the Encyclopedia. — 

 Thus it will be found that the w^estern section con- 

 tains 689^ inhabitants on every hundred square 

 miles — the valley 1596 — the middle section 2978 — 

 and the tidewater district 3292 on the same sur- 

 face. Next, that the western section pays of taxes 

 into the public treasury 12^ cents per head for the 

 whites and slaves — the valley 27^ — the middle 

 section 26^ — and the eastern 24;^. I leave out the 

 free negroes, because nominally tliey pay very lit- 

 tle, and, I rather think, that really, the treasury 

 loses by their presence in the country. 



Again, for every hundred square miles, the 

 western section pays into the treasury ,^87 90 — 

 valley $438 90— the middle district .^784 21— and 

 the tidewater $798 31. I have thus instituted 

 three proportions — my statistical references do not 

 finable me to institute any others that would be 



valuable pn this subject. And in two of tliem the 

 tidewater country — that ledge of sea-sand, inter- 

 spersed with swamps and miarshes, whose soil re- 

 fuses sustenance to man or beast, and whose at- 

 mosphere, charged with malaria, and the vapors of 

 the gulf stream, (according to Mr. Walsh,) is 

 deadly as the brcalli of the Anaconda, exhibits 

 greater resources than any other section of Virginia ! 

 And it is ouv legislation a.nd not nature, that places 

 us in the rear of the valley and the middle section, 

 in the third. A large ])ortion of the taxes of the 

 tidewater country is paid on slaves. Those under 

 twelve years of age are not taxed ; if they were, 

 and the taxes were laid in other respects as they 

 novr are, 1 believe that v.'e should be placed fore- 

 most in every proportion that 1 have stated. — 

 Others may make the calculation from the census, 

 the law imposing taxes, and the returns of the she- 

 riffs to the auditor. 1 have not done it, because, 

 for my purpose, it was unnecessary. 



I may follow out this subject in another num- 

 ber, by giving you some account of the farming 

 of the lower country. mockjack. 



Ycllo-^v Laociist. 



Oak Forest, Rockbridge County, Va. > 

 4th July, 1833. 5 



To the Editor of the Farmers' P.,egi.';tcr. 



Dear Siu, — 1 received yesterday the first No. 

 of the " Farmers' Jlcgister," and am gratified to 

 find that it fully deserves all the praise that I had 

 heard or seen bcstov/ed on it. And I beg leave, 

 on a day so suited as this for thanksgiving, to offer 

 you my sincere thanks for thus devoting your time 

 and efforts " to the improvement of the practice, 

 and support of the interests of agriculture." 



With this tribute to your v/ork and your mo- 

 tive, permit me to invite your attention to a sub- 

 ject connected with the " interestsof agriculture," 

 which has lately attracted mine — namely, tho 

 growing of the Yellow Locust in our fields, if 

 not by culture, at least, as tenants at sufferance. 



A computation of the profit of rearing the Yel- 

 low Locust, by culture, is made in the last March 

 No. of the " New York Farmer and American 

 Gardeners' Magazine," as follows : It is supposed 

 that an acre of land would easily sustain four trees 

 to the rod, and at that rate ten acres would sustain 

 six thousand four hundred trees, each of which 

 it is said, would be v/orth at a ship-yard, when 

 twelve years old, five dollars — but estimated at 

 three dollars each, makes the sum of $19,200 

 From which deduct for ten years in- 

 terest on the value of ten acres of 

 land, ----- $250 

 For labor of cultivating by occasion- 

 al manuring, &c. $40 per annum, 400 

 Seed, and two years in nurserj^, - 100 



750 



Leaving nett profit for ten years, $18,450 



However astonishing this result may be, it seems 

 to be fairly made, except that there is nothing al- 

 lowed for carriage to the ship-yard, ov/'mg perhaps, 

 to the fact, that v/here there is easy water convey- 

 ance, as is the case in New York, the carriage of 

 lumber is a trifle not worth notice ; as it Avould 

 be in Virginia, if she had canals extending to and 

 through her ample forests. 



But canalling and culture aside — let us inquire 



