FARMERS' REGISTER— LABORERS IN ENGLISH FACTORIES. 



187 



turn in, during the fall and winter preceding the 

 corn crop. 



If I can discover a place in this, or some such 

 way, to improve our lands, without trouble or ex- 

 pense ; indeed one which will overpay iis at once, 

 for any little trouble or expense we may be at, it 

 may enable my class of farmers to remain in the 

 Ancient Dominion, otherwise (unless indeed you 

 can reclaim us and our lands too,) we must re- 

 move. 



But seriously speaking, my dear sir, could you 

 not cast this matter in your mind, and mature 

 some simple plan of this kind, that might, as an 

 entering wedge, do some good, and strike tiie at- 

 tention of that great class of farmers, who, from 

 habit, &c. are incapable, at once, of any great and 

 efficient change ? 



I little expected, when I took up my pen, to 

 trouble you with my crude and unsatisfactory no- 

 tions, for they can't be called experiments — much 

 less to offer any thing to the public eye. This you 

 will at once see is not my object. 



Deciphering such pieces is a price you will have 

 to pay. We will have 'our money's worth out of 

 you in some way or other. I would be ashamed 

 though to expect an answer, other than such hints, 

 if this shall have suggested any, as you may deem 

 it proper to give us in your paper. 



By the way, you can also inform us in that way, 

 whether you are acquainted with the ribwort, 

 and what you think of it as an improving grass. 

 It has entirely taken possession of my farm, and 

 I begin to entertain hopes it will prove a valuable 

 grass : if it is not there is no getting clear of it. 



If our correspondent has had " his money's worth out 

 of us," we will take the Uberty of getting it back by 

 pubhshing his letter: his satire will amuse, if it does 

 not indirectly help to benefit, that class of farmers, of 

 which he professes to be an example. 



We know of no plan by which improvements may be 

 made and profits gained, without labor and expense — 

 and if we did, its promulgation might reduce Virginia 

 to a still lower state than at present. It is most benefi- 

 cial for man to be obliged to labor assiduously, or to 

 starve — but in return for his labor, to be sure of obtain- 

 ing profit and reward. It is precisely in those parts 

 of Virginia where the support (and even many of the 

 luxuries) of life cost scarcely an effort to obtain, and 

 where land is either rich or highly improvable, as well 

 as low priced, that there are more fortunes spending, 

 and fewer accumulating, by the owners of the soil, than 

 in any other part of the commonwealth. 



We recommend to tlie attention of other correspond- 

 ents, the inquiries respecting ribwort. 



, Smdh Carolina, July 8, 1833. 



* * * Permit me to add my most ardent 

 wishes for the entire success of your efforts to re- 

 store the Old Dominion to her proper scale in 

 agriculture. Her resources, though hitherto much 

 abused and neglected, if brought out, even at this 

 late day, will give her that station among her sis- 

 ter states, which her soil, products, and above all, 

 the character of her people entitle her to hold. — 

 The same causes which have depressed agriculture 

 in Virginia, operate here to an alarming degree. 

 We prefer moving to the virgin soil of the west, 

 to restoring by proper and judicious culture, tlie 



land given to us by our ancestors. Political causes 

 also have had a most powerful effect in checking 

 the exertions of the planter in South Carolina. A 

 deep, and I fear, a just belief that the improper 

 legislation of the federal government, has been 

 the cause of our present depressed situation, has 

 become almost universal among our citizens. — 

 There is much truth in all the causes, but no cir- 

 cumstances which have yet existed, can afford any 

 excuse for the want of industry and perseverance 

 on the part of an agriculturist. 



Nansemond, July \st. 

 -In analyzing marl, do you take a piece 



of it entirely separated from earth, or just as the 

 marl is found .'' 



To examine and report correctly the strength of any 

 body of marl, a fair sample of the whole body, (one of 

 each kind, if the quality varies at different depths,) 

 should be used. Sometimes the materials vary so much, 

 (as when large and whole shells have their interstices 

 filled with sand,) that no small sample can show the 

 average value. In such case, dig out as much as a gal- 

 lon, or more, frbm one place, pound the whole coarsely, 

 so that the shells are broken down to a size not greater 

 than peas — mix the whole together, and again take from 

 it a small quantity as a specimen, which pound finely — 

 and from it, weigh the forty to sixty grains to be ana- 

 lyzed according to either of the two methods described 

 minutely in the Essay on Calcareous Manures. 



For the Farmers' Register. 

 THE SLAVES OF HUNGER, 



Or condition of the laborers in English Factories. 



" In our benevolent zeal for the removal of slavery, we 



should not forget that there are afflictions, numerous, wide- 

 spread, and iniavoidable in the most refined and advanced state of 

 society, that are even more intolerable than the slave's toil, stimu- 

 lated by the slave ov/ner's lash. The substance, though not the 

 name of slavery is to be found almost every where in this mise- 

 rable world — and the few favored spots now free from such 

 causes of human suffering, must in their turn be visited with 

 like inflictions. Except in newly settled countries, or in others 

 having as yet a sparse population and plentiful means of subsis- 

 tence, and a free government withal, the laboring poor are slaves 

 in fact, either to individuals, to government, or to then' own 

 craving and never satisfied necessities. The negro slaves of Vir- 

 ginia present striking examples of the first kind — the peoijle of 

 Egypt, and emancipated Hayti of the second — and the entire la- 

 boring population of free and philanthropic England of the 

 third." — Farmers'' Register, p. 48, No. 1. 



The people of the United States have been as 

 yet happily exempt from the suffering caused by 

 the extremity of bodily laborand privation; and 

 for that reason, assertions like those in the forego- 

 ing passage, will not be readily believed by any 

 who are acquainted only with the different systems 

 of encouraging or of forcing labor in this country. 

 The following proofs and illustrations of the state 

 of misery produced by the slavery to hunger, are . 

 more than sufficient to remove those doubts : but 

 they present a state of human suffering, and human 

 degradation, so horrible, that we can scarcely con- 

 ceive the reality of such things being either ex- 

 acted or suffered by human beings. Yet no proofs 

 can be more positive. The testimony that will be 

 quoted is extracted by Fraser's Magazine from 

 the evidence taken by the committee of the House 

 cf Commons on the Factory Bill, and the com- 

 ments thereon, which follow, are from the speech 

 of Mr. Sadler, the introducer and supporter of 

 that bill, and from Blackwood's Magazine, (the 

 notorious apologist for the abuses of the govern- 

 ment, and of tlie general policy of Great Britain.) 



