FARMERS' REGISTER— AGRICULfuRE— PUBLIC WORKS. 



266 



position will be so true that our present laborers 

 will advance much in price. It is certainly as much 

 to the interest of the farmer to increase his capital, 

 as to the merchant: and the merchant, who, Irom 

 a condensed capital, can reap a large profit, esti- 

 mates his business more highly than if compelled 

 to scatter his funds. The farmer who, to make 500 

 barrels of corn, has to cultivate 200 acres of land, 

 certainly does not clear as much as if he made the 

 same upon half tlie surface; supposing, in both 

 cases, that he cultivates land for whicli he pays 

 nothing : and hev,- must the case be altered, v.hen 

 he pays for the extra 100 acres. 



Furius Cresinus, a peasant, being accused before 

 the Roman people for a sort of witchcraft commit- 

 ted by him upon his neighbors' lands, which though 

 of greater extent, yet yielded not so good crops as 

 his, tliat were less — took no other course to justify 

 his innocence than to bring, on the day of his ap- 

 pearance, his instruments of agriculture, kept in 

 exceeding good order, beseeching his judges to be- 

 lieve he had made use of no other spells than those, 

 W'ith abundance of pains and watchings. It ever 

 being diflicult to persuade mankind to abandon a 

 particular course at once, we need not expect to 

 arrive al the desirable end of lessening our surface, 

 until a new set of agriculturists shall grow up, ob- 

 taining information from some otiier source, than 

 the fire-side chit-chat of their antiquated parent. 

 From wheiice have improvements in agriculture 

 emanated.' Not from those who have followed it 

 from their youth, but from those who at an early 

 period left their parental roof in pursuit of litera- 

 ture, or have retired from some of the professions : 

 they enter upon the business with no preconceiv- 

 ed notions, extract information from any source, 

 and after due deliberation, they act witliout those 

 tloubts and fears which accompany the sons of an 

 old farmer, raised with him, and who have from 

 infancy been taught to reverence old opinions, and 

 to let alone those newfangled notions Avhich " look 

 mighty pretty upon paper, but never till the barn." 

 May we not \\o\)e, that the time is fast approaching 

 when every county will have an agricultural soci- 

 ety — (and what cannot well regulated associations 

 do?) Until that is done, much remains to be done; 

 and tlie Farmers' Register is, I ho})e, the entering 

 wedge, by which the prejudices of tlse community 

 will be rent asunder, and .agriculture iiold up its 

 crest-fallen front among the sciences of the day. 

 Shame to us that we are so far in the rear. With 

 these remarks I close. In wishing you success, I 

 but express a patriotic wish, which would warm 

 the bosoms of all the sons of Virginia, if they would 

 view the matter as it merits. medicus. 



For the Farmers' Register. 

 OBSERVATIOXS OX THE AGRICULTURAL, IM- 

 PROVEMEXT, AND THE PUBLIC WORKS OF 

 VIRGINIA. 



To the President of the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society. 



In circulating pretty extensively through East- 

 ern Virginia, my observations upon the altered face 

 of the country, lead me to the comfortable conclu- 

 sion, that the spirit of improvement in agriculture 

 is abroad in the land, although the ardor in the cause 

 of societies for its promotion, appears much to have 

 abated of late years. There appears to the obser- 

 ving traveller, considerable evidence of attention to 



Vol. 1—34 



the practice of improvement, if lukewarmness as to 

 the theory exists. Fewer gullied and denuded hill 

 sides are presented as eyesores. The fields are 

 now mostly ploughed horizontally, by which the 

 general surface is prevented from being washed 

 into the bottoms, as formerly, by the old fashioned 

 up and down hill mode; and, more attention seems 

 to be paid to the broadcast application of manure, 

 upon the thin and poor parts of the fields, to equalize 

 the fertility, instead of pursuing the old plan (ori- 

 ginating doubtless v.ith the tobacco planter) of con- 

 centrating all the manure raised, upon one or two 

 lots, to the neglect and disparagement of the farm. 

 It seems to be a subject of controversy, however, 

 whether k is not tiie most judicious course, to ma- 

 nure what you can, highly, and limit your cultiva- 

 tion to a small number of highly improved acres, 

 instead of the broadcast plan of improvement, and 

 cultivation of much land to the hand. It seems to 

 me, from my observations and reflections upon this 

 subject, that the peculiarity of situation in' refer- 

 ence to the market, and facility and despatch in 

 visiting it, should decide the course to be pursued. 

 Lands convenient to large cities, of great cost, that 

 can be stocked down'in meadoAv, after one grain 

 crop, that would pay for a manuring and liming at 

 once at the cost of -9 20 to the acre, and which will 

 remain eiglit or ten years in prime meadow, with- 

 out being overrun with thistles, dock, or broom 

 sedge, will present a subject for this description of 

 cultivation and manuring. But, at a distance from 

 cities, which afford a ready and good market for 

 milk, butter, veals, hay, &"c. at no great expense 

 of transportation, and where lands are cheap and 

 labor dear in comparison with the price of land, and 

 the production of grain, as with us in Virginia, 

 tlie limited cultivation and costly manuring system 

 would certainly fail. On our sandy soil, in our cli- 

 mate, the broom sedge will compel a resort to the 

 i)lough in five years, even if our lands, on being 

 made rich, would suit the grazing system in other 

 respects. I have, from long observation and some 

 experience, come to the fixed conclusion, that the 

 Virginia agriculturists generally should, with a due 

 regard to profit and improvement, (v,hich should 

 be regarded as inseparable,) pursue what is called 

 the four shift, or four field system, and keep a stand- 

 ing pasture, for stock to run upon, until harvest. 

 After this, the field for corn, the year after, may be 

 grazed to advantage ; as the clover will be ripe, the 

 stock (which should never be more numerous than 

 sufficient to consume the forage and tread the offal 

 during winter and sjjring) will keep down the 

 young weeds, and bushes, if any should spring, and 

 "give the land a proper degree of compactness to 

 suit the wheat crop. Another advantage, it strikes 

 me, is derived from this grazing the year before 

 corn is planted on the field — all cheat or rye, that 

 may have sprung with the clover, will be eradica- 

 ted, as well as cockle, and onion or garlick seed. 

 And it is my impression that insects, and even the 

 cut-worm, (that vile pest in cornfields, after clo- 

 ver,) will be considerably lessened.* 



This system of culti\ation in corn one year, 

 wheat another, and rest one year, w-ith partial gra- 

 zino- the fourth, if combined with a judicious appli- 



* The grazing of a field must be very close to destroy 

 cheat, as this vile weed will not be eaten by cattle, so 

 lono- ns they can find clover or other palatable grasses. 



[Ed. Farm. Reg. 



