304 



FARMERS' REGISTER— NOTTOWAY RIVER— CHEAT. 



" At a lime when it was generally held, that the 

 resistance to a vessel in the water increased in the 

 duplicate ratio of the velocity of the vessel through 

 the water, the now keenly contested merits of rail- 

 way transport, and canal transport, were brought 

 under discussion. Experiments were instituted in 

 order to confirm this law, of resistance, but it oc- 

 curred to none of the experimentalists that although 

 they could not increase the density of the water, or 

 consolidate it, as has been done with roads lor car- 

 riages, that they could still increase the relative 

 resistance of water, by giving the boat such velo- 

 city that her prow could not penetrate fast enough, 

 and thus that she should rise out of the fluid. They 

 might have reasoned, by a perfectly fair analogy 

 between conveyance on land or on snow, and con- 

 vevance on water, and have legitimately con- 

 cluded, that, as their object was not to cut through 

 gravel, but to get on it, in the one case, so at high 

 velocities in the other, they should not have endea- 

 vored only to cut through the water, but also to 

 raise the boat to the surlace, and make her skim 

 thereon. 



" Such iacts are obvious to all, who have seen a 

 boy make a thin stone skim the surface of a lake; 

 who have watched the action of a cannon bail on 

 the smooth sea; who have felt the difliculty of ma- 

 king any impression upon the stream forced from 

 the small aperture of a fire engine hose pipe; or, 

 indeed, who know any thing of the properties of 

 matter." 



NAVIGATION OF NOTTOWAY RIVER. 



From the Petersburg Intelligencer. 



Our readers may remember that, during the last 

 winter, the Legislature ordered a survey of the 

 Nottoway river, from its highest navigable point 

 to its intersection with the Petersburg Rail Road. 

 We published some weeks ago the report of a party 

 of gentlemen, who had explored the river in a large 

 boat, and whose experiment alTorded proof of the 

 entire practicability of removing all obstructions 

 to its navigation. Since that period, an intelligent 

 engineer has been engaged, under the authority of 

 the Eoard of Public Works, in making a critical 

 survey of the river, to whose politeness we are in- 

 debted for the aimexed results of his labors. Mr. 

 Thompson has described so clearly the advantages 

 of this improvement, and the facility with which 

 they may be realized, that we cannot believe that 

 the planters on the Nottoway will any longer hesi- 

 tate to take the necessai-y steps to insure the com- 

 pletion of a work in which they have so deep an 

 interest. 



Petersburg, Jlug. 21, 1833. 



Gentlemen, — It is with pleasure 1 comply with 

 the request to furnish you with the result of the 

 survey and estimate for the contemplated improve- 

 ment of the Nottoway river, from the Great Falls 

 to the Rail Road, a distance of 66 miles 613 yards : 

 in which distance it flows through one of the rich- 

 est and most fertile sections of country in the State 

 of Virginia — and from the smallness of the amount 

 required to open a useful navigation, and afford the 

 planters in that section an easy, cheap, and expe- 

 ditious mode of getting their produce to market, 

 would lead to the hope that the work would be im- 

 mediately and vigorously commenced, the advan- 

 tages of which are almost incalculable, when com- 

 pared with their present tardy mode of transporta- 



tion over a wretched road, requiring twenty per 

 cent, of the actual value of the article to land it at 

 a market. 



There are 2-5 miles of slack-water navigation on 

 the river, occasioned by the different mill-dams, 

 which are probalily rather an advantage than an 

 injury, as they back the water over many shoals 

 and falls in that distance. The locks are supposed 

 60 feet long, 8 feet wide, built of wood — sustained 

 by dry walls, where the strength of the current or 

 other circumstances may render it necessary ; they 

 last, under ordinary circumstances, from 8 to 10 

 years ; when the increased amount of produce will, 

 no doubt, warrant a more j)ermanent structure. — ■ 

 The river (independent of the locks in the different 

 dams) will only require cleaning out, and oocasion- 

 ally wing dams to deepen the water on the shoals; 

 the total cost of which is sg 29,406. 



In a communication from gentlemen ahove the 

 Forks of Nottoway, they state, that in the event of 

 the river being made navigable, from that section 

 of country alone they can send 2,000 hotheads of 

 tobacco, and 60,000 bushels of wheat. From the 

 forks to the rail road, a distance of 56 miles, there 

 is an exceedingly fertile country, which would add 

 largely to the above amount — with a yearly in- 

 crease on the whole amount from the increased faci- 

 lities of transportation; which would seem to place 

 beyond all doubt a handsome interest on the invest- 

 ment. At the very lowest calculation the saving 

 to the planter will exceed 50 per cent, on the pre- 

 sent cost of waggoning his tobacco, and on wheat 

 in a much greater proportion. 



Your obedient servant, 



W. B. THOMPSON. 



THE CHEAT [OR CIIESS] CONTROVERSY. 



We laid before our readers in No. 2, (page 83,) the 

 details of an experiment, the object of which was to test 

 tlie origin of cheat by undoubted facts : and the result 

 of that trial was clearly against the prevailing opinion, 

 that cheat plants are produced from wheat. It was not 

 expected that those facts would carry conviction to many 

 whose belief was fixed in a different opinion: but it was 

 hoped that the publication would induce the making of 

 other careful and accurate experiments, and serve to es- 

 tablish truth by facts, ascertained by various persons of 

 opposite prepossessions, on this subject. The time of year 

 has arrived for such trials to be made — and we invite 

 behevers in the transformation to try, in every variety 

 of process and exposure, to produce a plant either of 

 cheat or spelt from the undoubted seed of wheat. If 

 the change is in truth so frequently made in our fields, 

 and may be produced there by any one of so many dif- 

 ferent causes, as is generally supposed, surely it cannot 

 he difficult to effect a like change by design, and to trace 

 and prove the progress, from the depositing the wheat 

 seed, to the gathering of the cheat product. 



In the mean time, we present the following articles, 

 which severally maintain the opposite sides of this ques- 

 tion. Mr. Ramsdell reHcs also on facts obtained by ex- 

 periments, to establish his cause ; but strong as they 

 may appear, they were not determined in a manner so 

 accurate as to leave no doubts. But we yield the task 

 of commentmg on his letter to his intelligent coun- 



