552 



FARMERS' REGISTER— SOILS, &c. IN FAIRFAX COUNTY. 



Himself a farmer of that set i'fegs, 

 Who rip the j^oose to get the golden eggs ; 

 That stupid, bUad, short-sighted band, 

 Who skim the surface and undo the land : 

 Who rear no clover on a thirsty soil. 

 For why ? — it grows not to reward their toil : 

 Who strew no gypsum, but absurdly rail, 

 And swear 'tis nothing to the old cowtail. 

 These are their follies — these their crying sins, 

 Despite the pamphlet of the enthusiast Binns ; 

 I own the charge and cry myself, peccavi : 

 I read, but follow not. Sir Humphrey Davy. 



Arise clodhoppers ! now begins the year, 



Attend the business which now demands your care. 



O'erscers all ! whom Taylor dubs the " Priests*- 



Of sa.l destruction," mount your bob-tail beasts, 



Kept always fat when other nags are poor, 



Tho' fed on nothing from the corn house floorf 



'Tis hiring day — and to each county court. 



Those who have negroes will this morn resort. 



Bid, boldly bid and stretch your eager throats, 



O'erbid your rivals, and then give your notes ; 



Fear not the consequence when months roll oe'r, 



You've passed your bonds — so think of them no more; 



When that is done, Virginians' debts are paid, 



'Till courts of justice lend their tedious aid. 



High minded men disdain these petty rubs, 



They leave such settlements to legal scrubs : 



Skinilints alone are ever punctual found, 



And take their bonds in, at the time they're bound. 



This done — return to yourrespective homes. 



Prepare your corn fields ere the sjjring time comes. 



Renew your several troops of sooty blacks. 



Make xocnches grub and fellows wield the axe. 



Watch v/ell the former, for they often leave 



The stump, insidious, in the soil they cleave. 



And when the plough, at some more distant day. 



Incautious strikes — lo ! every thing gives way : 



Share, beam, and chains — and eke the back-bands too, 



And Sambo staggers as he utters whew ! 



Wield well the axe, and fell the growing trees. 



Ope wide the cornfield to the cooling breeze. 



Naught more contributes than the air, I ween, 



To keep your cornstalks in a healthy green. 



Go round your fences and adjust the rails. 



Insert new pieces where the old one fails; 



Stop all the hog holes, lest the treacherous snout 



Should find these pass-ways to your corn field out. 



Too many hope by aid of yelping dogs. 



To guard the coin field from ^Hnfernalhogs." 



They leave their fences in a state unsound. 



Then Cromes the hog and grants them to the ground ; 



They plant — rest from their labors — sleep — 



These cur&t marauders through the hog-holes creep ; 



Led on, perhaps, by some gigantic boar, 



What havoc spread they while the laborers snore. 



The morning breaks — what work for them that morn ! 



The hogs ! — the hogs! — the hogs are in the corn! !| 



Ah! then and there are hurrying one and all. 



Like Byron's picture of the Brusscll's ball.§ 



Men, dogs, and hogs, in one confused pell mell, 



And many a dismal squeal, and many a deafening yell! 



Some dog soon fastens on some luckless ear, 



Awhile hangs growling, then lets go with fear; 



Anon he seizes on his mangled prey, 



The Parthian wheels and fights, and flies away. 



Hold him! and hold him! makes the welkin ring. 



While round his head ihe rocks and brickbats sing. 



At length the battle ends — the routed swine 



Have reach'd the Rubicon, the neighb'ring line. 



♦Taylor's Arator. 



f An assertion always made, but somewhat apocryphal. 



\ The hoes are in the corn field I tns em boy, tus em boy, 



The hoes are in the corn field ! tus em boy, ho ! 

 Here we find the origin of the above popular song in Virginia. 

 1^ Ah then and there was hurrying to and fro, 



And gath'ring tears and tremblings of distress.— Bi/ro?i. 



Away they go with many a joyous snort, 

 I'he master curses, but 'tis Sambo's sport. 

 Oh dreadful scenes! renewed perhaps next day, 

 " Cluonim parsfui," as every one may say. 

 * * + * * 



* * * Hiatus maxime deflendus. 



SOILS AND FARMING OF FAIRFAX COUNTY. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Fairfax County, Dec. 28th, 1833. 

 As you invite your subscribers in the different 

 counties to make afjricultural reports, I shall make 

 you the best I can ibr this county, though I cannot 

 promise myself or your readers much satisfaction. 

 Nature has given us three very distinct kinds of 

 soil in this county, and those again have their va- 

 rious aspects and constitutions quite as distinctly 

 marked as the people who live upon them. First, 

 the river land, which I will, for general purposes, 

 limit by the great southern mail road from Alex- 

 andria to Colchester ; the most of this was origi- 

 nally good land, but being very flat and wet, has 

 been destroyed by careless unskilful cultivation. 

 Ditching and good cultivation, (such as Mr. Sel- 

 den's,) would soon restore it. The last crop of 

 corn was very short, and the wetness of the winter 

 will doubtlessly be fatal to the crop of wheat now 

 in the ground. By referring to tlie map, you will 

 find the Mount Vernon estate, and that of Gun- 

 ston, the property of the late George Mason Esq.: 

 they border for many miles upon the river, and 

 have many and valuable fisheries upon them, the 

 ofial of which would have made much land rich had 

 it been judiciously used j but it is a melancholy 

 fact that little use has been made of that valuable 

 material for imj)roving land. Some efforts have 

 been made upon the river to reclaim extensive 

 pocosins; they did not result so beneficially as 

 could have been wislied. Twenty years ago most 

 of tlie good wet land in tliis district was devoted to 

 tlie production of grass, and was very profitable : 

 Init we have had no profit from them since 1815 ; 

 then they were worth thirty dollars per acre per 

 annum. An estate has lately been sold in this dis- 

 trict for twenty six dollars per acre, but I believe 

 it would require a great salesman to sell another 

 at the same price. Plaster has been used by some 

 for more than thirty years with success. Any, 

 curious to mark the operation of time upon human 

 affairs, would find much for contemplation by 

 riding through the extensive domains of the late 

 General Washington. A more wide spread and 

 perfect agricultural ruin could not be imagined ; 

 yet the monuments of the great mind that once 

 ruled, are seen throughout. The ruins of capa- 

 cious barns, and long extended hedges, seem proud- 

 ly to boast that their master looked to the future. 

 It is strange that the cause of the absolute death of 

 so large an estate was never seen by this great and 

 discriminating man; and yet more strange, that 

 out of many managers, of this country and of Eu- 

 rope, none, by their correctives, appear to have 

 seen tiie cause ; had they seen that it came to its 

 death by drowning, prompt restoratives would have 

 been resorted to, we may presume : they would 

 have freed the land from water, placed it in warm 

 dry beds, and then by friction and stimulants, a full 

 and perfect restoration would have been the result. 

 I assume that the attending nurse would give the 

 patient all the food that his means would supply. 



