esd 



FARMERS' REGISTER— LANDS IN CENTRAL TIRGINLl. 



in a small way with turnips, the experiment has 

 very seldom been tried. Our soil and climate, 

 however, seem to be well adapted to their growth 



The artificial <2;rasses are also well calculated to 

 supply any deficiency in the corn crop. These, 

 however, have met with but few friends, if we 

 judge from the attention paid to them. I know a 

 gentleman, wIk) has been in the habit of having 

 his working horses held to a volunteer crop of 

 gania grass, growing on a piece of very sandy 

 low ground. It is reported to have answered, in 

 this way, well. This should be encouraging to 

 such as propose bringing this article under culti- 

 vation. 



Rye and oat crops, both of which are very un- 

 certain as generally managed, may, if sown in 

 good time, on ground proi>erly prepared, be con- 

 sidered pretty sure crops. Rye, to succee<l in this 

 part of the country, must be sown about the last of 

 Augustor early in September. Oats rarely succeed 

 when sown as late as April and May. But sown, 

 on ground sufficiently dry, in January, February, 

 or very early in March, they seldom fail. 



Irrigation has been so little practised in Middle 

 Vii-ginia, that we are almost left to conjecture as 

 to the amount of benefit to be expected from it. 

 No one doubts its efficacy on grass lands. I have 

 known it very successfully tried on both corn and 

 tobacco. We would all, perhaps, be surprised to 

 find — which we might very readily do by a little 

 attention to levelling — how much land may be 

 brought under the influence of this art. We 

 would also be, perhaps, surprized to find how much 

 our crops Vvould be increased, by having only a 

 small portion of land irrigated. It is said that in 

 Ifaly, those wlio are unable otherwise to water 

 their lands, willingly give half their crops for wa- 

 ter, from the public canal, made for the purpose of 

 irrigation. 



4. Little need be said of the tobacco crop as af- 

 fording obstacles to agricultural improvement. It 

 has long been charged with being the chief cause 

 of our difficulties; and as usually cultivated, it has 

 long merited the accusation. It may, however, 

 well be questioned, whether the charge be not 

 more ap^ilieable to the management, than to the 

 crop. We sufier it to become the great monopo- 

 list both of our manures aral our attention, and 

 then scold, because grounds cultivated in other ar- 

 ticles, become poor. It certainly is not, in itself, 

 a great exhauster; but occupying all the land that 

 the planter can annually manure, and all that he 

 clears, taking the very gleanings from the other 

 fields of the farm, it leaves them in the condition of 

 those portions of a country unprotected by the 

 government. If the fertility of its lots were pre- 

 served, by ploughing under oats, clover, or some 

 other meliorating crop, after the manner of Mr. 

 Old and others, then all the manure might be distri- 

 buted over the farm, and very different effects 

 would follow. Such a removal of " deposHes" as 

 this would doubtless prove salutary. 



With the prices obtained for our tobacco during 

 the last fii'teen years, we must go back to the good 

 old fashion of wearing homespun — banish foreign 

 luxuries from our tables, and raise our own meat; 

 or, v/e must improve our avenues to market, so 

 that other crops may bear transportation : or, last- 

 ly, wc must build up towns and villages, and erect 

 manufactories, and thus bring the consumers to the 

 crops. 



Action and reaction are as perfectly equal in 

 commerce as in physics — and restriction on the 

 foreign articles given in exchange for our tobacco, 

 limit its foreign use, and recoil upon the producer 

 in the reduction of its price, as certainly as if a 

 duty were imposed on its exjwrtation. The time 

 was when it was rarely we heard of a mortgage 

 on land, and some disgrace was attaclved to the 

 mortgager. Now, in some neighborhoods, half 

 the land is in tliis condition. In some neighbor- 

 borhoods also, a man can hardly be found, who is 

 not waiting for something approaching to a fair 

 price for his land, that be may sell and remove to 

 the "far west." Is tliere no help for these things? 

 So far as the people are concerned, it can only be 

 remedied by practising the most rigid economy. 

 But changing national habits by common concert 

 is too difficult to be exjjected. Our legislature 

 might levy such a tax upon merchants, as would 

 give us all the sweets of " domestic industry," 

 brought home to every man's business and bosom. 

 This glorious system of " American indlastry," 

 thus pushed to its last extreme, might afford every 

 body an opportunity of judging its merits, if it did 

 not satisfy its greediest advocates. Fight the devil 

 with fire. 



Improving our avenues to market, is also, in 

 part, a subject for the consideration of our legis- 

 lature. With the best possible facilities for trans- 

 portation ^ the single county of Charlotte might, 

 probably, under a good system of agriculture, 

 produce from one to two or three hundred times 

 its present amount of wheat for market. When- 

 ever transportation becomes cheap, we will not be 

 confined, as at present; to a single roarketable crop, 

 and the surjJus carriage v.(hich is. now paid, even 

 of that crop, will be added to the planters' profits. 



Virginia has long labored under very peculiar 

 disadvantages. Nineteen twentieths of the labor 

 being agricultui-al, we have few consumers at home 

 for our surplus products,.and our means of trans- 

 portation being miserable, a great part of the state 

 has been able to i-aise little besides tobacco for 

 market. A new era seems to be commencing — 

 whether for good or for ill, time must determine. 

 The simple grandeur of the Ancient Dominion has 

 departed, perhaps, forever — and cannot long be 

 enjoyed by any countrj'. With very little trade — 

 but that free and simple, and with a hard-money 

 currency, the days of the wooden trencher and pew- 

 ter plates and dishes, were glorious days — when 

 every man understood and minded his own busi- 

 ness. Now, many a planter furnishes a carriage 

 for his wife and daughters to ride in, costing more 

 than the legacy he could bequeath to each of his 

 children. Towns, villages,and manufactories are 

 beginning to be erected — internal improvements 

 are much talked of- — and every man is a politician. 

 If things progress as they have done, for a year or 

 two past, we shall soon have consumers enough in 

 the bosom of the state, for our surplus commodi- 

 ties ; and much more abundant encouragement, 

 than heretofore, will be afforded to improvement 

 in agriculture. 1 fear, however, this will not be 

 accompanied by an improvement in morals. Ex- 

 tremes sometimes work the cure of their own 

 evils. The "restrictive system," which, like a 

 north easterly blast, has so long benumbed our en- 

 ergies, may force its handicrafts upon us, and bring 

 to us some good with its evils. Whether we have 

 not already weathered the worst of the storm — let 



