36 TIDE-WATER DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA. 



great body of lands, of a higher grade of fertility, though still far 

 from valuable. It is generally more sandy than the poorer ridge 

 land, and when long cultivated, is more or less deprived of its soil, 

 by the washing of rains, on every slight declivity. The washing 

 away of three or four inches in depth exposes a sterile subsoil (or 

 forms a "gall"), which continues thenceforth bare of all vegetation. 

 A greater declivity of the surface serves to form gullies several feet 

 in depth, the earth carried from which covers and injures the ad- 

 jacent lower land. Most of this kind of land has been cleared 

 and greatly exhausted. Its virgin growth is often more of oak, 

 hickory, and dogwood, than pine ; but when turned out of cultiva- 

 tion, an unmixed growth of pine follows. Land of this kind in 

 general has very little durability. Its best usual product of corn 

 may be, for a few crops, eighteen or twenty bushels and even as 

 much as twenty-five bushels, from the highest grade. Wheat is 

 seldom a productive or profitable crop on the slopes, the soil being 

 generally too sandy. When such soils as these are called rich or 

 valuable (as most persons would describe them), those terms must 

 be considered as only comparative ; and such an application of them 

 proves that truly fertile and valuable soils are very scarce in lower 

 Virginia. 



Almost the only very rich and durable soils below the falls of 

 our rivers are narrow strips of high-land along their banks, and the 

 low-lands formed by the alluvion of the numerous smaller streams 

 which water our country. These alluvial bottoms, though highly 

 productive, are lessened in value by being generally too sandy, and 

 by the damage they suffer from being often inundated by floods of 

 rain. The best high-land soils seldom extend more than half a 

 mile from the river's edge sometimes not fifty yards. These ir- 

 regular margins are composed of loams of various qualities* but all 

 highly valuable; and the best soils are scarcely to be surpassed in 

 their original fertility, and durability under severe tillage. Their 

 nature and peculiarities will be again adverted to, and more fully 

 described hereafter. 



The simple statement of the general course of tillage to which 

 this part of the country has been subjected, is sufficient to prove 

 that great impoverishment of the soil has been the inevitable con- 

 sequence. The small portion of rich river margin was soon all 

 cleared, and was tilled without cessation for many years. The 

 ^clearing of the slopes was next commenced, and 'is not yet entirely 

 completed. On these soils, the succession of crops was less rapid, 

 or, from necessity, tillage was sooner suspended. If not rich 

 enough for tobacco when first cleared (or as soon as it ceased to be 

 so), land of this kind was planted in corn two- or three years in 

 succession, and afterwards every second year. The intermediate 

 year between the crops of corn, the field was " rested" under a 



