NEGLECT BY THE GOVERNMENT. 861 



and reported by the government. This small and costless aid to 

 agricultural knowledge, and encouragement to further improvement 

 (as well as all aid of greater value), the legislature of Virginia denied. 

 If it had been granted, and thereby had been shown the real extent 

 of these improvements in every county, and even as it might be on 

 every farm, these facts, in connexion with the values shown by the 

 different assessments, would have exhibited clearly and fully the 

 results which can now only be inferred generally, loosely, and ac- 

 companied necessarily by many errors. Such important results, 

 so fully established, and made so obvious to all, would have operated 

 more strongly than any and all other existing incitements, to en- 

 courage the extension and the judicious procedure of improvements 

 by calcareous manures. It would then clearly appear which in- 

 dividuals had secured to themselves this 30 millions of dollars of 

 already increased value of property, and by what easy means. And 

 all other persons, who could follow the example, and secure their 

 shares of as rich rewards, would be imperatively called to use the 

 like procedure, and so obtain the like benefit for themselves and 

 for the commonwealth. It would have been to the before and still 

 listless and inert proprietors and cultivators of our poor and unim- 

 proved lands similar in effect with the first announcement of the 

 gold of California being ready for every needy adventurer who 

 was able to go and dig for it. In the use of calcareous manures, on 

 all the poor or exhausted land where their use is available, there 

 are offered rewards to all judicious adventurers far richer, and more 

 certainly and largely productive, than the golden products of Cali- 

 fornia and the former would be as much conducive to piiblic and 

 private weal, as the gold of California has been and will be in- 

 jurious to both. 



31 



