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is not an exhauster of land, per se), have brought ruin to 

 the best acres of the South, whilst small grain and the 

 grasses have husbanded and increased the natural fertility 

 of the lands of our Northern neighbors. Lands in which 

 these too great staples are grown should be level lands, and 

 in the case of tobacco should receive, (outside the aid of 

 rotation), a generous manuring. But if I have given th* 

 true reason for the rapid decline of the productive capacity 

 of the soil of the South as contrasted with that of the North- 

 ern States, let me take you one step further and show you 

 that in the rich region of country lying northwest of the 

 Ohio river, we find a very great difference in the material 

 .prosperity of the farmers there. A portion of them are 

 prosperous, while others are experiencing all the evils re- 

 sulting from the comprehensive term hard times. It is not 

 difficult to learn the cause. The grain- maker, whose whole 

 energies have been devoted to extracting the fertility of his 

 soil for many consecutive years, in magnificent harvests, 

 finds his crops growing less and less each year, while the 

 stock- raiser is prosperous, having grown rich while making 

 his land rich. 



Time has here demonstrated a great truth which agricul- 

 turists should not ignore. Let our southern farmers profit 

 by its inevitable teaching. Let us determine to improve 

 our destructive farming; give our lands a chance to grow 

 better instead of depreciating yearly ; build up the waste 

 places; infuse new life into our southern land, beautiful 

 still in her decline, and endeared the more as we see her 

 slowly sinking under the drain mercilessly kept open by her 

 own children, in the veins through which her priceless life- 

 blood flows. 



Since writing the above, I have accidentally found an old 

 document upon " Southern Agricultural Exhaustion and its 

 Remedy," from the able pen of the late Judge Ruffin, of 

 Virginia. Although this article was not written specially 

 upon the merits of the field pea as a renovator of worn 



