10 MR. SALTONSTALL's ADDRESS. 



of improvement is spreading over our broad land, it 

 has even penetrated into old Virginia — and you know 

 that the first article of a Virginian's creed has been, that 

 nothing Virginian is capable of improvement. That 

 eminent agriculturist, the late James M. Garnett, has 

 told us what the state of farming has been, in the old 

 dominion, and what are its present condition and pros- 

 pects.* " Formerly (he says) cattle were so much ne- 

 glected, that it was common for the multitudes starved 

 to death every winter, to supply hides enough for shoeing 

 the negroes on every farm — my grandfather was once 

 near dismissing a good overseer, because cattle enough 

 had not died on the farm, to furnish leather for that pur- 

 pose ! It is a favorite opinion with many, even now, that 

 all kinds of farming stock, except horses, are endued 

 with a sort of natural sagacity or instinct, which enables 

 them to choose for themselves, in bad weather, much 

 better shelter than their owners could provide for them. 

 In the spring you may behold a spectacle sad enough to 

 move the pity of any person who can feel for brute 

 beasts — hogs, half dead with the mange — sheep, which 

 have saved nearly all the trouble of shearing, by drop- 

 ping a large portion of their fleeces in the fields, and 

 have prevented an overstock of lambs by yeaning them 

 in situations convenient to the politic troop of buzzards, 

 which may be seen hovering over them, in greedy an- 

 ticipation of their customary feasts — and cattle, heaven 

 help them, for man will not, with their backs arched, 

 as much as their spines will admit, and all four feet 

 drawn under them, to balance themselves, as it were, 

 lest a stronger wind than common should place them in 

 a situation which we call being on the lift. I know not 

 whether you northern farmers understand the meaning 

 of this phrase — we apply it to cattle that have fallen 

 down from utter inability to stand, and of course, are 

 unable to rise without being lifted up again." 



"And as to dairies in old Virginia, I doubt, whether 

 one in a hundred of our ordinary farmers, owns such a 



* TranBactions of the New York Agricultural Society, 1841 — page 1~5. 



