AND HORTICULTURAL 'REGISTER. 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aobicui-tubal Warehouse.) 



VOL. XVIU.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 17, 1839. 



[NO. a. 



AGRICULTURAL. 



VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE. 



We copy tho following correspondence from one 

 «if the most instructive and ably conducted anricnl- 

 tural publications in this or any other country, the 

 Farmer's Register, published at Petersburg, Va. 



The enterprise of our neighbor Kenrick in trans- 

 Jerring a portion of his lucrative cultivation into tht- 

 Old Dominion is highly creditable, and shows the 

 irue spirit of Yankee enterprise. His observations 

 «)U the low state of agriculture in Virginia are inter- 

 esting, and have called forth a spirited reply froii'_ 

 JUr Rutfin. We shall allow both parties to be 

 heard, and leave every reader to form his own judg- 

 ment. H. C. 



Alleged Effect of Slaveri/ on tht .'Igriculture -if 



Virginia. 

 To the Editor of the Farmer's Register : 



Portsmouth, Va. April 1, 1839. 

 You have indeed, from all accounts, a vast ai^l 

 fine tract of country, from GO to 80 miles broad aloi.g 

 the whole Atlantic coast. This vase country is 

 now, in a good measure, a desert, or covered witli 

 forests — the land ruined by continual cropping, and 

 now deserted. Good lands, as I am told, may now 

 be obtained in this vicinity for from $5 to $8 an 

 acre, in p'irt covered with a young apd luxuriai ' 

 growlh. "We know the causes of this destruction , 

 and these same causes continuing, it seems not 

 very probable that these lands will ever again be 

 recovered or rise in value until those causes are re- 



about 500,000 slaves, which are probably valued by 

 their owners, one with another, at $400 each, or 

 .*i-^00,000,000, for the whole. Now, can any one 

 doubt but that if all these slaves wore emancipated, 

 that the lands of Virginia would rise $5 an acre, 

 and this rise of $5 an acre would bo equivalent to 

 the estimated value of all the slaves. I am per- 

 suaded, however, that the rise of lands would be 

 far greater ; and that, were all the slaves emanci- 

 pated at this day, the State of Virginia would ex- 

 perience a clear gain of more than $500,000,000 in 

 the rise of their lands alone. Emigration would 

 then take place to a great extent from the northern 

 free Stat?."?. The Yankees would then flock hither, 

 and hire up at advanced wages the freed slaves, 

 and the whole of eastern Virginia would then be. 

 come a perfect garden. The advantages of th's j 

 part of Virginia for th» pro;'.uction, especially of 

 all early vegetables and fruits for the supply of the ; 

 markets of the great cities of the northern and mid- 

 dle States, is very great, and unrivalled; as these j 

 cities, by the aid of rail-roads, and Steam naviga- i 

 tion will soon be brought within' 'M hours of Nor- | 

 folk ; yet the seasons are at Portsmouth full a j 

 iiionth in advance of some of these northern cities. 

 I he wheat of lower Virginia almost always com- 

 mands a higher price than that of the north, new 

 flour being .preferred by all. The fields of Virgin- 

 ia may be reaped and the produce converted into 

 flour, and this flour for, sale at Nev( York and Bos- 

 ton even befvre the whtJkt'fi»l<^'«ife»{fc«i«oiyi-,<Me 

 ready to harvest. 



Although the prices of provisions are generally 

 at least as low in this part of Virginia, and the price 



those in the sotithern States, may be surprised that 

 the foregoing rondenmation of slavery should have 

 been admitted 'o our pages. The former, probably, 

 suppose that southern men and slaveholders fear, 

 and therefore object to, the expression of opinionb 

 contrary to iheir own on tiiis subject ; and many in 

 the south, in their violence against northern anti- 

 slavery fanaticism, show themselves to be as big- 

 oted and fanatical in opposition, and are disposed 

 to regard any expression of such opinions as both 

 insulting and designing injury to themselves. But 

 we are not of this class. Maintaining as we do, 

 and as stauntlily as any can do, the rights of slave- 

 holders, both private and political — maintaining 

 too, that the institution of personal slavery, under 

 certain circuii.staiices, (and which are in full opera- 

 tion in the greater part of the southern states,) ia 

 politic and proper in itself — maintaining too, that 

 the institution in general, has been highly bene- 

 ficial to the world, in increasing labor, wealth; civ- 

 ilization, and refinement, and even in spreading 

 good morals and religion — still, we neither object 

 to others considering these opinions as altogether 

 erroneous, nor to their endeavoring, by argument 

 and evidence, to sustain their opposite opinions. — 

 Domestic or personal slavery; even upon our own 

 view, like every other wide spread and widely op- 

 erating institution, has its evil as well as its good 

 effects; and in regarding it, perhaps we may allow 

 too little w 'ighr. to the former, and too much to 

 the latter-.~jus4^tJ we deem that our northern cor- 

 respondent errs in the opposite manner. But no 

 matter how erroneous may be his views and those 

 of his countrymen in general, on this subject, it is 



