144 Review of Essays on Calcareous Manures. 



fallows were less perfect than in England, and presented rather the 

 aspect of plantations of weeds, than of the naked pulverized soil which 

 ought to characterize them. Wheat was first attempted, but gradu- 

 ally abandoned as unprofitable ; rye followed, and is still cultivated, 

 while a great improvement has taken place in making it or oats follow 

 corn, and thus introducing the rotation of crops. The failure of wheat 

 was in New England ascribed to any thing but the true cause ; and it 

 has been usual to lay the blame to the presence of the barberry bush. 

 This indeed infests the fields from which wheat is banished, but is 

 no more than the natural growth of a soil from which the earthy mat- 

 ter necessary to the nutriment of wheat is exhausted. This East- 

 ern mode of farming has derived great improvement from the intro- 

 duction of sown meadows instead of naked fallows, and the climate 

 admits of grazing them with benefit to the soil rather than injury. 

 At a distance from the sea, clover has been introduced for this pur- 

 pose, and has by the aid of plaster extended its beneficial influence 

 along the southern shore of the great Lakes, almost to the Mississippi. 



It is to this lucky accident, as it may in fact be termed, that it is 

 owing that the more newly opened regions in the northern states 

 have not depreciated as much as those which were cultivated more 

 early. Still the habits of the pioneers of civilization, of eastern or- 

 igin, are such as to make sad havoc with the native bounty of the 

 earth. 



The settlers of Virginia, on the other hand, found in their soil and 

 climate the capacity of yielding tobacco, which formed an article of 

 such value as to dispense with their raising any other, for by its sale 

 they could provide themselves even with bread stuffs. Not only 

 did it do away with this as a necessity, but it furnished them with 

 the means of purchasing slave labor, by which they were enabled to 

 increase the extent of ground brought into cultivation, in a ratio far 

 greater than was at first attempted in the eastern states. While in 

 the latter regions, the settlers were at first collected in villages and 

 hamlets, around which their arable lands were opened at the least 

 possible distances, and every consideration of interest led the inhab- 

 itants to attempt to keep them in tolerable condition, the settlers of 

 Virginia, after the first struggle with the natives was over, spread 

 themselves in separate plantations at great distances from each other. 

 Each planter took into possession an extensive district of wood land, 

 of which he cleared as much as his slaves were able to cultivate. 

 So soon as by a continual succession of hard cropping with the same 



