Review of Essays on Calcareous Manures. 157 



dustry and economy, will not conamand a fourth of the price of that 

 of the vicinity of Lancaster. 



The experiments of Mr. Ruffin, were made, as we have stated, 

 upon the soils of lower Virginia. He introduces his description of 

 them in the foUowinsf strikino; manner. 



' " During several days of our journey, no spot was seen that was 

 not covered with a luxuriant growth of large and beautiful forest trees, 

 except where they had been destroyed by the natives for the pur- 

 pose of cultivation. The least fertile of their pasture lands, without 

 seeding, are soon covered with grass, several feet in height; and 

 unless prevented by cultivation, a second growth of trees rapidly 

 spring up, which without care or attention, attain their giant size in 

 half the time that would be expected in the best soils in England." ' 



" If the foregoing description was met with in a "journey through 

 Hindostan," or some equally unknown region, no European reader 

 ■would doubt that such soils were fertile in the highest degree — and 

 even many of ourselves would receive the same impression. Yet it is 

 no exaggerated account of the poorest natural soils in our own poor 

 country, which are remarkable for producing luxuriant growths of 

 pines and broom-grass, as for their unproductiveness in every culti- 

 vated or valuable crop. We are so accustomed to these facts, that 

 we scarcely think of their singularity ; nor of the impropriety of call- 

 ing any lands barren, which will produce a rapid growth of any one 

 plant. Indeed by the rapidity of that growth, (or the fitness of the 

 soil for its production,) we have in some measure formed a standard 

 of the poverty of the soil." 



" With some exceptions to every general character, the tide-water 

 district of Virginia, may be described as generally level, sandy, poor, 

 and free from any fixed rock, or any other than stones, rounded ap- 

 parently by the attrition of water. On much the greater part of the 

 lands, no stone of any kind is to be found of any larger size than 

 •gravel. Pines of different kinds, form the greater part of a heavy 

 cover to the siliceous soils in their virgin state, and mix considera- 

 bly with oaks and other growth of clay land. Both these kinds of 

 soil after being exhausted of their little fertility, by cultivation, and 

 " turned out" to recruit, are soon covered by young pines, which 

 grow with vigor and luxuriance. This general description, applies 

 more particularly to the ridges, which separate the sloj)es on differ- 

 ent streams. The ridge lands are always level, and very poor, some- 

 times clayey — more generally sandy, but stifFer than would be infer- 



