THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



223 



to advise those in another calling ; but the looker 

 on can sometimes see what escapes the atten- 

 tion of the player, and for the last forty years I 

 have been a not inattentive or uninterested spec- 

 tator of the progress of an art on which my own 

 pursuits were founded, and with which they 

 were so intimately blended. It seems to me, 

 then, nothing would more promote the cause of 

 agriculture than a judicious division of the ca- 

 pital embarked in it. To make this division 

 constitutes a rather difficult sum in arithmetic, 

 one of the quantities only being known, but a 

 practical man with a little calculation, can rea- 

 dily approximate it without even a recourse to 

 algebraical signs. Suppose an individual de- 

 sires to engage in farming, and that he has, we 

 will say, ten thousand dollars to embark in the 

 business. The first object is to ascertain how 

 much land he should buy. Let him remember 

 that it is only a certain degree of fertility that 

 will pay for cultivation, and that, within reason- 

 able limits, the greater the fertility the greater 

 will be the profit upon the investment. My ad- 

 vice to him would be to be satisfied with nothing 

 that would not yield eight barrels of corn and 

 twenty bushels of wheat, at least, to the acre. 

 We will suppose that such land in the location 

 he chooses will cost forty dollars an acre: very 

 well, let him reserve four thousand dollars to 

 purchase negroes, stock, implements, &c. and to 

 afford him floating capital for at least one year's 

 operations : this leaves him six thousand dollars 

 for the purchase of one hundred and fifty acres 

 of land. It is a small farm, it is true, and the 

 owner could not be esteemed a great landed pro- 

 prietor; but it is well stocked, well provided, 

 very productive, and the owner with every thing 

 well fixed and comfortable, free from debt and 

 with a provision for accidents, is enabled to de- 

 vote his whole energies to his business. How 

 certain in such a case would be the annual im- 

 provement of his land, or the annual extension 

 of his acres. 



But let us contrast with this operation the 

 course usually pursued by those investing in 

 real estate. From an inordinate desire that 

 seems to be born with us here in the South, to 

 be the owners of " broad acres," the whole ca- 

 pital is expended in an extensive and barren 

 waste, or probably half the purchase money 

 paid, and a debt incurred for the balance. Little 

 or nothing left for stock or implements, which 

 are probably bought on credit, and are frequent- 

 ly of the rudest and poorest kind. Already 

 saddled with a heavy debt, the interest on which 

 begins to stare him in the face and haunt his 

 imagination in his dreams, what does it avail to 

 tell this poor wight of some improved imple- 

 ment of agriculture or of a judicious system of 

 husbandry? Why, if you advise him to pay 

 a dollar a year for an agricultural newspaper, 

 he replies, and with a great deal of truth indeed, 



that " he can't afford it." There is a perpetual 

 struggle upon the part of this great land owner 

 to keep body and soul together, and instead of 

 ease, thrift, and improvement, he exhibits from 

 3 T ear to year the increasing marks of care, po- 

 verty and want; until at last his great estate 

 slips through his fingers and falls into the pos- 

 session of some individual, perhaps, who having 

 the means of improvement, doubles or quadru- 

 ples the product, and thereby makes the whole 

 an excellent, investment. 



It may be said that land worth forty dollars 

 cannot always be found in situations to which 

 particular circumstances may confine an indi- 

 vidual. Let the purchaser then give ten dollars 

 an acre for one hundred and fifty acres, and re- 

 serve the balance of the six thousand dollars for 

 improving it ; he must be very unfortunate in- 

 deed if he does not succeed in a few years in 

 bringing it up to the forty dollar standard. — 

 What I mean to maintain is, that it would form 

 a much more profitable investment, generally 

 speaking, to buy one hundred and fifty acres of 

 such land for fifteen hundred dollars, keeping 

 thirty-five hundred dollars to improve it, than to 

 pay the whole six thousand dollars for six hun- 

 dred acres. 



I have been led into these considerations by 

 conversations which I have held with many of 

 our farmers, who, apart from this common error 

 into which they have fallen, are sound and ju- 

 dicious men. I have found universally a much 

 greater want of ability, than of desire, to im- 

 prove. I say ability to improve, because 1 be- 

 lieve the improvement of poor land without mo- 

 ney is a very slow business ; to a man in debt, 

 it is unattainable. 



There are in Virginia a great many rich men 

 owning extensive tracts of land that yield them 

 little or no revenue. Suppose such an one 

 would lay off a tract into farms of one hundred 

 and fifty acres ; erect neat, cheap and convenient 

 buildings, and offer them for rent on long leases 

 to substantial, moral men, to be cultivated upon 

 particular systems, prescribed by the landlord. 



By the purchase of a few good negro me- 

 chanics, the buildings could be erected very 

 economically, the material being generally to be 

 found on the spot, and it seems to me that ten- 

 ants could be readily obtained on terms that 

 would make the investment an excellent one. — 

 Fifteen hundred acres so disposed of, might, by 

 judicious restrictions in the leases, be converted 

 into a splendid estate in twenty years. If it 

 only paid six per cent, on the improvements in 

 the meantime, it would constitute a safe and 

 capital investment. There are many good and 

 substantial men in the country, who have capi- 

 tal enough to farm it advantageously, if they 

 could only rent good land on fair terms, who are 

 sure to fall through when they attempt, with 

 their limited means, to purchase for themselves. 



