235 



these counties must offer inducements to the 

 growers of sheep, that can be found no where 

 else in the Union. 



] have seen men here who have grown rich 

 by raising stock on estates where not more than 

 twenty acres had ever been put in cultivation ; 

 the product of the garden being intended for the 

 domestic consumption of the human family — 

 the stock were never fed on grain at all ; the 

 trees were belted ; the undergrowth cut out, and 

 in summer, as now, the fat cattle were lolling 

 and feeding upon the thickest and richest carpet 

 of greensward and white clover that it is possi- 

 ble to imagine. In winter, I am told the horses 

 and sheep break the snow to get at the same 

 rich herbage, and without cover or protection, 

 save that which the mountain sides afford, and 

 without food, save the pasturage thus obtained, 

 they come out in the spring just as fat and just 

 as jolly as they are now. 



I have said that stock raising has been and 

 ever must be the chief business of this region. 

 It is impossible that any country in the world 

 could be better adapted to this purpose: but this 

 business like every other here is conducted with 

 little system or intelligence. Generally speak- 

 ing, no regard is paid to the family or pedigree, 

 and all the rules of breeding are set at defiance. 

 Horses, you know, constitute the great staple of 

 Greenbrier. It is said that nobody has ever 

 seen a man in Greenbrier that did not have a 

 horse for sale and my own experience does not 

 falsify the statement. But it is astonishing to 

 witness the carelessness and folly that are exhi- 

 bited in rearing stock. The average cost of 

 raising a colt to the age of three years is about 

 thirty-five dollars, and the average price which 

 the farmer gets for him, is about sixty, leav- 

 ing a clear gain of twenty-five dollars. If, 

 instead of the large mass of loose flesh and 

 coarse bone which the grazier sends to market, 

 he w T ould patronise a well bred road horse, who 

 could stand at ten dollars (instead of two, the 

 usual price,) he would have a colt at an expense 

 of eight dollars more, that would bring him a 

 hundred dollars instead of sixty. Against tho- 

 rough breds they have strong prejudices, because 

 they have been imposed on by the leggy, slab- 

 sided, cast offs, from the Eastern studs, that be- 

 came quite fashionable amongst them several 

 years ago. From these specimens they have been 

 lead to consider the blooded horse as too light | 

 and too weak for general purposes ; but there is 

 a race of horses in the State of New York, de- 

 scended from the old Messenger stock, (of which 

 Abdallah is one,) that possess sufficient bone 

 and muscle for any purpose in the world ; af- 

 fording the quickest and most powerful road 

 horse I ever saw. With the noble presence, 

 powerful limbs, and splendid action that is cha- 

 racteristic of this stock, there is not one of their 

 three year old colts that would not bring a hun- 



dred dollars, any where. It is exactly the horse 

 to be taken into this grazing region, and forced 

 down the throats of the farmers in spite of their 

 prejudices, by his superior merits. Then indeed 

 might Eastern Virginia look to the West for a 

 stock of saddle and harness horses. 



With respect to cattle, too, it is singular to 

 contrast the beautiful herds of Durhams and 

 Herefords that adorn the two acre fields of the 

 Northern States, with the misshapen things that 

 traverse these illimitable wilds. Where nature 

 has afforded the most bounteous provision for 

 their keep, a people who must perforce be gra- 

 ziers, whose whole pecuniary interest is vested 

 in stock, and who ought to be the greatest 

 breeders in the world, pay no sort of attention 

 to the shape or form of their cattle. 



What a figure Mr. Sotham's herd of Here- 

 fords or Mr. Vail's stock of Durhams would cut 

 in these rich mountain gorges, with clover and 

 greensward up to their bellies ! This seems to 

 be the natural element of such creatures, and 

 we cannot but indulge the hope that they will 

 some day revel in it. 



It's all very well for a gentleman in the East 

 to pay a high price for a fine Durham to adorn 

 his lawn and fill his milk pail, but it is here, 

 where it is not to be found at all, that improved 

 stock, even at the highest price, would prove a 

 source of real and substantial profit. 



I may have something to say of the agricul- 

 ture of Albemarle, of which I made some notes 

 as I was passing through, but I must defer it 

 until I have more time and you have more room. 

 Yours, A Traveller. 



GOOD EFFECTS OF DRAINING. 



At the late annual meeting of the Liverpool 

 Agricultural Society, the President, Lord Stan- 

 ley, said that he would state one instance of the 

 practical returns which might be expected from 

 thorough scientific draining. 



In 1841, his father was about to enclose in 

 the park of Knowsly, a tract of about eighty 

 acres. Of this about twenty acres were strong 

 clay land, with a very retentive subsoil, and the 

 remaining sixty he remembered from his boy- 

 hood, as the favored haunt of snipes and wild 

 ducks, and never saw there any thing else. In 

 the course of the first year, the sixty acres main- 

 tained — but very poorly — during the summer, 

 six horses ; and on the twenty acres there was 

 a very small crop of very poor hay. It was 

 impossible for land to be in a poorer condition; 

 and in breaking it up they had some two or 

 three times to dig the plough horses out of the 

 bog. 



In 1842, the whole of this land was tho- 

 roughly subsoiled and drained, and in 1842, 

 what was not worth ten shillings an acre per 

 annum, the year before, was in turnips, and on 



