THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



113 



satisfied that this species of enclosure would not 

 reward the elaborate cultivation which was neces- 

 sary in order to bring it to perfection, while our 

 other ordinary modes of fencing could be followed 

 with such cheapness, when compared with the 

 trouble and expense of hedging. 



"Mr. Greene deemed the southwest of the State 

 a little slandered. He had studied and practised 

 on this subject twelve years, and was perfectly 

 satisfied that it was one worthy the attention and 

 efforts of agriculturists. We conceive, in Hamil- 

 ton county, that it is far from being a humbug." 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



RICHMOND, APRIL, 1854. 



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NECESSITY OF GOOD STOCK TO VIRGINIA 

 FARMERS, AND HOW THEY MAY GET IT. 

 In the February number of the Planter we wrote 

 a short editorial on the above subject, and promised 

 to continue it in March; but we were disappointed 

 in getting some facts, very material as confirming 

 by experience one or two positions we wished to 

 enforce, which had been promised us by two gentle- 

 men, who have failed to comply up to this time when 

 we are compelled to resume the subject. It is not 

 necessary to recapitulate any part of it, but we 

 may be allowed to refer to the very able prize essay 

 of Commodore Jones as demonstrating by facts 

 coming within his own knowledge the views we 

 expressed in regard to the use of guano. (See page 

 46 of the February number of the Planter.) 



We need not cite statistics to prove that the 

 lands of Tide Water and Piedmont Virginia, with 

 every advantage of climate and contiguity to mar- 

 ket, with less natural waste land, and with a soil 

 better, on an average, than that of the Valley, do 

 not come within fifty per cent, of their value, and 

 are worth only about thirty-three per cent, more 

 than the still more remote and, in many cases, in- 

 accessible lands of Trans-Alleghany, with their 

 sparse population and vast unsettled'districts; nor 

 need we invoke the same kind of authority to show 

 that in the general department of stock, whether 

 we regard numbers or quality, we are decidedly 

 behind both those regions. True, a new era has 

 dawned on the country we speak of, but it is as yet 

 very far from the perfect day we would wish to see. 

 The present improvements are mainly referable to 

 ploughing, draining and liming — three things in- 

 dispensable, but not all-sufficient to fertility — and 

 to guano, which we believe will not prove a per- 

 manent improver. More pains are taken now than 

 formerly in collecting manures, but the means of 

 making them are, for the most part, such as* have 

 always existed, and there is no immediate prospect 

 of increasing the source of supply. 



Nor, whilst we admit the necessity of making 

 wheat, need we state the figures to show that even 

 if we could grow it perpetually in such quantities 

 and with the same facility as when lands are in the 

 first stages of improvement by lime, clover and 

 plaster, or by guano, that it is not the most profit- 

 able staple, and that it should not enter so largely 

 into the rotation of the cismontane farmer. Suffice 

 it to say, that the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, 

 and other parts of continental Europe, furnish more 

 than two-thirds of the European demand, in ordi- 

 nary years, and have a continued capacity to rival 

 the whole United States in these markets. 



If this be so, then it follows that our true policy 

 is to make more wheat on the same breadth of 

 land, and at the same time to vary our staples, 

 particularly by the introduction of some sort of 



