I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN tLANTER. 



483 



bled or trippled, and some quadrupled in 

 production J and the general wealth of their 

 proprietors as much increased — the assessed 

 values of marled lands increased by many 

 millions of dollars, while those of similar 

 lands, not so treated, have continued to de- 

 cline as all did before; and the treasury of 

 the commonwealth is already benefitted by 

 many thousands of dollars received annually 

 from the counties containing these improved 

 lands, and derived from them, while the 

 revenue from lands of the neighbouring and 

 before similar counties, is still decreasing. 



So far, I have spoken as to benefits which 

 have already occurred, and which are un- 

 questionable, and which have been derived 

 from resources and facilities for improve- 

 ment not to be compared in amount and 

 value with those of South-Carolina. I have 

 elsewhere estimated the possible future and 

 ' full fruition of this system of improvement, 



in Lower Virginia only, at five hundred 

 millions of dollars of increased pecuniary 

 value of capital thereby to be created. The 

 full employment of your much greater re- 

 sources of this kind, and over as wide a sur- 

 face, would not be worth less. Then your 

 other great resources, which have been nam- 

 ed but not estimated, would be so much 

 more in addition. 



But agricultural production and pecuni- 

 ary values are not the only or the greatest 

 gains ; and though others rest upon opinion 

 only, and hre incapable of being measured, 

 their existence and their value are not the 

 less acknowledged by all judicious observ- 

 ers, in our country most improved in agri- 

 cultural production by calcareous manures. 

 The improvement of health has been men- 

 tioned ; the improvement of economical and 

 social habits, morals and refinement, and 

 better education for the growing generation, 

 have been sure consequences of greatly in- 

 creased and enduring agricultural profits ; 

 and these moral results will hereafter be in- 

 creased, in full proportion to the physical 

 and industrial producing causes. Popula- 

 tioUj though a later effect, is already sensi- 

 bly advanced by these agricultural causes. 

 The strength, physical, intellectual and 

 moral, as well as the wealth and revenue of 

 the commonwealth of Virginia, will soon de- 

 rive new and great increase from the grow- 

 ing improvement of that one and smallest 

 of the great divisions of her territory, 

 which was the poorest by natural constitu- 

 tion — still more the poorest by long ex- 



hausting tillage — its best population gone, 

 or going away, and the remaining portion 

 sinking into apathy and degradation, and 

 having no hope left, except that which was 

 almost universally entertained of fleeing 

 from the ruined country, and renewing the 

 like work of' destruction on the fertile 

 lands of the far west. Terms of reproach 

 and contempt, (once not undeserved,) have 

 been so long and so freely bestowed on this 

 tide-water region of Virginia, and had be- 

 come so fixed by use, that it will be long be- 

 fore they will cease to be deemed applica- 

 ble ; or before many persons who now know 

 this region, only by the memory of former 

 report, will learn that it is not altogether 

 a land of galled and gullied slopes, or broom- 

 sedge-covered fields, over whose impoverish- 

 ed and dwindling population, indolence and 

 malarious disease contend for mastery. 



From these matters, referred to for proof 

 or illustration, [ return to my main sub- 

 ject, more immediately connected with, and 

 more likely to be interesting to my aud- 

 itors. 



There is not one of the industrial classes 

 of mankind, more estimable for private 

 worth and social virtues, than the land- 

 holders and cultivators of the Southern 

 States. With them, unbounded hospitality 

 is so universal, that it is not a distinguish- 

 ing virtue — and, in truth, this virtue has 

 been carried to such excess, as to become 

 a vicious tendency. Honourable, high- 

 minded, kindly in feeling and action, both 

 to neighbours and to strangers — ready to 

 sacrifice self-interest for the public weal — 

 such are ordinary qualities and characteris- 

 tics of southern planters. Many of the 

 most intelligent men of this generally in- 

 telligeat class, are ready enough to accept 

 and to apply to themselves and their fellow- 

 planters, the name of land-killers." But 

 while thus admitting, or even assuming 

 this term of jocose reproach, they have not 

 deemed as censurable or injurious, their 

 conduct on which this reproach was' predi- 

 cated. They have regarded their " land- 

 killing" policy and practice merely as af- 

 fecting their own personal and individual 

 interests — and if judged by their continued 

 action, they must believe that their inter- 

 ests are thereby best promoted. Their er- 

 ror, in regard to their own interests, great 

 as may be, is incomparably less thaji the 

 mistake as to other and general interests 

 not being thus affected. As I have already 



