THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



427 



are promising, and but for the army worm 

 we should calculate on rather over an av- 

 erage crop, but we have thousands of them 

 and they have attacked the wheat at an 

 earlier stage than I have ever known them 

 before. What injury they will do it I can- 

 not say, but I am afraid very great. They 

 are in the corn too, and many persons are 

 afraid they will have to plant over again. 

 Very respectfully yours, 



Anti Early Grazing. 



[From the Papers of the Nottoway Farmers' 

 Club.] 



On Abandoning Tobacco Culture. 



The object of an agriculturist in this 

 portion of Virginia, deeply imbued with 

 the spirit of improvement, should be, to 

 combine the greatest degree of ameliora- 

 tion in his soil with such a rate of increa- 

 sing profits as will, at no very distant day, 

 reward him for his trouble, and, it may be, 

 temporary losses. The common three- 

 field system, accompanied with grazing, 

 has 'not proved sufficiently restorative in 

 its effects to entitle it to claim a place 

 among the systems of improvement ; on 

 the contrary, ample experience has as- 

 signed it a place among those of deteriora- 

 tion and impoverishment. The ring-fence 

 system, with a three-field rotation, might 

 be an improving one to the soil, but the 

 pecuniary profits therefrom, if such be the 

 case, are so equivocal or unsatisfactory, as 

 to preclude it from the choice of one 

 anxious to realize the benefits of an en* 

 lightened zeal. The fourfield rotation, 

 though more promising, has disadvantages 

 connected with it which would cause it to 

 yield, in my preference, to that of the 

 five-field. To those then, who would adopt 

 an ameliorating course of culture, my re- 

 commendation would be that of the five- 

 field plan, accompanied, as it ordinarily is, 

 by the clover fallow for wheat. 



But in order to push on the car of agri- 

 cultural improvement at a pace more com- 

 mensurate with our wants, and to effect 

 more radical changes in our present modes 

 of cultivation, more ardor and enthusiasm, 

 more patriotic fortitude in risking some 

 temporary or even eventual loss in the 

 cause of common humanity are required 

 among us than at present prevail. We 

 want more bold innovators, like some 



whom we could mention, who, placed by 

 fortune in circumstances of comfort and 

 prosperity, and fearless of the risk of losing 

 a few hundred dollars from year to year for 

 the. sake of testing the value of theories 

 suggested by enlightened reason, and big 

 with the promise of ultimate profit, shall 

 step into the breach, and earn the grati- 

 tude and praise of indebted millions, born 

 and unborn, either by the triumph of suc- 

 cessful enterprize, or the explosion of cap- 

 tivating and hazardous errors. Cannot 

 the Nottoway Club furnish some such ? 

 There is that important question which 

 probably agitates the minds of several of 

 us, whether it would not be better, on the 

 whole, for us to give up entirely the culti- 

 vation of tobacco ? How are we to decide 

 it satisfactorily, unless by experiment ? 

 Arid can no one be found among us, (who 

 has much doubt upon the subject,) willing 

 to risk the chances of it may be an incon- 

 siderable loss of income, to test the value 

 of a change so full of promise to agricul- 

 tural improvement ? If any one should 

 want encouragement in making such an 

 important change, let him reflect upon the 

 high prices-which he now has to give for 

 articles which he might then raise for his 

 own use or for sale. If tobacco is selling 

 high, are not corn, wheat and oats too? 

 If he should want examples, let him turn to 

 some of the brightest names upon agricul- 

 tural record, and not very far distant from 

 us, and he will find them. Let us look at 

 the tide water country generally, and ask 

 ourselves the question, why should they 

 dispense with the culture of tobacco and 

 we not? There was a very good reason 

 for it before the South Side Railroad 

 opened its channel for us to market ; but 

 now the case is very much altered, and by 

 means of its facilities, Nottoway Court 

 House is brought by computation to within 

 a little over two miles, to Petersburg. 

 Now just suppose that our plantations 

 were situated within say 10 miles of Pe- 

 tersburg, what, then, might be the proba- 

 ble practice of some or all of us in this 

 matter? But again, suppose a plantation 

 of 3(10 acres of arable land converted into a 

 farm of 500 acres, upon which no tobacco 

 is made, and let us form some estimate of 

 'the comparative profits resulting from 

 them. Take first the plantation cultivated 

 by 10 hands and divide into three fields 

 j and 3 tobacco lots. 



