t 



I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



403 



although not one-twentieth part of the whole 

 tide-water district has yet been improved in 

 fertih't}^, or is in the least degree better (and, 

 probably, the great remainder is much poor- 

 er) than when the marling of other lands 

 first began to raise the general average of 

 assessed values throughout this whole dis- 

 trict. 



It appears, from the latest state assess- 

 ment of lands in Virginia, for 1850, that 

 the actual increase of value in the tide- 

 water district only, since 1838, the previous 

 assessment, was more than seventeen mil- 

 lions of dollars. On this increase of valua- 

 tion, and at the same rate of taxation, there 

 is more than $17,000 increase of land tax 

 alone accruing annually to the state treasu- 

 ry. It is obvious that any increased value 

 of lands, caused by their increased produc- 

 tion, would necessarily require an increase 

 of labour and of farming stock, and would 

 produce proportional increase of general 

 wealth of the improvers, and would add 

 other receipts from taxes in proportion — all 

 serving still more to augment the public 

 revenue. 



The recent addition to the aggregate va- 

 lue of lands in Eastern Virginia, is admit- 

 ted to be the etFect of agricultural ieiprove- 

 ments; and that more than all the nett in- 

 crease is due to marling and liming only, 

 would be equally evident, if I could here 

 adduce the proofs, as I have don« elsewhere.* 

 Further; though 1838 w^as the date of the 

 earliest assessment made after marling and 

 liming had begun to increase aggregate pro- 

 duction and value of lands, it is an unques- 

 tionable fact that the general impoverish- 

 ment had been greater, and values much 

 lower, about 1828. And if this earlier time 

 and greatest depression had been marked 

 by an assessment then made, the full in- 

 creased value of lands from that time, would 

 have appeared at least ^30,000,000 in 1850, 

 instead of seventeen and a quarter millions, 

 counting from the already partially advanced 

 improvement and enhanced values of 1838. 

 However, even if these, my deductions and 

 estimates, go for nothing, there will still re- 

 main the proof, by official documents, of the 

 actual increase of the value of lands in 



* In a communication recently made to the 

 State Af,'ricultural Society of Virginia, on "Some 

 of the Results of the Improvement of lands, by 

 Calcareous Manures, on Public Interests in Vir- 

 ginia, in the increase of Production, Population, 

 General Wealth and Revenue to the Treasury." 



twelve years, of seventeen and a quarter 

 millions, or nearly one and a half millions 

 yearly. 



Now, bear in mind that these are not the 

 results of the improving of all the tide- 

 water region, nor all of its much smaller 

 arable portion, but, probably, of not more ' 

 than one-twentieth of the cultivated land. 

 All the remainder, if uncultivated, is station- 

 ary ; and if cultivated, is generally in a 

 continued course of exhaustion ; and the 

 small quantity of enriched land had first to 

 make up for all deficiencies of the impover- 

 ished, and lessenings of production through- 

 out the whole tide-water district, and after 

 all such deductions, still exhibited a clear 

 surplus of seventeen and a quarter millions 

 of increased aggregate value. This is the 

 result of but the beginning, and a very re- 

 cent beginning of measures for improvement, 

 executed in every case imperfectly, often 

 injudi-eiouslj, and sometimes injuriously, 

 altogether on less than one-twentieth of the 

 space on which calcareous manures are 

 available. The great omitted space will 

 hereafter be fertilized in the same manner. 

 Then the actual increase of value of lands, 

 founded on increased production, will be 

 counied by hundreds of millions of dollats. 

 And this anticipated enormous amount of 

 fertility and capital to be created, might 

 have been even now in possession, if our 

 improvements by calcareous manures had 

 been begun thirty years earlier, instead of 

 there having been continued through all 

 that time, the progress of w^asting and de- 

 stroying the remaining pov^ers of the soil. 

 South Carolina began exhausting culture 

 much later, and is now full fifty years less 

 advanced towards the lowest depth of that 

 descent which we had nearly completed. If 

 that future of fifty years of continued ex- 

 haustion could now be cut ofl', and the im- 

 provement of lower South Carolina by cal- 

 careous manures could be at once begun and 

 continued, the loss of at least one hundred 

 millions of dollars of now remaining value 

 would be saved, and a gain of three hun- 

 dred millions from improvement would be 

 reached sooner by the same fifty years. 



This would be better, by all the great 

 value, than even the following out precisely 

 the first sinking and now rising course of 

 lower Virginia. In that region, the culti- 

 vators waited until the fertility of the land 

 had so nearly expired, that it was supposed 

 ^ to be in artkulo mortia — at the last gasp — • 



