358 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



tion we are inviting to our shores and planting <> 

 in such munificence on our Western lands. ; 



The evil we deplore is not the slowness of i 

 our natural increase — it is the migration of < 

 our own people. That increase will be slower < 

 than in those States into which the foreign < 

 immigration is emptying itself. Our means of < 

 augmenting our numbers rest principally on ] 

 natural causes, promoted by every circumstance 

 favorable to increase and multiplication — on i 

 the success with which we restrain and repel 3 

 the spirit of emigration, that has hitherto con- 1 

 tributed so largely to impair our strength and : 

 retard our agricultural improvement. 



It may, I think, be safely affirmed that the 

 very superiority itself in climate and produc- , 

 tion that rendered the slave labor of the South 1 

 so highly remunerative, is the fruitful source : 

 of many of the evils under which we labor in 

 Virginia. That the large annual profits pro- 

 duced, and the too exclusive devotion of our 

 labor to the staples of tobacco and cotton, con- 

 stituted the principal causes of the exhaustion 

 of our soil, and the emigration of our people. 

 The experience of our section assures us, that 

 the labor of a man on fresh soil, under favora- 

 ble circumstances, when devoted to the cultiva- 

 tion of tobacco, cotton or sugar, will, at the 

 usual market prices, produce a larger annual 

 return in money than when directed under like 

 circumstances, to the production of the cereals 

 or any general objects of agricultural pursuit. 

 The prospects, therefore, held out of immediate 

 wealth, directed the exertions of our agricul- 

 turists to those products, to the exclusion of 

 others. The wheat, the corn, the grass, the 

 herds were all neglected for the rich flood that 

 was annually poured into their lap. No time 

 could be spared to erect valuable houses or 

 barns — no ditching to add to the permanent 

 value of the land — no rotation of crops — no 

 time or labor expended in manuring or im- 

 proving the soil. Rich lands were in abun- 

 dance everywhere around them, and they leave 

 to future generations, the task of improving 

 and restoring the soils they exhaust. The 

 product of the acre this year in cultivation en- 

 ables them to buy as good an one for the next, 

 rand leave an amount of income sufficient for 

 present wants. What need of care ? since the 

 plant they cultivate, and the labor they com- 

 mand, enable them to purchase all they de- 

 sire. 



The farm is not worked on the principle that 

 ought to regulate agricultural pursuits — or that 

 which in the end secures the highest agricul- 

 tural rewards and profits; but on that usual 

 in working a mine or furnace or a salt well — 

 where the labor is regarded as of too much 



value — the present reward too captivating and 

 alluring to permit any other object' however 

 necessary and proper, to be attended to, or 

 cared for. This is unquestionably the tendency 

 of things, where a single product affords profits 

 above and beyond the usual profits on labor in 

 other pursuits, and in the general agricultural 

 products of a country. 



Under these influences, the tobacco cultiva- 

 tion has contributed most to produce the ex- 

 haustion of soil which characterizes large por- 

 tions of our State. The injury thus effected 

 is not justly attributable to the plant itself, or 

 the slave labor with which it has been culti- 

 vated. It is attributable to the errors I have 

 just adverted to — to the manner in which the 

 cultivation has been conducted, to excessive, 

 negligent and long continued cultivation of the 

 same crops — to want of rest and proper rota- 

 tion — all having their source in the large an- 

 nual profits derived from the cultivation of to- 

 bacco, on fresh soils, and the consequences it 

 produces on the habits of our planters and 

 agriculturists. 



But the errors of the past are not irreme- 

 diable. The injury they produced are not so 

 permanent, or extensive, that industry, econo- 

 my, and a proper course of agriculture cannot 

 remedy them — not so great as to deter or dis- 

 courage us in the effect. 



Observation and experience have shown us 

 the errors of the system formerly pursued — 

 the error of relying on a single product for our 

 profits — of pursuing that system that regards 

 present profits as more advantageous than ulti- 

 mate wealth — that experience that teaches us 

 that annual profits from our land, however 

 large, cannot compensate for its exhaustion and 

 impoverishment—that true economy is promoted 

 and ultimate wealth more certainly attained by 

 devoting more time, labor and money in im- 

 proving our soil, our houses, quarters, stock, 

 and to the health, habits and wants of our 

 slaves — that the reduction of our income thus 

 produced, has more than its compensation in 

 the augmentation of our permanent capital — 

 that the safest and most profitable agricultural 

 pursuits are those that yield their profits, so 

 that the increase is not all received in the form 

 ; of annual income in money; so liable to be 

 misspent under the temptations that surround 

 us — so often injudiciously re-invested or left 

 uninvested, from inattention or negligence — 

 ; that experience that assures us that amid the 

 : dazzling prospects of wealth and fortune which 

 ■ the staples of the South, the teeming products 

 L of the West, the seductive gold of the Pacific, 

 - holds up to our view — there is no better, or in 

 l the endj more profitable investment of capital, 



