300 



VIRGINIA. 



Indian corn, second, wheat, rye, or oats, and thn-d, the year of rest, as it is calleo, n 

 •vhich the stock are permitted to glean a scanty subsistence from the spontaneous vegetation ; 

 after which it is again subjected to the same process, while little attention is paid to the apph- 

 cation of manures or the artificial grasses. This system prevails particularly on the south side 

 of the James River. On the north side of that river, especially towards the Potomac, culti- 

 vation is much better ; rotation of crops is attended to, grass seeds are sown on the small 

 grain ; manures are judiciously applied, and gypsum is used to a great extent. In the valley 

 district, also, a good system of cultivation is pursued, and irrigated meadows are common and 

 very productive. On both sides of the Blue Ridge, maize or Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, 

 and buckwheat, are the principal grain crops. Tobacco is the principal staple of most of 

 Eastern Virginia, but in the valley is cultivated only in the southern portion, and not at all be- 

 yond the Alleghany. In the eastern and southern counties, cotton is planted to a considerable 

 extent. On the sliores of the Chesapeake, barley and the castor-oil bean are cultivated, and on 

 some of the best lands above tide-water, hemp is raised to advantage. The Trans-Alleghany 

 country, being exceedingly mountainous and remote from market, is chiefly devoted to raising 

 live stock. No more grain is raised than is suflicient to supjjly the country itself, and the 

 travelers and stock-drovers who pass through it ; the chmate and soil are very favorable to 

 grass, and afford excellent pastures. 



The culture of tobacco was begun as early as 1G16, and that plant formed the staple of the 



colony. During the latter half of the last cen- 

 tury the annual export amounted to 60,000 and 

 70,000 hogsheads ; of late years the amount 

 produced in Eastern Virginia has fallen off con- 

 siderably on account of the exhaustion of much 

 of the land suited to this crop, but its cultiva- 

 tion has been much extended beyond the Blue 

 Ridge. The crop does not now exceed 40,000 

 hogsheads. Cotton is raised chiefly for home 

 consumption ; the crop amounts to about 30,000 

 bales. Indian corn was a long time almost the 

 only grain raised in Virginia, and it was not 

 until toward the close of the last century, that 

 Tobacco Plant. wheat became the principal agricultural staple 



of the State. At present, Richmond is one of 

 the great flour markets of the country, and the Richmond brands have a high reputation in for- 

 eign ports. The quantity of flour annually inspected is from 500,000 to 600,000 barrels, but 

 this does not indicate the whole amount produced. In the Eastern Shore counties the palma 

 christi or castor-oil bean is an important crop ; the land requires the same preparation as Indian 

 corn, and the bean is sown like that grain, and the subsequent tillage is much the same ; the 

 yield is from 25 to 40 bushels per acre, and a bushel of seed by pressure and boiling, gives 

 about 2 gallons of oil, the pumice or refuse matter furnishing a valuable manure. Neat cattle, 

 horses, mules, and hogs, wool, beef, pork, bacon, butter, and lard, are exported from the graz- 

 ing district. 



6. J\Ianufactures. The manufactures of Virginia are by no means inconsiderable in value 

 and extent, but they are not in general of the class which involve the nicer and more compli- 

 cated process of art, consisting rather of those simpler operations, which convert the native 

 growth of the forest, the products of the mineral kingdom, or the fruits of agricultural labor, 

 into articles of home consumption or commerce. Thus the preparation of ginseng and maple 

 sugar, of lumber and scantlings, of tar, pitch, and turpentine, the manufacture of salt and salt- 

 petre, the quarrying or mining of coal, lead. Iron, &c., and the manufacture of cast and bar 

 iron, tanning, the manufacture of flour, linseed, cotton seed, and castor-oil, snuff, cigars, and 

 chewing tobacco, the making of hats, shoes, and boots, household furniture, agricultural imple- 

 ments, cordage, pottery, &c., ship and boat building, are among the prominent branches of 

 mechanical industry ; but cotton and woolen goods, paper, glass, steam-engines, cannon, fire 

 arms, &c., are also enumerated among its products. 



The forests and the coal beds furnish a cheap and easy supply of fuel, and the numerous 

 water-falls offer an almost unhmited motive power for economical purposes, and within the last 

 few years several cotton mills have been erected, partly for spinning, and partly for spinning 



