188 
CHEAP FARMING LANDS IN VIRGINIA. 
Like nearly all the "lower-country planta- 
tions, the diet of the people is principally vege- 
table. Those who work " task work" receive as 
rations, half a bushel of sweet potatoes a- week, 
or 6 quarts of corn meal or rice, with beef or 
pork, or mutton occasionally, say two or three 
meals a-week. As all the tasks are very light, 
affording them nearly one fourth of the time to 
raise a crop for themselves, they always have 
an abundance, and sell a good deal for cash. 
They also raise pigs and poultry, though seldom 
for their own eating. They catch a great many 
fish, oysters, crabs, &c. 
The carpenters, millers, &c, who do not have 
an opportunity of raising a crop for themselves, 
draw large rations, I think a bushel of corn a 
week, which gives them a surplus for sale. The 
children and non-workers are fed on corn bread, 
hommony, molasses, rice, potatoes, soup, &c. 
The number of negroes upon the place is 
just about 700, occupying 84 double frame 
houses, each containing two tenements of three 
rooms to a family, besides the cock loft. Each 
tenement has its separate door and window and 
a good brick fireplace, and nearly all have a 
garden paled in. There are two common hos- 
pitals, and a " lying-in hospital," and a very 
neat, commodious church, which is well filled 
every Sabbath with an orderly, pious congre- 
gation, and service performed by a respectable 
methodist clergyman, who also performs the 
baptismal, communion, marriage and burial rites. 
There is a small stock of cattle, hogs, and 
sheep kept upon the place for meat, which are 
only allowed to come upon the fields in winter, 
under charge of keepers. The buildings are all 
of wood, but generally plain, substantial, and 
good. There is a pretty good supply of tools, 
carts, boats, &c, and the land is estimated to be 
worth $100 an acre for the rice land, which 
would be •' $150,000 
The 500 acres upland, $25 per acre, 12,500 
The negroes, at $300 each, 210,000 
Stock, tools, and other property, say 7,500 
$380,000 
which will show rather a low rate of interest 
made from sales of crops, notwithstanding the 
amount of sales look so large. 
Now the owner of all this property lives in 
a very humble cottage, embowered in dense 
shrubbery, and making no show, and is, in fact, 
as a dwelling for a gentleman of wealth, far 
inferior in point of elegance and convenience, 
to any negro house upon the place, for the use 
and comfort of that class of people. 
He and his family are as plain and unostenta- 
tious in their manners as the house they live in ; 
but they possess, in a most eminent degree, that 
true politeness and hospitality that will win 
upon your heart and make you feel at home in 
their humble cot, in such a manner that you 
will enjoy a visit there better than in a palace. 
Nearly all the land has been reclaimed, and 
the buildings, except the house, erected- new 
within the twenty years that Governor Aikin 
has owned the island. I fully believe that he 
is more concerned to make his people comfort- 
able and happy, than he is to make money. 
cheap Farming- lands in Virginia. 
Taking into account the fertility and all the 
conveniences of navigable waters, and the pro- 
ducts of the same, which add to the comforts 
and luxuries of life, and also the mildness 
of climate, I believe the tide-water region of 
Virginia offers the cheapest lands, according to 
their intrinsic value, of any part of the United 
States. Lands, that, under a moderate state of 
improvement and cheap system of fertilising by 
lime, marl, clover, or peas, or by an appli- 
cation of 200 lbs. of guano to the acre, can be 
made to average at least twelve bushels of wheat, 
or thirty bushels of corn to the acre ; which can 
be bought at from $10 to $30 an acre, with good 
buildings and fences, within two days' sail of 
New York, I hold to be very cheap. Thousands 
of acres of timber land, or " old-field " land, in 
the same region, can be bought for one to five 
dollars an acre. I was lately offered a very 
productive, well-improved farm upon the " Glo'- 
ster Low Grounds," lying upon the navigable 
waters of the Severn, for $25 per acre. This 
farm is all underlaid with rich marl only a few 
feet from the surface. 
The " flat lands " of the Rappahannock are 
worth from $10 to $20 an acre. The "hill 
lands" or "forest," are worth about half that 
sum, according to the state of improvement or 
locality. 
As to the quality of the people, it may be 
gathered in a great degree, from the fact that 
neither doctor, lawyer, judge, justice, sheriff, 
clerk, nor constable can live by his profession. 
In the county of Caroline, with 20,000 inhabitants, 
for instance, I was told that a suit in court was 
almost unknown. The sheriff has not had a 
writ in his hands this year, nor has a suit, either 
civil or criminal, been instituted in the justice's 
court. 
I do not think that emigrants from any of the 
northern states have any more to apprehend on 
account of health, than they would in the west. 
The condition of agricultural improvement may 
be imagined, when I tell my readers that nine 
tenths of the plows used are the old " Freeborn 
pattern," little one-horse plows, and that land 
is planted with corn one year, and sowed with 
wheat and weeds next, and then corn again, 
without manure, and yet people live, and the 
land does not become absolutely barren under 
such an exhausting system. No wonder that 
land is cheap — for the owners don't know itj 
value. S. 
Deep Plowing uniformly increases the quan- 
tity of grass, grain and root crops. It also tends 
to consolidate light soils. It has been found 
that the heads of grain, though much fuller and 
heavier, stand more upright on such land- as 
has been deeply plowed. This is attributable 
to the greater strength of the roots, and the 
much greater depth to which they penetrate, 
when invited to it by deep, thorough cultivation. 
Such soils, however, always require for perfect- 
ing their pulverisation, and fully developing 
their tillable qualities, to be well harrowed 
and rolled. 
