Protection of Home Industry, 
14 
Banks may not in some great contingency, such as 
occurred m the spring of 1837, require a breathing 
time to kok around them and prepare for a new and 
difficult condition of things ; but, as with the Northern 
Banks, a few months are sufficient to enable them to 
prepare to meet their engagements, and at the expi¬ 
ration of this time, they should be compelled to meet 
them or go into liquidation. The last five years are 
rich in lessons of wisdom on this head, and how infi¬ 
nitely better to the community and themselves have 
been the effects of resumption by the Banks of the 
North, instead of continued suspension as in the 
South and West. But we are exceeding our limits 
on this subject. It is for this great crime, of exposing 
the chicanery and tricks of the Banks, this faithful 
watchman of the Farmers’ interests, is to be sacrificed. 
But 2d. He says : “ The great and unceasing and 
all-important obstacle to the proper maintenance, and 
consequent full measure of utility of the Farmers’ 
Register, is the general apathy and want of all public 
spirit, and even of enlightened self-interest , by the agri¬ 
cultural community of this state. The proportion of 
the agricultural class of Virginia is amazingly small, 
who participate in the generous feelings expressed by 
one who merely feels and thinks as every member of 
that class should do, and would do, if true to their 
own and their country’s best interests. The pecuni¬ 
ary support afforded to this publication has never 
been enough to compensate the editor for the risks 
and losses necessarily incurred; and for the last few 
years, there has not been enough of clear profit to pay 
for a capable clerk. Nearly half the actual support 
of subscribers is furnished from beyond the borders 
of Virginia—and the arrears of subscription now due, 
and of which the payment is desperate, am omit to 
more than all the clear profit ever derived from the 
adventure. Under such circumstances, the work has 
been continued less in regard to any hope of its being 
properly sustained, than for other considerations. But 
with the close of this volume will end the editor’s la¬ 
bors for ten of the best years of his life; and he will 
no longer obtrude, on the agricultural public, services 
which seem to be so little appreciated, and which 
have been so little aided by the sympathy of the great 
body of the members of the interest designed to be 
served.” 
Here is a lesson that may well make the farmers’ 
advocate hang his head with shame. The shades of 
Washington and Henry, of Marshall and Madison, 
will frown indignantly on the degenerate cultivators 
their once proud Commonwealth. But Virginia is 
not alone in her want of enlightened and patriotic ef- 
iorts to improve her soil, and sustain progressive ad¬ 
vancement in agriculture, as the unrequited efforts of 
many of its best friends have abundantly proved 
throughout the whole Union. Yet we hope and trust, 
we are not hoping against hope , that a brighter day is 
dawning, and that "farmers will ere long know and 
appreciate their true friends, and will reward those 
who have done, as well as those who may be “ doing 
them a more essential service than the whole race of 
politicians put together.” 
Protection of Home Industry.-— Our 
object in alluding to this subject, in the last and 
present number of this purely agricultural jour¬ 
nal , is simply to disabuse the farming commu¬ 
nity of the false hopes they may still entertain, 
of supplying Europe with our agricultural pro¬ 
ductions. We have shown that there is less of 
beef and pork exported from this country now 
than fifty years ago, and that even the small 
amount of grain and flour we continue to send 
to Europe, proves a serious loss to those en¬ 
gaged in it. We now propose briefly to show 
from the temper of the English sentiment on 
this subject, and the general condition of the 
laboring portion of Europe, that any future es¬ 
sential change of policy in our favor is hope- 
less. In exhibiting English public opinion, we 
shall quote from the London Farmer’s Maga¬ 
zine, an ably conducted periodical, and the most 
popular mouth-piece of the farming interest, 
which is the controlling interest in England, 
as it should be here , and will inevitably be, 
whenever it takes the trouble to make its voice 
heard. 
In the January number, in speaking of this 
country, it says, “ To employ a portion of their 
surplus population in cultivating the banks of 
the Ohio, is an object of immense consequence 
to their future prosperity; but this advantage 
cannot be obtained, unless the inhabitants of the 
British empire consent to abandon the tillage of 
many millions of acres at home, and draw their 
supplies of food from foreign nations. We see 
not the improvement of our present condition, 
by working in mines and exposing ourselves to 
furnace labor, in exchange for American flour 
and Ohio salted beef. The value of agricul¬ 
tural produce in British America (Canada) is 
very considerably interfered with by clandestine 
importations from the United States.” This 
trade it is strongly recommended to cut up by 
the roots, but the British shipping interest in 
this instance, happen to have the longest end of 
the lever, and the National government leave 
this thing to them for the present, to the small 
detriment of the farming interest at home, and 
the great annoyance of the colony. But colo¬ 
nies, with our politic old mother, to our own 
cost we know, are loved and cherished for the 
amount of money they can earn for her, not the 
trouble of defence and protection they require. 
They haye however added largely to the duty 
on flour now passing into Canada from this 
country, and as soon as it is any object to raise 
the duty on wheat it will at once be done. 
From the Februa^ number of the same jour¬ 
nal, we quote, “ The American citizens now 
desire John Bull to brave all the dangerous con¬ 
sequences of the scurvy, and to eat American 
salted beef for the benefit of American agricul¬ 
ture, instead of English fresh roasted beef. 
They ask Englishmen to work in mines and 
fry before furnaces; and in exchange for this 
duty, the free traders promise free born Britons, 
American flour and American salted provisions 
But it is not possible to impress on our popula¬ 
tion the propriety of throwing several millions of 
our lands at home out of cultivation, and reducing 
their own countrymen to poverty and wretched- 
