VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE. 
301 
Fact No. 5. Mr. Wright farther assured me, he 
had equally conclusive evidence that from the 
same stalk , producing a head of wheat, a shoot had 
been thrown out from a lower joint , which produ¬ 
ced chess. 
Now here is testimony in favor of wheat and 
oats producing chess, which, if given on a capital 
trial before the late Chief Justice Marshall, and 
not satisfactorily explained, would inevitably have 
resulted in hanging the criminal. On these simple 
facts I rest the case. Will P. enlighten and oblige 
your readers by affording some perfectly satisfac¬ 
tory explanation of the above facts, or acknowledge 
there is sufficient evidence that wheat and oats 
can be converted into chess ? 
In a recent tour of some 2,500 miles through 
Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, 
I met but one person with whom I conversed on 
the subject who entertained a settled conviction 
that wheat can not be converted into chess, and he 
was from the east; and from the evidence on 
which they base their opinion, I think I may add 
with all possible deference, their brains must have 
produced cheat or chess, not to have come to this 
conclusion. X beg it will be particularly remem¬ 
bered, to avoid the waste of ink and paper, that 
while I contend that wheat may produce chess, 
chess is also produced by sowing chess. 
R. L. Allen. 
We recommend the perusal of the following 
able letter to our southern readers. Let them 
recollect that the writer is Virginia born and bred , 
and has now resided some years in the west. His 
remarks upon the advantages of farming on the 
Atlantic borders, are particularly valuable, and 
should be well considered by those at the north as 
well as at the south, for they are equally applica¬ 
ble to either section of the country. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
VIRGINIA AGRICULTURE. 
Llangollen , Ky., October 23rf, 1843. 
Dear Sir :—After a lapse of eleven years, I 
have paid a visit to Virginia, my native state. 
Feeling a deep and filial interest in her prosperity, 
and in the welfare of her inhabitants, many of 
whom are my relations and friends, and all of 
them a noble race of generous, hospitable, and 
patriotic men, my attention was naturally turned 
to their agriculture —the basis of national pros¬ 
perity, individual comfort, and independence. 
When I left the state, a rapid tide of emigration 
to the south and west, was sweeping away much 
of her population and wealth, especially from the 
seaboard, and that portion of the state lying be¬ 
tween the southwest mountains, and the head of 
tide-water in her fine navigable rivers. These are 
the sand-stone, quartz, and granite regions of 
Virginia; in many places underlayed by fine ar¬ 
gillaceous earth. From the base of the southwest 
or little mountains westward, and from the valley, 
there was less .emigration. Their argillaceous, 
calcareous, and slaty lands, adapted to wheat, grass, 
tobacco, and corn, withstood more firmly the im¬ 
poverishing effects of a system of cultivation, 
which, though not so defective as that practised in 
the lower country, was far from the best now in 
use. Gypsum and clover found their way into the 
counties of Loudon, Albemarle, and other upland 
counties, long before I left the state. Timothy 
and other grasses for grazing, as well as for the 
scythe, were cultivated in the valley. But in the 
lower country, although a clover patch for soiling 
was common, and timothy and herds-grass for 
meadows, especially near the towns, were scattered 
through the state, there were but few fields of 
clover laid down for the improvement of the soil, 
and the timothy meadows were soon supplanted 
by broom-straw. To Col. John Taylor of Caroline, 
Lower Virginia is more indebted for his Arator 
and his agricultural conversations, than even the 
United States are for his political writings ; and 
to Mr. Ruffin, the editor of the Farmers’Register, 
and the author of the essay on Calcareous Ma¬ 
nures, the people of Lower Virginia, and indeed 
of the whole tide-water country on the Atlantic 
seaboard, owe a large debt of gratitude. 
In the valley, (fine limestone and slate lands,) 
the grasses and clover, together with wheat and 
corn, are extensively cultivated. Large herds of 
cattle and hogs are raised or fed for market, and 
the improvement of their lands is in exact propor¬ 
tion to the attention paid to grasses and clover, 
and the observance of an ameliorating rotation of 
crops. 
On the southern side of the southwest moun¬ 
tains, clover, tobacco, wheat, and corn, constitute 
the staples. I call clover one of the staples, be¬ 
cause I consider it the basis of all good and profit¬ 
able cultivation in that region ; and it is certainly 
more extensively used than when I left the state. 
Hence the lands of those who use it are improving. 
In the upper end of Louisa county, there are 
between ten and twelve thousand acres of land, 
(once in my opinion the bottom of a lake drained 
by the South Anna, one of the branches of the 
Pamunkey river,) remarkable for the production 
of wheat. There is perhaps no equal area of finer 
land for wheat in the world. They are called the 
Green-Springs land. Mingled with the gray ar¬ 
gillaceous loam of these lands, there is much com¬ 
minuted shot-iron ore. Can it be that this, disin¬ 
tegrating and mixing with the soil, attracts and 
fixes the ammonia, thus rendering the land so suit¬ 
able for wheat ? The intelligent landholders here 
use clover and grasses, and their lands are improv¬ 
ing beyond their great natural fertility. 
For some twenty miles below the Green Springs, 
the lands are very unequal in quality, and in the 
degree of improvement. Some judicious farmers, 
husbanding their manure, and cultivating clover, 
although growers of tobacco, are improving their 
lands. But the majority, I fear, are still pursuing 
the old ruinous system of exhausting crops without 
proper rotation, and without cultivated grasses to 
cover their naked fields. Such, when their lands 
are worn to the bone, and from the want of re¬ 
turns to the soil, will be forced to emigrate. These 
lands are quartz ore, with much silicious gravel. 
Passing lower down, there is a strip of land on 
