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both sides of the North Anna, in Spottsylvania and 
Louisa counties, and the lower part of Orange, 
known as the Fork$ and Ducking-Hole neighbor¬ 
hoods, in which the lands are essentially different 
from the quartz-ore and silicious lands above and 
below them. They are undulating and hilly, With 
boulders of granite and gneiss, I believe, scattered 
sparsely over the lands, but in greater abundance 
near the North Anna. Much of this disintegrated 
rock is mingled with the argillaceous loam, and 
wherever it appears, the lands are productive in 
their original state, capable of easy and great im¬ 
provement, and very lasting. Every particle of 
manure tells, and every leaf of clover adds to the 
fertility of this fine land. Its owners are becom¬ 
ing aware of its comparative value. Many of 
them are improving it steadily with clover and 
manures, and they are reaping the rich rewards 
of their labor. 
From this strip of land to the head of tide-water 
on the rivers, the lands are more sandy, and poorer, 
except on the streams, where the bottoms are rich 
alluvial, and the hill-sides facing the streams, good 
tobacco lands, where they have not been worn out 
by successive crops, without returns of animal or 
vegetable matter to the soil. In this section of 
the state, there has been less general improvement 
than above or below, although I know that clover 
and gypsum, as well as barn-yard manure, ensure 
good returns for their liberal use. The spirit of 
improvement has reached some of the farmers and 
planters in this region; but they are rare excep¬ 
tions to the general rule. Corn, wheat, and tobacco, 
are the staples. 
Below the head of tide-Water, great improve¬ 
ment on many farms has been the result of marl¬ 
ing, and the successful introduction of the cultiva¬ 
ted grasses and clover. You have doubtless seen 
an account of the wheat crop at W estover, and 
other places on James river, averaging 30 bushels 
to the acre. The use of marl, and the practice of 
covering the fields with grasses, is extending in 
all that region, so that the first lands settled in 
Virginia, and greatly exhausted by injudicious cul¬ 
tivation, are now, in my opinion, becoming the 
most valuable lands in the state. The means of 
improvement are as inexhaustible as the marl- 
banks ; and the facilities of transportation, both for 
this, as well as for the productions of the farms, 
greater than in any other portion of the state. 
The plows and farming tools generally are much 
improved since I left the state. Good rollers, 
thrashing-machines, and reaping-machines, are 
now in use. Two of the latter, one of which I 
saw, have been used near Richmond the last sea¬ 
son, and I heard both spoken of as answering well. 
They are Hussey’s, and McCormick’s. 
I was particularly struck with the improved 
style of farming in the neighborhood of Richmond. 
They have discovered that their lands, even those 
that are very sandy, can, by judicious manage¬ 
ment, be covered with grass. And this is the basis 
of agricultural improvement. Whenever the fields 
can be covered with a good coat of grass, so great 
a return of vegetable matter and manure from the 
animals consuming it, either on the fields or from 
soiling, or in the form of hay, is, or may be made to 
the lands, that with a judicious rotation of crops, 
instead of wearing out or deteriorating, the lands 
will become richer and more productive. The al¬ 
luvial lands below tide-water were naturally very 
fertile, and those that were exhausted from long 
and unchanged crops, are, I believe, now recover¬ 
ing their pristine fertility under a better system. 
What a fine country it is! and what a fine race of 
men inhabit it!—Intellectual, brave, generous, and 
hospitable. There are no men in the World supe¬ 
rior to the descendants of the cavaliers in Old Vir¬ 
ginia. Many of them have removed to the west 
and the south, actuated by the spirit of adventure, 
or driven by necessity, or lured' by the wiles of 
land-speculators, or dazzled and blinded by the 
brightness of better lands beyond the mountains. 
Let those who remain in Lower Virginia, and who 
can now barely live on their lands, instantly begin 
to improve them. They are easily improved; and 
when improved, are more valuable than any they 
will obtain farther from the seaboard at the price 
of their improvements. Let them bear in mind, that 
land which brings only ten bushels of wheat, or 
20 of corn to the acre, where these articles can be 
sold for $10 per acre only, is more valuable for cul¬ 
tivation, than land which will bring double those 
quantities, where the prices for them will be less 
for the produce of an acre. When oats were worth 
30 cents a bushel, and corn 50 cents, in the city of 
Richmond, we could with difficulty obtain 12 cents 
for oats, and 20 cents for corn. Last year corn 
sold at 12 cents per bushel in Louisville. 
Many years ago, the Hon. James M. Garnett, 
one of nature’s noblemen, whose death we have 
been lately called to deplore, in an address to the 
Agricultural Society of Fredericksburg, of which 
I was at that time a member, stated some cases 
in which manure from cow-pens, I think, permitted 
to remain on the surface for some time before it 
was mingled with the soil by plowing, seemed to 
produce a more beneficial effect on the crop, than 
when immediately turned under. The idea was 
considered novel at that time. But in conversing 
with a very intelligent, observing, practical farmer 
near Richmond, during my late trip to Virginia, 
he assured me that his own experience had con¬ 
vinced him of its truth. And I observed in return¬ 
ing home, that many of the excellent farmers in 
Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, through which I 
passed on the way from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, 
plow their lands first, then scatter the lime and 
manure, and then barely mingle them with the 
surface-soil, by a light second plowing, instead of 
turning them deeply under. Now, as these men 
are successful practical tillers of the earth, I pre¬ 
sume they would not pursue a system in the ap¬ 
plication of manure, unless experience had demon¬ 
strated its advantages. Is more fertilizing matter 
attracted from the atmosphere than is lost by 
evaporation ? 
I had no adequate idea of the quantity of lime 
used in the agriculture of Pennsylvania, till I passed 
through the state, and saw the numerous lime¬ 
kilns, and the piles of lime in the fields. What 
this substance is effecting for the interior, marl is 
doing for the seaboard. But the facilities of trans¬ 
portation, without the payment of tolls on turn- 
