304 
IMPORTANT FACT IN AGRICULTURE.-LETTERS FROM VIRGINIA—NO. 1. 
The borers have not assailed these trees at any 
time. It may be reasonable to conclude that the 
thick underwood has protected them from this 
enemy; as those standing near, in open, cultivated 
ground of like quality, have not escaped. 
As an ornamental tree, the locust, with its light 
and elegant foliage, its sweetly perfumed flowers, 
its beautiful pendent form, often “ feathering to the 
ground,” will always be entitled to a place in our 
parks, lawns, and pleasure grounds; but, as Gilpin 
says, “ its beauty is frail, and it is of all trees the 
least able to endure the blast. In some sheltered 
spot it may ornament a garden; but it is by no 
means qualified to adorn a country. Its wood is 
of so brittle a texture, especially when it is encum¬ 
bered with a weight of foliage, that you can never 
depend upon its aid in filling up the part you wish. 
The branch you admire to-day may be demolished 
to-morrow. The misfortune is, the acacia is not 
one of those grand objects, like the oak, w T hose dig¬ 
nity is often increased by ruin. It depends on its 
beauty, rather than on its grandeur, which is a 
quality more liable to injury. I may add, however, 
in its favor, that, if it be easily injured, it repairs 
the injury more quickly than any other tree.” It 
has also “ the further disadvantage of coming late 
into leaf, and being among the very first to cast its 
foliage in autumn, and this without undergoing any 
change of color, or exhibiting those beautiful and 
mellow tints which enrich the landscape at this 
season of the year.”* 
The Rose-flowering Locust has sparingly been 
planted, as an ornamental tree, but less so than the 
preceding species, and as such, from its medium 
size, rapidity of growth, and its large, conspicuous 
roseate flowers, it well deserves a place in every 
collection. But, let it be remembered, that, like 
the common locust, its creeping roots are a great 
nuisance.in all cultivated grounds, that its leaves 
and wood are attacked in a similar manner by in¬ 
sects, and that the tree itself is comparatively short¬ 
lived. 
The Honey-Locust, or Three-thorned Gleditschia, 
has also been extensively cultivated as a hedge- 
plant, as well as a shade-tree, throughout the At¬ 
lantic States, from the banks of the Mohawk to 
those of the Savannah. For the last-named purpo¬ 
ses, from its delicate, light-green foliage, which is 
rarely attacked by insects, and the beautifully 
varied, graceful, and picturesque forms it often as¬ 
sumes, with the singular features afforded by its 
large pods and spines, when sparingly planted in 
parks and other ornamental grounds, it holds a high 
rank As a hedge-plant, however, or as a tree for 
shading crowded streets in town, it does not appear 
to be well adapted.— Transactions of N. Y. State 
Agricultural Society. 
Important Fact in Agriculture. —Whatever 
may be the nature of the soil, or of the crop culti¬ 
vated, it should always be the aim of the farmer to 
grow full crops. Partial and sometimes extensive 
failures will even then but too often occur ; but to 
neglect making the best known preparations, or only 
to prepare for half a crop, is an ill-judged notion, 
and has a direct tendency to unprofitable farming. 
* Trees of America, pp. 203 and 208. 
LETTERS FROM VIRGINIA.—No. 1. 
It may not be unknown to you, nor to the great 
mass of your readers, that within a few years past, an 
unusual and extraordinary current of emigration has 
been setting from the Northern and Eastern States, 
in this direction. Heretofore, and up to a very 
recent period, the fertile valleys, virgin wilderness, 
and illimitable prairies of the West have exerted a 
magnetic influence upon the restless and enterpris¬ 
ing sons of New England and New York ; and 
leaving the “ Old Thirteen” far in their rear, these 
hardy and indomitable pioneers of an advancing 
civilization have boldly fronted and successfully en¬ 
countered obstacles which would have appalled less 
dauntless spirits and less sinewy frames, until the 
vast territory included between the Mississippi 
River and the Rocky Mountains has already be¬ 
come dotted with the abodes of industry and wealth. 
While this great “ movement” of the ag^ has 
been in progress, it has, comparatively speaking, 
drained the Atlantic frontier of those elements of 
its strength and greatness which originally consti¬ 
tuted its patrimony, and by means of which it be¬ 
came what it was. Probably no one State in this 
older-settled portion of the Union affords a more 
striking example of this result than the “Ancient 
Dominion” of Virginia—the nursing mother of pa¬ 
triots, heroes, and statesmen—great in all the essen¬ 
tial elements of individual, social, and political well 
being — rich in historical associations — with a 
soil abounding in all that could tempt or reward the 
agriculturist, the miner, the manufacturer—with 
advantages of position, equal, and in many respects 
superior to those of any of the confederated States; 
and during a Jong period, exercising, through her 
eminently gifted sons, a predominating influence 
over the fortune and destinies of the nation. 
Her population has not only failed to keep pace 
with that of her more enterprising sisters, but her 
rich resources, mineral, agricultural, manufacturing, 
and mercantile, have been suffered to run to waste. 
Her fertile soil has been over-tasked in one portion 
and miserably neglected in another; her internal 
improvements have been, one after another, aban¬ 
doned ; her manufactories become dismantled, and 
her noble mountains, hills, valleys, and plains de¬ 
serted. 
At the termination of the revolution, in which 
her gallant sons played so conspicuous a part, her 
free white population amounted to 442,000 souls, 
while that of Pennsylvania was but 424,000, that 
of New York 314,000, and that of Massachusetts 
373,000. In 1800, while Virginia could enume¬ 
rate only 514,280, New York had advanced to 
556,000, and Pennsylvania to 586,000. In 1810, 
New York had a population of 918,699 ; Pennsyl¬ 
vania of 786,804 ; while Virginia stood at 551,534. 
In 1820, New York had increased to 1,333,445; 
Ohio nearly to, and Pennsylvania to upwards of a 
million, while Virginia, already reduced to the rank 
of a fourth-rate State, numbered 603,337 only. Ten 
years later, New York numbered 1 , 868 , 000 ; Penn¬ 
sylvania 1,309,900; and Virginia 694,300. In 
1840, New York had considerably exceeded two 
millions. Pennsylvania and Ohio, each a million 
and a half, while Virginia had only attained to the 
comparatively meagre standard of 740,968. At the 
' present time, while New York has eight times the 
