LETTER FROM VIRGINIA. 
21 
chine, (one of the best instruments ever invent¬ 
ed,) revolves. I use the words arbitrarily, but the 
difference I allude to is very important. The 
first are liable to the evil of clogging; because 
they derive their axis motion from the soil as 
they pass over and press upon it. This action 
must not be confounded with that of a machine 
which has its cause of revolution within itself, inde¬ 
pendent, and acting upon the soil as a circular 
saw acts upon a board, or the paddle wheel of a 
steamer, upon the water. The teeth of a saw 
clear themselves, by the centrifugal motion they 
communicate to the particles they have detach¬ 
ed from the substance they act upon. A circu¬ 
lar cultivator, steam driven, will do the same, 
for I have proved it. It does so more effectual¬ 
ly according to the speed, (of revolution,) and 
the state af moisture of the soil. This last in¬ 
cident is at it should be ; for it is not desirable 
that a clay soil should be dealt with when in an 
improper state for cultivation; and one great 
advantage of such an instrument as I point to 
would be that it would so greatly enlarge the 
choice of a suitable period, by its compendious 
accomplishment of the whole work of culture. 
To illustrate still further the subject of steam 
plowing, we append from a late English paper, 
a description of a new arrangement with steam 
plows. We look, however, upon all these ex¬ 
periments, rather with the wish than the hope , 
that anything hitherto attempted will prove 
effectual for accomplishing the object. 
The engine moves across the centre of the 
field on a light, portable railway. The plows 
advance and recede on either side of the rail¬ 
way, at right angles to it. 
The plows employed consist of four ordina¬ 
ry and four subsoil plows, fixed in a frame. 
They are directed by a person standing upon a 
small platform. 
Two such plows, one on either side the rail¬ 
way, alternately advance and recede; the ad¬ 
vancing plow working, and the other idle until it 
regains its proper position-for plowing the next 
four furrows. On the completion of the four 
furrows both ways, the engine and side frame 
advance each three feet. 
The plows are attached to an endless chain, 
one hundred and fifty yards in length. They 
can be detached at pleasure, or shifted from one 
side of the chain to the other. They travel at 
the rate of five miles an hoivr. Provision is made 
in case they strike against any impediment. 
Arrangements are made to suit irregularly- 
shaped fields and to increase or diminish the 
number of plows, if necessary. 
In the present state of things, it is difficult to 
form a correct estimate of the value of the in¬ 
vention in a commercial point of view. I will 
only say that a machine of the power, and with 
the arrangement described, would perform the 
work usually done by sixteen plows, driven by 
as many men, and drawn by thirty-two horses. 
Requiring itself the attendance of eight men, 
and a horse lo draw the water for the engine, it 
would thus save the labor of thirty-two horses 
and eight men. Against this must be set an 
expense of five shillings a-day for coals. 
LETTER FROM VIRGINIA. 
I have contemplated writing you for some 
time ; but a farmer upon a new place has but 
little spare time to devote to letter writing. 1 
say new place, because to me it is new, although 
it was in cultivation perhaps a hundred years 
ago. It is also new in another sense, because 
everything had to be created anew, except the 
dwelling, almost as much as though I had loca¬ 
ted on the western prairies, or the wild woods 
of the mountains. 
The land now occupied by myself and two 
or three neighbors whom I induced to emigrate 
with me from New York, was once a fertile and 
very profitably productive tobacco plantation. 
Allow me to tell you what it was some years 
ago and what it is now. It was then a wild and 
barren-looking waste. Abandoned by the own¬ 
er many years ago, the fences had all gone to 
ruin, leaving scarcely rails enough to mark 
their former location; the land nearly all grown 
up to old-field pines, persimon, sassafras, and 
broom straw. All the buildings in ruins except 
the dwelling, and that nearly so; the whole 
presenting a scene that required strong faith in 
the purchaser that his abilities would be suffi¬ 
cient to reclaim such an unpromising looking 
ruin. Of the soil, all concurred in assuring me 
that it was worn out and worthless; that it 
would not produce enough to keep the hands 
alive who planted it, and the only thing that 
could be done with it was to let it alone and 
grow up; in time, it might pay for clearing, &c. 
I found, on examination, the soil was a sandy 
loam with a subsoil of red clay; that it in all its 
former cultivation, had never been plowed with 
a stronger team than one horse, and of course a 
very light plow in a very shallow furrow which 
only stirred the surface. This determined me to 
risk a purchase of land esteemed almost worth¬ 
less; land that would hardly support a single 
sheep to the acre. Of course, 1 could not manure 
it, and had to look for fertility in the soil or rather 
below what was termed such. This I did with 
one of your No. 19 plows, set as deep as four 
