The Alexandria herald. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1811-1826, 1822-12-06
GOVERNORS MESSAGE.

GOVERNORS MESSAGE.
Fellow citizens of the senate and of the
house Of delegates-l have not the .1stis-
faction to congratulate the Legislature al
the commencement OF this session, ON
the uninterrupted continuance Of prospe-
rous circumstances among our citizens at
large. The long want of rain for the
great part Of last summer has Iessened
the annual amount Of the profits Of agri-
cultural industry SO seriously, and affect
ed the quality Of the main product of the
state so injuriously over large surface
Of cultivated land, that a distressing d
bridgement of the ordinary means Of
comfort, independence, and case, for the
next year, must be the certain conse-
quenee. The extraordinary ravase COM
mitted by insects this year throughout
an extensive and naturally fertile district,
upon all the fruits Of the earth, which
servo for food for man, and the animals
necessary to him, has largely contributed
to increase the evil. A most pernicious
kind which made its appearance on the
banks of James River, near the falls in
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delusive decline and almost unnoticed ex-
istence for nearly twenty years, appeared
again in the same place about ten years
ago, and continues now to multiply and
extend in an alarming degree; already
as the FIRST consequence, an emigration is
preparing, which will deprive the state
for ever of a large amount Of farming
capital, and much Of its agricultural skill
and spirit Of enerprize for rural improve
ments. The autumnal diseases to which
the inhabitants Of the eastern part of the
state, from an early period, and of the
middle, southern and northern parts for
some years back, have been annually liza
BILE, prevailed this year more generally,
and with more distressing consequences,
than common. 1t is believed by most of
those who have lived to remember, that
forty years since, it was as unfrequent for
single death to occur, from that cause,
in family residing constantly in the
country, as it is now rare for one to es.
cape altogether. No family, within all
the region subject to the causes of this
mischief, can now reasonably consider it.
self safe from attack throughout any
year. sympathy with those who have
endured the evil themselves, or who have
suffered more in the loss of their con-
nexions, is not then the only motive to an
inquiry it there are nc means within
reach of the public will, which might be
employed with reasonable hope of some
success, in an attempt to reduce the mag
nitude of that source of MISFORTUNE
The remark may be pertinent here, that
Virginia, with the highly respectable me-
dical faculty which it possesses, has never
had corporate body of physicians.-
Yet Virginia, in the youth of political ex>
istence, gave birth to the greatest medi-
cal talent ever as yet displayed by any
one individual in the new world. With
the proximate cause Of the evil in ques-
tior, we are not at all acquainted, and
without the aid of pneumatic chemistry,
liar to our ears, we can never learn
more than that il is an agent Of fearful
power, invisible, intangible, inaudible,
and known to Us only by the melancholy
effect it annually produces on the health
of our fellow citizens of both sexes, of
all ages, temperameDts, stations and ha-
bits. II has never been doubted that the
remote cause Of this evil is the wide
space upon which water is made TO stag
nate for season by the gradual accumu-
lation Of earth. swept by hasty and heavy
showers, down the slopes, along which
the roads descend, to streams of too little
fall. or the rank heritage forced out from
a surface of great extent by fossil manure,
when it is not in good time removed by
the scythe or by the pasture of animals,
but suffered to decay where it grows
Noxious exhalations have their rise from
the latter of these circumstances, upon
the hills, and from both in the plains, and
our aerial sustenance IS thus poisoned by
our own negligence. We learn from
history that salubrity has been restored
to extensive districts in other countries,
from which it had been long banished, and
we know, from our own experience, that
country situations long exposed to serious
periodical diseases, have been at length
rendered healthy by judicious improve
ments.
To rural economy, founded upon
science, and blended with due know
ledge Unnatural history, we are then to
look at last for remedy, if we ever do
find relief from poisonous vapours and
devouring insects. But neither agricul.
tural industry nor the societies to promote
it, which have sprung spontaneously from
the stagnalion ofthe art, have ever yet re.
n