Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1855-10-24

the smaller but most valuable kinds as the straw
berry, the raspberry, gooseberry, currants, ana,
above all, our native grapes the sweet ana pronc
Scuppernong and the rich Catawba, which mature
we'll besides of foreign origin w hen TO these
arc added the fish, with which our eastern waters
abound through the year, but alive IN the spring
our naval stores and lumber, our marlS, our MN
erals god silver, copper, and especially the extern
sive and rich deposits of iron ore, and the Goals,
one may confidently ask, is there any other country
which contains or produces more OF greater aver
sty of things to sustain life to bring money ?
And then let me enquire of you, North Carolinans,
what better country do you want than your own
1 hold it is good enough-too good, am tempted
to say for sinful man. Itrequires only to be dress
ed and titled to give nearly all we want on earth,
and much for our fellow less happily situated
There may at some time be a stint below our usual
abundance; but we need never fear famine here
while we work. Indeed, that calamity can hardly
befall q country where maiZe-which we call Indian
corn-grows to perfection. There is no record oil
dearth approaching famine, where the principal crop
maize, it is here. Our climate and soil are SO
congenal to the other cereals, that failure OF that
crop from an unpropitous is necessarily per-
ceved in time to provide the Others, or some ofthem
as substitute.
Such is North Carolina! Here she is, and let
any man say, who can, whether she be not In every
thing as she has been held up to him. Ihen
why should any leave her? l trust the period OF
her peoples deserving her and seeking-what they
never founda better place. is near its end and that
they will cleave to her and exalt her by uniting in
an effort to render her. by increased fertility yet
more teeming in her productions, and to emoelllsh
her with durable and tasteful habitatons, gardens
and lawns, with substantial farm houses, with Or
chards and every other thing that can make her
beautiful in our eyes and fasten our affections ON
her. True the soil is not what it once was, and our
task is not merely to preserve tertihty' but IN
great degree to restore that which has been more
or less exhausted We must not blame our ances-
tors too hastily too severely, for the system under
which the rich vegetable loan they found here was
so used up. The labors and hardships of settling
nnntry lnoCo hDt q
than preparing for cultivation and cropping such
parts of the land absolutely necessary tor
maintaining the colony. Land was in plenty-tm-
Der an ncumbrance, and labor scarce and costly so
that, in reality, it cheaper, and the sounder
economy in them to bring fields with their ex-
ceedng superficial fertility into culture, rather than
manure those which they had reduced by Imperfect
tillage and scourging cropping. Throughout Amer
lea the land suffered by the exhausting operations
of the settlers and their descendants for several gen.
eratons but that only go on to certain extent,
and then it must stop. When getting to DC so re-
duced not to pay for cultivation, necessity for
bids further reduction of the soil, and then the
process of regeneration begins. At first it proceeds
slowly; but every degree of improvement furnishes
means for still greater and accordingly 1t increases
its pace, and by improved culture, manures rotation
of crops and the like, it ends in productVeness
beyond its original capacity.
If not to the lowest certainly to very low, con-
dition, much of the land in the State had been
brought; and the time came, when, if improvement
was ever to be made, it would be commenced. L
use the expression, the time came" instead Of has
come" because it is joyful fact, that persons
in various parts of the State, many in some parts,
have improved, and continue to improve their lands
and increase their crops-profting much theretrom
in their fortunes and setting the rest of examples
by which ought also to profit. We have all heard
for some years past that the era of improvement
had begun in the great and wealthy county of Edge
conbe; and l learn from unquestionable sources,
that the intelligent and enterprsng planters of that
county have been rewarded by signal success. L
10 no enter into detail of their system
further than to say, that it consists chiefly in drain
ing by bitches and embankments, making and ap.
plying composts, the use of guano and plaster of
Paris and the fed-pea as an ameliorating crop, as
we'll as food for stock advise every one however,
who has the opportunity, by minute enquiries to
obtain from those who have put this system into use,
detailed information respecting it and feel no hes
itation in preferring request to the planters of
Edgecombe as publlc-Sprited gentlemen, to COM
muncate through our agricultural periodicals, the
history of their improvements, and their expert
ments-as well those in which they failed as those
in which they succeeded, with all other matters
which may be useful to their brethren in other
sections.
In other parts of the country, with which l am
more intimately acquainted, much improvement has
been made to my own knowledge. OF the counties
ranging along northern border, from Warren to
Stokes inclusive, have had for about fifty years
considerable knowledge. That was the principal re-
gion of the tobacco culture According to the course
of that culture wherever it prevailed in our early
annals, the country was cut down rapidly, cropped
mercilessly with view to quantity rather than
quality, then put into corn, and exhausted quickly
and almost entirely. When first knew it, and for
a long time afterwards, there Astounding cyl
dences of former fertility, and existing and
full sterility. Corn and tobacco and oats were al
most the only crops. But little wheat and no cult
waited grasses were to be in the country. War
and Granville bought the little -four they used
from Orange wagons. Large tracts disigurcd
by gals and frghtful gullies turned out g old
fields, with broomstraw and od-feld pines for their
only vesture, instead of their stately primitive for
ests rich crops for the OF man. This is sad
picture. But it is true one; and there
fact than figure in the saying by many, whose work
of destruction rendered that region desolae, and
who then abandoned it, that it was cold and worn
out" Happily, some thought its condition not so
hopeless, and, cherishng their attachment for the
spots of their nativity within these few years-since
the time of river navigation and railroads began
set about repairing the ravages of former days. Do
you suppose they content with less crops, and
therefore that they cultivated less land than BEFORE
leaving larger area to natural recovery by rest
That was not their course. They did not give up
the culture of tobacco but greatly increased it. and
corn also and they added to their rotation, wheat
when so much more easily and cheaply carried to
market. But they greatly increased the collection
and application of manures from the stables, and
the cattle yards, with considerable additions of the
concentrated manures obtained from abroad, and
protected the land from washing by judicious hill
side trenching and more thorough blowing The
result has been, that many old-feds have been re-
claimed and brought into cultivation, the lands gen.