The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-08-04
RirE1mond 1ispatrh.
THE CIRCULATION OF THE '.DISPATCH"
is LARGER THAN THE COMBINED CIRCU-
LATIoN OF ALL THE OTHER DAILY NEWS
PAPERS OF THIS CITY.
Horace Greeley In Virginia.

EhSFstSS "ESehSy AA
Though repeatedly visitor to the out,
skirts and even the capital Of Virginia,
had never passed through the heart of that
State until last week, when, in compliance
with on invitation from friends interested
in certain mineral lands on her northwest
ern border, I passed and repassed along her
central line of railway from Alexandria,
by way of Culpeper, Gordonsyille, Char
lottesYille, Lynchburg, Liberty, Christians
burg, and so for down the Tennessee rail-
road as Dublin depot, in Pulaski county
thence visiting and traversing the adjacent
county of Giles, which is skirted by New
river, on its course from the mountains OF
North Carolina to emerge, as it leaves this
county, through q gap in the mountains,
into West Virginia, and form, with the
Greenbrier, the Great Kanawha. Some
notes of what saw and heard on this hur-
ricd journey may interest those who are
either already connected with Virginia or
who contemplate migration thithcr.
FACE OF THE COUNTRY.
Central Virginia is emphatically "roll-
ing" country, with mountains of moderate
activity and steepness, wooded or culti-
waited to their crests, almost always visible
on the north and west. Beyond Christians
burg the Virginia and Tennessee railroad
passes through or among some spurs Of the
Allegheny range; and hence mountains are
often visible, if not imminent in either di-
rection. AS a whole, this is chill coun-
try" of remarkable beauty and healthful-
ness. "Tidewater Virginia" " is subject to
chils and ferers, which compacter popu-
lation and better husbandry will ultimately
eradicate but I could hear of none that
originated in the "piedmont or more
westerly region. The cadaverons counte-
nances too often encountered are the result
not of ague, but of the immodcrate, inces-
SAINT use of tobacco.
SOIL, CULTIVATION, PRODUCTS.
Most of the land l saw is of the cred
land " variety, we'll known in New Jersey
and Maryland-a sort OF clayey loam
tinged with iron or some kindred mineral,
and often testifying, where it has been cut
through by the railroads, to its marine
origin. 1t is naturally strong and fruitful,
free from stone, easily worked when not toe
wet, and inviting deep and thorough cul-
turc, while rarely addicted to weeds. Yet
the unwooded portion Of it has been so long
and so steadily treated as badly as posi-
blc-plowed three to five inches, rarely Of
never manured, devoted to wheat, tobacco;
and corn, and never seeded when thrown
out of cultivation-that it seems wholly ex-
hausted A drought has prevailed for weeks
through most of this region, and the ave-
rage stand Of Indian corn is miserable.
am confident that l saw ten thousand
acres that will not yield five bushels
per acre much Of it not one car Of sound
corn per acre. | noticed that the shocks
of wheat and oats often standing in the
field were small and far apart. Tobacco Is
a favorte crop throughout, and it generally
makes q poor show. Even where clover
(cverywhere greatly needed) has been sown,
it is too often allowed to stand till dead
ripe, and then the little life left in it is de-
libcrately fried out by days of needless
driving in tue swath or cock. Other grasses
NAV be treated q little less insanely, but
not much. As q rule, they are cut three
weeks too late, and left out too long to make
themselves into hay that only the severest
pangs Of hunger will induce cattle to eat.
There are, of course, exceptions-helds of
thrifty corn or tobacco, stacks and stabblc
of bountcous wheat or oats, fair fields OF Sc
cond growth clover, &C., &C., to attest the
trite old truth
''If vain our toll,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil"
and [ am confident that, even without fer
tilizing, these same barren fields, that now
serve to no purpose but to repel immigra-
ton, would yield fair crops if simply plow-
cd twelve inches instead of four. Time
and again was told of the drought, and the
inability of the people to buy fertilizers,
where it was manifest that simply con-
fning to ten acres the labor and care now
absolutely squandercd on thirty or forty
would have insured the cultiyator decent
return for his efforts, where he will not now
receive twenty-five cents for e6ch fair day.
work. Secession was transient delirium
but here is madness persisted in from youth
to age, and handed down from generation
to generation. And it seems to me that the
habit of slovcnly, niggardly farming is &c
inveterate that only through large infu-
sion of new blood is renovation probable
TIMBER.
Virginia is to-day the best timbered State
in the Union. The plantation or large-farn
system is to be credited with this good II
offset to its many evils. Men who owned
500 to 10, 900 acres left one-third to nine
tcnths of it in timber from necessity, OF
they skinned it by their wretched choppine
till it would not produce even mullen,
when they burned up or carted away what
little fence still enclosed it, and left it to be
run over by cattle and straggle up into
wood. Oak and pine seem to be Natures
favorites, but the timber is in good variety
Locust is more thrifty here than almost any.
where else, and seems to be untouched
by the borer. In the western region l ira
versed more deliberately by wagon or or
horseback-Pulaski,G Giles, and Bland coun-
ties-I Judge that seven-eigEths of the sol
(maiuly hills or low mountains, rarely
rising $500 feet above the streams and
their generally narrow but fertile inter
vales,) is still covered by the primitive
forest, most of which has never been robbed
of q tree. Yellow pine and black oak
usually ranging from twelve to thirty
inches in diameter, are here most pIeva-
lent; but white and chestnut oaks, hickory
chestnut, locust, white pine, white beech
tulip, sycamore ION the streams), hemlock
sugar maple, gum, &c., are often manifest
l travcrsed miles of superb white and black
oak, where nearly half the trees would
square two feet, making admirable ship
timber. In time this timber, despite its
location, will command high prices, because
of it's disappearance from the States FUR
ther North.
MINERALS.
My friends were looking after deposits Of
iron ore in which they were interested, and
found them abundant and rich. They OWL
two or three adjacent tracts amounting tc
forty thousand acres, covering most of the
western half of Giles and the eastern nan
L..a- .4n Ir-nf fn1 1.nd