New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-11-23
Picture OF virginia Farming.

< A correspondent who has Travelled extern
sively through the South, and writes from
personal observation, thus forclbly, and we
doubt not truly, describes the way farming is
managed in the once great State of Virginia.
There can be no doubt of the entire correctness
of the picture, and those whostudyi will be able
to form a proper estimate Of the claims the peo-
pie of Virginia make, now as we'll as before
their degradation, to superior intelligence and
"blood." The correspondent begins by stat
ing that the planters still cling TO their man.
hundred acres, and then proceeds:
at is easy to calculate that if, with one
good team and modern farm appliances, q
Northern farmer can make money on fifty
acres, q Southern one, without a good team
and little or no farm implements, will lose
money if he attempts to pay even reasonable
taxes on big plantation. All those taxes.
There's the rub. In old slave times farms
about here were valued at from eighteen to
one hundred dollars per acre. The rates of
present valuation are about the same, while
the taxes are greater in proportion, You can
readily see from this that generalization, with
consequent over-taxation, is eating away the
substance of these people. Yet you cannot
persuade them that their farms are over valued
They plant one bushel of wheat and harvest six
or eight instead of fifteen aud twenty as in the
North, and when they harvest they have no
market at less distance than Alexandria or
Richmond, consequently they not only pro-
duce less but get less in price than n Northern
farmers, yet they hold their lands at higher
rates. All this is settling itself, however, be-
cause at sheriff's sales land has been bought
at prices ranging from 81 to $40 per acre.
Gradually, then, these high.priced farmers are
being reduced to beggary. They can produce
with profit none of the staples of agricultural
commerce except fruit. Apples grow to per-
lection and in miraculous abundance, even
under a system Of noncultivation, which
stranger would accept as calculated to kill the
fruit, if not destroy the trees. Yeti the whole
Blue Ridge region venture to say there are not
fifty young orchards to be found. The bearing
orchards are composed of trees planted
two or three generations ago, around the roots
of which grow suckers so thick as to look
like clumps of forest underground or thorn
hedges. As rule, the trees seem to have
come up of their own accord, and are scattered
about through the wheat and corD-felds with
studied irregularity. Once in while some one
strays up from the Underwater country, and
makes contracts at a dollar barrel for the
choice fruit, the owner of the orchard to do the
at the railway. No one here, however, has ever
tried the experiment of lending his own fruit to
market. and this year thousands, il not millions.
of bushels Of apples have ro.ted in the orchards
of the Blue Ridge for want Of enterprise to save
them. Some of the farmers buy cattle in the
fall or spring, and Craze them for the market,
but this is hazardous experiment, as the land
does not produce good grass The millions of
acres of mountain land, too stony for cultiva-
tion will hp ~ In hla daV for timber
if in the meantime it is not stripped for tan
bark The town of Sperryville is sustained
mainly by the traffic in this commodity, and
the mountains in the vicinity are being robbed
of their virgin forests to produce it. But tan
bark at six dollars per ton costs as much as it
will bring, and while few get rich by dealing
in it, those who do the hard work are poorly
paid So it is with chestnuts at a dollar
bushel, and 80 it is with sumac at dollar a
hundred pounds. The sumac trade, however,
promises to become the great feature of the
business of this section. No one has attempted
yet to cultivate it, but it is gathered from the
roadside. The farmers as rule do not pre-
tend even to attempt the cultivation of grapes,
although they grow wild in abundance, and the
few efforts that have been made in that diree-
ton have been attended with unbounded sue
cess.
Throughout the length and breadth of Vir
ginia it would be hard to find an original seces-
sonst You may hear of them, but you seldom,
If ever, meet them. Judging from their own
statements, the people voted unanimously
against secession, and they were equally unani-
nous in support of the Union, until their
State went out" This being the true case, l
have often wondered how the State went out
and have never received satisfactory explana-
ton, except that the Democrats did it."