Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-01-09
Especial Correspondence of the Herald
Letter from Virginia.

DAAH'hhAh CIA1 lONs L dud luCl w. a.
Editor Rutland Herdn You will
doubtless remember DR.. Gridley Per-
kins, of Castleton, who was killed near
Paris, Va, during the war. !. happened
to meet, to-day, DR.. A. S. Payne of this
place, an old Castleton graduate, who,
it seems stood within short distance of
Perkins when he was shot. DR.. P. says
that Perkins command was pursuing
some Confederate cavalry on the turn
pike, near Paris. Some six of them had
stopped in a barn yard to feed their
horses. Perkins riding at the head of
his company, espied them in this barn
yard, and dashed forward alone, riding
at least hundred yards in advance. DIR.
Payne, who was standing but about thir-
ty yards from the Confederate soldiers,
recognized Perkins-they had been old
class mates at Casteton medical college
and called out to them not to fire. He
did not, however, speak quite quick
enough, for almost simultaneously with
his call the soldiers fired, and poor Grid
ley fell dead-shot through the brain.
And now a few words about this
country. | saw no land from Suffolk to
Petersburg, from Petersburg to Rich
mond, from Richmond to the Potomac,
that think any Vermonter would want
to buy. The timber is almost exclusive
ly scrub oak and pine. Hardly another
tree grows along this whole route, save
some elms and some such like wood
growing in theswamps. In many places
along this route you will see pieces of
woodland with the pines large enough
and thick enough to yield fifteen or
twenty cords to the acre, and the sur
face of the ground still marked with the
old corn row ridges of the last crop.
Much of the land is growing up to
sprouts Of late date. About Peters
burg and about Fredericksburg there are
thousands of acres on which there are
literally no fences, save perhaps. around
the garden ground. Nor does it seem
to me to be worth the fencing, while the
West still holds out its acres of fertile
soil. From Alexandria to Manapas the
visible soil and timber did not seem to
indicate much fertility. But as we ap-
preach this region the locust, hickory,
chestnut. the corn stalk, the cattle, the
hogs, all, everything seemed to indicate
a better soil and amOre productive farm
ing country. The general appearance
of the country hereabouts is much like
that of the valley at Pawlet, Rupert and
Salem along the Rutland & Washington
railroad. There is here is no plane land.
On one side the Blue Ridge runs, covered
with hard timber, and in general altitude
almost like Pine hin. The soil must
have been of the most wonderful fertil-
ity. The whole country seems to have
scattered more or less thickly over its
surface, small and large fragments
of f0ssiliferous rock, the disintegratiOn
of which doubtless gave to the soil its
great fertility, and helps to maintain it.
When land here is abandoned to the
sprouts, the spontaneous growth is vel
low locust, very sure indication of
fertility.
The farm lands are mostly fenced
with slonp walls, pretty much as they
are in Vermont. The houses are mostly
of sawed logs They are not well APP
pointed and are all constructed with a
view To- slave labor The barns and
out houses are generally miserably in
suflicieut-and to nse a Virginia phrase
''shacklng" The farmsteads do not, as
they do in New England all arrange
themselves along the highways, but
seem to have been built at such points
on the farms as would place their houses
near some permanent spring, for it has
never vet entered the widest imagin-
ings of an old time Nirginian that water
could he brought to house by pipe or
loo or pump, or in any other way than
balanced on the head of negro. If he
DIGS Il we'll he digs it at least fifty yards
from his door The farms here are Of
fered at prices ranging from ten to forty
dollars per acre. They are the cheapest
lands | have yet seen in Virginia, and
indeed they are the only lands that |
have vet seen that are worth purchasing
at any price These lands bring good
clover and herds-grass. Meadows soon
run out and are replaced however by
bluegrass The average crop of corn,
made on blue grass sod, is about 80
bushels to the acre. -Four acres viii
carry a cow safely and well through
winter and summer, or in other words
two hundred acre farms will keep fifty
COWS. This of course implies the
stocking of the land in meadow and pas
ture The present crops, crops made by
processes far from complete, and that
on land constantly drawn upon, never
replenished land, ploughed and cropped
almost necessarily, satisfy me as they
will any one who comes here that all
this land can be made TO blossom as the
rose if there could be applied to it the
skill, the industry, the thrift that has so
successfully wrung its wealth out of the
grudging soil of New England. To res
tore this land to it's original fertility no
manure is necessary. Plaster, clover,
thrift-that's all-with it no thousand
acres in a body in all Vermont would
equal the average production OF 1t. The
average the price of corn here running
through ten years is fifty cents. To-day
it is worth forty-two. The average price
for hay is $40. The prevailing grass is
bluegrass. Cattle are turned to grass
about the 10th of April. Sheep run out
the whole winter and are seldom fed ex-
cept when the snow covers the ground.
They are fed perhaps six week or two
monts.
The farming industry which promises
here is sheep farming, with a view to the
production of mutton. l feel convinced
that any man coming here with money
to pay for his farm, to stock it and put
up the necessary sheds, (there are none
here) could make a fortune, and that
rapidly in raising sheep, but more es-
pecialIy in buying wethers-and buying,
not raising. the corn to fat them on.
And this for the reason that the lands
are rolling. there are no swamps, the
pasture is blue grass, the best fattening
grass in the world; the climate is good,
the region as healthy as New England /;
the water is just like that of Vermont,
good, cool and sweet springs are abund-
ant and corn can be had in great abund-
ance at less than the cost of profitable
cultivation. The lands are good wheat
lands. Grapes ripen in all their varieties,
or, to a grape grower, it may be better