Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-05-31


was near. Now she boasts Of the name
of the grand old commoner himself,
with no other town in Virginia to di-
vide the honors with her, and no
explanations are needed; for the
man who does not know who
Randolph was "don't know nothing"
So much for the name. As for the Sec
ton, it is splendid country--almost as
good as the Coles Ferry part of the
country referred to in this correspond
ence last week. The Staunton-riyer
lowgrounds here are broad and rich
broader than anywhere else on this
long river, which changes its name three
times from its rising among the noun
tains in Montgomery and its gathering
waters in Roanoke, where it is known
as Roanoke; along down through
Campbell, Charlotte, Halifax, and
Mecklenburg, where it is Staunton and
then. when its waters mingle with the
Dan, becoming Roanoke again, it cuts a
broad channel through North Carolina,
and loses itself in the great Atlantic.
Just now Stanton is on rampage
the first tare she has been on for a long
time. Her mountain water is coming
down in great torrent, thick with the
red mud of Bedford, bursting over her
banks, covering up hundreds Of acres
of young corn. and sanding the grass
and wheat. The flood is not dis
astrous one as yet, however, though
the river has been rising slowly for a
week, and the incessant rain which has
poured down for the last twelve
hours, and seems to be general is caus-
ing much apprehension to the farmers
along its banks.
The finest estate hereabouts are the
Randolph estate, now owned by Wood
Bouldin, Jr., and those of Captain
McPhail, Alfred Bruce and Ballard
Bruce, Esqs.-splendid properties. all
Of them, their like, altogether. not often
seen in long days journey. A mag
nifcent view of them can be had from
the long iron bridge across Staunton
river, the finest on the Richmond.and
Danville road after one leaves your
city.
Just now all the talk in this county
is the glorious tobacco Season-glorious
for stripping, owning, and pricing, and
glorious for planting. 1t is the first
the tobacco-men have had this year,
and they are making good use Of their
time, too, working early and late, with
two crops on their hands, stripping and
prizing while it rains, and bedding and
planting when the sun shines. Plants,
too. were never better or more abun-
dant, but the rain held off so long a
great many farmers dallied too long
with the season. and it has caught them
with their ground unprepared. Such
wear long faces and long for some fair
working weather.
A formidable foe that the planter is
now fighting is the cut-worm. Those
little pests were never before seen in
such numbers. The cool spring has
nurtured them, and they are fine and
fat, glorying in their numbers and work.
ing all night long. At the rising of the
sun the poor farmer sees his young
plants cut short off at the ground, lying
wilted on the hill by the thousand.
Then the laborious work Of planting has
to be done all over again, in addition to
scratching out and killing the pesky
grub. This will have to be gone over
and over with, too, until the sun gets
too hot fer these sons of the
candle-fy and drives them down into
the deep, cool earth. Some thought
full ones, anticipating a long battle
with these cut-worms of their treasury,
are, out Of abundant caution and their
abundant supply of plants, too, pro-
viding food for them by sticking two or
three extra plants in the hill, hoping
thereby to save at least one. If more
than one should grow the others could
be easily chopped up at the first weed
ing. The idea is agood one, and worth
consideration.
But all the rain won't make
wheat crop. 1t is just mis-
cradle failure, and the people had as
well look that fact in the face. The
crop is doing all it can under the cir
cumstances, greening, growing, and
heading nicely, but the stand is not on
the ground, and while a field here and
there, especially on these rich river
low-grounds, looks well and will
make fifteen to eighteen bushels
to the acre. Many fields won't make
the seed that was put there last fall.
| think the estimate Of the crop made
by Commissioner-of- Agriculture Har-
rison, which was printed in the Dis
patch short time since, is safe one
3 against three bushels this year
in Virginia. where we had seven last
year, or, as he had it, 100000 BUSH
els in 'S5 as against 100000 for "a.
The ravage of the Hessian fly this
spring is conundrum to wheat-grow-
erS in this part Of the State. do not
know whether it is general over the
State, but in this county this German
importation of the Revolution is doing
great damage. 1t has been always al
lowed that the fly got into the forward
wheat in the fall or early winter, or
warm spells during the winter. and laid
their eggs then; but here are fields
which, owing to the dry weather of last
fall, were not seeded until late in 0cto-
Der or November, hardly showed blades
before Christmas. frozen down into the
earth all winter by the seyerest weather,
and now, as soon as the wheat could
begin to grow, lunches up, refuses to
head, and has at the roots lots of eggs
where the fly has been making his nest.
But when they found laying weather is
the question these wheat-growers want
some wise ones to tell them. Let them
hear through the Dispatchif you please.
VoX.
Hampden.Sidney College Comm enee.