Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1895-08-10
Virginia Farms.

Secretary of Agriculture Morton,
in Il conversation in Washington the
other day, spoke as follows in refer
ence to the young man about to make
an agricultural start in life;
Were | young, and about to buy
farmland if were young buying
farm is exactly what I'd go first
about-I'd get farm in Virginia. |
was out through Fairfax and
Loudoun counties the other day.
To say l was amazed would not any
more than express it. l was fairly
astonished. l never saw finer fields
or better crops anywhere. It's gar.
den. One has, as some fellow said
about some other locality, but to
tickle the soil and 1t laughs with a
harvest.
Corn: met face to face with as
vigorous and robust fields as ever
waved in Illinois. Other crops were
the same.
You know what the general notion
both North and West is; that Vir
GINA land is back broken from an
over production of tobacco in the
years gone by. That may be the
truth OF field, or the fact around,
as it We're, in spots, but compared to
the whole pillow area of Virginia it
cannot and does not amount to much.
AS l say, where | journeyed there
was nothing to show any lack of
stamina in the soil. Its cornstalk off.
spring grew thick and tall and held
as healthy hue, both of body and
leaf, as could be looked for. The soil
itself was as black as the prospects OF
the silver party.
NO, sir; were ! young, with a
notion TO farm-alid no better or
broader or more manly avenue ever
opened to human feet than the farm
I'd so into Virginia.
off the character of the soil and
the rugged and abundant sort Of the
crops astonished me, was still more
to open my eyes at the price of land.
You know what land in Texas, in
Kansas, in the West generally, goes
for? 1t isn't uncommon TO find GER
tain bottom farms in Kansas and
other regions Of the West going as
! high as 500 an acre An average
price for farms by the acre in the
! West is as good as $50. The improve
ments won't be enough to seriously
discuss, either. F'iftyhve dollars al
acre is a very common, usual price
for trans Mississippi fa:ms. 1t doesn
scare anybody. Yet l can take you
to Just as good land with better i'm
provements in the way of houses,
barns, fences and water, within thirty
miles of Washington, which you can
buy for $15 an acre. Forty dollars
an acre difference is quite gulf in
finance. Just think of it. Land
equally as good, too.
LAS mere crop producer the
Virginia farm would stand shoulder
to shoulder with any in the West,
and yet while you buy farm of 1GC
acres in Texas, say, for $500, IL
take the same $500 and buy and
Ilocate myself in Virginia, within
three hours drive OF the Capital OF
the country, on fraction over 5SC
acres. Just as good land, as l told
YOU before, only instead of 100 acres
you get $50 acres for $500.
This isn't guess work. could
cite farms and figures. ! may not
appreciate scientists in my depart
ment, and may prefer goose bone
to a college professor to forecast the
weather and tell when its going &c
rain, but l know all about a farm
! what it costs all over the country
and what can be done with it. And
at present figures, as I've already
said, q young man bound to own 8
farm-or an old man similarly bent
for that matter-would show heap
Of horse sense to head for Virginia.