251. AGRICULTURE, Virginia.—
Good husbandry with us consists in abandoning Indian
corn and tobacco; tending small grain, some
red clover, fallowing, and endeavoring to have,
while the lands are at rest, a spontaneous
cover of white clover. I do not present this
as a culture judicious in itself, but as good,
in comparison with what most people there
pursue. Mr. [Arthur] Young has never had
an opportunity of seeing how slowly the fertility
of the soil is exhausted, with moderate
management of it. I can affirm that the James
River low-grounds, with the cultivation of small
grain, will never be exhausted; because we
know, that, under that condition, we must now
and then take them down with Indian corn, or
they become, as they were originally, too rich
to bring wheat. The highlands where I
live, have been cultivated about sixty years.
The culture was tobacco and Indian corn, as
long as they would bring enough to pay the
labor; then they were turned out. After four
or five years rest, they would bring good corn
again, and in double that time, perhaps, good
tobacco. Then they would be exhausted by a
second series of tobacco and corn.—
To President Washington. Washington ed. iv, 4.
Ford ed., vi, 83.
(1793)
