University of Virginia Library

Agriculture.

IN SOIL, climate and accessibility to market, Albemarle
county possesses advantages unsurpassed by any other
county in our State.

Intersected as it is by two great lines of railway, with still
another on its southern border, connecting it with tide water
in one direction and giving us easy and rapid communication
with the great markets of the country; its great advantages
in that respect are only equalled by the general adaptability
of its soil to that diversified agriculture which brings the
surest and best rewards to the cultivator of the soil.

All of the cereals, with the exception, perhaps, of barley,
and all of the grasses common to the temperate zone, flourish
well. There are no better wheat and corn lands than can be
found in Albemarle.

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Extending as it does, from the apex of the Blue Ridge to
the lowlands bordering on the James River, almost every
character and quality of soil can be found, from the sandy
lands and rich alluvium of the rivers to the rock-made,
inexhaustible red lands which characterize so large a section
of Piedmont Virginia. It is capable of producing abundant
milk, corn and wine; and with such capability would, in all
ages, be regarded as a most promising section of country. No
section of country possesses greater natural advantages for
the varied productions which the necessities and comfort of
our race demand.

That king of all the cereals—wheat, can be successfully
produced. Corn—the farmers mainstay—thrives everywhere,
in the hands of the skillful cultivators; and while the yield of
oats may rarely equal the products of more northern and
humid climates, yet as fine fields of that grain are harvested
in Albemarle as anywhere in the Middle States.

Large sections of our county are eminently adapted to
grazing, and the cultivated grasses always flourish, on large
areas, under the care of the intelligent farmer. As tobacco
planting yields in importance, as a staple crop, and grasses are
cultivated in connection with cereals, it will be found that our
red lands will be rapidly improved. The present writer has
seen in Albemarle county as heavy yields of hay as the most
favored lands in the best dairy sections of New York can produce.

Stock-raising and dairying is successfully pursued here, and
it can be indefinitely expanded.

Fruit-growing is now an important interest, and is yearly
attracting the attention of wide-awake farmers who begin to
realize that diversified production is safer than a reliance on
one staple crop.

Our orchards have long been celebrated for the excellence
of their fruit; and our vineyards, now covering hundreds of
acres, not only supply hundreds of tons of table fruit for the
markets of the country, but supply two prosperous wine-cellars
with the fruit from which the famous Virginia Claret wines

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