and hoes, and gins and presses, and there were scores of very "likely negroes." Whoever sold such of these negroes as had been bought must have been the richer, it will be said. But let us see.
The following picture of the condition of Virginia, the great breeding ground of slaves, is drawn by the last governor of that State, Henry A. Wise. It was addressed to a Virginia audience, who testified to its truthfulness.
"You have had no commerce, no mining, no manufactures.
"You have relied alone on the single power of agriculture—and such agriculture! Your sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source of wealth has scared the very bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the sedge-patches to procure a tough beef-*steak.
"The present condition of things has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor together. I have heard a story—I will not locate it here or there—about the condition of the prosperity of our agriculture. I was told by a gentleman in Washington, not long ago, that he was travelling in a county not a hundred miles from this place, and overtook one of our citizens on horseback, with, perhaps, a bag of hay for a saddle, without stirrups, and the leading line for a bridle, and he said: 'Stranger, whose house is that?' 'It is mine,' was the reply. They came to another. 'Whose house is that?' 'Mine, too, stranger.' To a third: 'And whose house is that?' 'That's mine, too, stranger; but don't suppose that I'm so darned poor as to own all the land about here.'"
But more to the purpose is the following statement of "the
venerable Edmund Ruffin," President of the Virginia Agricultural
Society.
"A gang of slaves on a farm will increase to four times their original
number in thirty or forty years. If a farmer is only able to feed and
maintain his slaves, their increase in value may double the whole of his
capital originally invested in farming before he closes the term of an ordinary
life. But few farms are able to support this increasing expense, and
also furnish the necessary supplies to the family of the owner; whence
very many owners of large estates, in lands and negroes, are throughout
