Existing comment:
Agricultural Failure in Eastern Virginia
Soil exhaustion had transformed the landscape east of the Blue Ridge Mountains into wasted fields and what one agriculturist called the "eyesores" of ruined farms. Artists and writers saw a melancholy beauty in the ruins and worn land. Practical farmers, however, saw instead good reason to pack up and head west.
By 1800, tobacco production had exhausted the soil of eastern Virginia, causing some to compare its decay to that of the Dismal Swamp. |