The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
WESTWARD MIGRATION
It is so long since I have had the pleasure of writing to you, that
it would be vain to look hack to dates to connect the old and the new.
Yet I ought not to pass over my acknowledgments to you for various
publications received from time to time, and with great satisfaction
and thankfulness. I send you a small one in return, the work of a very
unlettered farmer, yet valuable, as it relates plain facts of
importance to farmers. You will discover that Mr. Binns is an
enthusiast for the use of gypsum. But there are two facts which prove
he has a right to be so: I. He began poor, and has made himself
tolerably rich by his farming alone. 2. The county of Loudon, in which
he lives, had been so exhausted and wasted by bad husbandry, that it
began to depopulate, the inhabitants going southwardly in quest of
better lands. Binns' success has stopped that emigration. It is now
becoming one of the most productive counties of the State of Virginia,
and the price given for the lands is multiplied manifold.
to John Sinclair, 30 June 1803
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