Excerpt from Thomas Jefferson The undulating soil of this Albemarle region, whose chief richness lies in the valleys and river bottoms, has yielded periodical crops, - not in tobacco es pecially, or what we commonly class as Southern staples, but in wheat, corn, and oats, - American farm products such as were always associated in sense with free labour. The Blue Ridge farmer was never a paragon of thrift, and good lands have run frequently to waste for want of top-dressing and an opportunity to recuperate. Manufactures, of course, could not flourish hereabouts so long as skilled artisans and mechanics were repelled by the deadly nightshade of slavery; and though times perhaps are changing for the better, we still find the Albemarle capitalist who sets up for a manufacturer occupied chiefly in mend ing broken ploughs and wagons, advertising repairs as his specialty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.