Constitutional Whig

TO THE LEGISLATURE.

We were apprised, when some weeks ago, we published a Communication addressed to several intelligent members of the House of Delegates, on the subject of Enclosures, that a subject was broached, in which the Country felt a serious and constantly advancing interest; but we had not supposed before the experiment, that the public mind had already so well weighed the matter.

We have received different Communications from various parts of the Commonwealth, entreating us to urge the subject incessantly upon the Legislature, as one most worthy of inducing their interference, and presenting a field in which they can labor to most advantage for the relief and advancement of Agriculture, admitted on all hands, to be deplorably depressed.

In compliance with this requisition, we respectfully ask the attention of the General Assembly to the Communication addressed to the Committee on Agriculture, which emanates from a citizen of high intelligence, and in whom the public has deserved confidence. The facts which he states are new and imposing: and the single one, that the present system of enclosures established by law, is leading, and has led, to the sacrifice of their farms by citizens who find the burthen intolerable, and driven them to emigrate, is calculated to arrest the attention of those who hold the remedy.

If the entire Commonwealth is unprepared for so considerable a change: for abandoning an old system, and which because it is old, will continue to find its advocates long after reason has demonstrated its inconvenience--let it, as is proposed in the contemplated new Road system, be left discretionary with each county, to receive or decline the new system of enclosing the pasture only, and not the whole plantation. A priori reasoning will satisfy every man who will reflect, that adopted and put into experiment by a single county, its intrinsic superiority apparent upon trial will gradually force it into universal favor. The system which saves two thirds or one half the enormous labor now expended in fencing, abates one half the expense, and saves one half the timber of the country, and at a time when the commonwealth never had less to throw away, is certainly worthy of enquiry.