biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1794–1865)
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| biography:
| Agriculturist and writer, born in Prince George Co, Virginia, USA. Suspended from William and Mary College for bad grades, and bored by the War of 1812, he returned to Coggin's Point, the family estate. There he discovered that depleted soils were acidic and that the high-calcium ‘marl’ could replenish them. In 1832 he published An Essay on Calcareous Manures which grew over five editions to 500 pages. He published (1833–43) the Farmer's Register and promoted local agricultural organizations as well as such ‘scientific’ farming practices as crop rotation, fertilizing, and proper plowing and drainage. An ardent defender of slavery, he was a major advocate of Southern secession, and wrote The Political Economy of Slavery (1858) and Anticipations of the Future (1860) about an independent South. A member of the Palmetto Guards of Charleston, SC, he is often credited with firing the first shot on Fort Sumter (though the evidence is doubtful). He spent most of the war protecting his estates from ‘Yankees’, and when the Confederacy collapsed (1865), he killed himself. |
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