A. W. Moger, The Rebuilding of the Old Dominion (New York: Columbia University, 1940), p. 46. Citing census data, the thesis notes that “the value of farm implements and machinery on farms in Virginia and West Virginia combined was only two-thirds of what it was in Virginia in 1860, while the value of livestock in the two states was only four-fifths of that in Virginia in 1860. Not until 1880 did the number of cattle and not until after the turn of the century did the number of swine in Virginia and West Virginia equal the number in the Old Dominion before the war.”
“Status of Virginia Agriculture in 1870,” in Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1870 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1871), pp. 267-291, 273, 291.
Virginia Good Roads Convention, Programme (Richmond: Stone Printing Co., 1894). While railroad and water transportation were available from Alexandria to major metropolitan markets for farm products, the farmer faced the obstacles of traversing Virginia’s notoriously poor farm-to-market roads.
Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1870, p. 268.
R. H. Abbott, “Yankee Farmers in Northern Virginia: 1840-1860,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, v. 76, No. 1, pp. 56-66 (January 1968).