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the renovation inaugurated in those days so general and so successful, especially iu 

 this neighborhood, and I feel a proud satisfaction in having borne an humble part in 

 this work of causing two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before. 



Memory recurs with jileasure to my first visit to this neighborhood in 1847, a visit 

 made at the invitation of a few of the pioneers in its improvement, who desired me to 

 witness the effect of this system for the restoration of " worn-out lands," then iu its 

 infancy, now the established means of fertility and wealth. It is a system of liberal 

 feeding, in opposition to the plan of leaving the soil to improve itself. None of these 

 men believed that an application of manure would " lire " the crop, as many did at 

 that day, or that starvation could be cured by leaving the jiatient to the vis medicatrix 

 nature. 



The first remedial agents were lime, plaster, ashes, poudrette, bone dust, and guano, 

 followed by the employment of all the restorative resources of an enriched soil, teeming 

 ■with production, furnishing abundant and nutritious aliment for herds of thriving cat- 

 tle, from which in turn increased supplies of fertilizers were obtained ; and at the same 

 time the grasses and clover, hitherfo unknown in the vocabulary of the growers of 

 tobacco and corn, were permitted to sliade the soil from burning suns, to ramify it with 

 their searching roots, areate it, and lit it for seizing upon, and storing for use, plaut- 

 food from the air above and the earth beneath. 



With such means these men continued their experiments iu renovation, hauling six 

 horse loads of fertilizers ten miles over rough roads from the line of the Baltimore and 

 AVashington railroad. They had tried turning under green crops without fertilizers, 

 but failed because the land was too jtoor to produce the needed material for green 

 manuring. Innumerable are the experiments recorded in the journals of these gentle- 

 men, some of which I have been kindly shown, which (did the limits prescrilied myself 

 in this address permit) could be quoted to sustain this — invidiously styled — high- 

 pressure system for the restoration of these impoverished lands. la no case do I hear 

 of failure where the laud ha-s been properly relieved of its superabundant moisture, 

 thoroughly aerated, and liberally manured. 



These efforts in Montgomery, Prince George's, and other counties, reports of which 

 attracted so much attention in the public prints of that period, gave the first impulse 

 which has wrought the magical change from "barren old fields" to the beautiful land- 

 scape which now surrounds you — a land groaning under the burden of agricultural 

 wealth, the fairest portion of your State, and worthy to rank as an honor to the highest 

 fertility and best culture in the Union. 



Parallel with this enrichment of the soil ran the course of improvement in farm stock. 

 Well do I remember the first exhibition of my own stock, at the Montgomery County 

 Agricultural Society cattle show in 1848, when the i)re,si(lent's seat wa.s so ably filled 

 by that nolde-spirited and cultivated gentleman, Allen Bowie Davis. Here were the 

 ponderous Durhams, the symmetrical Devons, with finest of horses and mules, exhibited 

 by Messrs. Blagdon, Brown, Clark, Price, Gaither, and others ; and an impetus was 

 given to stock-breeding which has left an indelible impress upon the farm animals of 

 Maryland, added to the general wealth and welfare, and materially aided in the work 

 of renovating the worn-out lands of the State. . 



Since that period, and as a direct result of its impelling spirit of progress, roads have 

 been improved, new avenue^s of trade and traffic have been opened, shortening the dis- 

 tance to market, and facilitating the transportation of products and the return of fer- 

 tilizers, and trade generally enlarged by the increased ability of the farmer to purchase. 



While you have added depth to yoiu- available soil, have greatly increased its pro- 

 ductive capacity, ameliorating your heavy clays, draining your low lands, and making 

 your agriculture more systematic, reUalde. and profitable, I press upon your attention 

 the fact that the ultimate aims of progress have not yet been reached. While your* 

 experiment has settled the question of a profitable renovation of waste lands, and fur- 

 nished an example which should lie followed throughout the South, until the one 

 hundred million acres of old fields shall bloom in beauty, and bear a prolific burden for 

 the sustenance of animal life, you should still remember that there are new fields, on 

 which to surmount new difficulties, and win new triumphs. Your lands do not yet 

 yield an average of ?,() bushels of wheat, nor are your soils always sufficiently commi- 

 nuted or X'frfectly drained; you may not have tried the experiment of ajiplying one 

 hundred dollars' worth of manure to the acre, as have the tobacco-growers and onion- 

 raisers of the Connecticut Valley and Khode Island, to their very great profit ; your 

 rotations may not always ])e arranged w ith sutfieient exactness to the peculiar capacity 

 and condition of the several sections of your farms ; and you have yet to introduce 

 steam as a cheap and efficient agent in the i>rocess of tillage, and in the various 

 mechanical operatitms of the farm. These works of progress must be manfully encoun- 

 tered, and I predict that new lessons iu rural economy and agricultural thrift will be 

 taught by the farmers of this county. 



Your examj>]e is of inestimable value to the Southern States, alive as they are to-day 

 with agricultural activity, mental and muscular, and earnest in efforts to adapt their 

 husbandry to the new circumstances which imperatively demand change in modes and 



