322 A HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



the city of Baltimore and called their new home 

 Monkton. They acquired many thousands of acres 

 of land both east and west of the stream mentioned 

 and early in the eighteenth century located upon 

 the farm they called, still in honor of the old home, 

 Hereford. It was here that John Merryman was 

 born in 1824. In the year 1847 his parents fell heir 

 to the historic farm of Hayfields near the village of 

 Cockeysville, and here in 1856 he laid the founda- 

 tion for a herd of Hereford cattle that was destined 

 to exert a far-reaching and beneficent influence upon 

 the breed in the United States. 



The holding known as Hayfields is situated in 

 the famous Worthington Valley and had been put 

 together by Col. Nicholas Merryman Bosley in the 

 years immediately following 1803, upon which date 

 the purchase of the first 100 acres was made. This 

 was added to from time to time by the purchase of 

 contiguous fields, until 560 acres in all had been 

 acquired. Col. Bosley erected the substantial stone 

 buildings still in service, the last to be constructed 

 being the main farmhouse, a photograph of which 

 is herewith reproduced, built in 1832. The soil was 

 for the most part the characteristic red clay of that 

 region, and rested upon a limestone base.* The 



* Speaking of the character of the land and the system of cropping 

 followed Mr. William D. Merryman says: 



"The Hayfields soil is part limestone and part rotten rock or 

 isinglass soil. The front, about 300 acres, is limestone and the bal- 

 ance or back place is rotten rock. It is farmed in rotation, corn, 

 wheat, oats or rye, and then set in red clover and timothy hay. Each 

 field is allowed to remain in grass about from three to five years, 

 and is generally pastured the last year. There is one field that has 

 about 20 or 25 acres that has not in my time nor within the memory 

 of any of our family been plowed, and it has good bluegrass set on 

 it at all times. It has been used for sheep." 



