528 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



tical writers and historians ; and, for ourselves, we do not know of any region 

 of our country Avhicii in this way has suffered so much in general repute as the 

 Eastern Shore of Maryland. We have not now here either leisure or space to 

 illustrate this impression of ours, as we might do ; but let any man at all ac- 

 quainted with the natural fertility of the soil over a vast proportion of that dis- 

 trict, and with its uncqualed advantages in its cheap transportation to, and its 

 choice of markets, read the following, which is the description with which a 

 stranger or foreigner would be most likely to be met, in any extensive range of 

 inquiry for a country to settle in : 



" The part of the State east of the Bay is called the Eastern Shore ; the part west, the 

 Western Shore. The countiy on the eastern side of the Chesajic;ike Bay, with the excep- 

 tiou of a small part of the noithem extremity, is an extensive plain, Ion- and sandy, much 

 intersected by rivers and creeks — having few springs, and abounding with stagtiant vater. 

 In this part [tliat is, all except a " S7nall part "] the air in summer is moist, sultry and disa- 

 greeable, and the inhal)iUuits are subject to agues and intermittent fevers, and many of them 

 have a sickly appearance." 



In tkis flattering portrait, to be found in a popular Cyclopaedia, behold I ye 

 farmers of the Eastern Shore, one of the influences under which, with unrivaled 

 capabilities, your population has been stationary for the last thirty years, and that 

 almost wi*hin sound of the fire-bells of Baltimore and Philadelphia, and within a 

 few hours' steamboat communication with New-York, and other town popula- 

 tions, amounting to a million of consumers of all your produce ! 



We remember, many years since — indignant at the injustice done to you by 

 that common liar, Madame Rumor — to have published in the American Farmer, 

 m reference to the charge of unhealthiness, a list of a greater number of very 

 aged people, male and female, then residing within a given distance of the 

 ^' Royal Oak," in Talbot county, than were to be found within the same area, 

 probably, in any part of our countrJ^ As to the " sickly appearance," said to be 

 characteristic of the people of the Eastern Shore, we doubt if the writer had ever 

 attended a gathering at church, or at a cattle-show, or a fish feast, or a " public 

 day " in Kent, or Queen Anne's, or Talbot, or Dorset, or Somerset, or Worcester 

 counties. They are not people of "sickly appearance" who hunt, and shoot, and 

 ride, and spread such tables, and play at kniie and fork, as they do. There is, it 

 maybe admitted, some locomotion in the surface soil around Snow-Hill ; but, as 

 every swallow does not make a summer, that should not give to nine counties 

 the character of being " low and sandy." And, as for their social and moral hab- 

 its, we think we know "some;" and when we speak of their hospitality, we 

 speak of what is universally admitted. The same may be said of their integrity 

 and pride of character, as a community. 



In all large flocks, there are apt to be a few black sheep, and even their wool 

 has its uses. Besides, it takes a good many kinds of people to make a world and 

 give it the charm of variety ; but we hope there are, or soon will be, none to deny 

 the intellectuality of the farmer's pursuit. Any folly or outrage hut that ! As to 

 their pride — whether from a consciousness that their country is underrated 

 abroad, or what, we know not, but they must allow us in candor to add that, 

 when from home, the Eastern Shoreman is a Icctlc stifl'-necked ! Like the Indian, 

 he stands up so straight that he leans backward. Thus it is that, when abroad, 

 they never, or very rarely, make the first advance toward sociability ; but when 

 they see that you are ready to do them justice, and give them their due, then will 

 you begin to know what a hospitable and true-hearted man is. 



As to the soil, we may mention — though not, by any means, as fair specimens 



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