234 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 4. 



time, must always be unprofitable to the farmer, 

 and result inevitably in the destruction of the fer- 

 tility of the soil. But strange as it may appear 

 that such a rotation should be in general use, it is 

 still more so, that it should be maintained by the 

 general, if not universal testimony of the inhabi- 

 tants, that the production of the county, for the 

 whole space under tillage, has not been diminished 

 under this system — that the exhaustion of par- 

 ticular firms when worst managed, has neither 

 been rapid, or considerable, in any short term of 

 years — and that when attention has been paid to 

 collecting and applying manures, and grazing has 

 been prevented, the most enlightened farmers con- 

 cur that the rotation, so aided, has been found to 

 increase the crops regularly, and for a long term: 

 in short, that the rotation is decidedly an improving 

 one, when judiciously conducted; and most proba- 

 bly that it is better for the farmer than any other- 

 more conformable to the generally received opinions 

 on agricultural improvement. It must be at least 

 admitted, that many and strong facts, and those 

 tested by long experience, are brought to sustain 

 the superior advantages of the Eastern Shore 

 rotation. 



There is one additional feature of the tillage 

 here, which in many cases has had much influ- 

 ence in aiding the benefits, or lessening the scourg- 

 ing tendency of the rotation. This is the growth 

 of a plant which has great value as an improver 

 of fertility, and which is peculiarly adapted to 

 sandy soil, and to the succession of crops here in 

 use. The Magothy Bay bean is a plant of the 

 pea tribe, and the whole of that tribe seems to pos- 

 sess greater power than any other for acting as 

 manure. Clovers are of the pea kind, and red 

 clover stands at the head of the class of green 

 manures. But though a good cover of Magothy 

 Bay bean is probably of far less value as manure 

 than a good cover of clover, yet the former growth 

 in general is more valuable, because requiring no 

 regular sowing, but very slight care for its perpet- 

 ual preservation, and producing crops far more 

 luxuriant than could possibly be obtained of clover, 

 and perhaps of the most worthless weeds on the like 

 sandy soils. The seeds are very hard, and slow to 

 vegetate, and will remain sometimes for years in 

 the soil before sprouting. This quality prevents 

 the tillage of corn, however perfect, serving to 

 root out, or materially thin the aftergrowth. The 

 spring ploughing for oats retards the springing of 

 the plants, until the oats are enough ahead not to 

 be injured by the undergrowth of beans. At this 

 time, (July 10th,) the reaping of the oats is ge- 

 nerally going on, or has been just finished where 

 most forward. The undergrowth of Magothy 

 Bay bean is from three to eight inches high, ac- 

 cording to the condition of the land, (rarely more 

 than six inches J and is not a material impediment 

 to reaping and saving the oats. It is even now a 

 beautiful growth — but its present appearance is 

 nothing in comparison to what will be exhibited 

 in August, and from that time to frost, according 

 to the descriptions given of the well covered fields, 

 and which I can well believe from the more sparse 

 growth which I have seen matured at home. The 

 flowers are very abundant, and of a deep and 

 beautiful yellow — and continue to open for many 

 weeks. The whole plant was well described by 

 Bordley, as a "Lilliputian locust tree," with which 

 it agrees in the general form of the flowers and 



leaves. The beans rise rapidly as soon as the 

 shelter of oats is removed, and acquire a height 

 usually varying between one, and two and a half 

 feet, according to the land. Even where no care 

 whatever is taken to preserve the succession of 

 plants, and indeed where the tillage and grazing 

 (under the common rotation) is such as would 

 effectually destroy any other kind of any value, 

 this continues to be the most general cover of the 

 land after the. oat crop— though, of course, a scat- 

 tered and thin cover compared to what is found 

 under more favorable circumstances. Cattle feed 

 on this plant, and indeed find not much else in the 

 fields, afterthe scattered uats have been picked up. 

 Hogs strip oft' the green pods, and to the extent 

 of their operations, destroy the seeds. When 

 matured, the seeds are so hard that they would 

 probably pass through the body of" an animal un- 

 injured. The plant is an annual. '1 he leaves fall 

 before winter, and the stalks seem so hard, that, 

 many persons would on that account deem them 

 of but little value as manure. 



In the few cases where the land is not grazed 

 at all, and even where the small number of the 

 farmer's stock prevents much of the bean cover 

 being taken oft, it is evident that there are suf- 

 ficient means afforded to preserve the succession 

 of the growths of this plant. Where several suc- 

 cessive hoed crops, or other circumstances, have 

 thinned the bean cover, it is easily increased by a 

 means used by those who attach proper value to 

 this improving crop. Numerous plants spring up 

 in the land under corn, which are generally, of 

 course, destroyed by the ploughing of that crop. 

 But near the plants of corn, some bean plants will 

 grow out of the way of the plough: and as but 

 little hand-hoe work is used, or required, the ne- 

 glect of weeding, as well as the design of spread- 

 ing the growth, serve in this manner to furnish 

 numerous seeds to be added to those then buried 

 in the earth, and which will spring the next year. 



Where the land is not grazed, or even when 

 the grazing is but slight, the Eastern Shore rota- 

 tion, though nominally the same, is in truth alto- 

 gether different. It then consists of a regular suc- 

 cession of three crops — corn, oats, and Magothy 

 Bay bean — the last being a crop of manure regu- 

 larly turned in to sustain the land under the two 

 succeeding grain crops. This improved practice 

 would take away the objection to the perpetual 

 succession of grain crops — and presents a rotation 

 perhaps as conformable to sound theory, and fur- 

 nishingaslarge a supply offood (grown on the land) 

 for plants, as is found in the best modern prac- 

 tices under what are called three and four-shift 

 rotations. The circumstance that this three-shift 

 rotation has only two years' length, is decidedly 

 in its favor. If all other things are equal, and 

 an equal proportion of the rotation is of meliora- 

 ting effect, the more crops that it will furnish the 

 better, within any certain term of years. One of 

 the greatest causes of the superior productiveness 

 of the farms in Flanders, is found in the frequency 

 of" secondary crops, by which two crops are ob- 

 tained from the same field in one year. The great 

 objection to such cropping in this country, is the 

 amount of labor required at very busy seasons, 

 and that the low price of land offers no induce- 

 ment for such perlect tillage. But the secondary 

 crop of the Eastern Shore rotation requires no 

 trouble or cost of preparation or tillage — and there- 



