THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



529 



(Ired and fifiy thousand biishfls of lime have been 



clisinhiiU'd lor manure on ilie eliorfs ol' Clu'sler 

 river and its tributaries. I have seen as niucli as 

 8000 bushels at one lime alloat in siixhl ol' my 

 house, and the trade is constant and mcreasiutf. 



It will be borne in mind ihat not one bnsliel of 

 this hme could have been sold here at prices to 

 justily its being used as manure, liad not it been 

 ibr the works oC internal improvement, buili or 

 patronized by the state ol' Maryland. We are 

 indebted to the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, 

 and Tide Water canal, and to ihe rail-roads lead- 

 ing 10 Briliiraore, (or all the stone lime we can or 

 ever shall use here as manure. 1 would beg to 

 put the question to any farmer now present, who 

 has not on his (arm a full supply of marl or oyster 

 shells, and who has tasted ol the value of lime, 

 whether he would not preler that the present tem- 



to winter fafiing stock — who lo gather up and 

 send 10 market in the leisure season of winter, 

 the various little articles, the aggregate proceeds 

 of which are all clear profit, and amount lo eo 

 much ready money ? none of us, because those 

 markets are as effectually closed against us in the 

 winter season, as if there waa an ocean inter- 

 vening. 



The people on our shore do not yet sufRciently 

 estimate this heavy deprivation, this terrible draw- 

 back upon the intrinsic value of their lands ; but 

 light on this subject will increase with every re- 

 volving year, until public sentiment will award to 

 the treachery or the ignorance of those Eastern 

 Shore legislators, who have greedily surrendered 

 the power we had of relieving ourselves from this 

 difliculty, Ihat niche in the temple of fame to 

 which they are now (lilly entitled. 1 have con- 



porary tax, about to be laid to pay the interest (or | tended (or this important matter of relief (or our 



expenditures on internal improvements, should 

 be fixedybr ever upon his property rather than ihat 

 he should for ever be denied the use of lime as ma- 

 nure ? 



Our lands have gone up, and they are still des- 

 tined 10 go up much higher, within striking dis- 

 tance of navigable water. The first inquiry now 

 made by an intelligent farmer desirous of buying, 

 is, has the land marl or oyster shells, or is it ac- 

 cessible to lime? This is a precnant inquiry, and 

 the value of the farm is found to depend much 

 upon the manner in which it can be answered. 

 For my own part, so thoroughly am I convinced 

 of the indispensable necessity of lime for the re- 

 suscitation and permanent improvement of our 

 exhausted soil, (after an experience of over thirty 

 years, and abundant reflection on the value ol 

 lands and their productive power, and on the com- 

 parative value of other business,) were it possible 

 lor me to live my days over, and were I offered 

 one of the best farms in the state destitute of the 

 calcareous material, and required to live on it and 

 work it to the end of my days without the privi- 

 lege of procuring lime, I would not accept it as a 

 gift. This you will say is a bold assertion, but I 

 make it after full reflection and deliberation. My 

 experience teaches me to believe, that the calca- 

 reous and alkaline ingredients are the basis of the 

 fertility of all soils, and that the best apparent 

 soils, without this sine qua nan, may be easily ex- 

 hausted, and that they cannot, by any system ol 

 tillage, be held to permanent fertility without it. 

 The use of lime and good (arming will ere long 

 revolutionize and fertilize this whole shore within 

 reach of navigable water. But when our lands 

 are thus improved, they will not reach their just 

 comparative value, because their possessors will 

 not be able to use them for the best and most 

 valuable purposes, until they adopt the right sort 

 of steam boat navigation, and take it under their 

 own control — and, above all, till they have a cheap 

 and expeditious highway, running through the 

 shore, and connecting with the public works 

 which lead to Baltimore and Philadelphia, and 

 open those markets to them, in the winter, the 

 most profitable of all seasons of the year. With- 

 out this, these markets must remain closed to 

 them for all valuable purposes. Who now, on 

 this shore, having the most ample necessary 

 means to accomplish it, dreams of establishing a 

 dairy on a large scale— who undertaking to raise 

 hay on an extensive scale, either to sell or to feed 

 Vol, IX.-oO 



shore, till I have been brought to the verge of 

 ruin, and am wholly unable to proceed further. 

 I leave it to others, well assured that the lime will 

 come when it will be a source of regret to the 

 people of the whole shore, that the effort has so 

 (ar been unavailing. 



I regret that in consequence of other engage- 

 ments, of which I was not aware, I did not suc- 

 ceed in my effort to have a meeting of the board 

 at my house on the first day of this month. The 

 board had, just twelve months before, witnessed 

 an experiment that I was making, by turning un- 

 der for wheal fallow an oat lay, which had it been 

 harvested would have given me 45 bushels to the 

 acre. The experiment was on about five acres, 

 with the oats taken off fi-om two of the contigu- 

 ous sides of the square. I wished the board to 

 see this experiment for themselves, when thoy 

 would 'have seen a fair crop of wheat on all the 

 field; but I am persuaded no human being could, 

 from the visible effect of the oafs turned under, 

 have discovered where the operation began or 

 ended. This is the third experiment I have made 

 ol turning under a heavy crop of oate on recently 

 limed land, just at the time they were beginning 

 to change color, and now being satisfied it will 

 not do, I shall repeat it no farther. No green 

 crop that 1 ever have turned under for manure, ex- 

 cept clover, has realized my expectations. Even 

 clover lay I preler with the top mown or grazed 

 off. The future effect upon the land I yet desire 

 to witness in the after cultivation, but the oats 

 turned under this season having been completely 

 decomposed by the quantity of rain, I do not ex- 

 pect to have my opinion changed, and expect 

 confidently to remain where I now am, and have 

 been (or a long time, a firm believer in the propri- 

 ety of surface manuring, rather than turning it 

 under. I have never been disappointed in weeds 

 or other manure spread upon the surface and al- 

 lowed to decompose there, and thus become ab- 

 sorbed by the soil. When turned under the soil, 

 it bleaches, seems to become neutralized, and its 

 effects are lost and go I know not where. It may 

 be that the direct action of the atmospheric air is 

 essential to give vigor and fertilizing effect and 

 action to substances known to be manures, f 

 know that, when turned deep in a thin soil, dark 

 substances lose their color, and on my land they 

 do not act as manures when thus placed. I have 

 recently seen an account of the succeseful experi- 

 ment of a North Carolina farmer, who, rolling 



