0:j=" Publication Office Wo. 45 iVortli Sixth street. 



THE FARMERS' CABliNET, 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



Vol. I. 



Pliiladelpliia, July 1, 1§37. 



NO. 24. 



Pur Ibe Farmers' Cabinet. 



A Trip to Maryland. 



We passed over the Bridge at Wilmington, 

 into the rich alluvial bottoms of the Christi- 

 anna Creek, which extends nearly a mile 

 from the city. The causeway is iiemmed 

 with two rows of beautiful trees, and sur- 

 rounded with luxuriant pasture grounds, that 



[excite any anxiety among the farmers, though 

 jtiio land was about a mile from the wharf, 

 [and the wharf within a few hours sailing of 

 the city of Baltimore. 



On many of the farms upon the Eastern 

 Shore, there are immense beds of shells spread 

 over acres of land, and in some places six or 

 seven feet deep, in a perfectly sound state. 



have, within these few years, been very | yet covered with mould, perhaps the growth 

 considerably cultivated and improved. The ,anddecompositionof grass and trees for many 



high land immediately connecting those rich 

 bottoms, is gravelly and poor, but the im- 

 mense amount of manure produced by the 

 marshes, enables the farmer to force vegeta- 

 tion in every corner of his farm, and thus 

 make his habitation a place of comfort and 

 plenty. 



The land through New Castle county is 

 tolerably well improved; much of it is under 

 cultivation, and the crops of wheat look well 

 and bid fair to produce at least an average 

 quantity ; oats and corn not forward enough 

 to form any opinion. 



In Maryland, where the ruinous three field 

 system of farming prevails, the wheat looks 

 bad enouo-h to alarm one with the, fear of 

 want, notwithstanding some of her most intel- 

 ligent citizens are inclined to the opinion, that 

 the prospect is in favor of a medium crop. 



As we advance towards the table land that 

 divides the waters which flow into the Dela- 

 ware and Chesapeake, we find a kind of soil 

 perhaps the most congenial to the growth of 

 wheat of any in the United States, and why 

 it is not a subject of deeper interest to the 

 inhabitants of Pennsylvania, particularly to 

 the enterprising citizens of Chester and Dela- 

 ware counties, is a matter of some surprise. 



In Chestertown we found land selling at 

 five dollars per acre, and shell lime at six 

 cents per bushel, neither of which seemed to 

 Cab.— Vol. I.— No. 2 1. 369 



a century. A white oak that measured fif- 

 teen feet in circumference, had once reared 

 his lofty head over those banks, but was now 

 prostrate in a wilderness of underwood, with 

 his tangled roots jammcii fu'I of shells, and 

 most of them without any appearance of ever 

 having touched the earth. Shells make the 

 purest and best of lime; by a chemical analy- 

 sis, it is found to contain little or none of 

 those foreign substances that constitute from 

 twenty to thirty, and in some cases, as much 

 as forty-five per cent, of stone lime. 



Shell lime can be had on the Eastern Shore 

 at a very small expense, compared with what 

 a Pennsylvania farmer pays for stone lime, 

 even if he should be so fortunate as to have a 

 lime stone quarry upon his farm ; and yet such 

 is the desponding condition of agriculture in 

 this country, that little or no attention is paid 

 to the subject. 



We visited Whurton Point, a high bluff 

 uf rolling land that projects some distance 

 into the Chesapeake, and forms rather a plea- 

 sant prospect of land and water scenery ; but 

 what was far more interesting, were the beds 

 of shells which cover a space perhaps of fifty 

 acres from one to si.x feet deep. 



This property lies nearly opposite the 

 mouth of the Susquehanna, which is con- 

 stantly disgorging great quantities of all kinds 

 of drift wood upon the shore. With this 



