MONTGOMERY COUNTY (mARYLAND) FARMING. Ill 



hold with flour, or tobacco, or rice, or pork. Without these, valuable as she 

 will be, when thus equipped and laden, the hull per se is of no account. But 

 furnish and fit her out, and place a skillful commander at her helm, and she will 

 go abroad, and return laden with the produce and manufactures of foreign climes 

 that will amply refund you principal and interest. Just so, and with yet more 

 uniform certainty, will a farm make remunerating returns, if you will in like 

 manner fit it out with adequate and suitable buildings, teams and implements — 

 plow it deep and manure it well, as Col. Capron did ; in a word, stock and mau 

 it well, and put it under the direction of a man of energy and skill, and it will 

 pay you as the ship does — not, perhaps, sometimes, so much, but always a saving 

 profit, without danger of being foundered or captured, and without the cost of 

 insurance. Say, then, ye men of fortune, to your sons : ' Here ! instead of drag- 

 ging out your days in tedious expectancy and idleness, oppressed with ennui, 

 and impatient for my shoes, take as much now of that which must be yours at 

 my death, as will buy you a snug farm in a neighborhood of honorable, industri- 

 ous men ; furnish it with good and substantial buildings, implements and work- 

 ing power ; ditch and drain it ; prepare your meadows and plant your orchards j 

 study the principles of your pursuit in books that explain the philosophy and 

 papers that record the results of all agricultural operations. Make yourself fa- 

 miliar with the mechanical principles of all your implements, and the philosophy 

 of the best rotations in farming ; scrape acquaintance and cultivate intimacy 

 only with neighbors — rich or poor — of sound character and judicious practice, 

 whose honor and industry have given them credit and power to rise from indi- 

 gent or moderate circumstances to competence and public esteem. Treasure up 

 their maxims and observe their management. Renounce, my son, in a word, a 

 life of inglorious indolence, and expectancy from the future, for one of active and 

 honorable usefulness. Go, and let the means which avarice would teach me to 

 withhold, transform you from a shapeless and loathsome grub into an active and 

 useful member of the great hive of social humanity.' " 



Such ought, and such, to a certain extent, we may hope will be, the effect of 

 Col. Capron's demonstration of the improvability — the restorability, if we may 

 say so — of land out of which the blood and very marrow of life had been worked, 

 by processes which everywhere and to the end of time, will lead to that result, 

 as certainly as cutting open the goose will cut off the daily supply of golden eggs. 



We should like to see an agricultural survey of the economy, conduct and pro- 

 ducts of another and a large estate in Maryland, brought round by its own re- 

 sources, anticipated, it may be, but if so, refunded — one which has been within 

 a few years shaken out, as a lazy beggar from his rags and filth, into comeliness 

 and activity. If not to be had otherwise and better, we will some day take the 

 sur-:ey for ourselves. It is an estate on " West River," of probably 1,000 acres, 

 with a large force, yet which, at the death of its late owner, did not more than 

 make " both ends meet." Being wisely placed by its benevolent owner under a 

 manager who has a genius for managing labor and improving land on a large scale, 

 he has caused the whole estate to assume a fresh, thriving, fruitful aspect, and to 

 yield to its present owner some ten thousand a year : — all this the fruit of a clear 

 judgment and provident forecast, and discipline tempered with humanity — and, 

 being so tempered, they alv/ays promote and sustain each other. JNeed we say 

 that wc allude to the old ** Dodf.n " estate, under the care of John Crawford ? 



P. S.— It need hardly he added, that in such surveys nothing should be ex- 

 tenuated. Tiie account and the results, the outlay as well as income, the loss 

 as well as the profit, should be fully and fairly stated. 



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