MARYLAND WEATHER SERVICE 323 



of the best principles of agricultural practice. By the use of the 

 improved varieties of plants, the improved methods of tillage, more 

 intelligent arrangement in succession of crops, and better choice of 

 each crop to be grown at a particular place, the yield of our crops 

 has been increased. But there is more to be gained still, which 

 will be gained as the principles now new to many become the prop- 

 erty of all, resulting in the more careful selection of seed corn or 

 some special type of grain adapted to particular conditions, or of 

 some other detail the underlying principles of which have been but 

 recently recognized. 



The Labor Problem. — One of the most important factors in the 

 development of agricultural methods and customs is the recent his- 

 tory of the people who may be under consideration. In the present 

 case the settlers who were accustomed to their servants in the 

 mother country, fotmd difficulties facing them in the new land that 

 were of a different character from those which faced the settlers 

 who were accustomed to be their own reliance in the matter of labor. 

 Similarly, those who under these conditions supplied their own 

 needs developed a different type of community from that which 

 grew up in the region of easy transportation and dependence upon 

 the home country. One is apt to continue along the lines already 

 familiar, and to endeavor to make the new conditions meet the older 

 customs, as far as possible. Thus the growing of tobacco was in 

 itself a new business, or custom; but the planter adapted the cus- 

 tom of tenant labor, or at least labor other than that of his own 

 family, to the new requirements. The idea was modified from the 

 first form of indentured servants bound to the settlement for a term 

 of years, to the later form of purchased slaves of a foreign race. 

 This was an easy step and had the distinct advantage of permanent 

 tenancy, if one may so think of it for the moment, and a total 

 absence of regular wages, or of "shares'' or other rjayments to the 

 "tenants." 



Those to whom the tenant system was not an essential were not 

 so much in need of cheap labor, and their farm customs developed 

 along different lines, which required fewer held laborers and also 

 fewer household servants. The results of these two types of farm 



