MARYLAND WEATHER SERVICE 327 



action of the sea. With the exception of a few boulders there are 

 almost no rocks in the Coastal Plain, the soils being by nature of 

 their origin deep and easily tilled. 



The possibilities of selected crops on special soils will help to 

 solve the question of the swamp areas of the lower Bay region, when 

 that section has been thoroughly drained by ditches, as has been 

 done with very similar areas in New Jersey, where the increased 

 value in quantity and quality of hay made from the self-sown 

 grasses which grow upon the drained lands, was more than enough 

 to pay the expense of ditching.* 



Differences in soil texture are accompanied by corresponding dif- 

 ferences in the water content, and thus the methods of farm prac- 

 tice vary with the differences in soil. The great aim on the part of 

 a farmer is to secure for his crops the greatest benefit of the soil- 

 moisture and the accompanying fertility, and to reduce so far as 

 possible the loss of these through the growth of undesired plants, 

 the weeds, or through excessive surface evaporation from the soil 

 itself. The first of these may be largely controlled by the use of 

 the various cultivators and weeders, that loosen the soil in which 

 the weeds are growing, and more or less perfectly throw them out 

 upon the surface to wilt and die. The second source of loss is partly 

 met by the loosened surface accompanying the weed-killing work of 

 the cultivator, but is best accomplished by the supplementary use 

 of some pulverizing implement, following the regular cultivator. 



On the stiff clay soils of Dorchester County, a form of roller was 

 seen in use that was not noted in other sections of the State. The 

 field itself was in corn, which was twelve to eighteen inches high. 

 The compact clay formed large clods and thus exposed a great sur- 

 face to the air and to evaporation. These clods were compacted 

 together and crushed to a considerable extent by the roller, which 

 was so built that the soil between the rows of corn was rolled by 

 its passage. The roller passed down each side of a row of corn, the 

 corn plants having a space between the two sections of the roller; 

 just as in a wheeled cultivator the cultivator spans the planted row, 

 and loosens the soil on each side of it, so here the roller spanned 

 the row and crushed the soil on either side. 



♦See Bulletin 207, New Jersey Experiment Station, 1907. 



