18 
A MARYLAND FARM. 
investment of capital in agriculture, but, ten to 
one, he will be looked at with suspicion by his 
monied friends and associates, and either his 
judgment or his credit, according to his expendi¬ 
ture, is at once suspected. This we know to be all 
wrong, and the result of a perverted and false 
estimate of the true value of agriculture, and its 
safety, and sure reliance for support, in all times 
and seasons, and the steady virtue and integrity 
of those who rely upon its bounties. How many, 
and many young men have I known, sons of rich 
pains-taking fathers, who, indulged in habits of 
ease or of loose attention to business while boys, 
yet with sanguine expectations hereafter, on at¬ 
taining their majority had been placed in business 
with a handsome capital, and in two, three, or 
five years, as the case may be, had lost every 
farthing, and thousands besides, the property of 
others who had confidingly trusted to their good 
management! Yet if these fond fathers had in¬ 
vested the same sums in good farms or plantations, 
and given their sons a plain agricultural educa¬ 
tion, ten to one they would have proved prudent, 
useful, thriving citizens, and good, contented, and 
happy farmers, instead of, at an early age, broken 
down, disappointed, and unhappy men. And all 
this from a false, imperfect estimate of the agri¬ 
cultural profession, and its dignified and sturdy 
resources. 
A Maryland Farm .—But to the main subject 
of my letter, instead of a homily on false prin¬ 
ciples and habits. In a brief journey to the seat 
of Government, last June, when arrived at Balti¬ 
more, I made a diversion from my route, to visit a 
gentleman located near the Ohio railroad, about 
thirty miles west of the city, and to view his fine 
estate, and see his herd of beautiful Devon cattle, 
for the care of which he has long been celebrated. 
I found him on his farm of some seventeen or 
eighteen hundred acres of fine rolling land, a gar¬ 
den amidst a poorly cultivated yet pleasant coun¬ 
try, years ago worn down by hard cropping of 
corn, wheat, and tobacco, but of good natural soil 
and capabilities. Here, retired upon his estate, 
with a plain yet beautifully-situated dwelling and 
outbuildings, and all the necessary appliances for 
a gentleman of wealth, education, and leisure, he 
has for many years lived and improved his estate, 
until it has become one of the most valuable in 
the country; and from a condition which, when 
he first began its cultivation, was sterile, worn 
out, and almost worthless. I spent a day in ram¬ 
bling with him over his fine domain, and never 
have I been more pleased and instructed. As 
this is a full and successful illustration of what 
may be done in almost all our Atlantic states, in 
the improvement of worn-down soils, I trust I 
shall be excused for giving it somewhat in detail. 
When the proprietor first located on his farm it 
was entirely unproductive; yielding no crops, 
giving no manures, and possessing no resources 
of fertility, other than the muck or swamp-holes, 
occasionally interspersed among the woods and 
waste lands of the estate. After thoroughly ex¬ 
amining the soil, which was found to be of various 
kinds, but chiefly a loose friable earth, based on a 
clay bottom, with occasional tracts of stiff clay on 
the surface, he purchased a limestone quarry a 
dozen miles distance on the railroad, erected two 
large kilns at the depot near his estate, and went 
vigorously to work in getting out the stone, road- 
ing it to Iris kilns, and burning it. This material, 
delivered on the farm, costs on an average twenty 
cents a bushel. The bushes and straggling woods 
were cut and made into fuel, the fields were 
squared out and put into shape, and the quick 
lime applied at once upon the land, in quantities 
of from fifty to two hundred bushels to the acre, 
no matter at what season of the year. When the 
lime was ready it was applied, by dropping it in 
heaps of five or six bushels each, and, as soon as 
sufficiently slaked by the weather, carefully 
spread on the soil. A great part of the land was 
so sterile that it had no sod upon it, and was sad¬ 
ly disfigured with gulleys made by the washing 
of the rains. In such fields as had a tolerable sod 
of grass, a slight dressing of barn or stable ma¬ 
nure was obtained and applied with the lime, 
which being ploughed became at once productive , 
but where no manure was placed in aid of thfe 
lime, it was left mitouched to dissolve with the 
rains and snow, and incorporate as best it migh/ 
with the soil. Under this latter process the soil 
became gradually grassed over, and in two to foui 
years, a fine coat of native blue grass (poa pra- 
tensis ), and white clover (trifolium repens ), at 
fording beautiful succulent pasture, covered the 
ground. When this grass coating is accomplished, 
the land is in proper condition for cropping, and, 
with a thorough ploughing, yields abundantly 
of all the grains and grasses grown in this cli¬ 
mate. Where there is no vegetable matter in the 
soil for the lime to act upon, I conceive the lime 
must have drawn most of the fertilizing matter 
from the air, condensing the ammonia therein 
contained, which is brought to it by the snows 
and rains. Of course all that is thus procured, 
is so much added to onq’s wealth by a very mode¬ 
rate outlay. It also seems to predispose the ma¬ 
terials of the soil to form those associations and 
tendencies, which enable it to produce vegetation 
when in no condition to do so before. 
In ranging over the estate, we examined par¬ 
ticularly the land, from fields limed years ago, 
and in the fulness of their production, to those yet 
white with its recent application, and just looking 
green with the fresh verdure of the young grass. 
One field contained fifty acres of the most beauti¬ 
ful wheat I ever saw, promising to yield full forty 
bushels to the acre. Another, of seventy acres, 
was newly planted in Indian corn, and had a fine 
chocolate-colored soil; which had produced its 
sixty and seventy bushels per acre. The oat 
fields looked rank and fresh, and the grass lots 
for hay were, many of them, thus early, lodging 
with the over-growth of their burdens. Such 
timothy and clover, and such orchard-grass mead¬ 
ows, are rare in that region. In short, by the 
application of lime in this manner, or _ without the 
aid of stable manures, all the cultivated lands 
were teeming with fertility and abundance. 
Hundreds of acres thus limed for years, now in 
beautiful pastures, had been untouched by the 
plough, and were grazed by herds of cattle, 
