The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1873-06-07
Chassgin0 Hands.

lungs are ioloWlng out tnelr legitimate Sc
quences in Maryland. Too much land is a curse
alike to its owner, bis neighbors and the State.
On the Eastern Shore land has been sold lately
at rates greatly below its supposed value. And
this seems to be matter of regret among the
newspapers and the men who consider themselves
good OWNERS of the signs of the times. Excel
lent estates there selling for less than it would
require to erect the buildings on them. Fine
farms are being disposed of by mortgage sales at
less than one-half or one-third of what they
were refused for few years ago. The reason
is simple. Wepointed out its evil two or three
years ago. Most people in Mary land attempt to
farm too much land. They cannot do this well.
Ten acres well cultivated and kept in good con-
dition will yield more annual income than fifty
acres indiferently cultivated and kept in an I'M
productive condition. And then the labor re-
quired is always less. Folks have been attempt
ing to keep up their claims to aristocracy by
boasting of the number of acres they own These
acres constantly bring them in debt because
they are unable to improve them and to make
them remunerative. The lack of the requisite
labor is the cause.
Now the policy for all our land owners to adopt
is to sell all the land they cannot cultivate well
and apply the proceeds to the improvement Of
the balance. There are numbers on the Eastern
Shore-and we could lame some in Baltimore
county-who would have good homes to-day,
but which have been swept away by creditors
because Of their insane endeavor to hold to all
it. Those who purchase-new corners very
frequently-will build up the land that has been
impoverished by Indifferent cultivation. They
come doubtless from other communication
other states perhaps. They will introduce new
modes Of farming, bring with them new ideas
and initiate new social and intellectual ethics
that will go far towards breaking up the old
modes, manners and habits of working and liv-
ing that belong almost exclusively to the dead
past What were the means of making a pros
porous farm and farmer twenty years ago have
become entirely obsolete and are no more to be
cultivated than we should think of restoring the
institution of slavery or remanding the liberated
to their old masters.
We need new influx of population to stir US
from our primevil, oyster-like indifference and
lack of energy and enterprising activity. Our
agricultural interests demand that we have small
er farms, that our lands be better titled, that
new ideas, crops and machinery be introduced
into our farming operations and planted in our
soil. Our advancement demands that all oar soil
shall be Oe titled. 1t is one of the essentials to
the fulfilment of our destinies and the develop
ment of our magnificent resources that fields
shall not remain in the hands of those who are
too indolent or too Indifferent or too weak to
make them fruitful in the products of our eli
mate. Abstractly we hold no man has a right
to own land he cannot or will not cultivate to
its full and best capacity. Their Incidence and
unthrift are doing for US what nothing else can
putting our waste acres into hands that will
make them bloom with abundance.