Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1874-06-05
For the Sentinel.


may have forced some ofthe citizens of Wash
ngion into bankruptcy and lined their own
pockets with the spols, but the improvements
Of that city and their fruits can be made a
Godsend to the people Of Montgomery and the
adjoining counties, if there is sufficient enter
prise 10 follow up the advantages now given
to us. j. is not that our laden and jaded
beasts can force trot when they strike the
beautifully graded Seventh street road, and
continue it in any direction after reaching the
city, from Georgetown Heights to the Navy
Yard bridge, but the place is made habitable
tastes and demands must be met either by our
selves, or by more enterprising spirits else
where.
1t cannot be denied that the Washington
market is growing steader and better for every
description of farm produce, as its production
increases, and this change acquires new i'm
petus by the general improvement, the better
style of building, and the consequent higher
or more luxurious style of living
And anyone who has any experience in mar
keting country produce knows that the profits
are much handsomer when one caters to the
wants of high lvers than when he supplies
the poor with the coarser necessities OIL life.
The lands Immediately adjacent to the city,
though sandy and barren, with the abundant
manures that may be had cheaply, yield bonn-
tiful supplies of the finest vegetables and small
fruits. rhe next belt, ranging from FIVE to
fifteen miles around the city, less sandy and
better adapted to grass, but still near enough
to obtain its fertilizing material from the sta
bles and oyster saloons Of the city, should
supply the high priced hay for the matched
horses and fancy illies of the jockey clubs
While we who live over fifteen miles from the
city, and too far 10 depend upon that source
for our manurisl supplies, should look TO
other means than truck or hay, through which
to obtain our share of the millions Of dollars
lately strewn broadcast over the District and
which will keep up circulation until the new
era, now dawnng, sheds its golden beams up
on wide-awake farmers.
Fortunately the land outside of a circle Of
ten or fifteen miles radius is generally sitter
and better than that lying within those limits,
hence its adaptation TO kind of farming that
may be made almost sef-sustaining, as regards
manures, and which is at the same time ex-
ceedingly profitable. | alude to Dairying.
do not mean the regular manufacture ofcheese
or of Indifferent butter, to be vended by buck
sters at losing prices. But have reference to
the manufacture of "gilt-edged' butter, that
has growing demand at remnnerative figures.
This subject of Dairying is one that should
claim the attention of the best workers and
thinkers of our county, for in it, | believe,
may be found the key TO our future wealth
ana prosperity.
Take position any day on the Seventh st,
road, the main entrance to Washington, and
you will be nstounded by the amount of hay
and straw that passes you, carrying with it
every element Of fertility, organic and inor-
ganic. And most of this, too, comes from
region where none OF these elements can be
replaced, save by a meagre dose of concentra-
ted fertilizer. Already in these grass regions
we hear frequent complaint that the land wont
set with grass, that il is "cloyer sick" and
that it "wants tramping.n Yea, verify And
a hundred years from now, if the present sys-
tenn continues, and the population does not
dispense, our 6. G. &. grandchildren viii dis
cover, at The eleventh hour, that their patri-
mony is indeed too "clover sick'' 10 sprout
peas Whatever may be claimed by learned
professors, and by the skilled manufacturers,
regarding complete manipulated manures,
believe actual practice has and will show
that fertility, though greatly increased by
them, cannot be permanently sustained with
out large amount OF that material called by
Liebig "humus.p
We may have in fertilizer oil the chemical
clements of which that is composed, combin-
ing with the same equivalent proportions, but
it does not follow that its effect will be the
same, any more than charcoal drawn across a
plate Of grass will cut it, Ike another form Of
carbon, the diamond.
This immense mass Of lay would make an
immense mass of thumus and this, if pro-
pcrly saved and applied, would make better
grass, and this grass fec to dairy cows with
good management, might ultimately be made
more profitable than the hay business ever can.
AS proof, | refer to the respective individuals
and communities thathav followed these vo-
cations for long series Of years.
Farmers seem to agree that manure is the
basis of the most profitable agriculture, and
as everything raised is fed on dairy farms, the
great problem of manure supply is almost