Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-12-03
lettings by the Way.
Correspondence of the SPEcTAToR.]
TAHcA cTFR Pa Nov %. 1884.


LANCASTER, Pa, Nov. %, 1884.
MEssRs. EDIToRs:-It may interest some
of your readers with observations from
this point, of which few of them know
anything personally.
On the way, observing an immense pile
of bark at Alton, found that the great
tannery of De Ford & Co., of Baltimore,
had is fine four-horse teams hauling each
81 cords per day from point south of and
opposite Humpback. They are cared for
at night in the stables of the Goodloe
House. This bark is used at their branch
house at Luray. They have one or more
others. One party said the Company had
bought the large tract of mountain land,
embracing 20, 900 to 10000 acres southwest
of Alton, owned by Coles, Hartman & Co.
Another said they had lease for ten years,
and contracted to peel 300 acres per an
num-.
Seeing bundles Of fruit and pine trees
awaiting shipment, I learned that Mr.
John Wright and F. N. Hildebrand, near
Alton, are rapidly charging their nurse
ries to meet the demand.
Several farmers in that vicinity have not
sowed any wheat and would not. The
drouth the cause.
Spent twenty-four hours at Orange
Courthouse among the old archives, in
which Augusta and all the counties sliced
from her, east of the Ohio, are interested.
They should be copied, and those pertain
ing to Augusta, as she is now, ought to be
in our Office.
P. H. Fry, who succeeded his father and
is the present genial, accomplished Clerk
since 1860, carried the records to Amherst
Courthouse in 1862, and had scarcely
reached there when the yankees wrenched
open the ofice-door, but it's contents, to
them, were in the vocative.
Time and space forbid my entering on
the interesting and prolific theme, the
past, as involved in these records.
was surprised, in view of the drouth,
to be informed that thirty thousand stock
cattle have been taken off the cars at War
renton Junction and other points on the
Virginia Midland, to supply Rappahan-
mock, Fauquier, and Loudoun. The own
ers had to abate the price somewhat. Via
Washington, Baltimore, and Northern
Central Railroad, I got out at York, Pa,
on the morning of the 10Th at halfpast
one. When hardly light enough to say if the
man blowing few hundred yards off was
a white man or negro, left for this ancient
city. The wheat matted over the ground,
at once satisfied me that on this side OF
that line, "Mason and Dixon" Qet us hope
the results of the fourth day work will, in
the future, obliterate,) the season was diff
ferent from ours, south of it. Here, corn,
wheat, and tobacco were extraordinary
crops. What will our farmers say to fifty
bushels of wheat per acre?' l am Informed
by highly respectable gentleman had
known for several years, there were seve-
raj instances in which this result was at
tanned, and without artificial fertilizers
never used here. Barn-yard manure and
llLI0 dT6 but dAu ldCoO VIZ SAOpo
were after tobacco.
Let me whisper in the ears of your farm
ers, as wheat is no more a paying crop,
and the artificial manures have, since the
war, fastened their noses to the grindstone
until the protuberance has disappeared,
they must cease to carry all their eggs in
one basket Let them try few acres Of
tobacco, and feed their corn and straw in
the stalls to few cattle to begin with,
and measure the difference between this
and the artificial.
Our grazed cattle, in ante-war times,
came here. They have not since the war.
Chicago, Buffalo, and Pittsburg now fur
nish the feeding cattle, and whilst millions
of bushels of corn are raised here, millions
Of bushels are brought from Chicago, as
the same gentleman tells me, and fed to
cattle. And whilst in former years great
numbers of hogs were raised here, now
thousands are brought from Chicago, fat
tened, and put in the farmers smoke
houses.
Would that our best farmers in the Val
ley could see how farming is done here, and
how much-how very mueh-they have to
learn in every thing. The best of them
havn't gotten through their horn-book.
have been twitted often with never for
getting any body or thing. The incident
I will relate, which occurred yesterday in
the County Courthouse, will show that
Lancaster county man could give me hun
drsd yards in memory and beat me.