The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-04-24

trees do not succeed well in this part of
Western Maryland. They will grow vigo-
rously and bear fruit, but perish in few
years, SO that to keep farm supplied with
this variety of fruit would keep the farmers
continually planting to supply the rapid
decay. Natural seedlings will do very
well, if promptly wormed and cultivated,
but grated trees will live but comparatively
a short time. Natural fruit trees have
several advantages over the grated trees.
The fruit is less juicy, and will dry and can
much better, but the natural ungrafted
peach is not so palatable to eat or for table
use, although the favor is good. There is
no question, however, that the ungrafted,
natural tree, will outlive the artificial tree,
and farmers may have good peaches if they
will cease to graft their trees, and prunc
and worm them, and manure and cultivate
them properly. The peach tree gets little
or no attention, and therefore it perishes
early. The writer has seen vigorous nat
ural trees in full bearing, at forty years of
age and upward, in another part of this
State.
The proprietors of SALEM believe not
only in thorough tillage, but in thorough
fertilization. Good farming requires con-
slant putting on as we'll as constant taking
off. They believe in blowing down a good
crop of clover, if you wish land to produce
we'll They believe also in the free use OF
lime. for the land must be well fed if it is
to be kept up to a high state of produc-
tivcness The old idea that ifyou make
YOUR land rich it will remain so, without
troubling yourself much as to the applica-
ton of manure, is pretty well exploded.
After land has been made rich, it will
speedily deteriorate, unless kept in state
of fertility by the application of manure or
the turning under of green crops. To
continue to take off, without putting on,
would soon impoverish even the best land.
When Leonard Frizzell came into pos
session of SALEM farm it was a barren tract
of land, full of bushes and overrun by
sedge, and fenced with Ire fence, as it was
derisively called, that is, with bushes grow
ing on each side of the fence. There were
only few spots of land, here and there,
under cultivation. Mr. Frizzell began
clearing it up and lining, and manuring
literally by the use of barnyard and other
manures, and after his death his sons kept
up his mode of improvement, until the old
sedge fields that would hardly grow buck
wheat or sprout peas, and would not have
produced two barrels of nubbins to the
acre, now produce from ten to twelve bar
rels of corn per acre, and the yield of wheat
in 1884 was over thirty bushels per acre.
The yield from eighty-fve acres, in 1885,
was a little over twenty bushels per acre.
The order of rotation observed in tillage
is about at follows: Turn sod for corn; seed
corn land to wheat; SOW grass seed to NOV
or pasture; let it lay two or three years,
then put the land in corn again. Messrs.
Frizzells' mode of improving poor land is
to seed it to wheat or rye, putting plenty
of some good phosphate upon it, set it in
grass and put about fifty bushels of lime
per acre on it, then let it remain in sod for
two years, pasture it sparingly, then pillow
down good coat of grass. If it be pas
tured too closely there will not be a suff-
cheney of grass, when turned under, for a
full crop of wheat the ensuing harvest
Lime and clover, with a proper rotation,
and liberal supply of stable manure, such
as is furnished on farm where most of
the products, except the wheat, are fed to
the stock, and a judicious use of bone or
other commercial fertilizers, will bring the
poorest land to condition of productive
ness, and repay the husbandman for all bis
outlay of capital and labor. This has been
fully demonstrated by the success which
has attended the operations of the enter
prising proprietoRs of SALEM farm, Thor
ough farming will pay, but nothing short
of thoroughness will. Success or failure is
thus seen to be the result of intelligent and
judicious management, on the one hand,
or the absence of that management on the
other, which eventuates in the plant of the
unsuccessful farmer, that farming @iH not
pay.
The Messrs. Frizzell do not belong to the
latter class of farmers. They have demon
strated that FARMING WILL PAY, and
they have done it under adverse circum-
stances. That is, they have changed I'M
productive land into one of the most fertile
farms in Carroll county, and the need of
praise for this metamorphosis is justly their
due.