The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1889-06-15
THE CECIL RMERS' CLUB.
The Regular June Meeting at
Mr.. Adam II. Magraw's near
COlOra.

COIOra.
"Friendship' farm the homestead of
Mr.. Magraw, located in a section of Cecil
county always distinguished for the iatel
ligence and thrift of it's farmers is at any
season of the year an attractive place, but
douby SO in the month of June, when
wealth of foliage and the fragrance
of flowers lend additional beauty to it's
ample lawns. and verdure clad mead
ows. 1t goes without the saying
that with such pleasant surroundings, the
meeting of the Farmers Club on We'd
nesday was an agreeable one. Promptly
at half past ten o'clock S. Rowland Car
son, Esq, it's President, ordered the call
of the roll of members when the follow
ing responded to their names. Henry S.
Coudon. VIM. w. Moore, A. R. Magraw,
Samuel r. Carson, A. J. Kitchener, John
P. Wilson, Enoch Noyes, Enoch w. Nc
Cullough, John S. Ewing and Henry R.
Torbert, secretary. The visitors present
|
West Nottingham church aud Mr.. Lloyd
Balderston.
| The minutes of the last meeting having
been read and approved and there being
no unfinished business statement of ex-
periments were in order. MIR. Noyes
stated the result of his experience with
pure ground bone. Last year he sowed
s or 10 hundred weight of pure bone, on
sweet corn ground for wheat. The wheat
is very heavy this year, and his opinion
based upon experience favors the use of
pure ground bone as a quickly acting fer
tilizer, having in the case cited, selected
the poorest part of the field to test the
efficacy of the bone. Mr.. Magraw stated
that he had made little experiment this
season in sowing timothy with his oats,
with view to secure stand of timothy
on oats ground, his usual practice like
most farmers having been to sow timothy
| in the fall with wheat. That the growth
speculate upon results but he hoped to
have some definite and satisfactory re-
suit to report later.
Mr.. Lloyd Balderston not having been
present at the last meeting of the club
when the question of the treatment of
sorrel was considered, upon request of the
President stated his experience with this
| weed.
Mr. Balderston said that as his ideas of
| the growth of sorrel were based upon ex-
perience, he would, to give them their
full weight be compelled to go back fifty
years, and to another state. He had
spent his boyhood in Montgomery county
Pa. and was employed largely in hauling
and spreading lime on his uncles farm.
The practice of applying lime was then
general in that locality, and he had no
recollection of ever finding sorrel in the
grass fields. But only few years ago
he visited that neigh borhood and noticed
| that sorrell was now prevalent there, and
that it was subject of conversation and
complaint. He quoted the language of
the present owner of the farm where
| he worked in his boyhood 81 cut
| there last year two tons of hay to the
acre and allowed one and a half tons of
| aftermath to rot on the ground and now
it is a mat of sorrel.' On asking him
how long it had been since the land was
lined, the reply was-20 years.
Mr.. Balderston said that within a COM
| parativety few years he had passed over
| the Pennsylvania Railroad from Phla-
| delphia to Trenton in the early summer
and had noticed the fields all along red
| with sorreI. The farmers he conversed
| with about it, spoke of good culture high
manuring and heavy seeding as their
only remedy. He noticed on farms thus
treated there would be single field in
it's first years sod, where the sorrel was
so kept in check, and it did not appear.
But soon as the sod became a little i'm
paired by age the sorrel again asserted
it's supremacy. Throughout that section
| no lime had been lately applied, and the
| utmost they could look for from one
heavy manuriug was the suppression of
sorrel tor year.
On settling in Maryland, he began the
renovation of his WORKOUT land by the
use of lime. He went over nearly all the
farm with the application finding the ex-
| pected beneficial results; among them
the absence of sorrel. After few years
ground bones were coming into notice, and
| to test the question whether they would
do more relative good where there was
| no lime, he began their use on parcel
of land till then undisturbed. The bones
enriched the soil, but the sorrel grew
| with such determined vigor, that he was
obliged to lime it directly after. He said
| he had not since thought of improving
land here in Cecil County, without first
lining it.
After this he said he came into posses
sion of an adjoining farm, portion of
which he believed had never been lined.
A section of this portion was plowed for
corn, and lined along with this, it's first
cultivation. The first crop was greatly
increased by the lime and no sorrel has
since been seen there.
The remainder of this portion" (found
as cornstalk ground, was brought round
into grass without lime. But the sorrel
had largely possession of the soil. He
lined it directly. The first year after
ward the sorrel still grew and grew. on
the lime heap bottoms as we'll as any
where else.
The second year in the early summer
the sorrel looked sickly. Sometime in
the early fall he walked over the field
and was surprised to find the sorrel al
ready gone. Instead of it there was a
dense sod of white clover of luxurianL
growth. 1t is now some 10 years since
these applications of lime. There is
strip few feet between the plots sue
cessvely treated. This strip produces
little but sorrel while the adjoining land
is nearly free from it.
The lime applied to this land was from
cambridge, and whatever it's compost.
ton, is peculiar in the structure of the
stone, shaking in cOnchOidal fragments.
Other lines that he had used have differed
from this. Lime from Pequea, contain
ing magnesia, some from Wrightsville
and some from @ larryvil!e containing
sand. ALL however. have been effective
in producing state of the soil, inimical to
|