Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser., 1890-02-14
Looking After Maryland Lands.

from South Dakota and Minnesota are re.
ported to be looking after Virginis and
Western Maryland lands. The report
comes from the immigration agent of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company
which is seeking to obtain settlers along
the line of its railroad for the purpose oil
building up traffic between Cumberland
and the Ohio river, where comparatively
little traffic at present exiss. but where
there are large bodies of coal and other
lands that are capable of extensive de
velopment. The amount of profitable
local traffic between Cumberland and the
Ohio river has hitherto formed serious
gap in the transportation business of the
Baltimore and Ohio Road, and the spirit
with which it has undertaken to promote
settlements along that part of its line
which crosses the Alleghanits is to be
commended. But there are other parts o
Maryland that offer great inducements to
settler s,w neither from the East or the Wes,
or from abroad. There are parts of Bal
timore county where good lands may be
bought very low, aud which only require
good roads to materially increase their
value. On the Eastern Shore and in
Southern Maryland there are many farms
and much outlying land that are inviting
purchasers, and although some of them
especially in Southern Maryland, have
lost good deal of their original fertility
and others have been exhausted of the
larger portion Of their constituents by
careless tillage in the old slavery days and
by overcropping in tobacco, such is the
genial nature of the soil that it is easily
worked and readily responds to manures
and fertilizers. There are, moreover, in
the she'll banks to be found in some places
and in the marls, which Professor Uhler
recently described local means of enrich
ing the soil at only the cost Of digging
and hauling With lime from the rotten
shell banks, naturally broken, down and
partially comminuted by time and the
weather, and with mari containing potash,
the Maryland farmer, wherever these are
available, has the two principal coss i'u-
ents required for the renovation of the
soil. We do not dwell here upon the
advantages of a settled society, of naviga-
BILE waterways on which farm products
can be transported at the least possible
cost, or Of the schools aud churches easy
of access in these long established farming
communities. We have often referred to
these before. The great difficulty with US
in Maryland has always been our slowness
to join in that march Of progress which ID
visible everywhere around US. Our fault
has been the absence of that quality oi
self assertion which has been distin
gushing trait of the Western people.
Other States intent on inviting Immigrants
to settle among them, have issued we'll
written pamphlets describing the climate,
the soil, the yield OF crops, the means OF
transportion to market, with statistics
showing the price OF lands aud the pro-
gress of population. The Western States
have been particularly energetic in pub
fishing quite a series of pamphlets giving
such Information as persons require who
are seeking to establish new homes for
themselves or their families. What have
we done in Marylandf The Legislature
at one time established bureau of immi-
grafton and appointed an agent to take
charge Of it He drew his salary with
exemplary regularity, but accomplished
literally nothing. Wha. has been done to
impart a knowledge of Maryland lands
outside of the Statei Beyond the Sans
frequent publications setting forth the
States advantages and the crude and i'm
perfect pamphlet on the geology and eli
mate of Maryland, by the late DR.. Higgins,
and the recent pamphlet Of DR.. Chancellor
relative to the Eastern Shore, the few at
tempts TO describe Maryland, in whole or
in part, have been desuitory and unsatis
factory the papers on the several counties Of
the State. published in the Sun, being the
best of all. Every ybody knows that Of re-
cent years the industrial drift and to some
extent the DRIFT of population has been
toward the South. Maryland is the gate
way of the South, and ought and could be
made to particiDate in thia chanoe of the
current if the proper steps we're taken to
set forth her claims to q share in this new
movement. 1t is very largely due to the
energetic action of the railroads that pop
ulat:on has been located 80 extensively in
the West. If the Baltimore and Ohio
Company finds it to be TO its interest TO
promote, by a bureau of immigration, settle
ments along the line Of its road in Western
Maryland, it is good step in the right
direction. We want more industries and
more population.-Baho. Sun.