The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-01-29

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tioneer would expend his eloquence
upoE deaf ears. and shout bis laudatory
platitudes in vain.
But this is merely the bald financial
side Of the question, though it may | e
doubted if pages of description could
tell woeful tale more significantly.
l do not know that this is very in
teresting, or what would be called a
very tragic, tale to the general reader
| am not in position to judge. 1t is
simply that of the depopulation of a
vast region, where life for long ages
went merrily, but is now silent, or very
nearly so, and the feeble sparks that
flicker here and there amid the weedy
desolation only seem to me to accentu-
ate the sadness of the scene.
Everyone has gone, not only the old
families, but the later ones, who with
help and hope and capital came in a
quarter of a century ago to fill up the
gaps that war and its consequence had
made, and to demonstrate that the poor
lands of Virginia only wanted farming
properly to laugh with gladness. One
after another natives and foreigners
gave up the unequal struggle.
The latter soon found that except in
the strips of river bottom they had
struck land of a poverty beyond all
calculation, and through whose too of.
ten porous subsoil manures disappeared
with heart-breaking rapidity. No nat
ural grass. as in the northern States.
and western counties even of Virginia,
grew upon the waste places to cover
their nakedness, but broomsedgc and
briars and thorns and saplings only.
To achieve a set of clover required
considerable effort, and even then the
result was problematical-while winter
storms cut deep channels in the soft
red hillsides, and summer sun blistered
and defertilized the gals and scars that
marked their course. In the middle
of the seventies" prices fell grievously.
The west, with her overfowing abun-
dance. grew nearer every year. All
grades Of tobacco but the very best,
which was producible only in certain
counties, ceased to pay. Growing sew
en- or eight bushels of wheat to the
acre, with an occasional twelve, had
been possible under slavery, and re-
manned possible, though hardly profit
able, with the high prices which fol
lowed the war, but with the collapse
Of the grain markets became an absur-
dity. The fattening of cattle on land
that could rarely be persuaded to take
or hold grass worth mentioning was
out of the question. Guide-books and
histories, and magazine writer's from
time immemorial, tell us that all this
was because the lands of east Virginia
were worn out by repeated crops of to-
bacco. There is half or rather quar-
ter truth about this-as every one with
a practical experience Of this subject
knows-that amounts to a fiction.
This is what many of the strangers
thought who came into the; country
after the war, and it took them some
years to find out that the greater part
of the land was ''naiteral po' in the
woods" as the vernacular had it. The
country had been well enough to live
happily in and raise negroes. Even
after this, till the west came into ac-
tion, it remained as possibility. But,
with the fierce competition of fat prair-
les and low prices, what could such
region hope for? People cannot live
on sentiment or feed on climate. Nor
can old associations or tender memo
ries keep the wolf from the door.
Ever since the period following the
war it has been my lot to traverse, at
stated intervals, the same twenty
miles or so of the old Bethel Pike.
And if take as my text this particu-
lar line of road, it is only because |
know it best, and have been an eye
witness of it's slow but sure decay,
and have the melancholy satisfaction
as ride along of peopling its desert
ed homesteads and abandoned fields
with familiar names and well remem-
bered faces. But this, after all, is but
fraction of a large slice of Virginia
which tells the same sad tale. Nor
would it be spectacle halfso pathetic,
if the country, as here and there is ac-
tuaIly the case, had been wholly aban-
doned to the forests OF scrub, oak, and
pine. that without intrinsic value of
their own would, If unchecked, ut least
have thrown their kindly canopy over
these dismal skeletons of the past. But
life, as have said, tiickcrs feeblyI yet
upon these old estates. HeaVdif Knows
whom they belong to. Most of them
have changed hands, and that more
than once, and always at ,declining
prices, since | first knew them. Many
of them are now hardly worth paying
taxes on. and taxes are low Here
and there a surviving scion of some
old family may be found struggling
with the briars, bearing but little like
ness in appearance Of education, and
still less in the condition OF his life, to
his ancestors. Some times the,dilapida-