The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-03-09

VIII be heard on the same Sut1ecC TO-
day in almost any strictly rural neigh
borhood. TO own land, and to super
intend in person its cultivation, was
with many the heighth of their ambi-
ton, an deep was their pity for those
who were compelled to pass their years
in the store and counting-room.
One effect of these agricultural ex-
hibits was to create generous rivalry
among farmers to do something to adj
vance the knowledge and best interests
of their profession. | notice from a
file of The Fuyn,er for 1917 that the
Prince Georges County Society Of
ferel that year a premium of silver
plate valued at 500 to the owner Of
the best regulated and most highly i'm
proved farm in the county. The judges
to decide this were: Messrs. John H.
Bayne, Clement Hill, George Forbes
and Samuel H. Dorsett, and the prem
ium was awarded to Col. w. W. w.
Bowie. Farms belonging to Mcssrs.
John D. Bowling, James Somerville,
Charles c. Hill and Robert Bowie were
much commended.
Premiums were given not only for
the best specimens of all kinds of pure
bred stock, implements and household
manufactures, but for best acres of
grain, grass, tobacco and several kinds
of roots. Everything that could be
done was done by these societies to
stimulate interest in farm and live
stock improvement. The exhibits of
stock were exhibits of home stock. 1t
was unnecessary to ask Pennsylvania
or Virginia to bring fine stock here,
since there was then in Maryland as
fine specimens, as fine herds, indeed, as
could be found in any State. In this
county Messrs. Charl,s B. Calvert, w.
D. Bowie, w. ". w. Bowie and Col.
Capron owned and exhibited notable
herds OF cattle.
DISPLAY OF PUBLIC SPIRIT.
cannot better illustrate the public
spirit of those days and the interest
felt for agricultural improvement than
to tell YOU that in 1910 Mr.. Charles
B. Calvert, animated solely by the de-
sire to introduce into more general use
his superior pure bred Durhams, Of
tered to give, and did for some years
give to farmers Of the State, all the
male calves from his finest COWS on the
sole condition that they should be for
three successive years exhibited at the
fair in this county. Our Agricultural
College is another evidence, not only
of the public spirit Of the men OF those
days, as well as of their prosperous
condition, but also is testimonial to
their interest in and desire for scientific
agricultural knowledge and for its diff
fusion. Tie college was nos the con-
ception of State ot1icials-nor under
taken by men seeking the States assis-
tance. AT that period our people re-
lied on themselves, and had not learned
to look to the State for everything.
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.
The college was erected by the farm
ers of Maryland, and it gives me pleas
ure to say that while the business men
Of Baltimore City gave largely of their
means, in no portion of Maryland was
there such general response for money
with which to build and equip the col
lege than from the five lower counties
of the State, on the western shore of
the Chesapeake. AS heretofore said,
farmland had been rapidly restored to
former fertility under careful, intelli-
gent culture Abundant crops selling
for fair prices had greatly increased
the market value of land, and, better
still, the cities were not depopulating
the counties. 1t was rare to see
young man anxious to leave the farm,
lust as rare as now to find one with en-
ergy and ambition willing to remain
on it. When the youth left college, OF
the counting room, where pcrchance
he had gone for year or two for Il
business training, he was glad to re-
turn to country life and to farming.
As result. the counties had Il govern
ing class of educated men, numerous
enough to control county affairs and
to ensure good government.
SLAVE LABOR
Labor was plentiiul-Mary l;sn,lcrs,
as a rule, were ever slow AM unwilling
to sell slaves to the cotton planting
States and hence the supply of labor
was fast increasing, permitting good
/ clitlNatlOn Ol crops. DrSlueS, MARY
| l,nd had large number of free black
men within her borders, chiefly the de-
scendants of those who had been for
generations past set free 10y their own
crs. The labor of these freed men
could he had for $4,000 per year and
board, and SO, as we shall now glance
at some of the methods of farming then
pursued, we can readily see how very
essential it was for remunerative agri-
culture that labor should be plentiful
and cheap. since we had not yet
reached the era Of labor saving farm
implements and machinery