Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1910-07-19
INDEX OF THR|H|NESS
What The Change OF Interven-
ing Years Has Wrought
ON THE EASTERN SHORE
What Mr.. MeIvin's Visit To Caroline
County Reveals After Twenty-Five
Years Absence
Communicated \
(Communicated.l J

I GuiIOT VI the Evening OaplIdl.
twenty-five years ago came to live
in Annapolis from Caroline county.
on the Eastern Shore, and my life here
has been so busy, and so constant have
been the demands upon my time and
energies, that, not until last week
did / have an opportunity to visit the
farming sections of my old home.
Then spent two days in automobile
riding over old Caroline, tarrying a
few minutes in nearly every town and
village in the county. On this trip,
although necessarily short, was
! enabled to view with my own eyes
! practically every section of the coun-
ty, and meet many old residents whom
| had known in other days.
| When moved from Caroline in 1885,
the county was regarded as one of the
st.promising in Maryland, and as
having but few and slim opportunities
for growth. Agriculture was carried
on in the same way it had been for
years; much of the land was held in
large tracts, and dependence was had
chiefly upon wheat and corn. The
farmers had relations with city mar
kets only about once year, the town
stores did business largely on yearly
credit basis. and there was little spirit
of improvement or interest in local
affairs. The farmers were isolated,
roads were neither numerous nor
well-kept, public school terms were
short, and most of the population had
no quicker means of shipping or
travel to Baltimore than the round
about steamboat journey.
The change in the intervening
years has been little short of marvel
Gus. In the first place, the spirit of
the community has undergone a COM
plete transformation. Industry,
thrift and progress have replaced the
old easy-going, careless views of the
people. | found that this was univer-
sal. Everywhere betterment was to
be seen, and the whole county has ad-
vanced, some sections, of course, rath-
er more than others. l passed scores
of small farms of from thirty to one
hundred acres, which were producing
ten times as much, in money returns,
as the average large farm of the past.
Around Ridgely, which can remem-
Der as a dreary stretch of country,
prolific of sage and pine, and to which,
largely by the effect of good roads,
has been drawn an intelligent, indus
trious class of Northern farmers and
truckers, whose example and success
have been well followed by their ma
tive-born neighbors, intensive cultiva-
tion has made the land worth one hun
dred dollars an acre. Fruit farming
is highly profitable in that soil and
climate-no better and hardly as good
as we have here in Anne Arundel
and with berries and truck the people
there have been prosperous and inde-
pendent. An exchange at Ridgely
buys all offerings at ruling market
prices during the shipping season, and
the berry grower, the potato raiser,
the fruit culturist Of today hauls his
produce into town and sells it for
cash to the cooperative exchange.
He can be kept hourly informed,
through his telephone, of the prices
of anything he raises to sell, of the
prospects for all kinds of crops,
this year and next, and he is en-
abled to apply his judgment and in
dustry always in the most profitable
channel. At Preston and Federals-
burg the same conditions of improve
ment obtain, and those sections, as
road improvement progresses, are
rapidly being developed, and land val
ues are steadily rising throughout
the county whether the farmer be
close to railroad or steamboat lines
few miles away, Intelligent study
and effort are everywhere equipping
him to get the best results.
Much Interesting data came to me
as to land values. When / was prac-
ticing law in Denton, recall selling
farm of about one hundred and fifty
acres in the early eighties'at trustees
sale for $1,000. Mr.. Charles w.
Hobbs, former Clerk of the Circuit
Court, told me on Friday that he
bought this roperty from the pur-
chaser a few years afterward, for
| 81, $50, and recent transaction in
the same land showed an advance in
its value of about 300 per cent. The
original sale was, doubtless, rather
under its real value at the time, but
the steady increase in its worth is re-
markable. Along the Choptank river,
and for several miles on either side,
at the assessment in 1896, a fiat value
of $5 an acre was suggested for a
large stretch of farmland and cut-over
woodland, which today is bringing
from fifty to one hundred dollars an
acre, and little of it comes into the
market at that. 1t runs along the
new State road from Denton to
Greensboro, now about half completed,
and the light, sandy soil has great
possibilities for fruit and truck grow
ing. With stone road for seven
miles, with a railroad shipping station
at either end, and water transporta.
tion on the river, this once practical.
ly abandoned territory is now mos
desirable and valuable. In this neigh
borhood / found one of my old friends
Mr.. Daniel Zacharias. When he wa,
county commissioner a dozen year
ago he insisted that the Denton
! Graoncb bnrn rood 4Inw