Our Peninsula

How It Strikes the Eye of a Delawarian

The stranger who rides through the lower peninsula on the N. Y., P. & N. railroad sees very little except pine forests, cornfields, fallow fields and here and there a farm house surrounded by a few fruit trees. At least one-half of the Virginia counties is covered with timber, the pine predominating; but there is also a heavy sprinkling of the various kinds of oak, beech, maple and gum trees. It is virtually a new country and lumber would be very plentiful if there were only more saw mills; and these will be taken soon enough now that the railroad is finished. The pretty new station houses, the immense water tanks for supplying the locomotives with water, and the railroad ties are all made of native lumber. There are also hundreds of acres of young pine trees which encroach upon the cultivated areas wherever the farmer's neglect permits them to do so. As a rule they stand too thickly ever to become valuable as timber, but they have their value, too, for the pine leaves take the place here of the barnyard manure of a Pennsylvania farmer. The pine "shats," as the natives call them, are almost the only fertilizer that is applied to the sweet potato. The air is fragrant everywhere with the pungent odors of the pine; and most charming drives, which are so narrow that carriages cannot pass each other, except in places especially cut out of the green walls for that purpose, lead away through the forests every few miles.

The corn fields do not look so picturesque. The old-fashioned method of "topping" the plant just above the ear is still in vogue, and hundreds of acres of dry sticks or stalks standing about three feet apart, may be seen. Plenty of fields were seen that did not yield enough to pay for the first turning of the brittle sod. There are more acres along the railroad that grew less than five bushels to the acre than of acres that grew more than ten bushels; and the amount of the blades saved and stacked in many a fifty-acre field would not sustain life in a healthy pair of New Castle county mules during the winter. Many fields were noted, too, that compared favorably with the corn fields along the upper portion of the Delaware railroad. The vast difference in quality and productiveness what was met with so frequently between fields lying on opposite sides of the railroad is due to fertilization. A little bit of phosphate evidently increased the product both in stalk and ear from three-fold to four-fold. This explains the chief merit of the soil. It is very responsive. It appears to be the most easily cultivated and the most readily improved soil in the world. The laziest man would not starve in Accomac county, for if he ceased to plow and reap, the land will grow wild and rank with berries for his subsistence. The industrious man would readily acquire a competence on it. The great drawback is said to be its lack in grass-producing qualities. But a number of "old" (discarded) fields were seen with fair coverings of wild grass. The day will come when clover will be as abundant there as corn-fodder is now.

The absence of grass, of course, precludes the raising of live stock. A few small herds of cows and sheep were seen, and these scampered away for dear life over the brown fields as the cars thundered by. But all the animals that did show themselves were in excellent condition, not withstanding the drouth, excepting two or three long-eared relics of the late war. The army mule is as thin in this part of Virginia as in the rest of the state. In 1880 Accomac county contained only 36,000 domestic animals, of which over 20,000 were long nosed swine. It contains barely 3,000 milch cows and less than 4,000 sheep. Northampton county in 1880 had but 15,000 domestic animals, 8,500 hogs, 1,600 sheep, 1,200 milch cows, and 1,850 other cattle. Both counties together produced only 98,000 pounds of butter, 100 pounds of cheese and 3,100 gallons of milk (marketable). That was barely three pounds of butter for each man, woman and child in the counties. In view of the fact that these counties and Worcester county on their border in Maryland are purely agricultural, it may seem strange to many that Pocomoke City should be compelled to go to Baltimore for three-fourths of its beef and mutton, but such is the fact. An influx of northern farmers would soon remove this reproach by bringing the soil to the capacity of yielding two crops a year, an early crop of garden vegetables by June and a late crop of luxuriant corn fodder, such as has never been seen yet in the two lowest counties, for the cattle.

There is no wheat field in sight of the railroad below Somerset county, although there is some wheat raised in all of the three counties. Corn is the staple grain, however, and pone is more frequently met with than white bread. Strange to say wheat appears to thrive better in the neighborhood of Eastville than thirty miles further north; at least more is raised in that neighborhood. In the neighborhood of Belle Haven, which is midway between Accomac Court House and Eastville, the soil is of a dark heavy nature not unlike that in the neighborhood of Bridgeville in this State, but as a rule there is a light sandy soil on the surface with a dark yellow or reddish clay subsoil. Water may be found almost anywhere for the digging, but the water usually tastes of the ground.

Few apple and peach orchards are found, but both kinds of fruit grow there with the requisite attention. The bitter experience of the early peach growers of Delaware proved too much for the easy going Virginians, and the peach orchards that are left there exist in spite of there owners' neglect. It was the deliberate judgement of such veteran fruitgrowers and farmers as John H. Hoffecker of Smyrna, Gideon Speakman of Bradford and John Reed of Fredrica that fruit trees and berries would thrive as well in Accomac county as they do in their respective neighborhoods. Mr. Reed, who owns land which has yielded him almost a thousand dollars' worth of fruit a year, thought that the land about Accomac and Matompkins looked as promising as his land did twenty years ago, and Robert D. Hoffecker of Smyrna could see much likeness between the Virginia fields and the "Commons" which used to surround Dover.