Importance of Lime to the Lower Eastern Shore Counties

Beds of marl, which are effecting such wonders in particular and extensive sections of Maryland and Virginia -- it seems, from the opinions of practical geologists, are not to bless, with their treasures, that portion of the peninsula immediately bordering on the sea board; but provident nature has not left it destitute of a cheap, and efficient substitute. The shoals of shells in our bay accessible at low water, and in many places abundant, and the supplies derived from living shell fish, brought up for domestic consumption, will afford the material for lime, during many successive years. The time is not distant, perhaps, when stone lime will be burnt upon this shore, where wood is cheap and abundant, and labor low, from the lime stone imported by return vessels from the Delaware, as has been lately practiced with success, in the neighborhood of the Smyrna; and will soon go into operation, at the head of Indian River, where shells cannot be procured, in sufficient quantities, for agricultural purposes. Unexpected beds of fossil shells may yet be discovered, along the sea coast, by the persevering and scientific exertions of professor Ducatel: the accurate and learned gentleman, employed in a geological survey of Maryland; a measure which reflects so much honor upon the wisdom and public spirit of your legislature; from which the happiest results have already been realized, and more extensive benefits may be justly anticipated.

The assertion will be sustained, by all the intelligent citizens of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, at all conversant with agriculture, that a soil more susceptible of rapid and easy improvement than ours -- more grateful in its returns to the hand of judicious labor, and more convenient and pleasant in its tillage, does not exist upon the face of the globe. A system of culture deplorably erroneous and exhausting, has been pursued for ages, which would have reduced to a
state of abject sterility any other soil, in half the time. The active exertions of a few influential and enterprising individuals in each county, establishing agricultural societies as is the case in every county in the state of New York; exciting a spirit for extensive reading, of approved works upon husbandry; encouraging a judicious rotation of crops upon every farm, however small, of the three or four shift system; with the cultivation of clover, as soon as the state of the soil will justify it -- recommending to all, the advantage of abstaining from grazing their fields -- and above all, by introducing the judicious use of lime, or marl, in the way suggested in the Essay on Calcareous Manures, would in a few years, effect an astonishing change upon the appearance of our fields -- and by inspiring the industrious cultivators of the soil, with the sure expectation of having their care and their toil rewarded with plenty, for themselves and their children, would restrain at once the emigration to the west, which is threatening to depopulate the Atlantic sections of the peninsula.

A late extensive tour through the northern settlements of Philadelphia county, where lime is universally used, and in immense quantities, and with effects upon the productions of the earth, so wonderful; has convinced the writer of this article, that nothing is wanting to the lands of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, with the qualities of which he is well acquainted, but the adoption of a similar course of improvement and tillage, to render them equally fertile and productive. In many situations here, marl can be procured at a small expense; in all shell, or stone lime, at a cost inferior to that which is paid by farmers remote from lime-stone quarries in many parts of Pennsylvania.

T HOLMES.