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attests their long duration: but when they say that they will last twenty years, or even one hundred and twenty years, it amounts to the admission that at some future time the effects of these manures will be lost. This I deny-and from the nature and action of calcareous earth, claim for its effects a duration that will have no end.

brated for its high improvement and remarkable productiveness, is mostly sandy. The author last quoted, in another work describes a body of land in the county of Norfolk, as "one of the finest tracts that is any where to be seen"- -"a fine, "deep,mellow,putrid sandy loam, adhesive enough "to fear no drought, and friable enough to strain "off superfluous moisture, so that all seasons suit If calcareous earth applied as manure is not af"it: from texture free to work, and from chemical terwards combined with some acid in the soil, it "qualities sure to produce in luxuriance whatever must retain its first form, which is as indestructi"the industry of man commits to its friendly bo-ble, and as little liable to be wasted by any cause "som."* Mr. Coke, the great Norfolk farmer, whatever, as the sand and clay that form the other made on the average 24 bushels of wheat to the earthy ingredients of the soil. The only possible acre, on an estate of as sandy soil as our South- vent for its loss, is the very small proportion taken ampton, (where probably a general average of up by the roots of plants, which is so inconsideratwo bushels could not be obtained, if general wheat ble as scarcely to deserve naming. culture was attempted)—and many other farms Clay is a manure for sandy soils, serving to close in Norfolk yielded much better wheat than Mr. their too open texture. When so applied, no one Coke's in 1804, when Young's survey was made. can doubt but that this effect of the clay will last Several farms averaged 36 bushels, and one of 40 as long as its presence. Neither can calcareous is stated: and the general average of the county earth cease to exert its peculiar powers as a mawas 24 bushels. Yet the county of Norfolk was nure, any more than clay can, by the lapse of time, formerly pronounced by Charles II. to be only fit lose its power of making sands more firm and ad"to cut up into strips, to make roads of for the ba-hesive. Making due allowance for the minute lance of the kingdom"-and that sportive descrip- quantity drawn up into growing plants, it is as abtion expressed strongly the sandy nature of the surd to assert that the calcareous earth in a soil, soil, as well as its then state of poverty. whether furnished by nature or not, can be exBecause certain qualities of poor clay soils (par-hausted, as that cultivation can deprive a soil of ticularly their absorbent power) make them better its sand or clay. than poor sands for producing wheat, we most But on my supposition that calcareous earth strangely attach a value to the stiffness and intrac- will change its form by combining with acid in tability of the former. Yet if all the absorbent the soil, it may perhaps be doubted whether it is quality and productive power of clay could be equally safe from waste under its new form. It given to sand, surely the latter would be the more must be admitted, that the permanency of this valuable in proportion to its being friable and easy compound cannot be proved by its insolubility, or to cultivate. The causes of all the valuable qual- other properties, because neither the kind nor the ities and productive power of the rich sands that nature of the salt itself is yet known. But judging have been referred to, are only calcareous and pu- from the force with which good neutral soils retrescent manures, and depth of soil: and if the sist the exhaustion of their fertility, and their alsame means can be used, our sands may also be ways preserving their peculiar character, it canmade as productive and valuable. I do not mean not be believed that the calcareous earth once to assert that the most highly improved sandy present, was lessened in durability by its chemical soil can produce as much wheat as the best clay change of form. It has been contended that the soils; but they will not fall so far short as to pre-action of calcareous earth is absolutely necessary vent their being the most valuable land, for wheat to make a poor acid soil fertile: but it does not as well as other crops, on account of their being so easily cultivated, and less liable to suffer from bad seasons, or bad management. [Appendix K.]

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PERMANENCY OF CALCAREOUS
NURES.

PROPOSITION 5. Continued.

thence follow that other substances, and particularly this salt of lime, may not serve as weli to preserve the fertility bestowed by calcareous earth. All that is required for this purpose, is the power of combining with putrescent matter, and thereby fixing it in the soil: and judging solely from effects, this power seems to be possessed in an eminent degree by this new combination of MA-lime. If this salt is the oxalate of lime, (as there is most reason to believe,) it is insoluble in water, and consequently safe from waste-and the same property belongs to most other combinations of lime with vegetable acid. The acetate of lime is soluble in water, and while alone, might be carried off by rains. But if it combines with putrescent matter, by chemical affinity, its previous solubility will no longer remain. Copperas is easily soluble: but when it forms one of the component parts of ink, it can no longer be separately dis

It was stated, (page 36) that the ground on which an old experiment was made and abandoned as a failure, more than fifty years ago, still continues to show the effects of marl. Lord Kames mentions a fact of the continued beneficial effect of an application of calcareous manure, which was known to be one hundred and twenty years old. Every author who has treated of manures of this nature,

*Young's Survey of Norfolk, p. 4.
+Young's Survey of Norfolk, p. 300 to 304.
Gentleman Farmer, page 266, 2d Edin. Ed.

*This passage is left as it stood in the first edition, before the discovery of the humic acid was known. Indeed no aid has been derived from that discovery, nor any change of language made in consequence of it, except by inserting the quotation respecting this substance, and the remarks thereon, at page 28.

solved by water, or taken away from the coloring | once obtained. My earliest marled land has been matter combined with it. In rich limestone soils, severely cropped, compared to the rotation suppoand some of our best river lands, in which no cal-sed above, and yet has continued to improve, careous earth remains, we may suppose that its change of form took place centuries ago. Yet however scourged and exhausted by cultivation, they still show as strongly as ever, those qualities which were derived from their former calcareous ingredient. When the dark color of such soils, their power of absorption, and of holding manures, their friability, and their peculiar fitness for clover and certain other plants, are no longer to be distinguished, then, and not before, may the salt of lime be considered as lost to the soil.

though at a slow rate. The part first marled in 1818, has since had only four years of rest in fifteen; and has yielded nine crops of grain, one of cotton, and one year clover twice mowed. This piece, however, besides being sown with gypsum, (with little benefit,) once received a light cover of rotted corn-stalk manure. The balance of the same piece of land (Exp. 1.) was marled for the crop of 1821-has borne the same treatment since, and has had no other manure, except gypsum once, (in 1830,) which acted well. These periods of twelve and fifteen years, are very short to serve as grounds to decide on the eternal duration of a manure. But it can scarcely be believed that the effect of any temporary manure, would not have been somewhat abated by such a course of severe tillage. Under milder treatment, there can be no doubt but there would have been much greater improvement.

If we keep in mind the mode by which calcareous manure acts, its effects may be anticipated for a much longer time than my experience extends. Let us trace the supposed effects, from the causes, on an acid soil kept under meliorating culture. As soon as applied, the calcareous earth combines with all the acid then present, and to that extent, is changed to the vegetable salt of lime. The remaining calcareous earth continues to take If subjected to a long course of the most severe up the after formations of acid, and (together with cultivation, a soil could not be deprived of its calcathe salt so produced,) to fix putrescent manures, reous ingredient, whether natural or artificial: but as fast as these substances are presented, until all though still calcareous, it would be in the end, rethe lime has been combined with acid, and duced to barrenness, by the exhaustion of its veall their product combined with putrescent mat-getable matter. Under the usual system of exter. Both those actions then cease. During all hausting cultivation, marl certainly improves the the time necessary for those changes, the soil has product of acid soils, and may continue to add to been regularly increasing in productiveness; and the previous amount of crop, for a considerable it may be supposed that before their completion, time: yet the theory of its action instructs us, that the product had risen from ten to thirty bushels of the ultimate result of marling under such circumcorn to the acre. The soil has then become neu- stances, must be the more complete destruction of tral. It can never lose its ability (under the mild the land, by enabling it to yield all its vegetable rotation supposed,) of producing thirty bushels-food to growing plants, which would have been but it has no power to rise above that product. prevented by the continuance of its former acid Vegetable food continues to form, but is mostly state. An acid soil yielding only five bushels of wasted, because the salt of lime is already combined with as much as it can act on; and whatever excess of vegetable matter remains on the soil, is kept useless by acid also newly formed, and left free and noxious, as before the application of calcareous earth. But though this excess of acid may balance and keep useless the excess of vegetable matter, it cannot affect the previously fixed fertility, nor lessen the power of the soil to yield its then maximum product of thirty bushels. In this state of things, sorrel may again begin to grow, and its return may be taken as notice that a new marling is needed, and will afford additional profit, in the same manner as before, by destroying the last formed acid, and fixing the last supply of vegetable matter. Thus perhaps five or ten bushels more may be added to the previous product, and a power given to the soil gradually to increase as much more, before it will stop again for similar At this time there are but few persons among reasons, at a second maximum product of forty or fifty bushels. I pretend not to fix the time neces- us who doubt the great benefit to be derived from sary for the completion of one or more of these the use of marl: and many of those who ten years gradual changes: but as the termination of each, ago deemed the practice the result of folly, and a and the consequent additional marling, will add fit subject for ridicule, now give that manure credit new profits, it ought to be desired by the farmer, for virtues which it certainly does not possess; and instead of his wishing that his first labor of marl- from their manner of applying it, seem to believe ing each acre, may also be the last required. Every it a universal cure for sterility. Such erroneous permanent addition of five bushels of corn to the views have been a principal cause of the many previous average crop, will more than repay the injudicious and even injurious applications of marf. heaviest expenses that have yet been encounter- It is as necessary to moderate the ill-founded exed in marling. But whether a second application pectations which many entertain, as to excite the of marl is made or not, I cannot imagine such a too feeble hopes of others. consequence as the actual decrease of the product The improvement caused by marling, and its per

corn may contain enough food for plants to bring fifteen bushels-and its production will be raised to that mark, as soon as marling sets free its dormant powers. But a calcareous soil reduced to a product of five bushels, can furnish food for no more, and nothing but an expensive application of putrescent manures, can render it worth the labor of cultivation. Thus it is, that soils, the improvement of which is most hopeless without calcareous manures, will be the most certainly improved with profit by their use.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE EXPENSE AND PROFIT OF MARLING.

PROPOSITION 5. Concluded.

manency, have been established beyond question. | term, or only sixty cents a year, it would raise the Still the improvement may be paid for too dearly value of the land to ten dollars-and if six dollars -and the propriety of the practice must depend could be made annually, clear of all expense, it is entirely on the amount of its clear profits, ascer-equally certain that one hundred dollars would be tained by fair estimates of the expenses incurred, the fair value of the acre. Yet if lands of preWith those who attempt any calculations of cisely these rates of profit were offered for sale at this kind, it is very common to set out on the mis- this time, the poorest would probably sell for two taken ground that the expense of marling should dollars, and the richest for less than thirty dollars. bear some proportion to the selling price of the In like manner, if any field that paid the expense land: and without in the least underrating the ef- of cultivation before, has its average annual net fects of marl, they conclude that the improvement product increased six dollars for each acre, by cannot justify an expense of six dollars on an acre some permanent improvement, the value thereby of land that would not previously sell for four dol- added to the field is one hundred dollars the acre, lars. Such a conclusion would be correct if the without regard to its former worth. Let the cost land was held as an article for sale, and intended and value of marling be compared by this rule, to be disposed of as soon as possible: as the ex- and it will be found that the capital laid out in that pense in that case might not be returned in imme-mode of improvement will seldom return an annudiate profit, and certainly would not be added to the price of the land by the purchaser, under present circumstances. But if the land is held as a possession of any permanency, its previous price, or its subsequent valuation, has no bearing whatever on the amount which it may be profitable to expend for its improvement. Land that sells at four dollars, is often too dear at as many cents, because its product will not pay the expense of cultivation, But if by laying out for the improvement ten dollars, or even one hundred dollars to the acre, the average increased annual profit would certainly and permanently be worth ten per cent. on that cost of improvement, then the ex- I admit the practical difficulty of applying this penditure would be highly expedient and profita- rule, however certain may be its theoretical truth. ble. We are so generally influenced by a rage for It is not possible to fix on the precise clear profit of extending our domain, that another farm is often any farm to its owner and cultivator; and any erbought, stocked and cultivated, when a liberal es- ror made in these premises, is increased sixteen timate of its expected products, would not show fold in the estimate of value founded on them. an annual clear profit of three per cent,: and any Still we may approximate the truth with most one would mortgage his estate to buy another certainty by using this guide. The early increase thousand acres, that was supposed fully capable of of crop from marling, will in most cases be an yielding ten per cent, on its price. Yet the ad- equal increase of clear profit, (for the subsequent vantage would be precisely the same, if the prin-improvement and the additional offal will surely cipal money was used to enrich the land already in possession, (without regard to its extent, or previous value,) with equal assurance of its yielding the same amount of profit,

al interest of less than twenty per cent.—that it will more often equal forty-and sometimes reach even one hundred per cent. of annual and permanent interest on the investment. The application of this rule for the valuation of such improvements, will raise them to such an amount, that the magnitude of the sum may be deemed a sufficient contradiction of my estimates. But before this mode of estimating values is rejected, merely on the supposed absurdity of an acid soil being considered as raised from one dollar to thirty dollars per acre, by a single marling, let it at least be examined, and its fallacy exposed.

pay for the increase of labor-) and it is not very difficult to fix a value for that actual increase of crop, and thereby to estimate the capital value of the improvement.

Nothing is more general, or has had a worse This mode of valuing land, under a different influence on the state of agriculture, than the de-form, is universally received as correct in England. sire to extend our cultivation, and landed posses- Cultivation there is carried on almost entirely by sions, One of the consequences of this disposi-tenants: and the annual rent which any farm tion, has been to give an artificial value to the brings on a long lease, fixes beyond question what poorest land, considered merely as so much terri- is its annual clear profit to the owner. The price, tory, while various causes have concurred to depress the price of all good soils much below their real worth. Whatever a farm will sell for, fixes its value as merchandise; but by no means is it a fair measure of its value as permanent farming capital.

The true value of land, and also of any permanent improvements to land, I would estimate in the following manner. Ascertain as nearly as possible the average clear and permanent income, and the land is worth as much money as would securely yield that amount of income, in the form of interest which may be considered as worth 6 For example, if a field brings ten dolfars average value of crops to the acre, in every course of a four-shift rotation, and the average expense of every kind necessary to carry on the cultivation, is also ten dollars-then the land yields nothing, and is worth nothing. If the average clear profit was two dollars and forty cents in the

per cent.

or value of land, is generally estimated at so many
"years' purchase," which means as many years'
rent as will return the purchaser's money. There,
the interest of money being low, increases the va-
lue of land according to this mode of estimation;
and it is generally sold as high as twenty years'
purchase. My estimate is less favorable for rais
ing the value of our lands, as it fixes them at six-
teen and a half years' purchase, according to our
higher rate of interest on money, But though
this rule for estimating the true value of land, and
of the improvements made by marling, may be
unquestionable in theory, still a practical objection
will be presented by the well known fact that the
income and profits of farmers are not increased in
proportion to such improvements, nor is there
found such a vast disproportion as this rule of es-
timating values would show, between the profits
of the tillers of poor and of rich land.
sitions are admitted to be generally well founded-

These po

but it is denied that they invalidate the previous | the pit ascended hills amounting to forty feet of estimates. A farmer may, and generally does, perpendicular elevation-and the average distance obtain less gross product from a large or a rich to the field was eight hundred and forty-seven farm, than his more necessitous, and therefore yards. more attentive and economical neighbor gets from a smaller or poorer farm, in proportion to the producing power of each; and even the same persons, when young and needy, have often made more profit according to their means, than afterwards when relieved from want, and having land increased to a quadruple power of production. These, and similar facts, however general, only are examples of the obvious truth that the profits of land depend principally on the industry, economy, and good management of the cultivator-and that many a farmer who can manage well a small or poor farm, is more deficient in industry, economy, or the increased degree of knowledge required, when possessed of much more abundant resources. In short, if these considerations were to direct or influence our estimates, we should not be comparing and estimating the value of lands, but the value of the care and industry bestowed on their management.

Another objector may ask, "If any poor land is raised in value (according to this estimate) from one dollar to thirty by marling, would a purchaser make a judicious investment of his capital, by buying this improved land at thirty dollars?" I would answer in the affirmative, if our view was confined to this particular means of investing farming capital. The purchaser would get a clear interest of six per cent.-which is always a good return from land, and is twice as much as all Lower Virginia now yields. But if such a purchase is compared with other means of acquiring land so improved, it would be extremely injudicious-because thirty dollars expended in purchasing and marling such land, would serve both to acquire and improve five or six acres.

Estimates of the expenses required for marling are commonly erected on as improper grounds, as those of its profits. We never calculate the cost of any old practice. We are content to clear woodland that afterwards will not pay for the expense of tillage—to keep under the plough, land | reduced to five bushels of corn to the acre-to build and continue to repair miles of useless and perishable fences-to make farm-yard manure (though not much of this fault,) and apply it to acid soils-without once calculating whether we lose or gain by any of these operations. But let any new practice be proposed, and then every one begins to count its cost--and on such erroneous premises, that if applied to every kind of farm labor, the estimate would prove that the most fertile land known, could scarcely defray the expenses of its cultivation.

In 1828, I began to marl another tract of land, where the difficulties were less. The labor bestowed served to carry out and spread six thousand eight hundred and ninety-two tumbril loads, on one hundred and twenty acres of land, being an average of two hundred and fifty-nine bushels to the acre. The exhausted state of the soil made heavier dressing unsafe. The whole expense of the operation, including all the preparatory labor, amounted to two dollars and eight cents for each acre marled-or eighty-three hundredths of a cent for each heaped bushel of marl. [Appendix L.] It is impossible to carry on marling to advantage, or with any thing like economy, unless it is made a regular business, to be continued throughout the year or a specified portion of it, by a laboring force devoted to that purpose, and not allowed to be withdrawn for any other. Instead of proceeding on this plan, most persons who have begun to marl, attempt it in the short intervals of leisure, afforded between their different farming operations--and without lessening for this purpose, the extent of their usual cultivation. Let us suppose that preparations have been made, and on the first opportunity, a farmer commences marling with zeal and spirit. But every new labor is attended by causes of difficulty and delay, and a full share of these will be found in the first few days of marling. The road is soft for want of previous use, and if the least wet, soon becomes miry. The horses, unaccustomed to carting, balk at the hills, or only carry half loads. Other difficulties occur from the awkwardness of the laborers, and the inexperience of their master-and still more from the usual unwillingness of his overseer to devote any labor to improvements which are not expected to add to the crop of that year. Before matters can get straight, the leisure time is at an end: the work is stopped, and the road and pit are left to get out of order, before making another attempt some six months after, when all the same vexatious difficulties are again to be encountered.

This alone But besides, employment When at any

If only a single horse was employed in drawing marl throughout the year, at the moderate allowance of two hundred working days, and one hundred bushels carried out for each, his year's work would amount to twenty thousand bushels, or enough for more than sixty acres. would be a great object effected. this plan would allow the profitable of any amount of additional labor. time, other teams and laborers could be spared to assist, though for only a few days, every thing is According to estimates made with much care ready for them to go immediately to work. The and accuracy, the cost of an uncommonly expen-pit is drained, the road is firm, and the field sive job of marling, four thousand and thirty-six marked off for the loads. In this way, much bushels in quantity, in 1824, amounted to five dol- labor may be obtained in the course of the year, lars and thirty-five cents the acre, for five hundred from teams that would otherwise be idle, and laand ninety-eight bushels of marl. This quantity borers whose other employments would be of but was much too great: four hundred bushels would little importance. The spreading of mark on the have been quite enough for safety and profit, and field, is a job that will always be really to employ would have reduced the whole expense, including any spare labor: and throwing off the covering every necessary preparation, to three dollars and earth from an intended digging of marl, may be fifty-eight cents the acre. The earth which was done, when rain, snow, or severe cold, have rentaken off, to uncover the bed of marl, was consid-dered the earth unfit for almost every other kind erably thicker than the marl itself. The road from of labor,

Wood

Another interesting question respecting the ex- | by means of the rail road now constructing from pense of this improvement is, to what distance Petersburg to the Roanoke: providing the profrom the pit may marl be profitably carried? If prietors do not imitate the over greedy policy of the amount of labor necessary to carry it half a the legislature of Virginia, in imposing tolls on mile is known, it is easy to calculate how much manures passing through the James River canal. more will be required for two or three miles. The If there was no object whatever in view, but to cost of teams and drivers is in proportion to the draw the greatest possible income from tolls on distance travelled-but the pit and field labor, is canals and roads, true policy would direct that all not affected by that circumstance. At present, manures should pass from town to country toll when so much poor land, abundantly supplied free. Every bushel of lime, marl, or gypsum, with fossil shells, may be bought at from two thus conveyed, would be the means of bringing dollars to four dollars the acre, a farmer had better back in future time, more than as much wheat buy and marl a new farm, than to move marl even or corn-and there would be an actual gain in two miles to his land in possession. But this tolls, besides the twenty fold greater increase to would be merely declining one considerable profit, the wealth of individuals and the state. for the purpose of taking another much greater. ashes, after being deprived of their potash, have Whenever the value of marl is properly under-calcareous earth, and a smaller proportion of phosstood, and our lands are priced according to their improvements, or their capability of being improved from that source, as must be the case hereafter, then this choice of advantages will no longer be offered. Then rich marl will be profitably carted miles from the pits, and perhaps conveyed by water as far as it may be needed. A bushel of such marl as the bed on James River, described page 49, is as rich in calcareous earth alone, as a bushel of slaked lime will be after it becomes carbonated-and the greater weight of the first, is a less disadvantage for water carriage, than the price of the latter. Farmers on James River who have used lime as manure to great extent and advantage, might more cheaply have moved rich marl twenty miles by water, as it would cost nothing but the labor of digging and transportation. Within the short time that has elapsed since the first publication of the foregoing passages in the first edition of this essay, the transportation of marl by water carriage has been commenced on James River, and has been carried on with more facility and at less expense, than was anticipated. The farmers who may profit by this new mode of using marl, will be indebted to the enterprise of C. H. Minge, Esq. of Charles City, for the making a full and satisfactory experiment of the business on a large scale. [See Appendix M.]

phate of lime, as their only fertilizing ingredients; and both together do not commonly make more than there is of calcareous earth in the same bulk of good marl. Yet drawn ashes have been purchased largely from our soap factories, at four cents the bushel, and carried by sea to be sold for manure to the farmers of Long Island. Except for the proportion of phosphate of lime which they contain, drawn ashes are simply artificial marl-more fit for immediate action, by being finely divided, but weaker in amount of calcareous earth than our best beds of fossil shells.

The argument in support of the several propositions which have been discussed through so many chapters, is now concluded. However unskilfully, I flatter myself that it has been effectually used; and that the general deficiency in our soils of calcareous earth--the necessity of supplying it-the profit by that means to be derived-and the high importance of all these considerationshave been established too firmly to be shaken by either arguments or facts.

CHAPTER XIX.

MENDED TO PRESERVE PUTRESCENT MA-
NURES, AND TO PROMOTE CLEANLINESS
AND HEALTH, ESPECIALLY IN TOWNS.

The objections to carrying marl unusual dis- THE USE OF CALCAREOUS EARTH RECOMtances, admitted above, apply merely to improvements proposed for field culture. But it would be profitable, even under existing circumstances, for rich marl to be carried five miles by land, or one hundred miles by water, for the purpose of being The operation of calcareous earth in enriching applied to gardens, or other land kept under per- barren soils, has been traced, in a former part of petual tillage, and receiving frequent and heavy this essay, to the chemical power possessed by that coverings of putrescent manure. In such cases, earth of combining with putrescent matters, or independent of the direct benefit which the calca- with the products of their fermentation-and in reous earth might afford to the crops, its power that manner, preserving them from waste, for the of combining with putrescent matters, and pre-use of the soil, and for the food of growing plants. venting their waste, would be of the utmost im- That power was exemplified by the details of an portance. If the soil was acid, the making it experiment, (page 31,) in which the carcass of an calcareous would enable half the usual supplies of animal was so acted on, and its enriching propermanure, to be more effective and durable than the ties secured. That trial of the putrefaction of aniwhole had been. There are other uses for marl, mal matter in contact with calcareous earth, was about dwelling houses and in towns, which should commenced with a view to results very different induce its being carried much farther than mere from those which were obtained. Darwin says agricultural purposes would warrant. I allude to that nitrous acid is produced in the process of ferthe use of calcareous earth in preserving putres-mentation, and he supposes the nitrate of lime to cent matters, and thereby promoting cleanliness, be very serviceable to vegetation.* As the niand health. This important subject will hereafter trous acid is a gas, it must pass off into the air, be separately considered. *Darwin's Phytologia, pp. 210 and 224, Dublin Edition.

Either lime or good marl may hereafter be profitably distributed over a remote strip of poor land,

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