348 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



water it has a consistency approaching putty, but when the attempt is 

 made to shovel it into a boat to carry it to land it breaks up into a slimy 

 mass and runs off the shovel or becomes a sticky mud in the boat and hard 

 to unload. I found the marl in Grayling lake could be easier lifted with 

 a dipper than by a shovel; a little disturbance of the marl in the water 

 made it a semi-fluid mass very difficult to shovel. It then occurred to me 

 that by a rotary pump the material could be lifted into a spout above the 

 water and run upon the shore where the water would sink into the sand 

 and leave the marl to dry and harden till it was fit for transportation. 

 I had a pump rigged like the endless belt of a grain elevator, but the 

 parties who had it in charge reported that the buckets did not empty 

 themselves and the pump was a failure for that reason! I never had a 

 chance to try it, but have thought that if the marl had been sufficiently 

 stirred up with the water, a semi-fluid mass might have been secured that 

 would empty out of the buckets and flow off by the gutter to the land. 

 Perhaps some more ingenious person may yet solve the problem. 



KINDS OF SOIL BENEFITED BY MARL. 



The soils that receive the greater benefit by a dressing of marl are light, 

 sandy soils having a fair supply of vegetable matter or humus. If there 

 is very little humus the benefit is not so marked. The soils that run to 

 moss and bunch grass need a good supply of marl So also, where there 

 is a large excess of vegetable matter, and decomposition is slow and linger- 

 ing, as seen in many of the muck swamps, a dressing of 50 to 75 bushels 

 per acre applied to the surface will do much to bring them into cultivation. 



To secure the best results from marling the material must be kept near 

 the surface. This is one reason why marl at the bottom of a muck bed 

 does no good. 



The beneficial action of marl on stiff clay lands is much less than on 

 sandy soils. If applied in such quantity as to change the physical quality 

 of the soil, in doses of 30 to 50 tons to the acre, a permanent benefit is 

 conferred upon such land. But one needs to count the cost before under- 

 taking so expensive a job. 



Marl may be laid upon the land at any season, but the application in 

 late fall or early winter, so as to secure the action of frost, will give better 

 results. This is especially true of grass lands. For grain crops it may 

 be applied at the time of seeding, or it may be plowed or harrowed in, 

 as suits convenience. 



R. C. KEDZIE. 



