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effects of the beach sand are strikingly exhibited uyon Wardell's 

 farm, a Utile north of Long Branch: no less decided results are 

 also witnessed on the farm of Jacob Curlis, at Deal. The most 

 sterile patches of sandy soil are made to yield very abundant 

 crops of corn by the use of this powerful agent. The quantity 

 of the beach sand applied, is often as great as two hundred loads 

 to the acre; but the facilities for procuring and spreading it are 

 very great. It is obviously a point of importance to discover 

 those portions of the beach where the green matter is most abun- 

 dant; for there are spots which are much darker than the rest from 

 this cause. Experience has already taught that the sand gathered 

 after the heavy storms of the winter, is the most efficient, a fact 

 countenancing the notion that the green grains are cast up by the 

 beating of the surf. The high degree of fertilizing power pos- 

 sessed by the beach sand, upon both the clayey and dry sandy 

 soils of this portion of the sea-board, goes far towards establish- 

 ing several very essential points in the doctrine previously ad- 

 vanced concerning the cause of the enriching qualities of the 

 greensand. It clearly demonstrates, in the first place, that the 

 efficacy of the marl lies mainly in these green granules, and not, 

 as many imagine, in the shells and other foreign substances dis- 

 covered occasionally in the bed. It moreover decides the point, 

 that the more essential and permanent properties of this mineral 

 are in no way connected with the gypsum, or with the carbonate 

 of lime, which so frequently form a coating upon the green grains. 

 Both of these incrusting matters, should they exist in the stratum 

 from which the granules are derived, are too easily dissolved by 

 the water which incessantly washes the shore, to remain in the 

 sand in the smallest appreciable quantity. 



We are Ibrced, therefore, to ascribe the usefulness of the green 

 mineral to its potash, the only ingredient of an alkaline action 

 which is always present and which is essential to its composition. 



Another important consideration is, that the marl or green 

 mineral loses nothing of its potency by a long exposure, even of 

 years, to water and the atmosphere; in other words, that it is not 

 dissolved, or decomposed, or changed, by the ordinary atmosphe- 

 ric agents which react so powerfully upon many other minerals. 

 We are to regard it, therefore, as nearly unchangeable until the 

 roots of the plants come in contact with it, cause its decomposi- 



