28 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



and two spades deep ; the bottom of the trench is then turned up 

 with a spade or three-pronged fork.&quot; The surface earth is then 

 thrown back, and a complete inversion of the soil takes place. 



In some cases, men are employed, at a season when labor is 

 to be had most cheaply, to marl or clay the lands with wheel 

 barrows, where the material is near at hand. The nearness of 

 the material to be applied, its quality and abundance, and the 

 price of labor, are all elements to be taken into the calculation, 

 where any such improvements of land are to be undertaken, as 

 well as the return to be expected, and the value of that return, 

 when obtained. I give in this case no accounts, which are 

 stated, of the actual or probable costs of such improvements, 

 because little or no practical use could accrue from such calcula 

 tions in the United States, where the price of labor and the 

 value of produce are so entirely different from what they are 

 here. 



The application of chalk to the improvement of land is often 

 and successfully made ; but, as I know of no deposits of chalk 

 in the United States, such a process can have little interest with 

 us. I have already referred to the practice, in Lincolnshire, of 

 chalking liberally chalk lands, or lands with only two inches or 

 more of decayed vegetable matter or soil, underlaid by pure 

 chalk. The same practice prevails in Hampshire ; but I know 

 no satisfactory reason to be given for it beyond that of giving 

 closeness and adhesiveness to the loose and light surface soil. 

 The effect of chalk is to bind land, without increasing its weight. 

 The same may be said of lime, and of mixtures of lime with 

 clay, as in calcareous marl. Though we have no deposits of 

 chalk in the United States, yet we have an abundance of lime, 

 and without doubt much calcareous and rich marl, yet to be dis 

 covered. The green sand of New Jersey, underlaying a large 

 portion of that arid and siliceous soil, arid extending along the 

 eastern shores of Virginia, has already, in some cases, effected 

 wonderful and valuable ameliorations, and those too of a perma 

 nent character ; and when its ultimate, and, if I may so say, its 

 moral as well as its chemical influences are considered, may be 

 deemed much more valuable than an underlaying of gold dust. 



Of the chemical influences of clay upon the soil, as yet, but 

 little seems determined. &quot; Potash,&quot; says Liebig, &quot; is present in 

 all clays ; according to Fuchs, it is contained even in marl ; it 



