FARMERS' REGISTER. 



247 



as 88 per cent. ; and as this was the only one so 

 poor, by 6 per cent., I suspected (hat it lind not 

 been sufficiently freed from water, in dryintj. 

 However, at any rate it is the richest and most 

 valuable marl I have ever known, and the easiest 

 to be used. The stone, of course, would require 

 to be burnt ; and it will yield excellent lime, /or 

 cement or for manure. 



The lowest parts of this body of land, not j^et 

 cleared, are swamp, called " while oaks ;" nor 

 because white oak is their general growth, and 

 indeed it is very rare there — hut because such are 

 the only places on which a white oak tree can be 

 found in this part of the country. These swamps 

 are covered wiih the trees that are most favored 

 elsewhere by the richest, stiff", alluvial, and wet 

 bottom lands. The calcareous bed lies near the 

 surface of all these swamps or "white oak" lands. 



Dr. McRee has taken great pains to introduce 

 grass husbandry on his land, and his clover is won- 

 derfully productive. That sown on the first of 

 March, 1839, was fit to mow, and was mown for 

 hay the same year, in July, and the hay sold and 

 delivered in market within eight months of the 

 sowing of the seed. This is a remarkable proof 

 of the admirable fitness of the soil for clover; and 

 it was particularly valued by me, as the strongest 

 knovim proof of what I have so often maintained, 

 that if the soil be but made calcareous, the warmth 

 of climate ol' North Carolina, or even farther south, 

 is no bar to profitable clover culture. Before my 

 practice proved otherwise (afer marling) it was 

 as firmly believed that lower Virginia was too hot 

 to produce clover to profit, as it is now senerally 

 (and as erroneously) believed of lands 200 miles 

 more southward. 



But though the calcareous deposite beneath the 

 Rocky Point lands is richer and more easily acces- 

 sible, than any known elsewhere, it is but the 

 most remarkable case of a formation that is 

 spread through a vast region of the slate, accessi- 

 ble throughout a great part of its extent, and 

 which would be highly profitable to be used 

 wherever it can be obtained. I knew before that 

 marl had been found along the Neuse and some of 

 the upper waters of the Chowan, and that it had 

 been used to some small extent by a few indivi- 

 duals ; and I inferred, that if sought for, it might 

 be found at some greater or less depth, almost 

 every where between the granite range and the 

 sea coast. But 1 had never heard of a single 

 actual discovery farther south than the borders of 

 the Neuse and Trent. In addition to what I saw in 

 Wilmington, (though the stratum of marl there is 

 thin, and the limestone poor,) and at Ashemoore 

 and the surrounding lands, I learned from Major 

 Gwynne, the able engineer who directed the con- 

 struction of the Wilmington railway, that marl was 

 found in the wells dug at the water stations of that 

 road, through the distance of 60 miles from Wil- 

 mington. And this marl lies either under, or near 

 enough for transportation to the wretched pine 

 lands, which, wretched as they now are, need but to 

 be marled to become valuable and productive under 

 tillage. I may now, as heretofore, nrge this im- 

 provement, for this region, in vain ; but a time will 

 come when the value of this neglected means oC 

 improvement will be properly appreciated in North 

 Carolina, and when the putting it in use will add 

 millions of dollars to the productive wealth of this 

 region, which, of all within my knowledge, is 



most favored by nature, and the favors so offered 

 are most slighted by man. And though I have not 

 yet seen the continuation of this region through 

 South Carolina and Georgia, I entertain no doubt 

 but that my remarks would there be applicable. 



It would seem as if the Rocky Point land; so 

 deservedly noted hereabout for its fertility, owes 

 its value to its being so thinly sjiread over the cal- 

 careous deposite, that the two earths have neces- 

 sarily become mixed, by various natural causes. 

 When the roots of trees, and even small plants, 

 can strike through the upper poor soil and into the 

 marl below, the parts of the latter which are taken 

 up into the plants, at their death and decay are 

 finally left on the surface. Thus, in the lapse of 

 ages, the surface, no matter how destitute of lime, 

 and how poor, must thus be made calcareous and 

 rich. But not so if the surface soil be but six or 

 even four feet above the marl, and cut off by a bar- 

 ren intervening subsoil, which the roots of plants 

 are not able to pass through. Then the soil will re- 

 main poor; and so it would, even if within a foot 

 of the marl below, but for the operation of plants 

 or animals in bringing up the marl to the surface. 



In accordance with tiiese views, where the 

 land is higher, it is very inferior to the best kind ; 

 and at a lew miles from the river, a still higher 

 elevation of surface becomes either the ordinary 

 poor pine forest land of New Hanover county, or 

 savanna, of which 1 shall speak presently. 



The texture of the calcareous substratum of the 

 Rocky Point lands is altogether different from any 

 of the numerous marl beds I have seen in Vir- 

 ginia. In chemical constitution, and in hardness, 

 much of the former may be properly called by its 

 common name of " limestone ;" and by (he same 

 tests the balance might be called chalk, slightly 

 adulterated, and tinged with a very little foreign 

 matter. But geologists, I believe, do not admit 

 any true chalk to be in this country ; and the con- 

 cretion of shells to a stony hardness, cannot make 

 the limestone so called in mineralogy. However, 

 in agricultural sense and use, they are truly what 

 these names would imply. 



II' the people of Carolina who have the means 

 of marling would apply the lesson afforded here, 

 it might be considered that here God had marled, 

 and thereby enriched the land, and had thus re- 

 vealed to man the mode of improvement. The 

 enriching of these lands was effected simply by 

 natural marling, with the additional aid of fi-eedom 

 from exhaustion, and thereby the accumulation, 

 and fixing in the soil, of as much vegetable mat- 

 ter as the calcareous ingredient could combine 

 with. 



The limepfone is not disposed with any regular- 

 ity as to the softer marl. Isolated masses of the 

 former, of various sizes, are seen scattered over 

 the best fields ; and sometimes the stone, and 

 sometimes the chalk is nearest to the surface, or 

 the one over the other. The ditches generally 

 reach the calcareous substratum. When in the 

 chalk or marl, the excavation is easy enough. 

 But when the stone is opposed, blasting by gun- 

 powder is necessary to open the ditch. I saw in 

 two ditches where this last had been done, for 

 stretches of 200 to 300 yards each. Still, Dr. 

 McRee told me that this ditching by blasting was 

 not very diflicult, and, as he thouirht, was not more 

 expensive of labor, than to ditch through newly 

 cleared forest land. There are some other unex- 



