260 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



pect, may be confidently counted upon. In my 

 own earlier practice — and Taylor had no greater 

 admirer, or more implicit follower — 1 Ibund my 

 farm-yard manurings on acid soils scarcely lo 

 pay the expense of application, and to leave no 

 trace of the effect after a very &hort time. And land 

 allowed to receive (or its support all its vegeiable 

 growth (of weeds and natural grass) of iwo and 

 a half years in every four, and the proJucls in 

 corn having been measured and compared, show- 

 ed no certain increase in more than twenty years 

 of such mild treatment. Since, on the same 

 fields, farm-yard manures, in every mode of pre- 

 paration and application, always tell well, both 

 in early effect and in duration. And even the 

 leaves raked up on wood-land, spread immediately 

 and without any preparation, as top-dressing on 

 clover, always produce most manifest improve- 

 ment, and are believed to give more net profit 

 than any application of the much richer farm 

 yard manure, per acre, made on like land before 

 it was marled. This utilizing and fixing of other 

 manures, and the fitting land to produce clover, 

 which effects of marling are in adfiilion to all the 

 direct benefit produced, would alone serve to give 

 a new face to the agriculture of the country. 

 Whatever may be done by clover, and almost 

 every thing that can be done to profit by vegeta- 

 ble manures, on the much larger proportion of the 

 lands of lower Virginia, will be due to the applica- 

 tion of marl or lime. 



IV. Liming. 



.The kindred improvement by liming began to 

 be extensively practised on some of the best 

 James river lands, where no marl was found, 

 soon after the use of the latter began to extend. 

 Who may have made the earliest and small appli- 

 cations of lime is not known, nor is it at all im- 

 portant. The earlier profitable use of lime in 

 Pennsylvania, and the much earlier and more 

 extended use in Britain, were known to every well- 

 informed or reading farmer. Such a one was 

 Fielding Lewis of Charles City, as well as a 

 moat attentive, judicious, and successful practical 

 cultivator and improver. He is believed to have 

 been the earliest considerable limer, and the one 

 who obtained the most manifest profits therefrom, 

 and whose example had most effect in spreading 

 the practice. Some of his disciples and followers 

 have since, in greater rapidity and wider extent 

 of operations, far surpassed their teacher and 

 leader — to whom, however, they award the high- 

 est meed of praise for bringing into use, and esta- 

 blishing this great benefit to the afjriculture of 

 lower Virginia. Nearly all the best soils on 

 James river are comparatively of low level, as 

 if of ancient alluvial formation, and have no marl 

 with which the neighboring higher and poorer 

 lands are mostly supplied. Of such rich lands, are 

 the farms of Weyanoke, Sandy Point, Westover, 

 and Shirley, &c., in Charles City, and Brandon 

 (Upper and Lower,) in Prince George— and on 

 all tfj^e lands, as well as some other, lime has 

 been rargely applied. The use is extending to 

 the lands on all the tide waters of the state ; and 

 it has recently received a new impulse from the 

 low price at which northern stone-lime is now 

 brought and sold. It is ready slaked, and the 

 vessels are loaded in bulk. The lime is sold on 

 James river at 10 cents the bushel, and even may 



be contracted for at 8 cents, from vessels that 

 come (or cargoes of wood, and wou'd come empty 

 but for bringing lime. The greater lightness and 

 cheaper transportation of lime, will enable it to 

 be applied where marl could not be carried with 

 profit; and with the two, there will be but little 

 of lower Virginia which may not be profitably 

 improved by calcareous manures. 



V. Litrodiiclion of clover, and its application 

 directly as manure. 



As has been already observed, incidentally, the 

 clover culture of Virginia is due to the previous 

 use of calcareous manures. Wiihout enough of 

 lime, or some combination of lime, to constitute 

 a really good soil, and still more on sandy lands, 

 as most are in lower Virginia, it is almost im- 

 possible to raise clover at all, and always unpro- 

 fitable to attempt it in field culture, and as part 

 o( a regular rotation. It is true, that on some of 

 the best and richest natural soils, such as were 

 just above named, and on the repeatedly and long 

 manured house lots of worse original soils, some 

 good clover had been made. But even there, 

 the products were precarious. Field culture of 

 clover was out of all question, and failed where- 

 ver attempted in lower Virginia, except on the 

 best and very peculiar natural soils. It may even 

 be doubted whether it was any where so produc- 

 tive, and so certain, as to be a profitable and re- 

 gular manuring crop of the rotation. But after 

 marling or liming, clover grew much better on 

 the few places on which only it could be raised 

 at all before, and it also became a crop as sure as 

 any other, and naluralized as it were, on the be- 

 fore foreign and altogether unsuitable soils. It is 

 true that marl or lime, alone, will not produce 

 heavy crops of clover on very light or other very 

 poor land. But even there, a good and healthy 

 "stand" of clover is readily obtained, the plants 

 taking and keeping possession of the ground, and 

 are fit to be raised to a heavy crop by other 

 auxiliary means — such as putrescent manures, 

 and also gypsum, and perhaps green-sand. For 

 according to the present feeble and uncertain 

 lights on both the latter substances, the balance 

 of testimony, furnished by my own experience 

 and the operations of other persons in lower 

 Virginia, is in favor of their acting well as ma- 

 nures on clover generally on naturally calcareous 

 or marled and limed land, as well as of their hav- 

 ing no useful effect an acid soils. 



Clover is a most valuable addition to the com- 

 forts and minor profiis of a farm, and also as an 

 indirect fertilizer, by increasing the supply of 

 animal manure. But its great benefit is different 

 from, and superior to all these — and is to be se- 

 cured by the crop being turned into the soil, and 

 thus eervins directly as manure lor the crop of 

 wheat to be sown thereupon. This process of 

 culture, and mode of manuring, though not ori- 

 ginal in lower Virrjinia, but derived l>om the up- 

 per country, is believed to be peculiar to the 

 United States. For though it be called by the 

 same name, (fallow,) as is the best preparation 

 for wheat in Britain, the two processes, and their 

 designed and actual effects, are altogether dif- 

 ferent. In Britain, the object is to cleanse a field 

 which had became foul with the grass and weeds 

 which had been encouraged to grow and take 

 possession of the land, by the moist climate, and 



