30 CALCAREOUS MANURES— THEORY. 



But there is one ingredient of whicii not the smallest proportion can be 

 found in any of our poor soils, and which, wherever found, indicates a soil 

 remarkable for natural and durable fertility. This is calcareous earth, or 

 carbonate of lime. These facts alone, if sustained, will go far to prove 

 that this earth is the cause of fertility, and the cure for barrenness. 



On some part of most farms touching tide-water, either muscle or oyster 

 shells are found mixed with the soil. Oyster shells are confined to the 

 lands on salt water, where they are very abundant, and sometimes extend 

 through large fields. Higher up the rivers, muscle shells only are to be 

 seen thus deposited by nature, or by the aboriginal inhabitants, and they 

 decrease as we approach the falls of the rivers. The proportion of shelly 

 land in the counties highest on tide-water is very small ; but the small ex- 

 tent of these spots does not prevent, but rather aids, the exhibition of 

 the peculiar qualities of such soils. Spots of shelly land, not exceeding a 

 few acres in extent, could not well have been cultivated differently from the 

 balance of the fields of which they formed parts — and therefore they can 

 be better compared with the worse soils under like treatment. Every acre 

 of shelly land is, or has been, remarkable for its richness, and still more for 

 its durability. There are few farmers among us who have not heard de- 

 scribed tracts of shelly soil on Nansemond and York rivers, which are 

 celebrated for their long resistance of the most exhausting course of tillage, 

 and which still remain fertile, notwithstanding all the injury which they 

 must have sustained from their severe treatment. We are told that on 

 some of these lands, corn has been raised every successive year, without 

 any help from manure, for a longer time than the owners could remember, 

 or could be informed of correctly. But without relying on any such re- 

 markable cases, there can be no doubt that every acre of our shelly 

 land has been at least as much tilled, and as little manured, as any in the 

 country ; and that it is still the richest and most valuable of all our old 

 cleared lands. 



The fertile but narrow strips, along the banks of our rivers, (which form 

 the small portion of our high-land of first-rate quality,) seldom extend far 

 without exhibiting spots in which shells are visible, so that the eye alone 

 is sufficient to prove the soil of such places to be calcareous. The similari- 

 ty of natural growth, and of all other marks of character, are such, that 

 the observer might very naturally infer that the former presence of shells 

 had given the same valuable qualities to all these soils— but that they had 

 so generally rotted, and been incorporated with the other earths, that they 

 remained visible only in a few places, where they had been most abundant. 

 The accuracy of this inference will hereafter be examined. 



The natural growth of the shelly soils (and of those adjacent of similar 

 value) is entirely different from that of the great body of our lands. What- 

 ever tree thrives well on the one, is seldom found on the other class of soils 

 — or, if found, it shows plainly, by its imperfect and stunted condition, on 

 how unfriendly a soil it is placed. To the rich river margins are almost 

 entirely confined the black or wild locust, hackberry or sugar-nut tree, 

 and papaw. The locust is with great difficulty eradicated, or the newer 

 growth of it kept under on cultivated lands ; and from the remarkable ra- 

 pidity with which it springs up and increases in size, it forms a serious ob- 

 stacle to the cultivation of land on the river banks. Yet on the wood-land 

 only a mile or two from the river, not a locust is to be seen. Ob shelly 

 soils, pines and broom grass \_AndrojJOgon scoparius !~\ cannot thrive, and 

 are rarely able to maintain even the most sickly growth. 



Some may say that these striking differences of growth do not so much 

 show a difference in the constitution of the soils, as in their state of fertility ; 

 or that one class of the plants above named delights in rich, and the other 



