CxVLCAllEOUS MANURES-PRACTICE. ]()Q 



and that no grazing be permitted on poor lands under regular tillage, and 

 which have no supply of putrescent manure, except the grass and weeds 

 growing on them, while at rest. AVherever farm-yard manure is used, the 

 land should be marled heavily, and if the marl is applied first, so much the 

 better. The marl cannot act by fixing the other manure, except so far as 

 they are in contact, and when both are well mixed with the soil. 



When I first asserted the agency and force of calcareous manures in 

 fixing alimentary manures in soils, and maintained the great and indispen- 

 sable necessity of that operation, the proposition was founded almost ex- 

 clusively on reasoning, and on observation of natural soils, and not at all on 

 practical effects experienced from applications of marl or lime. From the 

 very nature of the case, such effects as these, however important and 

 valuable, could not be seen at first, nor fully even in a very few years after be- 

 ginning to marl, nor their extent understood and appreciated. Moreover, 

 my earlier experience had shown so fully the incapacity of my acid or na- 

 turally poor soils to retain alimentary manures, and my labors and expendi- 

 tures to apply them had been so very unprofitable, that I was not myself 

 prepared for the full extent of the contrary operation, after marl had been 

 applied. And though the views and estimation of such new operation 

 have been yearly enlarging, from the experience of practical results, yet 

 even when the last edition of this work was published, my estimate of the 

 Jixing value of marl fell short of what is now confidently believed, and 

 which is every season manifest, of the greater effect and permanency, and 

 far greater profit of alimentary manures, caused solely by the presence of 

 calcareous earth in the same soils. Notwithstanding that the theory of the 

 action of calcareous manures, as set forth in this essay, and published as 

 early as 1821, made this fixing operation the first of the two most import- 

 ant agencies, and though that theoretical view guided my practice from the 

 beginning, still it was not until after a long time, that gradually and slowly 

 I fully and truly estimated the value and profit of this operation. My early 

 and zealous efforts (before beginning to marl) to improve naturally poor 

 lands by the vegetable and animal manures of the farm, had been so much 

 disappointed, and the effects had been so inconsiderable as well as so fleet- 

 ing, that it was long before I arrived at the conviction of the full extent of 

 the opposite and new condition of the soil. But during latter years, the 

 certain and profitable operation, and durable operation, of every kind of 

 vegetable or alimentary manure, no matter how or when applied, has been 

 made obvious ; and now my estimate of value would be, that if marling 

 had no other operation whatever than this one of making other manures 

 much more active and durable, the profit from this one source alone would 

 amply reward all the usual labors and expenses of marling. 



On » galled" spots, from which all the soil has been washed, and where no 

 plant can live, the application of marl alone is utterly useless; at least, 

 until time and accident shall furnish some addition of vegetable matter 

 also. Putrescent manures alone would there have but little effect, unless 

 in great quantity, and would soon be all lost. But marl and putrescent 

 matter together serve to form a new soil, and thus both are brought into 

 useful action ; the marl is made active, and the putrescent manure perma- 

 nent. The only perfect cures, that I have been able to make, at one opera- 

 tion, of galls produced upon a barren subsoil, were by applying a heavy 

 dressing of both calcareous and putrescent manures together; and this 

 method may be relied on as certainly effectual. But though a fertile soil 

 may thus be created, and fixed durably on galls otherwise irreclaimable, 

 the cost will generally exceed the value of the land recovered, from the 

 great quantity of putrescent matter required. Much of our acid hilly land 



