CALCAREOUS MANURES—PKACTICE, 1 1 \ 



by our sandy soil, and hot and dry summers. But after the true evil, tha 

 acid nature of the soil, is removed by marling, clover ceases to be a feeble 

 exotic. It is at once naturalized on our soil, and is able to contend with 

 rival plants, and to undergo every severity and change of season, as safely 

 as our crops of corn and wheat — and offers to our acceptance the fruition 

 of those hopes of profit and improvement from clover, with which pre- 

 viously v,'e had only been deluded. 



After much waste of seed and labor, and years of disappointed eflforts, 

 I abandoned clover as utterly hopeless. But after marling the fields on 

 which the raising of clover had been vainly attempted, there arose from its 

 scattered and feeble remains, a growth which served to prove that its cul- 

 tivation would then be safe and profitable. It has since been gradually ex- 

 tended over all the fields. It will stand well, and maintain a healthy growth 

 on the poorest marled land ; but the crop is too scanty for mowing, or per- 

 haps for profit of any kind, on most poor sandy soils, unless aided by gyp- 

 sum. .Wewly cleared lands yield better clover than the old, thoUgh the 

 •latter may produce as heavy grain crops. The remarkable crops of clover 

 raised on very poor clay soils, after marling, have been alread)^ described. 

 This grass, even without gypsum, and still more if aided by that manure, 

 will add greatly to the improving power of marl; but it may do as much 

 harm as service, if we greedily take from the soil nearly all of the supply 

 of putrescent matter which it affords. 



Some other plants, less welcome than clover, are equally favored by 

 marling. Unless both the tillage and the rotation of crops be good, green- 

 sward (poa pratensis,) blue grass {poa compr.essa,) wire grass {cynodon 

 dactylon,) and partridge pea (vicia sativa,) will soon increase so as to be 

 not less impediments to bad tillage, or to the grain crops, than mani- 

 fest evidences of an entire change in the character and power of the soil. 



The power of calcareous manures is still more strongly shown in the 

 eradication of certain plants, as has been before incidentally mentioned. 

 Sorrel (j'umex acetosus,) is the most plentiful and injurious weed on the 

 cultivated acid soils of lower Virginia; an unmixed growth of poverty 

 grass {aristida gracilis and a. diclioloma) is spread over all such lands, a 

 year after being left at rest ; at a somewhat later time broom-grass {an- 

 dropogon) of different kinds covers them completely ; and if suffered to 

 remain unbroken a few years longer a thick growth of young pines will 

 succeed. But as soon as such land is sufficiently and properly marled, 

 there remains no longer the peculiar disposition or even power of the soil 

 to produce these plants. Sorrel is totally removed, and poverty grass no 

 more is to be found, where both in their turn before had entire possession. 

 The appearance of a single tuft of either of these plants is enough to prove 

 that the acid quality of the soil on that spot still remains, and that either 

 more marl, or more complete intermixture, is still wanting. Thus, the pre- 

 sence of either of these plants is the most unerring as well as most conve- 

 nient and ready indication of a soil wanting calcareous m.anure. The most 

 laborious analyses, by the most able chemists, directed to ascertain the dif- 

 ferent characters of soils in this respect, are not to be compared for accu- 

 racy to the tests furnished by either Ihe appearance or total absence of 

 sorrel or poverty grass. In regard to broom-grass and pines, the change 

 is not so sudden, nor complete ; but still the soil will have been made mani- 

 festly unfriendly to both. Some striking apparent exceptions to these rules 

 have caused some persons to doubt of their correctness ; when full exa- 

 mination of the circumstances would have confirmed my positions. I have 

 known a mere top-dressing of marl, left for some years on a worn-out old 

 field, to eradicate the before general growth of broom-grass, and substitute 



