CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. ] J 5 



auxiliary to improvement ought to have been in full use. 4th. From the 

 want of labor and capital to use both calcareous and putrescent manures, 

 the collecting and applying of the latter were almost entirely neglected as 

 long as there was full employment in marling. And, 5th. That general bad 

 practical management, which I have to admit has marked all my business, 

 has of course also affected injuriously this important branch— though in 

 a less degree, because it was as much as possible (until about 182G,) under 

 my personal and close ■ attention. With all these drawbacks to complete 

 success, I am able to state the following gejieral results of my operations. 

 Omitting the land on Coggins Point farm not susceptible of any considera- 

 ble or profitable improvement from marling, the great body of the farm 

 was tripled in productive power from 1818, when my first experiment was 

 made, to 1834. Particular bodies of soil now produce four-fold the former 

 amount without any other kind of manure ; and the whole farm, including 

 the parts least improved as well as the most, and allowing for the increase 

 of extent of surface, will now make more than double of its best product 

 before marling. Statements on this head, more in detail, will be given in 

 the Appendix. 



With all the increase of products that I have ascribed to marling, the 

 heaviest amounts stated may appear inconsiderable to farmers who till soils 

 more favored by nature. Corn yielding twenty-five or thirty bushels to 

 the acre, is doubled by many natural soils in the western states ; and ten 

 or twelve bushels of wheat, will still less compare with the product of the 

 best lime-stone clay land. The cultivators of our poor region, however, 

 know that such products, without any future increase, would be a prodi- 

 gious addition to their present gains. Still it is doubtful whether these re- 

 wards are sutficiently high to tempt many of my countrymen speedily to 

 accept them. The opinions of many farmers have been so long fixed, and 

 their habits are so uniform and unvarying, that it is difficult to excite them 

 to adopt any new plan of improvement, except by promises of profits so 

 great, that an uncommon share of credulity would be necessary to expect 

 their fulfilment. The net profits of marling, if estimated at twenty or even 

 fifty per cent, per annum, on the expense, for ever — or the assurance, by 

 good evidence, of doubling the crops of a farm in ten years or less — will 

 scarcely attract the attention of those who would embrace without any 

 scrutiny, a plan that promised five times as much. Hall's scheme for cul- 

 tivating corn was a stimulus exactly suited to their lethargic state ; and 

 that impudent Irish impostor found many steady old-fashioned farmers will- 

 ing to pay for his directions for making five hundred barrels of corn with- 

 out ploughing, and with the hand labor of two men only. 



The products and profits derived froni the use of marl as presented in 

 thfe preceding pages, considerable as they are, have been kept down, or 

 lessened in amount, by my tlien want of experience, and ignorance of the 

 danger of injudicious applications. My errors may at least enable others 

 to avoid similar losses, and thereby to reach equal profits with half the ex- 

 pense of time and labor. But are we to consider even the greatest known 

 increase of product that has been yet gained in a few years after marling, 

 as showing the full amount of improvement and profit to be derived 1 Cer- 

 tainly not; and if we may venture to leave the sure ground of practical ex- 

 perience, and look forward to what is promised by the theory of the opera- 

 tion of calcareous manures, we must anticipate future crops far exceeding 

 what have yet been obtained. To this, the ready objection may be oppos- 

 ed, that the sandiness of the greater part of our lands will always prevent 

 their being raised to a high state of productiveness— and particularly, that 

 no care nor improvement can make heavy crops of wheat on such soils. 



