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CALCAREOUS MANURES— PKACTICii. 129 



cultivation. Let us suppose that the preparations have been made, and, on 

 the first opportunity, a farmer commences marling with zeal and spirit. But 

 every new labor is attended by causes of difficulty and delay, and a full 

 share of these will be found in the first few days of marling. The road is 

 soft, for want of previous use, and, if the least wet, soon becomes miry. 

 The horses, unaccustomed to carting, balk at the hills, or only carry half 

 loads. Other ditficulties occur from the awkwardness of the laborers and 

 the inexperience of their master, and still more from the usual unwilling- 

 ness of his overseer to devote any labor to improvements which are not 

 expected to add to the crop of that year. Before matters can get straight, 

 the leisure time is at an end ; and the woi'k is stopped, and the road and pit 

 are left to get out of order, before making another attempt, some six months 

 after, when all the same vexatious difficulties are again to be encountered. 



If only a single horse is employed in drawing marl tliroughout the 

 year, at the moderate allowance of tVvO hundred working days, and one 

 hundred bushels carried out for each, his year's work will amount to 

 twenty thousand bushels, or enough for more than sixty acres. This alone 

 would be a great object effected. But, besides, this plan would allow the 

 profitable employment of any amount of additional labor. When, at any 

 time, other teams and laborers could be spared to assist, though for only a 

 few days, every thing is ready for them to go immediately to work. The 

 pit is drained, the road is firm, and the field marked off" for the loads. In 

 this way much labor may be obtained in the course of the year, from 

 teams that would otherwise be idle, and laborers whose other employments 

 would be of but little importance. The spreading of marl on the field is 

 a job that will always be ready to employ any spare labor ; and throwing 

 off the covering earth from an intended digging of marl may be done 

 when rain, snow, or severe cold has rendered the earth unfit for almost 

 every other kind of labor. 



Another interesting question respecting the expense of this improvement 

 is, to what distance from the pit may marl be profitably carried 1 If the 

 amount of labor necessary to carry it half a mile is known, it is easy to 

 calculate how much more will be required for two or three miles. The 

 cost of teams and drivers is in proportion to the distance travelled, but the 

 pit and field labors are not affected by that circumstance. At present, when 

 so much poor land, abundantly supplied with fossil shells, may be bought 

 at from two dollars to four dollars the acre, a farmer had better buy and 

 marl a new farm, than to move marl even two miles to his land in posses- 

 sion.* But this would be merely declining one considerable profit, for the 

 purpose of taking another much greater. Whenever the value of marl shall 

 be properly understood, and our lands are priced according to their improve- 

 ment, or their capability of being improved from that source, as must 

 be the case hereafter, then this choice of advantages will no longer be 

 offered. Then rich marl will be profitably carted miles from the pits, and 



* This statement of prices, though coripct when first published, is no longer so. 

 Some little land may yet be so low ; but, in general, the prices of lands having marl 

 have already advanced from 50 to 100 per cent, within 15 years. The lowest of the 

 above named prices was much above the former minimum rate. The various tracts of 

 land in James City county belonging to Mrs. Paradise's large estate, when sold 

 some 12 or 14 years ago, brought prices that averaged only about $1.25 the acre. Most 

 of the lands were poor, but easily improvable, and all having plenty of rich marl. One 

 of the tracts of that description, of 800 acres, was bought at 75 cents the acre ; and 

 after being held for three or four years, without being in any respect improved, was 

 resold by the purchaser for $2.50 the acre. Where marl has been actually applied, the 

 increased intrinsic or productive value of the land always considerably exceeds thein- 

 creased market price, even though the latter may be already doubled or tripled. 



