CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. JQS 



especially, have been most generally made by compiling and copying from 

 older ones. 



" Marie is a very excellent thing, commended of all that either write or practise any 

 thing in husbandry. There are several kinds of it, some stoiuj, soma soft, while, gray, 

 russet, yellow, blew, black, and some red : It is of a cold nature and saddens land ex- 

 ceedingly ; and very heavy it is, and will go downward, though not so much as lime 

 doth. The goodness or badness thereof is not known so much by the colour, as by the 

 purity and uncompoundness of it; lor if it will break into bits like a dye, or smooth 

 like lead-oar, without any composition of sand or gravel ; or if it will slake like slate- 

 stones, and slake or shatter alter a shower ol rain, or being exposed to the sun or air, 

 and shortly after turn to dust, when it's thoroughly dry again, and not congeal like tough 

 clay, question not the fruitfulness of it, notwithstanding the ditl'erence of colours, which 

 are no certain signs of the goodness of the marie. As for the slipjjcriness, viscousness, 

 fattiness, or oyliness thereof, although it be commonly esteemed a sign of good marie, 

 yet the best authors affirm the contrary— i!(z .• that there is very good marie which is 

 not so, but lieth in the mine pure, dry and short, yet nevertheless if you water it, you 

 will find it slippery. But the best and truest rule to know the richness and profit of 

 your marie, is to try a load or two on your lands, in several places and in different 

 proportions. 



" They usually lay the same on the small heaps, and disperse it over the whole field, as 

 they do their dung ; and this marie will keep the land whereon it is laid, in some places 

 ten or fifteen and in some places thirty year's in heart : it is most profitable in dry, light, 

 and barren lands, such as is most kind and natural foi rye, as is evident by Mr. Blithe's 

 experiment in his chapter of mark. It also affordeth not its verlue or strength the first 

 year, so much as in the subsequent years. It yields a very great increase and advantage 

 on high, sandy, gravelly, or mixed lands. Though never so barren, strong clay ground 

 js unsuitable to it ; yet if it can be laid dry, marie may be profitable on that also." 



The author then proceeds to direct the mode of application more parti- 

 cularly ; and if there were any doubt as to his total ignorance (or otherwise 

 denial) of calcareous earth being necessary to the constitution of marl, 

 that doubt would be removed by a subsequent sentence. 



"You shall observe, (saith Markham,) that if you cannot get dry, perfect, and rich 

 marie, if then you can get of that earth which is called fuller's earth, (and where the 

 one IS not, commonly the other is,) then you may use it in the same manner as you 

 should do marie, and it is found to be very near as profitable." 



Evelyn's Terra, or Philosophical Discourse of Earths, ^c, delivered be- 

 fore the Royal Society in 1675, has the following passage : 



"Of marie, (of a cold sad nature, a substance between clay and chalk,) seldom have 

 we such quantities in layers as we have of forementioned earth ; but we commonly 

 meet with it in places atfected to it, and 'tis taken out of pits, at difierent depths, and of 

 divers colours, red, white, gray, blue, ail of them unctuous, and of a slippery nature, 

 and differing in goodness ; for being pure and immixt, it sooner relents after a shower, 

 and when dryed again, slackens, and crumbles into dust, without induration, and grow- 

 ing hard a^-ain. They are profitable for barren grounds, as abounding in nitre; and 

 sometimes there has been found in marie, delfs, a vitriolic wood, which will kindle like 

 coal." 



The opinions expressed in the foregoing extracts, prove sufficiently that 

 it was not the ignorant cultivators only, who either did not know of, or at- 

 tached no importance to the calcareous ingredient in marl ; and it was im- 

 possible that, from any number of such authors, an American reader could 

 learn that either the object or the effect of marling was to render a soil 

 more calcareous — or that our bodies of fossil shells resembled marl in cha- 

 racter, or in operation as a manure. Of this, the following quotation will 

 furnish striking proof— and the more so as the author refers frequently to 

 the works of Anderson, and of Young, who treated of marl and of calca- 

 reous manures, in a more scientific manner than had been usual. This 

 author, Bordley, cannot be justly charged with inattention to the instruction 

 to be gained from books ; for his greatest fault, as an agriculturist, is his 



