134 CALCAREOUS MANURES-APPENDIX. 



fondness for applying the practices of the most improved husbandry of 

 England, to our lands and situations, however different and unsuitable — 

 which he carried to an extent that is ridiculous as theory, and would be 

 ruinous to the farmer who should so shape his general practice. 



8, " I faruied in a country [the Eastern Shore of Maryland] where habits are against a 

 due attention to manures : but having read ol' llie application of marl as a manure, I in- 

 quired where there was any in tlie peninsula of the thespeake in. vain. My own farm 

 liad a grayish clay wliich to the eye was marl : but because it did not effervesce with 

 acids, it was given up when it ought to liave been tried on the land, especially as it ra- 

 pidly crumbled and fell to mud, in water, with some appearance of eJfervescence." — 

 Bordley's Husbandry, 2nded., p. 55. 



That peninsula, through which Mr. Bordley in vain inquired for marl, has 

 immense quantities of the fossil shells which we so improperly call by that 

 name. But as his search was directed to viarl as described by English 

 authors— and not to calcareous earth simply— it is not to be wondered at 

 that he should neither find the former substance, nor attach enough impor- 

 tance to the latter, to induce the slightest remark on its probable use as 

 manure. 



9. The Practical Treatise on Husbandry, among the directions for im- 

 proving clay land, has what follows : 



" Sea sand and sea shells are used to great advantage as a manure, chiefly for cold strong 

 [i. 6. clay] land, and loam inclining to clay. They separate the parts ; and the salts 

 which are contained in them are a very great improvement to the land. Coral, and such 

 kind ol stony plants which giGW on the rocks, are filled with salts, which are very bene- 

 ficial to land. But as these bodies are Lard, the improvement is not the first or second 

 year after t):ey are laid on the ground, because they require lime to pulverize them, 

 before their salts can mix with the earlh to impregnate il. The consequence of this is, 

 that their manure is lasting. Sand, and the smaller kind o( sea v%'eeds, will enrich land 

 for six or seven years ; and shells, coral, and other hard bodies, will continue many years 

 longer. 



" In some countries/ossfZ shells have been used with success as manure ; but they are 

 not near so lull of salts, as those shells which are taken from the sea shore ; and therefore 

 the latter are always to be preferred. Sea sand is much used as manure in Cornwall. 

 The best is that which is intimately mixed with coral.'' — p. 21. 



After stating the manner in which this "excellent manure" is taken up from 

 the bottom, in barges, its character is thus continued : 



" It [i. e. the sea sand mixed with coral, as it may happen,] gives the heat of lime, and 

 the fatness of oil, to the land it is laid upon. Being more solid than shells, it conveys a 

 greater quantity of fermenting earth in equal space. Besides, it does not dissolve in the 

 ground so soon as shells, but decaying more gradually, continues longer to impart its 

 warmth to the juices of the earth." 



Here are described manures which are known to be calcareous, which 

 are strongly recommended-- but solely for their supposed mechanical effect 

 in separating the parts of close clays, and on account of the salts derived 

 from sea water, which they contain. Indeed, no allusion is made to any 

 supposed value, or even to the presence of calcareous earth, which forms 

 so large a proportion of these manures : and the fossil shells, (in which that 

 ingredient is more abundant, more finely reduced, and consequently more 

 fit for both immediate and durable effects,) are considered as less efficacious 

 than solid sea shells— and inferior to sea sand. All these substances, be- 

 sides whatever service their salts may render, are precisely the same kind 

 of calcareous manure, as our beds of fossil shells furnish in a different 

 form. Yet neither here nor elsewhere, does the author intimate that these 

 manures and marl have similar powers for improving soils. 



The foregoing quotations show what opinions have been expressed by 

 English writers of reputation— and what opinion would be formed by a 



