^46 



CALCAREOUS MANURES— APPENDIX. 



increase to the acre, if supposing the effect to be but temporary ; and this 

 all would have inferred, whether judging by comparison with all other 

 manures known in practice, or even if by the authority of books. For the 

 best informed of the old writers, (even Lord Karnes, for example,) while 

 claiming for the effects of marl great durability, still consider that at some 

 period, say 20 or 100 years, the effects are to cease. But my views were 

 not limited within any practical experience, or authority, but bj'- my own 

 theory of the action ; and that theory taught me to infer that the beneiit 

 gained would never be lost, and that under proper cultivation, the increase 

 of product would still more increase, instead of being lessened in the course 

 of time. In thus fully confiding in the permanency of the improvement, 

 I was at once convinced of the operation being both cheap and profitable. 

 All doubt and hesitation were thrown aside, and 1 determined to increase 

 my labors in marling to the utmost extent of my views. Still the want 

 of spare labor, and the established routine of farm operations which 

 occupied all the force, retarded my operations so much, that no more than 

 12 more acres (for the next year's crop) were marled in that year. 



It forms an essential part of the character of an enthusiastic and suc- 

 cessful projector, and especially an agricultural projector, to be as anxious 

 to inform others as to profit himself. Of course 1 tried to bestow upon and 

 share my lights with all my neighbors and other farmers whom my then 

 secluded life permitted me to meet. This disposition also caused my earliest 

 attempt at writing for even so small a portion of the public as constituted 

 a little agricultural society of which 1 had induced the establishment in my 

 neighborhood. To show my earliest opinions and statements on this sub- 

 ject, I will here quote the material part of a communication made to that 

 society, and which was written in October of the year of my first experi- 

 ment in 1818. I copy the extract just as it then stood, and with all its 

 defects of form and of sul^stance. I then shrunk in fear from the greater 

 publicity which the press would have afforded, and had not the remotest 

 anticipation that my first effort, then made, would lead me to the extent of 

 intercourse since established and maintained witli the public, both by writ- 

 ing and printing. 



" We should be induced to infer Ironi the remarks of those writers who 

 have treated on the improvement of land, that a soil artificially enriched is 

 equally valuable with one which would produce the same amount of crop 

 from its natural fertility; and that a soil originally good, but impoverished 

 by injudicious cultivation, is no better than if it never liad been rich. If 

 this conclusion be just (and the contrary has not been even hinted by them) 

 it is in direct contradiction to the opinion of many intelligent practical farm- 

 ers, with whom my own observations concur, in pronouncing that soils na- 

 turally rich, (although completely worn out,) will sooner recover by rest — 

 can be enriched with less manure — and will longer lesist the eftects of the 

 severest course of cropping, than soils of as good apparent texture and 

 constitution, and in similar situations, but poor before they were brought 

 into cultivation. Should the latter opinion be correct, it is of the utmost 

 importance that the subject should be investigated ; as the only conclusion 

 that can be drawn from it is, that such land must have some secret defect 

 in its constitution, some principle adverse to improvement ; and until this is 

 discovered and corrected, it is an almost hopeless undertaking to make a 

 barren country permanently fertile, by means of animal and vegetable 

 manure. 



" That inclosmg* has but little effect in improving land naturally barren, 



* The non-grazing system of Taylor. 



