694 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 11 



cent manure should be given to the land, propor- 

 tioned to the products carried off — that the soil 

 should not be overburdened with exhausting crops 

 — otherwise it loses its fertility, and especially that 

 portion which it had at first derived from the marl- 

 ing. The blame is charged to the marl, when it 

 ought to be laid upon the greedy and injudicious 

 cultivator. 



Marling and liming have been kept up in Eng- 

 land, when they had almost ceased in France. 

 This remarkable fact can also be easily explained. 

 In France, the general system of husbandry is es- 

 pecially designed to produce grain crops; and they 

 have profited by the new powers given to the soil 

 by these manures, to raise much grain without 

 thinking of returning a proportional quantity of 

 manure, and consequently, the soil has been over- 

 burdened and fatigued: new applications of the 

 same manures have had no effect in renewing pro- 

 ductiveness, and marl and lime have been aban- 

 doned — except in such provinces as Flanders and 

 Normandy, where agriculture has given putres- 

 cent manures to the soil, by reason of the nature 

 of i's products. 



In England, the system of agriculture was gen- 

 erally productive of putrescent manures. Marl 

 and lime have increased the forage crops, as well 

 as grain, so that the soil, instead of being exhaust- 

 ed by marl and lime, is enriched; and they have 

 continued to use the means which gave the first 

 impulse to fecundity. 



The soils which marl suits. 



Marl acts by the carbonate of lime which it car- 

 ries to the soil — for the argil alone produces none 

 but a mechanical effect. The smallest quantity 

 of the calcareous principle is felt in a soil which 

 before contained none; but on calcareous soils, its 

 application is more often injurious: it does not then 

 suit any soils but those in which that principle is 

 deficient. We have seen that such soils are of 

 great extent in France, and that they are met with 

 almost every where. The analysis of the soil is 

 doubtless the most sure means for knowing their 

 composition; but this process is opposed by diffi- 

 culties beyond the control of the farmer. The ex- 

 terior characters, the effervescence in acids, the 

 facility of its melting down in water, are means 

 of judging of soils in this respect: but, without 

 doubt, the application of a few loads of marl to the 

 soil, beibre the sowing of autumn or spring, would 

 serve to decide the question better than any other 

 mode of trial. 



Marling in various countries. 



There is still more of variation in the rate of 

 marling than of liming. The origin of marling, 

 in most countries, was due to chance: the earth 

 raked up in some places, and from ditches and 

 w T el!s, has been spread upon the soil, and has 

 sometimes produced an unexpected fertility. If 

 the cultivator is active and enterprising, he treats 

 in like manner his other grounds — his neighbors 

 are inspired with confidence in the operation, and 

 marling is extended. But still the procedure is 

 regulated, as it was first commenced, by chance 

 merely — and the dressings are almost always too 

 heavy, because the cultivators cannot believe that 

 • 



they can give to the soil too much of this fertil- 

 izinar substance, which costs them so little. 



We do not find between the English and 

 French marlings the same disparity' as between 

 their limings, as to the amount of the doses given: 

 but what we ought especially to imitate of the 

 English practice, is the association of putrescent 

 manures with marl, a usage but little known in 

 France, but frequent enough with the English 

 farmers, especially for second marlings. Their 

 dressings are more or less heavy, according as 

 they are designed for the first or the second marl- 

 ing: the first make a layer of from lour to five 

 lines of thickness over the surface, and the se- 

 cond of one to two lines at most.* The dressings 

 succeed each other every 15 or 20 years. They 

 vary in quantity according to the consistence of 

 the soils, and the richness and poverty of the marl. 

 In some places, they marl the pasture lands, and 

 the meadows not watered. In the parishes where 

 both marl and lime are used, they apply the for- 

 mer to the grass lands, and the latter to increase 

 the grain crops. Marling has changed the face 

 of many counties: Norfolk, formerly covered with 

 heaths and wastes of sand, is become, in conse- 

 quence of marling, the region of pattern agricul- 

 ture — the best cultivated and most productive in 

 England. 



A stony m ;rl, under the name of limestone gra- 

 vel, fertilizes a great extent of land in Ireland: it 

 has been put on in such heavy dressings, that it. 

 has entirely changed the nature of the soil, and 

 will no more need to be repeated. 



In Germany, marlings are less ancient than in 

 England; and there, they have excited much con- 

 troversy. The farmers have profited eagerly^ 

 some say imprudently, of the new productiveness 

 given to the land: they have especially, in Hol- 

 stein, and its neighborhood, produced m.ich rape. 

 From this course, some agricultural writers have 

 threatened exhaustion; but already more than a 

 quarter of a century has passed away, and the 

 productiveness of the soil is still sustained. 



The marlings in Flanders are of as ancient date 

 as their limings: they have there become a regu- 

 lar operation of husbandry, and amount to 22 two- a 

 horse cart loads of a very rich stony marl. This * 

 dose is equal nearly to 500 cubic feet to the hec- 

 tare, covers the ground about two-thirds of a line, 

 and forms an hundredth part of the tilled depth of 

 the soil. The arrondissements of Dunkerque and 

 of Hazebrouk, use marl upon two-thirds of their 

 surface, and the other arrondissements use it in 

 less quantity, because they apply more lime, and 

 because they are obliged, in part, to draw their 

 marl from the neighborhood of St. Omer. It - 

 costs them from four to six franksf the cart load, 

 because it is often drawn from many leagues dis- 

 tance, after a transportation by water. They re- 

 new the marlings every twenty or thirty )-ears. 

 This marling costs thrice as much as the liming 

 upon lands altogether similar — that is, from four 

 to six franks the hectare, and for each year on an 



*Twelve lines make one inch: but as before stated, 

 the French foot, and of course its parts, exceed the 

 English (and our) measure of the same names as 

 1.066 to 1 000. 



f The frank is about 19 cents of our money. 



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