MARKET. 



MARL. 



he is 8 years old. When he ceases to mark, it 

 is said he has rased. See AGE OF ANIMALS. 



The term is also applied to a common mode 

 of marking hogs, &c., in those parts of the 

 United States where they are allowed to run at 

 large, and where the owner fixes a mark upon 

 his property by cropping more or less of the 

 ears, slitting these into swallow-forks and 

 every other shape of mutilation. 



MARKET. In English law the liberty or 

 franchise, whereby a town is enabled to set up 

 and open shops, &c., at a certain place within 

 its limits for buying and selling, and better 

 provision of such victuals as the subject want- 

 eth. The establishment of a market, with the 

 grant of the tolls thereunto belonging, is one 

 of the king's prerogatives, and can only be ef- 

 fected by virtue of the king's grant, or sup- 

 ported on long and immemorial usage and 

 prescription, which presuppose such grant. 

 The general rule of law is, that all sales and 

 contracts of any thing vendible in fairs or 

 markets overt (i. e. open), shall not only be 

 good between the parties, but valid against all 

 claim by others having any right or property in 

 the subject. See FAIRS. 



MARL. Marl implies, properly speaking, a 

 natural mixture of chalk, shells, or carbonate 

 of lime, in some of its forms, with clay or sand, 

 or both. Its application to land, as a fertilizer, 

 is of very ancient date, as it was much used 

 by our English forefathers as a manure ; and 

 no one can read the account given by Pliny of 

 the agricultural operations of the early Bri- 

 tons, without being struck with the minute dis- 

 crimination, the evident result of long, atten- 

 tive practice, which was displayed by them in 

 the application of marl to particular soils ; and 

 from a very early period the Cornish farmers 

 have been used to employ extensively the sea 

 sand of Padstow harbour (which contains 64 

 per cent, of carbonate of lime), for the same 

 purpose, carrying it from the sea-shore either 

 in carts, or even on horses' backs, some miles 

 up the country. 



Marl was certainly used by the early Italian 

 cultivators as a valuable addition to the soil 

 of their fields. It is thus spoken of by Colu- 

 mella: " If, nevertheless, you are provided 

 with no kind of dung, it will be of great advan- 

 tage to it to do what I remember Marcus Colu- 

 mella, my uncle, a most learned and diligent 

 husbandman, was frequently wont to do, viz., 

 to throw chalk or marl upon such places as 

 abound in gravel, and to lay gravel upon such 

 as are chalky, and too dense and stiff; and 

 thus he not only raised great plenty of excel- 

 lent corn, but made most beautiful vineyards ; 

 for this most skilful husbandman denied that 

 dung ought to be applied to vines, because it 

 would spoil the taste of the wine ; and thought 

 that stuff gathered together out of thickets, and 

 from among briers and thorns, or, in a word, 

 any other sort of earth fetched from any other 

 place, and carried to them, was much better 

 for making a plentiful vintage." 



The mixture of soils, we find from Theo- 



phratus, was a practice common in his days : 



they found, it seems, the advantage of uniting 



the light with the heavy, the fat with the lean, 



792 



and, in fact, any that were of a contrary na- 

 ture. This mixture, he tells us, not only sup- 

 plies what shallow soils need in depth, but 

 adds to the power of both ; so that a worn-out 

 soil, thus treated, begins again to bear crops 

 with renewed energy : thus barren clays, when 

 thus fertilized, again become fruitful ; in truth, 

 this mode of cultivation he deemed a complete 

 substitute for manure. The inhabitants of 

 Megara, besides practising this system, were 

 used every 5th or 6th year to trench their land, 

 digging as deep as they imagined the rain to 

 penetrate, and bringing the under soil to the 

 top ; for it was an axiom with the Megarian 

 cultivators, that the lighter portions of earth 

 proper for the nourishment of plants are al- 

 ways washed downwards as far as the influ- 

 ence of the surface water extends ; so that we 

 see from this that the advantages of deep 

 ploughing, or subsoiling, is not a very modern 

 discovery. (Col lib. xi. c. 16 ; Theop. 1. ii. c. 25.) 



The right of sinking marl-pits is mentioned 

 in the Char tee Forestce, A. D. 1285 ; and in the 

 Statum Wattue, 12 Edward I., marl-pits are men- 

 tioned as being dug close to common roads. 

 " It is one of the duties of the sheriff and coro- 

 ner," says Daines Barrington, "to inquire de 

 fossatis et marleris levatis juxta iter publicum" 

 which shows that this kind of manure was 

 very commonly used. When a marl-pit was 

 sunk in ground that did not belong to the king, 

 but which happened to be in the purlieus or 

 neighbourhood of a forest, prosecutions were 

 instituted in the forest, which imposed heavy 

 fines for the offence, as the pit occasioned both 

 inconvenience and danger to the hunter. 



Marl is found in many parts of England; 

 and any earthy substance in which the propor- 

 tion of calcareous matter is apparent, mixed 

 with sand or clay, is styled, in popular lan- 

 guage, a marl. Of this there are 3 principal 

 varieties : 1. Clay marl ; 2. Sand marl ; 3. Slate 

 or stony marl; 4. Shell marl. Of these the 

 last is commonly the richest in calcareous 

 matter. In some shell marl examined by Sir 

 George Mackenzie, he found 



Lime - 

 Carbonic acid 

 Silex - 

 Argil - 

 Oxide of iron - 

 Inflammable matter 

 Loss - - - 



41-45 

 32 

 14 

 14 



25 



2 



4-70 



100 



Clay marl usually contains from 68 to 80 per 

 cent, of clay, and from 32 to 20 per cent, of 

 calcareous matter. Silicious sand often con- 

 tains 75 per cent, of sand (Kinuin on Manures, 

 p. 13). Thus, M. Thaer found in that of Olden- 

 burgh 



Fine sand ..... 36 



Clay 44 



Mould ------ 5 



Carbonate of lime - 14 



Gypsum ------ 1 



100 



The quantity of marl applied per acre neces- 

 sarily varies with the kind of soil and the qua- 

 lity of the marl ; it is usual to employ it in 



