1S36.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



109 



of willow oalc, which was built fijll filly years ago. 

 The lockings, or intersections at the angles, were 

 rotten : they were cut oil", and a new house built 

 of the logs, and I have no ii3ar of its not lasting 50 

 years more. Yet this very willow oak is hardly 

 worth cuttiag and mauling lor fiirmuig use. JMy 

 corn houses are built with a view of housing my 

 corn in October, and I may add, much is housed 

 in September. They are three in number, built 

 of logs, resting from 6 to 9 inches apart, and 

 lathed inside or out. At or about the Equinox, I 

 begin to gather, husk and loft — taking care to 

 move from house to house, day after day, until I 

 am done. The "lofted" corn never injures. The 

 green and rotten must be watched: but as I leed 

 12 or 14 horses, 50 hogs, and some beeves, no 

 verv ofreat store of that is ever on hand. 



^ "^ X. Y. Z. 



[It may be presumed that the houses of X. Y. Z. 

 are unusually narrow, to render safe the keeping of 

 corn put up so early. The last crop of corn (of the 

 soft kind commonly made in lower Virginia) was so 

 imperfectly dried at the usual time for gathering, that 

 many persons, and even those who were aware of the 

 threatened danger, (and took what were thought suf- 

 ficient care to guard against it,) suffered more or less of 

 loss. No other crop of corn has been so late in getting 

 dry enough to shell, and to remain in bulk for sale, 

 since that made in 1816. The safety of the crop of 

 our correspondent, under such adverse circumstances, 

 causes this part of his communication to be more im- 

 portant than perhaps he was aware of — and we shall be 

 pleased if he will add a more particular statement of 

 the size of his cribs, the kind of corn cultivated, and 

 also, if remembered, how early he began to put up the 

 crop, last autumn, and what was its state, as to dryness, 

 this spring.] 



HEALTHINESS PRODUCED BY MARLIPfG. ITS 

 INTRODUCTION INTO DOMBE, AND OTHER 

 UNHEALTHY COUNTRIES, RECOMMENDED. 



Translated for the Farmers' Register, from the Essai sur la 

 Marne, of M. Puvis. 



The results of marling may be considered in a 

 point of view more elevated, and still more im- 

 portant, than that of the lertilily which it gives to 

 the soil: they may perhaps have much influence 

 on the healthiness of a country where it becomes 

 a general practice. 



Although it may not have been yet uttered by 

 others, this opinion appears founded on strong 

 probabilities, on strong analogies and precise facts, 

 all of which appear to give it a sufficient cer- 

 tainty. 



It is known that the calcareous principle is one 

 of the most powerful agents to resist putrefaction. 

 It is employed to make healthy, places inhabited 

 by men and animals, in which sickness or conta- 

 gion is feared ; it serves to neutralize the emana- 

 tions of dead bodies undergoing putrefaction; it 

 destroys the deleterious effects which escape from 

 privies, and which sometimes cause the death of 

 those who are employed to cleanse them. 



It even seems that calcareous countries are 

 only unhealthy when they are mterspersed by 



marshes, or when some causes, foreign to the soil 

 and climate, determine the unhealthincss, as in 

 countries on the borders of the sea, where the 

 flowing of the tide, and the mingling of salt and 

 fresh waters, inlect the air by the deleterious ema- 

 nations of their combination. This cause of un- 

 healthiness is regarded as a certain fact ; for salu- 

 brity is generally seen to appear whenever this 

 mixture of waters is prevented. 



In the valleys of rivers bordered by calcareous 

 mountains, which enclose unhealthy countries in 

 their interior, insalubrity commences there only 

 as the calcareous soil, which is attached to the 

 mountain, gives place to silicious soil. In the 

 same plain, and far Irom a mountain, salubrity is 

 seen to diminish in the same proportion that the 

 calcareous soil of the surface does ; and the com- 

 munes of Bresse, which have an abundance of 

 marly or calcareous soils, are much more remarka- 

 ble for their salubrity than those on the white 

 lands (terrain blanc*). While the ponds of 

 Dombe, which are on the silicious soil, appeartobe 

 one of the greatest causes of unhealthiness, those 

 of Bresse, which are on calcareous lands, do not 

 show such effects in the country where they are 

 found: so, likewise, the ponds of the country 

 situated between the Veyle and the Reyssouze, to 

 the north-west of Bourg, which are generally on 

 calcareous soil, do not appear to injure the healthi- 

 ness of the country in any manner. 



For the support of this system, we will also cite 

 the ponds of Berri on calcareous soil, whose ema- 

 nations have nothing unhealth}^ ; the laying dry of 

 the ponds of Parracay, in the canton of Lignieres, 

 has added nothing to the heahhiness of a calcare- 

 ous country naturally healthy. And in the same 

 canton, the pond of Villiers, which is said to be 

 seven leagues in circumference, does not cause 

 diseases on its borders. Besides, during the month 

 of August, the water of the ponds on calcareous 

 soil does not become blackish, as often happens in 

 silicious ponds. The water would then be made 

 wholesome by the calcareous principle, in the same 

 way as their emanations. 



In fine, Dombe, and Sologne, and a number of 

 other countries are unhealthy, and subject to inter- 

 mittent levers without being marshy; but their 

 soil is likewise silicious, and the land moist. Pui- 

 saye, and a part o( Bresse, in similar land, which 

 contain little or no calcareous soil, have also many 

 autumnal fevers. 



Without pretending to explain, entirely, facts so 

 remarkable, we will, however, observe, that the 

 calcareous element, possessing a great force for 

 combining with the principles which are encoun- 

 tered in the soil, may very well hinder the forma- 

 tion, or hasten the decomposition, in the bosom of the 

 earth, of these substances so little known, which, 

 having become volatile and breathed by man, or 

 actintr in every other manner on his organs, dis- 

 pose him to receive disease. 



These deleterious substances, which infect the 



* The reader of M. Puvis' essays on lime and marl, 

 which were inserted in Vol. III., will remember, that 

 this provincial term, and others (■plateaux argilo-si- 

 licieux, &.C. j are used to designate a peculiar kind of 

 soil, destitute of calcareous matter, stiff, intractable, 

 and poor — and which seems precisely of the character 

 of the poor ridge lands of lower Virginia, to which 

 calcareous manures are so peculiarly adapted. Ed. 



