156 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE USE OF MARL IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 



White Sulphdh Spking, Virginia, Aug. 3. 1847. 



Sir : You asked me to put a part of our conversation yesterday, on the subject of Marl, on 

 paper. I commenced marling about the last of Februaiy, 184-5, on the plan Mr. Ruffin re- 

 commended to the people of South Carolina, where he had been engaged by the State in 

 making a Geological Survey of the State. I flush up the field to be marled with a two-horse 

 plow, as deep as I can have it done with that team and plow ; then I lay the field off in acre 

 lengths and widths — each acre into twelve squares — into each square I haul a two ox-cart 

 loads of pen litter and scatter it broadcast by h:ind from fanners or small baskets ; then I haul 

 twelve cart-loads, the same as above — a cart-load into each square, and scattered as above — 

 then T cover the land marled with a single horse-plow ; and when the season airives for bed- 

 ding, I bed-up with a winged plow and dress oft' the beds with a hoe. The marl-bed from 

 which I haul is on the Pee Dee River, thirty-six miles by land below my plantation, and above 

 tide-water, and with a descending current of two or three miles to the hour. Computing 

 two for one, which is less than is generally estimated, I believe between land and river dis- 

 tance I must have, you see, seventy-two miles to boat the mail up stream. I use what is 

 called a pole-boat, worked by six able-bodied men and a coxswain or helmsman. I give my 

 jnen 10 days to make the ti'ip, (viz., 1^ days to descend, 1 to load, and 4 to 5 to ascend, 1^ to 

 imload and the balance to rest). I load by laying the boat tJongside of the marl-bank 

 (where there is always deep water,) and after throwing off" the superincumbent earth into the 

 river, the marl is spaded up and pitched into the boat. The crew can carry between 6 and 

 700 busliels only — it weighs about 100 lbs. to the bushel. I unload by wheelbarrows work- 

 ing on a platform of plank raised from the deck to the shore. 



184.5 was a veiy diy year, and commencing late, I did not marl more than 15 or 20 acres, 

 but in that year the effects of the marl were very visible in color and increased growth. In 

 that year the river soon became too low to boat, and I made little progress in marling. Last 

 year the effects of the marl of the first year were much more sUiking — tliis year more than the 

 two preceding ; and when I left home, 1.5th .Inly, the marled land which was in cotton was 

 from two to three feet high, while the adjoining acres, in all respects alike (viz., soil, plow- 

 ing and manuring,) was not higher on the stiff old lands — not more than 6 or 8 inches. The 

 marled cotton was of a deep and vigorous green, the unmarled pale and sickly. I am so far 

 from my plantation that I have not been able to say whatdifference there is in the maturity of 

 the plant or increase of products ; but I have no doubt the difference must be veiy con- 

 siderable. 



You asked me if I had ever made a calculation of what the marl cost me. I have not, but 

 from the data given, you will see the cost must be great, in addition to the cost of boating, 

 (and I have to haul it two miles, and some part of the way through a deep swamp,) to the 

 fields I am marling. But notwithstanding all the difficulties of distance, time, and loss of 

 labor, I think I shall be amj^ly rewarded in the end, or some one else who may succeed me 

 as owner. I do not plead guilty to the chai-ge you make justly against the Virginians of 

 abominable laziness and negligence in saving and making manure. Ido much in that way, 

 but might do much more. I have marled some corn, but cannot say that the effects with 

 me, although visible, were so strongly marked as cotton. 



If anything in the above note is worth extractmg. and may incite the young to do what an 

 old man has commenced, use it, if not, fling it into the fire. 



The marl I use (by Ruffiin's Analysis,) is about 75 or 80 per cent, of lime. 



J. D. WITHERSPOON. 



Writing, as we ramble in these mountains, not according to any fixed plan, I 

 must now turn you "back for some farther remarks on the 



AGRICULTURE IN THE VALLEY OF SHENANDOAH AGAIN : LIME, PLASTER, 

 COST OF LABOR, &c. 



My last, from White Sulphur, was eked out by a letter from Mr. J. D. With- 

 KRSPOON, of South Carolina, sent, as much as for anything else, to show to cer- 

 tain gentlemen on the Rappahannock and elsewhere, who have untouched mari- 

 beds on their own estates, what a man of energy can do. 



On Friday we set out to sojourn for a few days at Walnut Grove, where we 

 are at " this present"— 7th August, 1847. 



This noble estate was the properly of the late Col. Beiene, formerly of the 

 Senate of Virginia, and more recently a Member of Congress from this District. 

 Of this celebrated grazing establishment, moreAviil be said after it has " cleared 

 off," so that I can ride over it to survey his meadows, his horses, and his two or 

 three hundred fat cattle, in company with its present hospitable proprietor, 

 O. Beirne, Esq., on whom the homestead worthily devolved at the death of his 

 father. 



Though now busily engaged, on a very larare scale, in the great marts of 



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