EXPERIMENTS ON NEW AND ACID CLAY LANDS. 125 



for many feet, is apparently composed of the like parts of clay 

 and fine sand. This is decidedly the most worthless kind of soil, 

 in its natural state, that our district furnishes.* It is better for 

 wheat than for corn, though its product is contemptible in every- 

 thing. It is difficult to be made wet, or dry and therefore suffers 

 more than other soils from both dry and wet seasons, but espe- 

 cially from the former. It is almost always either too wet or too 

 dry for ploughing ; and sometimes it will pass through both states 

 in two or three clear and warm days. If broken up early in win- 

 ter, the soil, instead of being pulverized by frost, like most clay 

 lands, runs together again by freezing and thawing ; and by March, 

 will have a sleek (though not a very even) crust upon the surface, 

 quite too hard to plant on without a second ploughing. The 

 natural growth is principally white and red oaks, a smaller proportion 

 of pine, and an under-growth of whortleberry bushes throughout. 



Experiment 5. 



On one side of this field a marked spot of thirty-five yards 

 square was left out, when the adjoining land was marled at the 

 rate of five hundred to six hundred bushels (37 per cent.) to the 

 acre. Paths for the carts were opened through the trees, and the 

 marl dropped and spread in January, 1826, and the land cleared the 

 following winter. Most of the wood was carried off for fuel ; the 

 remaining logs and brush burnt on the ground, as usual, at such 

 irregular distances as were convenient to the labourers. This part 

 was perhaps the poorer, because wood had previously been cut here 

 for fuel ; though only a few trees had been taken, here and there, 

 each winter, for a long time past. 



Results, 1827. Planted in corn the whole recent clearing of 

 fifteen acres all marled, except the spot left out for experiment : 

 broken up late and badly, and worse tilled, as the land was gene- 

 rally too hard, until the season was too far advanced to save the 

 crop. The whole crop so small, that it was useless to attempt 

 to measure the products. The difference would have been only 

 between a few imperfect ears on the marled ground, and still less 

 indeed almost nothing on that not marled. 



1828. Again in corn as well broken and cultivated as usual 

 for such land. October 8th cut down four rows of corn running 

 through the land not marled, and eight others, alongside on the 

 marled all fifty feet in length. The rows had been laid off for 

 five and a half feet but were found to vary a few inches for 

 which the proper allowance was made, by calculation. The spaces 

 taken for measurement were caused to be thus small by a part of 

 the corn having been inadvertently cut down and shocked, just 

 before. The ears were shelled when gathered ; and the products, 

 11* 



