170 HASTENING MATURITY Or CROPS. 



inches, and depths of nine and even twelve inches were tried, with- 

 out injury, on parts of the adjacent marled land. 1835.] 



[This remarkable and valuable effect of marling, in deepening 

 the soil, is increased in action by the sub-soil being sandy, which 

 is commonly deemed the worst kind of sub-soil. Land having a 

 clay sub-soil, which is known in common parlance as land with " a 

 good foundation," is almost universally prized ; and that impervi- 

 ous sub-soil is supposed necessary to prevent the manure and the 

 rains from sinking, and being lost. And such, indeed, may be 

 among the disadvantages, before marling, of poor land having a 

 sandy sub-soil. But not so after marling. While the open texture 

 of such a sub-soil permits so much of the water as is superfluous 

 and injurious to sink and disappear, and the combined manures to 

 sink enough to deepen the soil (by converting barren sub-soil to 

 productive soil), the attractive force of the calcareous earth, for both 

 putrescent matter and moisture, will much more effectually prevent 

 either from being lost to the soil, than would the mechanical ob- 

 struction of a clay sub-soil. Great as are the objections enter- 

 tained by most farmers to sandy sub-soils, or to what they call 

 " land without any foundation," I would decidedly prefer such to 

 lands having aft impervious clay sub-soil supposing both to be 

 equally barren. The subjects of all my experiments stated as 

 made on acid sandy loams, had also sub-soils of yellow and barren 

 sand -, and on such lands have been made my greatest and most 

 profitable improvements by marling. However, a sub-soil (and 

 also a soil) more of medium texture, would no doubt have been as 

 much better than the very sandy, as the latter was better than the 

 very stiff and impervious clay sub-soils. 1842.] 



[Besides the general benefit which marling causes equally to all 

 crops, by making the soils they grow on richer and more productive, 

 there are other particular benefits which affect some plants more 

 than others. For example, marling serves to make soils warmer, 

 and thereby hastens the ripening of every crop, more than would 

 take place on the like soils, if made equally productive by other 

 than calcareous manures.* This quality of marled land is highly 

 important to cotton, as our summers are not long enough to mature 

 the later pods. 



Wheat also derives especial benefit from the warmth thus added 

 to the soil. It is enabled better to withstand the severe cold of 

 winter ; and even the short time by which its ripening is forwarded 

 by marling, serves very much to lessen the danger of that crop 



* Confirmation. "Liming hastens the maturity of the crop. It is true of 

 all our cultivated crops, but especially those of corn [wheat] that their 

 growth is attained more speedily when the land is limed, and that they are 

 ready for the harvest from 10 to 14 days earlier." Johnston's Lectures. 

 p. 392. 



