INTERMIXTURE OF MANURE AND SOIL. 177 



prefer spreading the marl before ploughing, on the vegetable cover 

 of the land. When thus placed in contact with the putrescent 

 matter, it has seemed to me that the marl acted more speedily and 

 better. But, if marl be thus applied on the grass and ploughed 

 under, the first ploughing should not be deeper than will be at 

 least one thorough ploughing for the subsequent tillage of the first 

 crop. Otherwise, the marl will not be mixed with the soil above, 

 and will remain unchanged and inert in the masses, whether soft 

 and loose, or lumpy, as turned under by the plough. In such 

 cases, the marl can have but little effect, until brought up again by 

 as deep a ploughing, perhaps some years after. 



Each of these modes of applying marl then has different ad- 

 vantages; and may have also disadvantages, if they be not 

 guarded against. But in either mode, by proper care, the important 

 condition of sufficient mixture of the marl and soil may be secured. 

 When marl must be ploughed under (for a corn crop), it is import- 

 ant that the first ploughing should be as shallow as consistent with 

 food culture, and that the tillage, in part, shall be fully as deep, 

 f it be preferred to spread marl on the ploughed surface, that 

 may be done, for the greater part of the land, even after dropping 

 the marl, throughout the previous summer, on the grassy surface. 

 For this purpose, the marl heaps must be dropped accurately along 

 the middles of beds, if the land was then in beds designed to 

 be reversed; or along parallel lines, marked by the plough, if 

 not in beds. The spreading must be postponed until after the in- 

 tervals of land between the rows of marl shall have been ploughed 

 for the next crop, leaving merely the narrow strips on which the 

 heaps lie. In this manner, from two-thirds to three-fourths of the 

 whole surface is ploughed before the spreading of the marl. This 

 is next done, over the whole surface, after which the before omitted 

 strips are ploughed. 



After the first year, ^generally, the farmer may be able to marl 

 fast enough to keep ahead of his cultivation ; and even should he 

 (to effect that end) reduce the extent of his previous tillage one- 

 half, it will be best for him not to put an acre under crop which 

 has not been first marled. Fifty acres can, in most cases, be both 

 marled and tilled at least as cheaply as one hundred can be tilled 

 without marling ; and - the fifty with marl will usually (if on soil 

 before acid), produce as much in the first course of crops as the 

 hundred without, and much more afterwards. 



The most important auxiliary to marl, is to supply vegetable 

 matter (or any putrescent matter) to the land. The cheapest and 

 most efficient means, and especially for poor lands having no foreign 

 sources of supply, will be found in the non-grazing system, by 

 which the land, when not under cultivation, manures itself, by the 

 growth, and death, and decay of its own weeds and grass. Poor 



