FARMING ON MARLBOURNE. 187 



which I then began to marl, and to cultivate. I here brought to 

 bear much experience, and also judgment, both of which had been 

 wanting to my first marling labours, and therefore I now had more 

 speedy and complete success. Still there were important counter- 

 vailing obstacles, in the great existing differences of the soil and 

 level of my new farm, from the hilly lands on which my earlier 

 labours had been bestowed. Owing to my want of knowing the 

 peculiar requisitions for land entirely new to me, each field had 

 to pass once at least -through its course of culture, before I learned, 

 from my errors, what should be its proper tillage and management. 

 The arable land of Marlbourne, about 750 acres, was nearly all of 

 Pamunkey flats of high level, or " second low-grounds." The 

 surface generally is so level and also so much of it in shallow 

 basin-shaped depressions, as to need much labour and judgment in 

 draining; the soils of all shades of texture between very sandy 

 and light, and very stiff and intractable, under tillage. The origi- 

 nal qualities had varied between rich and less than medium fertility. 

 The cultivation had been very exhausting ; all the land (not too 

 wet to cultivate), had been greatly reduced ; and much of it was 

 extremely poor. About 80 acres, in many separated spots, of 

 cleared land, had been the bottoms of formerly existing ponds. 

 These " black-lands" only still were rich, and also of very stiff soil. 

 Most of the other clay lands were the poorest of the farm, and 

 extremely poor. The sandy soils all bore sorrel, thus giving evi- 

 dence of their then acid condition. About 60 acres had been 

 marled, but quite insufficiently, and required full as much more marl 

 as had been laid on. All the remaining land had to be marled for 

 the first time. Of the procedure and the results, this occasion per- 

 mits only the general statement which will follow, of the quantities 

 of marl carried out (obtained from an adjacent farm), and the crops 

 made. It is understood that no previous crop of wheat, made on 

 the farm for many years before my occupancy, had reached the 

 amount of 1000 bushels ; and even my first crop (reaped in the 

 second year) was increased by being partly on land I had marled, 

 and also by having an over-proportion of the richest ground r taken 

 in detached spots. 



