PROFITS OF MARLING. 189 



[1832.] With all the increase of products that I have ascribed 

 to marling, the heaviest amounts stated may appear inconsiderable 

 to farmers who till soils more favoured by nature. Corn yielding 

 twenty -five or thirty bushels to the acre, is doubled by many natural 

 soils in the western states; and ten or twelve bushels of wheat 

 (following corn) will still less compare with the product of the 

 best lime-stone clay land. The cultivators of our poor region, how- 

 ever, know that such products, without any future increase, would 

 be a prodigious addition to their present gains. Still it is doubtful 

 whether these rewards are sufficiently high to tempt many of my 

 countrymen speedily to accept them. The opinions of many 

 farmers have been so long fixed, and their habits are so uniform 

 and unvarying, that it is difficult to excite them to adopt any new 

 plan of improvement, except by promises of profits so great that an 

 uncommon share of credulity would be necessary to expect their 

 fulfilment. The net profits of marling, if estimated at twenty or 

 even fifty per cent, per annum, on the expense, for ever or the 

 assurance, by good evidence, of doubling the crops of a farm in ten 

 years or less will scarcely attract the attention of those who would 

 embrace, without any scrutiny, the most absurd plan that promised 

 five times as much. Hall's scheme for cultivating corn was a 

 stimulus exactly suited to their lethargic state ; and that impudent 

 Irish impostor found many steady old-fashioned farmers who had 

 always eschewed experiments, and held "book -farm ing" in utter con- 

 tempt, willing to pay for his pretended patent-right and directions 

 for making five hundred barrels of corn without ploughing, and with 

 the hand labour of two men only. 



The products and profits derived from the use of marl, as pre- 

 sented in the preceding pages, considerable as they are, have been 

 kept down, or lessened in amount, by my then want of experience, 

 and ignorance of the danger of injudicious applications. My errors 

 may at least enable others to avoid similar losses, and thereby to 

 reach equal profits with half the expense of time and labour. But 

 are we to consider even the greatest known increase of product that 

 has been yet gained, in a few years after marling, as showing the 

 full amount of improvement and profit to be derived ? Certainly 

 not; and if we may venture to leave the sure ground of practical 

 experience, and lobk forward to what is promised by the theory of 

 the operation of calcareous manures, we must anticipate future 

 crops far exceeding what have yet been obtained. To this, the ready 

 objection may be opposed, that the sandiness of the greater part of 

 our lands will always prevent their being raised to a high state of 

 productiveness and, particularly, that no care or improvement 

 can make heavy crops of wheat on such soils. This very general 

 opinion is far from being correct ; and as the error is important, it 



