240 NEED FOR VEGETABLE MANURES. 



very poor condition indeed), and vegetable matter in great 

 quantity is gathered in leaves from the wood-land, and sedge and 

 rushes and other growth of the tide-marshes, to be used as litter. 

 The manure is applied in the row or drill, so as to go as far, and 

 act as quickly, as possible. This large but slight and poor manur- 

 ing required frequent renewal ; and by some planters it was re- 

 newed every year over their whole extent of cotton, which was 

 much the largest of all the tilled surface. All these efforts barely 

 served to keep up the manured land to its previous moderate rate 

 of production ; and if that could be done, the planter was content 

 to make no absolute or abiding increase of fertility by his continual 

 applications of wasting and fleeting manures. When urging on 

 such persons the use of marl or lime, I was frequently met by the 

 question " Will marling enable me to dispense with other ma- 

 nuring ?" and the negative to that question, always promptly given 

 in answer, was generally assumed as sufficient reason for failing to 

 use calcareous manures. Yet never was there a greater mistake, 

 or more false reasoning, than led to this conclusion. 



Besides all other benefits to be gained by thus improving the 

 constitution of the soil, marling would have made half the usual 

 dose of putrescent manuring do more good than the whole. By 

 giving rest and its own self-manuring, say to one-third of the arable 

 surface, the other two-thirds would soon surpass the previous pro- 

 duction of the whole. And much more crop would be obtained 

 both from the land and the labour employed, than before marling 

 and resting, or than with marling and without resting, besides a 

 continued growing increase of fertility and production. 



But the idea of even the present gain of a proprietor being made 

 the greater, or the early lessening of crops being avoided, by con- 

 tinual culture, is entirely fallacious. The renter of another's land, 

 for one or two years only, may indeed reap most crop and profit 

 by tilling the whole surface. But his successor will lose in pro- 

 portion to the previous excess of cropping. So the man who hires 

 a horse for a day only may get from him the greatest quantity of 

 labour 'and at least expense, by working him the whole time, with- 

 out food or rest. But it is as true economy and profit to allow 

 food and rest to the land in an occupancy of but a few years, as to 

 the horse if employed but for a few days. In either case, the ex- 

 pense of such allowance is an investment which will return a 

 higher rate of profit than all that could be gained without such 

 expense. 



Further : unless when the application of putrescent manures is 

 very frequently renewed, and therefore is very expensive, the 

 resting of the land is not the less certain to occur, and for as long 

 intervals, as if allowed by the most lenient rotation of crops. In 

 the latter case, perhaps the land (after being calxed) yields three 



