CHAPTER XXX. 



THE PROGRESS OP MARLING IN VIRGINIA. 



MY designed task is at last completed. Whether I shall be able 

 to persuade my countrymen to prize the treasures, and seize the 

 profits which are within their reach, or whether my testimony and 

 arguments shall be fruitless, soon or late a time must arrive when 

 my expectations will be realized. The use of calcareous manures 

 is destined to change a large portion of the soil of lower Virginia 

 from barrenness to fertility ; which, added to the advantages we 

 already possess our navigable waters and convenient markets, the 

 facility of tilling our lands, and the choice of crops offered by our 

 climate will all concur to increase ten-fold the present value of 

 our land, and produce more farming profit than has been found 

 elsewhere on soils far more favoured by nature. Population, wealth 

 and learning, will keep pace with the improvement of the soil ; and 

 we or our children will have reason to rejoice, not only as farmers, 

 but as Virginians, and as patriots. [1832.] 

 * Such, as appear in the last paragraph, were the concluding words 

 of this essay, as published in 1832, and substantially as the work 

 had been prepared for the press six years before that publication 

 was made. Such was then the language of hope and anticipation. 

 It may now [1842] be both interesting and useful to examine to 

 what extent such hopes and sanguine anticipations have been so far 

 realized. 



Every new and great improvement in agriculture has had to 

 work its way slowly and in opposition to every possible discourage- 

 ment and obstacle. It would seem that the agricultural classes are, 

 of all classes and professions, always the least ready to receive 

 benefit from instruction the most distrustful of instructors, and 

 the least thankful for their services even after the benefit is the 

 most completely proved, and established by actual practice and un- 

 questionable facts. The novel improvement by marling has not 

 presented an exception to this universal rule. But still, it may 

 be confidently asserted, that no other agricultural improvement has 

 been so rapidly extended, so widely and generally received in such 

 short time, or has been so generally and greatly profitable to all 

 who have availed themselves of the benefits thereby offered to their 

 acceptance. When my first trials were made in 1818, so far as I 

 then knew, I had no forerunner in success. For the few and small 



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