ERRORS OF ARTHUR YOUNG. 383 



with great profit. At last, the author lets us know that it is not 

 the same substance that he has been calling " marl or clay" and 

 that the marl effervesces strongly with acids, and the clay slightly. 

 But we are told nothing more precise as to the amount of calcare- 

 ous ingredients, either in the manures, or the soil ; and even if we 

 were informed on those heads (without which we can know little or 

 nothing of what the operation really is), we are left ignorant of 

 how much was clayed, and how much marled. It is to be inferred, 

 however, that the clay was thought most serviceable, as Mr. Rod- 

 well says 



"Clay is much to be preferred to marl on those sandy soils, some of 

 "which are loose, poor, and even a black sand." 



18. Young's Survey of Norfolk (a large and closely printed oc- 

 tavo volume) has fourteen pages filled with a minute description of 

 the soils of that county ; but without any indication whatever of 

 the proportion, presence, or absence, of calcareous earth in that 

 extensive district of sandy soils, so celebrated for their improve- 

 ment by marling nor in any other part of the county. The wastes 

 are very extensive : one of them (page 385) eighteen miles across, 

 quite a desert of sand, " yet highly improvable. " Why it is im- 

 provable he does not say, as of this also, no information is given 

 as to its calcareous constitution. 



19. The section on marl (page 402, of the same work) gives 

 concise statements of its application, with general notices of its 

 effects, on near fifty different parishes, neighbourhoods, or separate 

 farms. Among all these, the only statements from which the cal- 

 careous nature of the manure may be gathered, are (page 406), of 

 a marl that " ferments strongly with acids" another (page 409), 

 that marling at a particular place destroys sorrel and (page 410) 

 that the marl is generally calcareous, and that that containing the 

 most clay, and the least calcareous earth , is preferred by most per- 

 sons, but not by all. 



20. Young's General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk (an 

 octavo of 432 pages of close print), in the description of soils, 

 affords no information as to any of them being calcareous, or other- 

 wise; yet the author mentions (page 3) having analyzed some of 

 the soils, and reports their aluminous and silicious ingredients. 

 Nor can more be learned in this respect, in the long account after- 

 wards given of the " marl" which has been very extensively applied 

 also in the county of Suffolk. We may gather, however, from the 

 following extracts, that the " marl or clay" of Suffolk is generally 

 calcareous, but that this quality is not considered the principal 

 cause of its value ; and further, that crag, a much richer calcareous 

 manure (which seems to be the same with our richest beds of fossil 



