404 EARLY TRIALS OF MARL. 



collected when his father's first and accidental discovery of marl 

 was made on the Spring Garden farm in Surry (in digging a ditch 

 across a wet swamp), and his sanguine and confident anticipations 

 of deriving from its use great improvement and profit. Mr. Short 

 further stated that he was then so young, and always so little 

 acquainted with agriculture, that he did not know what were the 

 precise facts in regard to the failure of his father's experiment and 

 hopes ; but he well remembers that the result was deemed an entire 

 failure, and that it caused total disappointment. 



Such a conclusion I had supposed before being so informed. I 

 had also inferred, and no doubt correctly, that the supposed failure 

 and truly slight benefit, and the mistaken deductions from the 

 results, were such as have been stated. I have since written to 

 the present proprietor of the land, Francis Rufiin, Esq., to obtain 

 the latest information concerning the results of this application, 

 now some sixty-five years old; and the most recent effects, as 

 learned from him, will be here stated in connexion with the earlier, 

 which will be repeated. 



It was before said (page 114) that this old marling (of about 10 

 acres) was done on poor sandy land, kept (as was the then univer- 

 sal course of tillage) under exhausting culture and close grazing 

 for many years thereafter; that from 1812 the treatment had been 

 lenient; and that in 1819, the superiority of the marled part was 

 visible, and that part of the outline could be then distinctly traced. 

 In 1834, Mr. F. Rufiin applied to this and some acres of adjoining 

 land, pine leaves at the rate of 75 one-horse cart-loads to the acre. 

 The benefit from this vegetable cover was so much greater on the 

 marled part, that the superior growth of the next crop of corn and 

 of the succeeding crop of wheat, " marked out the limits of the old 

 marling very conspicuously." The whole was sown in clover in 

 the spring while under wheat ; that on the marled part lived and 

 stood pretty well, while nearly every plant of clover on the part 

 not marled died in the course of the year. In 1837, the whole 

 field was marled, without excepting the old marled part ; and the 

 whole was again littered with pine leaves. The crops of corn and 

 wheat since have shown less improvement from these applications 

 on the piece thus re-marled, than on the adjoining land then marled 

 for the first time. Indeed, the recent and additional increase of 

 corn and wheat, since re-marling, has been very little. These re- 

 sults, early and late, are precisely such as might have been antici- 

 pated from the action of calcareous manures, and the condition of 

 this land and its management. 



Another experiment of marling, made earlier than my first, by 

 Mr. Richard Hill, in King William county, has been heard of 

 since the publication of the last edition, and of which the circum- 

 stances were given at length at pages 22 and 27 of vol. ix. Far- 



