EARLY TRIALS OF MARL. 405 







mcrs' Register, to which the reader is referred. It is enough here 

 to state, that the effects were beneficial at first; but so injurious 

 (because of the excessive quantity) on several succeeding crops, 

 that this trial also was deemed a failure, and the marling a source 

 of loss ; and there was no repetition of marling in that neighbour- 

 hood until about 1820, when other and better views began there to 

 be first entertained. 



There was also successful and continued use of this manure in 

 James City county, in Virginia, made earlier than mine ; and still 

 earlier by Mr. 'John Singleton, in Talbot county, Maryland. 

 It appears that the early (though chance-directed) combination of 

 putrescent manures with marl, in both these places, served to prove 

 the value of the latter, and perhaps to prevent it being there also 

 abandoned as worthless, as in the other cases. But though the 

 application was continued, and with great success and profit, the 

 knowledge of these facts and the example extended very slowly ; 

 and the then want of communication among farmers kept all igno- 

 rant of these practices for years, except in the immediate vicinity 

 of the commencement of each. I have since endeavoured to ascer- 

 tain the time of the first applications in James City, and have been 

 informed that it was in 1816. Mr. Singleton's, in Maryland, were 

 begun as early as 1805. His own account of his practice (which 

 will be annexed, as an interesting statement of the earliest profitable 

 use of this manure), was first published in 1818, in the 4th volume 

 of the Memoirs of' the Philadelphia Agricultural Society (page 238). 

 The date of his letter is Dec. 31, 1817. My first experiment was 

 made the following month (Jan. 1818), but more than a year before 

 I met with Mr. Singleton's publication, or had heard of any appli- 

 cation of fossil shells, except the two failures mentioned in page 115. 

 But, however beneficial may have been found the operation of marl 

 in Talbot and in James City, it is evident, from Mr. Singleton's 

 letter, and from all other sources of information, that the mode of 

 operation remained altogether unsuspected by those who used it; 

 and this was perhaps the principal cause why the practice was so 

 slow in spreading. It is now [1885] thirty years since the first 

 proofs were exhibited on the land of Mr. Singleton ; yet, according 

 to the report of the geological survey of the lower part of Maryland 

 (submitted to the legislature of Maryland at its recent session of 

 1834-5), it appears, though the value of marl is well understood, 

 and much use of it made in Talbot county, and part of Queen Ann's 

 county, yet that almost no use has been made of it on the other and 

 much more extensive parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and 

 none whatever west of the Chesapeake in that state, where it is 

 found in abundance. Such at least are the inferences from Dr. 

 Ducatcl's report, though in part drawn from indirect testimony, 

 more than direct and particular assertions. 



