408 MR. SINGLETON'S MARLING. 



kind of manure, sufficient to go over my whole hundred acres annually. 

 For the last two years, I have made more manure than I could accomplish 

 or effect carrying out, though I have manured from ten to twenty acres 

 more than my hundred, each year, with part marl and part farm -yard, but 

 not the whole with both, as I hope to be able to do in future ; but it will 

 be necessary to increase my carting force to effect it, and I clearly see I 

 can raise sufficient manure for the purpose ; heretofore I have manured niy 

 corn ground*, fifty acres, with marl, and my fallow with part farm-yard 

 manure, and part marl, as mentioned before ; so that you will perceive the 

 improvement made on my soil has not been effected by marl alone, but in 

 conjunction with farm-yard manure, clover, and plaster, and by making it a 

 point to manure with something all the ground I put into cultivation; so 

 that every time I cultivated a field, that field was improved, and not in any 

 degree impoverished by the cultivation. By this means, and the Divine as- 

 sistance, I have effected that improvement of my farm, which is so very 

 striking to the observation of every person acquainted with it. * * * 

 "In August, 1805, in digging down a bank on the side of a cove, for the 

 purpose of making a causeway, I observed a shelly appearance, which it 

 struck nie might improve clay soil ; I took some of it immediately to the 

 house, and putting it into a glass, with vinegar, found it effervesced very 

 much ; this determined me to try it as a manure ; accordingly, in Septem- 

 ber, I carted out about eighty cart-loads, and put it on a piece of ground, 

 fallow, preparing for wheat, trying it in different proportions, at the rate 

 of from twenty-seven to about a hundred loads per acre, and the ground 

 was sown in wheat. I could not, myself, be satisfied that there was any 

 difference through the winter and spring, although General Lloyd, who 

 was viewing it with nie in the spring, thought he could perceive some dif- 

 ference in favour of the marl ; but at harvest time, the wheat, though not 

 more luxuriant in growth, or better head, was considerably thicker on the 

 ground ; and after the wheat was taken off, the ground where the marl had 

 been put was set with white clover, no clover being on the ground on 

 either side of it. The next year, 1806, I discovered it in the drain into 

 the head of the cove, which I immediately ditched, and from the ditch put 

 out seven hundred loads, on the fallow ground. The effect, as to the wheat 

 and clover, was the same (this was put, for experiment, at the rate of from 

 forty to a hundred and twenty cart-loads per acre), though the marl was 

 not of the same kind as the other, but more mixed with sand and surface 

 soil, being taken from the low ground, by ditching, and all mixed together. 

 I also tried it on corn ground, spread out as above mentioned, and found 

 the effect immediate, as to the corn ; and in the same manner as above 

 described, as to the wheat sown on the corn ground. This induced me to 

 persevere in the use of it, which I have done ever since, adopting the mode 

 I mentioned before, and putting it at first from forty to seventy loads per 

 acre, till I have now come down as low as eighteen or twenty loads per acre, 

 going the third time over the ground with it." 



