FIRST EFFECTS AS EXAMPLE. 423 



great damage caused by improper applications began to be seen, and 

 which will be described in due order. 



Having had in view from the beginning the true action of marl, 

 and fully believing that its good effects would be permanent, and 

 even increasing with time under a proper system of tillage, I was 

 no more discouraged by what some deemed small profits, than I 

 was annoyed by the incredulity and ridicule of other persons. Al- 

 most all the farms in the neighbourhood, except mine, were re- 

 gularly and closely grazed when not under a crop, and of course 

 they had not stored up in the soil much either of inert vegetable 

 matter, or its acid product. Mine had not been grazed since 1814, 

 and had been rested two years in every four; and the poorest land 

 three years in four. And though, in truth, no increased production 

 had been obtained by this lenient treatment, inasmuch as the in- 

 crease of acid counterbalanced the increase of vegetable food, still, 

 when marl was applied, the acid was immediately destroyed, and 

 the food left free to act. The effect of marling was generally shown 

 most plainly on the first crop of corn, and the limits could be easily 

 traced by the deep green colour of the plants before they were five 

 inches high ; and the increased product of the first crop on acid 

 soils rarely fell under 50 per cent., was most generally 100, and 

 has been known to be 200 per cent. But even such increase was 

 not satisfactory to many persons, until the action of marl came to 

 be better understood, and the permanency of the effects was credited. 

 In five or six years after my commencement, there were few if any 

 of those of my neighbours, who had marl visible on their lands, 

 who had not begun to apply it. And though it has been injudi- 

 ciously as well as insufficiently applied since, and not one-fourth 

 of the full benefit obtained, still the general improvement and in- 

 creased products of the marl farms of Prince George have been 

 very great. The existence of marl, too, which was known at first 

 but on a few farms in my own neighbourhood, has been since dis- 

 covered in many other and remote parts of the county ; and wher- 

 ever accessible it is valued and used. The like observations will now 

 apply to most of the other counties of lower Virginia. Wherever 

 the effects of marling could be seen for a few years, the early in- 

 credulity not only disappeared, but most persons were even too 

 ready to believe in marl's possessing virtues to which it has no claim. 

 Thus, ignorant or careless of its true mode of operation, they crop 

 the marled lands more severely than before } and if they are not 

 thereby soon reduced as low as their former state of sterility, they 

 are made to approach it as nearly as possible, and at a sacrifice of 

 nine-tenths of the profit from marling which a more lenient and 

 judicious system of cultivation would have insured. 



In 1819, the second year of my operations, my marling was in- 

 creased to 62 acres, but most of it at much too thin a rate. la 



