424 CONTINUED MAULING LABOL'ilri. 



1820, only 25 acres were covered, though at 600 bushels or even more 

 to the acre. Up to this time I had done as most other persons have, 

 that is, attempted to marl " at leisure times," and without making 

 it a regular employment for a certain additional force, or reducing 

 the amount of cultivation, or of other operations on the farm. No 

 person will ever marl to much advantage who does not avoid this 

 error ] and this year's labours showed the necessity of an alteration. 

 The next year, two horses and carts, with the necessary drivers and 

 pit-men, were appropriated to marling at all times when weather 

 permitted, except during harvest, thrashing, and wheat-sowing 

 times. Viewing marling too as the most profitable operation, ex- 

 cept the saving of a crop already made, it was made a fixed rule of 

 the farm that marling was to be interrupted for nothing else. My 

 corn shift for that year was reduced in size one-half so that one- 

 half could be marled while the other was under cultivation. By 

 these means, I marled 80 acres this year, 1821 (and that much too 

 heavily), and had all the lessened corn-field on marled land. *The 

 product of the half was equal to .what the whole had brought before, 

 and I was enabled thereafter to have every field marled over in 

 advance of its next cultivation. In 1822, the land marled was 93 

 acres, 100 in 1823, and 80 in 1824, which served to cover nearly 

 all of the then cleared land requiring marling. The next three 

 years' marling amounted respectively to 50 acres, 24 acres, and 27 

 acres, being principally upon land subsequently cleared and brought 

 into cultivation. Since then, there has been no marling on the 

 farm, except on wood-land, not yet cleared, and on small spots for- 

 merly omitted, and of which no account was taken. With the 

 exception of such spots (and some such still remain, because of their 

 inconvenient position), all the land which was not naturally calca- 

 reous, or too wet, or too steep for carting on, had been marled by 

 1827 ; and none has required any additional dose, though some of 

 the thinnest covered places had been re-marled long before that time, 

 so as to bring them to a proper constitution. (1842.) 



In 1824, I first observed (and had never before suspected such 

 effect), the injury caused by having marled acid soil too heavily. 

 To show my first impressions, I will copy the words of my farm 

 journal, written on the very day on which the discovery was fully 

 made. 



" June 13th, 1824. Observed a new and alarming disease in a 

 large proportion of my corn ; and, what makes the matter much 

 worse, the evil is certainly caused by marling. The disease seems 

 to have commenced when the corn was from 6 to 10 inches high, 

 and to have stopped its growth. Its general colour is a pale sickly 

 green, and the leaves appear so thin as to be almost transparent : 

 next, they become streaked with rusty red, and then begin to die at 

 the upper ends. Several pulled up, showed no defect, or injury 



