'TRUTH AT THE BOTTOM OP A* MARL-PIT. 33 



instinct and experience had discovered the gradual 

 loss of something, which neither rain nor sunshine nor 

 even the farm-made manure, deprived of these ele- 

 ments, could restore, long before Davy or Liebig 

 were born, or Sulphates and Phosphates had been 

 christened : and hence the Marl-pits. 



Curious and awkward relics of a bygone day they 

 were, dotted about over my farm, and looking more 

 numerous and unmeaning than ever, after the en- 

 largement of the fields, and the straightening of the 

 few fences that were left. Load after load of clay 

 from the drains, and some hundred butts of felled 

 trees, and useless pollards from the vanished hedge- 

 rows, were cast headlong into their voracious depths : 

 but enough yet remained, and will long remain, to 

 tell of the enormous labour that must once have been 

 expended in excavating a manure more costly in its 

 application than the Guano which from the far islands 

 of the Pacific Ocean, conveyed by sea and land, thou- 

 sand upon thousand of miles, finds its destination at 

 last upon the field of British husbandry. 



Well might the farmer of the olden time bore 

 like a Well-sinker, at whatever amount of labour, 

 for aught in the shape of a restorative, when "the 

 difficulty of communication arising from the nearly 



