'TRUTH AT THE BOTTOM OF A' MARL-PIT. 53 



rain nor sunshine nor even the farm-made-manure, 

 deprived of these elements, could restore, long 

 before Davy and 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, thousand upon thousand of miles, finds its des- 

 tination 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 diffi- 

 culty of communication arising from the nearly total 

 want of roads precluded the interchange of commo- 



