IX.] MARLING 257 



permit of any vegetation, have in their immediate 

 neighbourhood a bed of marl or clay which can be 

 easily incorporated, practically creating a soil where 

 there was none before. Among the New Red Sand- 

 stones of Cheshire and the Midland Counties beds of 

 true marl occur and were at one time enormously 

 worked, so that every farm and almost every field shows 

 its old marl pit; the sandy Lower Greensand soils in 

 the Woburn district have been extensively marled from 

 the adjoining Oxford clay, and many of the Norfolk 

 soils have been made out of blowing sands, by bringing 

 up the clay which immediately underlies them. The 

 earlier volumes of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society contain numerous accounts, showing how much 

 land was brought into cultivation by these means in 

 the first half of the nineteenth century. 



" He that marls sand may buy the land, 

 He that marls moss shall suffer no loss, 

 But he that marls clay flings all away." 



The usual practice in Norfolk was to open pits down 

 to the marl or clay, dig and spread it at the rate of 

 50 to 150 loads to the acre on a clover ley or turnip 

 fallow. In some cases trenches were opened all along 

 the field, and the clay thrown out on either side. By 

 the action of the weather, drying and wetting, followed 

 by frost, the clay comes into a condition to be harrowed 

 down, after which it can be ploughed into the ground. 



The effect of marling or claying is more evident after 

 a year or two than at once, because the fine particles 

 become each year more thoroughly incorporated with 

 the soil. The effects are to be seen in increased crops, the 

 production of better leys and pastures, greater resistance 

 to drought, and particularly an increased stiffness in the 

 straw where manures are used to grow the crop. 



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