No 144.] 451 



Pliny said lime was good for grape vines and olive trees; anj 

 that put about cherry trees, hastens the ripening of the cherries,. 

 In some parts of Gaul, (France) lime was applied to grain fields. 

 Marl was freely used by the ancients. They called white marl 

 leucargillon, (white clay) ; this was deemed the best. A second 

 sort of a reddish color, copriumargon^ this was a stone marlwhiek 

 they broke to pieces on the field, so as to render it difficult to cut 

 the stubble on account of these stone fragments ; it was lighj^ 

 more easily carried on the field, spread very thin, and aome think 

 it w^as mixed with salt. The good effect lasted fifty years. A 

 white kind of marl was used in Britain, and lasted eighty year*. 

 No man in his lifetime, ever putting it on more than once. A 

 third kind of marl was called gliscromargon — a sort of Fuller's 

 earth, lasted thirty years; a thin coat of it, only, was put on thjii 

 field. Another, called by the Gauls, eglecopala, was of a dov» 

 color ; was quarried like ytone ; put in the sun and frost, it felS 

 to pieces ; it rendered the soil to which they applied it, as fertile 

 as the other applications. These marls, mentioned by Pliny, am 

 well known to-day in Britain and Scotland. The white and tei. 

 marls are just as he describes them, and act exactly as he sai4i 

 on the lands. 



After the lapse of 1,400 or 1,500 years after Pliny, we, for tbat 

 first time, hear of lime in agriculture. Bernard PoUissy, i^ 

 the early part of the 16th century, recommends it to be used la 

 compost on moist lands. 



Olivier de Serres, a celebrated agronome (agricultural phil(^©- 

 pher) of France, in the reign of Henry IV, about a hundred yeaJBi 

 after Pelissy, makes the same recommendation as Pelissy did, m 

 to the uie of lime in agriculture, and said it was then used in t3» 

 Belgian provinces of Gueldres and Juliers. 



The earliest (modern) use of lime for farms in Britain, is notie^ 

 by Dickson, so late as 1788, in such terms as evince a remarkabfei 

 ignorance of the properties of lime, and great embarrassment iSir 

 hesitation as to when or how to apply." 



We are deeply obliged to the Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Edinburg|^ 

 for this useful and agreeable sketch of the lime and marl knowl- 



