488 Transactions of the American Institute. 



effect. Of potatoes, he got better quality and fifty to seventy-five 

 per cent more in quantity. On corn marl proved as serviceable as 

 wood ashes. !Mr. Bruen also referred to a neighbor who had similar 

 experience. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — This is the first report from that ninety 

 tons that were distributed through the Club some months ago. This 

 goes to prove, and I dowbt not there will be other reports to the 

 same effect, that Mr. Quinn was wrong in speaking of marl in the 

 way he did, when he said it did no good on his red lands in New 

 Jersey. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — I was not aware that any one doubted the value 

 of marl. The question has been, and is : Will it pay to transport it 

 far ? Solon Kobinson said in this room once, that it would not pay 

 to drs?w barn yard manure two miles. It pays me to barrel it in 

 New York, and send it thirty miles by express. Barn yard manure 

 I find most profitable, excepting bone dust only. 



Mr. J. B. Lyman. — There is such a thing as land getting marl-siclv, 

 as the farmers call it. For instance, a man in Salem county told me 

 he raised his land from a producing capacity of twenty-five shelled 

 bushels of corn per acre to a producing capacity of sixty-five per acre, 

 and marl would carry it no further. Others say that after a time the 

 addition of more marl ceases to benefit. The surface will not respond, 

 but it is only after the land has been raised to high fertility. As to 

 Mr. Quinn's statement, I have no doubt of its truth but we must 

 remember that no forty acres in New Jersey has received so much 

 manure as his farm. No wonder that a manure, consisting mainly 

 of potash, will not show upon a surface of disintegrated red sand- 

 stone, which contains some potash, a surface which has been charged 

 with ashes, bone dust, cinders, blood, fish, guano, and stable manures. 

 It is enough for us to know that lands that are poor can be made 

 rich by the use of New Jersey green sand. The real question is, 

 whether, considering the weight of the fertilizer, it will pay to use it 

 beyond a certain distance from the pits. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — The last speaker is probably mistaken 

 about land getting marl-sick. So far as my observation has gone, it 

 has been the same in south Jersey, with marl, as in Pennsylvania 

 with lime. In the latter State there is never a time when it does not 

 pay well to apply lime, and the same is true with marl in New Jer- 

 sey. Ilowerer, this is to be said, that in order to bring land to the 

 highest condition, it is necessary to put on more and more each time. 



