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all likelihood be fraught with valuable results. Leaving out of view 

 the marbles to which we have already referred, the beds of lime- 

 stone existing in this district of the state furnish a resource whose 

 value to the agriculture of a wide tract of country it is beyond our 

 power to calculate. Every bed of limestone developed in such an 

 examination ought to become a source of agricultural improvement 

 to an extensive neighbourhood ; and were our farmers once 

 properly impressed with the value of calcareous matter as a manure, 

 especially on the soils of the region now in question, an earnest 

 zeal in the discovery and use of these resources would quickly 

 become general, and an important district of the state would be 

 rescued from unprofitable and disheartening cultivation. Lying ad- 

 jacent to the slaty and micaceous soils east of the South-west moun- 

 tain and its prolongation, this belt of limestone furnishes the very 

 material by which under judicious management they may be re- 

 deemed from comparative sterility. In Orange, Albemarle, Louisa, 

 Fluvanna, Buckingham, &c, the application of lime procured from 

 this source might with proper arrangements, and the increased 

 facilities which are likely to be afforded to transportation, be made 

 to effect an entire revolution in the agriculture of the country — and 

 even in Goochland, and other counties comparatively remote, simi- 

 lar benefits might be secured at a small additional expense. It is 

 perhaps not generally understood that the slaty and micaceous (or 

 isinglass) soils, such as prevail in the districts referred to, are known 

 to be peculiarly susceptible of improvement from judicious liming. 

 The experience of farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania has 

 amply shown that this is the case — in those states soils thus cha- 

 racterized are limed to a large extent, and always with the most 

 decided benefit. Experiments made in Albemarle and other places 

 with the lime procured from the limestone beds of which we are 

 now speaking, have demonstrated its value upon the slaty soils in 

 the vicinity, and nothing is wanted to diffuse these benefits exten- 

 sively through the surrounding country, but a just appreciation of 

 the utility of liming, the introduction of economical and efficient 

 modes of burning the limestone, and the selection of such quarries 

 as from the nature of the rock are calculated to yield a product con- 

 taining the largest quantity of lime. 



A mistaken impression has prevailed, that this limestone always 

 yields a comparatively poor lime; and to this may in part be as- 



