THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



99 



to pay or fuel to purchase. While their services 

 are arduous and responsible, they are well paid, 

 and I think better paid than the present income 

 of the employers will authorize. The land- 

 holders will find it absolutely necessary to cur- 

 tail wages, which now range from $200 to 

 $450, and in a very few instances, to $500. 



A Farmer. 



For the Southern Planter. 

 MARL. 



Mr. Editor, — In compliance with a wish ex- 

 pressed in the August number of the Planter, I 

 will send you a short article on the use of marl. 

 I fear, however, that you have greatly over- 

 estimated my ability to give your readers in- 

 struction upon a subject so intimately connected 

 with the improvement of our soil in and about 

 the tide water region of Virginia, my knowledge 

 of it having been derived rather from observa- 

 tion, than experience. 



The marl, with the use of which both in this 

 county and some adjoining ones, I am most fa- 

 miliar, contains about forty-five per cent, of shell 

 lime, and about thirty per cent, of green sand, 

 varying some little in per centage in different 

 beds on the same estate. On the Pamunkey, 

 the beds are generally accessible, the depth of 

 earth before coming to the shell being about 

 twelve feet. Some beds of marl contain a con- 

 siderably greater amount of green sand than 

 others, and from such as these I should prefer to 

 obtain it, feeling confident as I do that the fer- 

 tilizing property of the marl is greatly enhanced 

 by a large admixture of this green sand with 

 the lime. There must, however, be a fair pro- 

 portion of lime, for where I have seen the green 

 sand used from beds that contained no lime, al- 

 though the effect was almost miraculous on the 

 clover crop that followed the application, yei I 

 do not think that the improvement has been per- 

 manent; there are, however, two estates in this 

 county where I understand green sand alone has 

 been extensively used. On the one, where the 

 soil is of a chocolate texture, the effect has been 

 very fine, whilst on the other, where the soil is 

 very light and sandy, no effect is visible, save 

 on a small piece of land of like texture with 

 the farm first spoken of. I recently met with 

 the manager of an estate in King William 

 county, on the Maltaponi, who told me that he 

 had been using the green sand for the two last 

 years with very beneficial results, putting 120 

 bushels to the acre. 



But though every one who has green sand, 

 and no marl, should use it as a desirable mode 

 of improving his land, yet no one wmo has marl 

 should ever haul the other unless it, may be to 

 increase the quantity of green sand when he 

 thinks his marl contains too small a portion of it. 



Marl may be applied with equal benefit to the 



land before a wheat crop or a corn crop. If pre- 

 ference can be given to either it should be to the 

 latter, as in that case the exposure to the frost 

 tends to hasten the decomposition of the shells, 

 and the cultivation of the corn tends to mix it 

 sooner with the soil ; but in either case, it is al- 

 ways most desirable to apply it along with pu- 

 trescent manures, as one of its chief recommen- 

 dations is the property it possesses of rendering 

 those manures permanent. 



One cannot, 1 think, be too liberal in his ap- 

 plication of marl; I have never seen but once, 



1 think, a crop injured by too heavy an applica- 

 tion ; that was in a few acres of corn planted 

 on a sandy piece of land on which about two 

 thousand bushels of marl per acre had been put 

 by way of experiment on the wheat fallow pre- 

 ceding the corn crop, (in the four field system,) 

 there was too a very severe drought, which, in 

 part, accounts for the firing of the corn. I think 

 about eight hundred bushels a fair application, 

 and should never put less unless I had to haul 

 it from a great distance. A gentleman in this 

 county is now largely engaged in hauling marl 

 from the beds of a neighbor to his plantation, a 

 distance of from two to two and a half miles, 

 putting about three hundred bushels per acre. 

 He has not been yet applying it long enough to 

 ascertain the exact profit he will derive from it, 

 but is very well satisfied that it is a profitable 

 employment for his hands and teams. It is un- 

 necessary for me at this late day to dilate on 

 the great value of marl as an improver; no one 

 at all conversant with the principles of agricul- 

 ture is now skeptical on this subject ; one has 

 but to go into the marl region to see the inesti- 

 mable benefits that the country has derived from 

 this inexhaustible source of fertilization that na- 

 ture has provided for some favored parts of the 

 world. As a guide for the beginner, I annex 

 an estimate of the cost and quantity of a year's 

 marling, premising that no farmer having marl 

 on his land should be satisfied until he has es- 

 tablished two permanent marl carts at least. 



2 carters at $40 per annum, $80 00 

 1 loader at $40 per annum, 40 00 

 Uncovering marl per annum, 75 00 

 Feed for 4 mules, wear of same and carts 250 00 



$445 00 



Quantity of marl hauled at an average dis- 

 tance of three-fourths of a mile will be thirteen 

 loads a day for each cart containing thirteen 

 bushels, making for the two carts per diem 338 

 bushels; say that they can haul 250 days in 

 the year, and you have 84,500 bushels of marl 

 per annum, which at 800 bushels per acre will 

 marl 105f acres, being at a cost of about $4 20 

 per acre. 



This is, I think, a fair estimate of the cost of 

 marling, and no one could see some of the es- 

 tates in Virginia, improved by marl, without 



