I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



515 



, terials upon which it can act must be pre- 

 sent, or its greatest effect will he lost. 

 There must he organic matter in the soil, 

 either as decomposing manure or as vegeta- 

 ble mold, upon which it can operate. Lime 

 brings into play the constituents of the soil, 

 and enables the plant to feed on them, while, 

 as a salt, it forms the food of plants, yet its 

 great effect is upon the different parts of 

 the soil itself. The richer this may be, the 

 better will prove the effect of lime; the 

 poorer the soil, the slower and worse the 

 effect.*,; It is owing to this cause that lime 

 has been condemned in many cases, it hav- 

 ing been put upon poor soils, where there 

 was nothing for it to operate upon. The 

 effect of lime, it will be observed from what 

 we have said above, is long continued. Its 

 benefits can be seen for crop after crop. 

 As long as there is organic matter in the 

 soil, it slowly decomposes it, forming new 

 combinations and fresh food. Those results 

 which we produce in the laboratory, fall far 

 short of the endless changes going on in the 

 earth. He who undertakes to explain every 

 operation of Nature will fail most lamenta- 

 bly. There are causes at work we but little 

 understand. Who can explain vitality ? 

 It has much to do with the marvelous ac- 

 tions and reactions going on in the earth. 

 By it inert matter becomes part of life, ful- 

 fils its functions, decays, forms new life, 

 and thus runs on in an eternal round. 



MARL. 



Next to lime, marl has the most extensive 

 use, as a fertilizer, in the eastern part of the 

 United States. It has been found from 

 New York, along the coast, to the Gulf of 

 Mexico. We have heard of none between 

 the Rocky and Alleghany mountains, unless 

 it might be on the Gulf of Mexico. The 

 composition of marls is various, .most of 

 them abounding in carbonate of lime. To 

 this they owe a great cause of their useful- 



l 



Protoxyd of iron, . . . . .8.3 



Alumina, .... 6.1 



Lime, . . . . . 2.4 



Magnesia, .... .4 



Potash, . . . . .2.5 



Soluble silica, . . . 20.2 



Insoluble silica and sand, . . 49.9 



Sulphuric acid, ... .9 



Phosphoric acid, . . . 1.4 



Carbonic acid, . • • . .2 



Water, . . . . 7.1 



Soluble in water, . . . 1.9 



ness. The word marl has various'feign loca- 

 tions in the United States. In New Jersey, 

 the green sand is called marl, while on the 

 Chesapeake the calcareous earth, so largely 

 used there, bears the same name. In Eu- 

 rope, the word marl would appear to be 

 applied to substances as often without lime 

 as with it, and not hy any means confined 

 io a class of calcareous earths. The appli- 

 cation of marl, or a variety of substances 

 under that name, is of quite ancient date. 

 Marling was practised by the Greeks and 

 the Romans, and Pliny in his Natural His- 

 tory, evidently alludes to and mentions chalk, 

 under the head of marl. He says the 

 Gauls and Britons sunk shafts to the depth 

 of a hundred feet for the extraction of 

 white chalk. It was used to scour silver, 

 and is the whiting of the present day. 

 The same substance, on being put on land, 

 produces fertilizing effects for eighty years. 

 In England and on the continent, chalking 

 and marling are synonymous terms ) and it 

 it is probable that substances of an unctu- 

 ous, soapy feeling came into use because 

 they were supposed to possess properties 

 similar to chalk. 



The pure green sand marl of New Jer- 

 sey, according to the analysis of Mr. Henry 

 Seybert, contains no lime. He obtained as 

 follows : 



Silica, . . . . 49.83 



Alumina, * . . . 6.00 



Magnesia, . . . .1.83 



Potassa, . . . . .10.12 



Water, ..... 9.80 

 Protoxyd of iron, .... 21.53 

 Loss, ..... 0.89 



100.0 J 



But the substance varies very materially, 

 as is shown by the following analysis, copied 

 from Prof. Cooke's Report on the Geology 

 of New Jersey. We give the analysis with 

 the decimals abridged from two figures to one : 



o 



3 



4 



5 



10.8 



21.3 





14.9 



6.6 



8.0 







12.5 



1.0 







2.6 



2.0 







4.9 



7.1 



7.1 



4.3 



31.2 



45.9 







5.6 

 .6 



4.0 

 .4 







1.1 



1.3 



.2 



2.6 



9.3 









8.9 



8.1 







1.4 



u 



1.1 



1.9 



