of the Hampshire Tertiary District. 
133 
might be rendered accessible I shall hereafter endeavour to 
$]l()W. 
In the vicinity of the Forest these marls do not appear to be 
so highly appreciated as at a distance, though they have been 
used to a considerable extent. I heard various contradictory 
statements as to the benefits derived from them. In some cases 
they were said to be highly beneficial, in others to do no good, 
and in some to be positively injurious. Some portion of this 
discrepancy may be referred to difference of soil ; but it is im- 
portant that we should not rest satisfied with this general explana- 
tion, but should endeavour to discover in what that difference 
consists. 
The largest dressing of these freshwater marls which I ever 
saw in the course of application was upon a good and rather 
strong loam near Milton, on which I should have expected chalk 
to be more beneficial ; while on some coarse sands and gravels 
near Christchurch, the Forest marl had been tried, I was told, 
and was found inferior to chalk. The objection alleged against 
the marl was, that on coarse sands it does not incorporate with 
the soil, but collects in lumps. It was on similar neighbouring 
land that I met with the successful application of the dark sandy 
clay of the Lower Bagshots. 
In a brick-field at Pitt's Deep, a little east of Lymington, 
large quantities of a white marl, composed chiefly of finely com- 
minuted shells, are thrown away as refuse, because it blows the 
bricks in burning. I suggested its use upon the land, and was 
told that it had been tried and found injurious, making the wheat 
yellow, and preventing its coming into ear. The soils of the 
immediate neighbourhood were strong and wet, consisting of a 
mixture of flint-gravel with clay of the marl series, and were 
probably by no means deficient in calcareous matter. 
In other cases of failure in the use of these marls, I should 
infer, from the too prevalent neglect of draining, and the general 
inferiority of the cultivation (though there are numerous excep- 
tions), that the want of success might be traced to the mode in 
which they were used, rather than to anything inherent in the 
marls or the soils themselves. They might have been applied, 
for instance, to undrained land, or used as substitutes for organic 
manures, instead of as auxiliaries to them. They might have 
been applied in too large or too small quantities. 
We must not, however, Avholly lose sight of the probability of 
difference in the composition of different beds of marl. The 
marl series consists of a number of alternating strata, which it is 
very evident to the eye differ as to the proportions of argilla- 
ceous, calcareous, and siliceous matter which they contain, and 
