of the Hampshire Tertiary District. 
135 
Nearly the same (liflfeience of practice prevails at the present 
day : some use 100 loads to the acre, others not more than 20. 
An opinion, however, appears to be gaining ground in 
favour of light dressings frequently repeated, in preference to 
heavy dressings at long intervals. Those who favour the 
former method make an exception in respect to moory sands, 
when first reclaimed, which, they say, require heavy dressings, 
and that with a natural mixture of clay and chalk in which the 
chalk prevails. These are the kind of soils which in Dorset- 
shire are considered to require tlie lightest dressings of chalk. 
Good farmers on light loams in East Norfolk have assured me 
that they found more than 16 loads of chalk — there called marl 
— " set their land." Heavy claying, however, with the chalky 
varieties of boulder-clay containing much chalk, have still their 
advocates, particularly among the older farmers, subject to the 
proviso that they must be accompanied by liberal dressings of 
organic manure. " If you clay heavily," they say, " you must 
muck heavily, or you will set the land." 
Who shall guide us through this maze of contradictions ? 
In general, I have found the opinions of those who rely ex- 
clusively on practice, as to the quantities in which mineral 
manures should be applied, to be guided very much by the 
facility with which they can be obtained. If they must be 
brought from a distance, or are covered with a deep overburthen, 
they are used sparingly : if they are easily procurable, they are 
laid on heavily. 
Chemistry and geology, between them, could solve many 
existing anomalies in the use of mineral manures ; and it may be 
safely affirmed, that, if they received due encouragement, they 
would not require half a century for the solution of such ques- 
tions. What would the expenditure of a few hundreds of pounds 
on such investigations be, compared with the saving which would 
be effected by preventing half a county using 100 loads of clay 
or marl to the acre, if 20 loads is equally, or even more, effi- 
cacious ? 
Conveyance of Mineral Manures hy Railway. — I haAe stated 
that at a distance from the freshwater marls of the New Forest 
regret is often expressed that they are not accessible ; I now 
propose to point out how they might be rendered available. 
The railway system has done good service to agriculture, by the 
facilities which it has afforded for the transmission of agricultural 
produce, and by reducing the price of coal to the agricultural 
population of many inland districts. It has also materially 
increased the use of light manures, which are applied at the rate 
of a few hundredweights to the acre, by the facilities which it 
