136 Tlie A(jricultui-al Relations of the Western Portion 
affords for their carriage to great distances. Tlie benefits which 
agriculture may derive from the conveyance by railway of the 
heavier manures, which are applied at the rate of many tons to 
the acre, and for the improvement of land by means of the in- 
terchange between different districts of those mineral consti- 
tuents in which the soil of each is deficient, do not appear to 
have received as yet the attention which they deserve. Chalk 
and other heavy mineral manures are carted in Norfolk and 
elsewhere as much as five miles, to be applied at the rate of 20 
or 30 tons to the acre. In many cases they are carried that 
distance from the wharf at which they are landed, burthened 
with the cost of conveyance thirty and forty miles, on an ex- 
pensive inland navigation. 
The cost of cartage cannot be estimated at less than sixpence 
per ton per mile. On railways the usual maximum charge for 
coals, chalk, lime, clay, &c., is one penny per ton per mile. 
They may therefore at this rate be carried thirty miles on a 
railway for the cost of carting them five miles. 
It is true that on the Dorchester line the rate of carriage 
authorised to be charged for such goods, and publicly announced 
as the charge, is twopence per ton per mile ; but in practice 
this is reduced to evenness than a penny, in consideration of a 
large traffic. The clay, for instance, from the pits in the neigh- 
bourhood of Poole, is carried from Poole to Lambeth for five 
shillings and sixpence the ton. The distance being 117 miles, 
this is at the rate of less than five-eighths of a penny per ton 
per mile. The directors of some other railways have stated that 
with a large traffic one halfpenny per ton per mile would pay 
them. One shilling and sixpence per ton for 30 miles would be 
a higher charge than five shillings and sixpence for 117 miles. 
The royalty paid at present to the Crown for digging marl in 
the New Forest is sixpence the cubic yard ; and the farmers 
who use it pay the marl-diggers sixpence the cubic yard for rais- 
ing it. With these expenses on it, I have seen it carted more 
than five miles from the pits. The Forest contains so many 
square miles of the marl series, extending to a depth of at least 
40 or 50 feet, that the supply may be regarded as practically in- 
exhaustible, being far greater than any possible demand which can 
arise from any lands to which it can ever be rendered accessible. 
A low royalty, of threepence the yard, with a large consump- 
tion, would produce a larger revenue than a higher royalty with 
tlie present limited consumption ; it is therefore well worthy the 
consideration of those who manage the Crown property, whether 
it would not be good policy to reduce the royalty — at least on 
the shell-marl, which is the most abundant — to threepence the 
