NATURE NOTES. 
150 
because it was a very costly mode of manuring land. No marl 
has been got from the old marl pits that Mr. Hope describes for 
fifty or sixty years, but there is still a little marling done 
occasionally in a few localities where marl can be obtained from 
the escarpment of a hill without much expense. 
Although marling in Cheshire is a thing of the past we still 
make use of the old saying — 
He who marls sand 
!May buy the land, 
because marl is so beneficial on sandy soil that he who so used 
it would be sure to grow rich. Then at rent dinners, club 
feasts, and such like gatherings, when drinking a man’s health 
is followed by cheering him, it is still often called “ marling 
him,” Avhich is derived from one of the old marling customs of 
the county, where a gang of marlers, after receiving any small 
present from a chance visitor, used to stand in a ring and cheer 
the donor. 
^tlarl was dug (or, as was locally called, “ }"Owed ”) from the 
pits by gangs of men who were called “ marlers.” They elected 
a chief man or ganger who was designated “ Lord of the Pit,” 
and one of his duties was to receive and disburse all money 
given to the gang. Any one who chanced to pass the pit was 
stopped, and a donation was demanded, which was seldom 
refused. But they had a very curious way of magnifying the 
gifts they received. Thus, if it was sixpence or some smaller 
coin, the lord of the pit announced it as “ part of T500 ” ; if 
half a crown were given, he would call it “ part of ;^i,ooo.” The 
men then stood in a ring and cheered the donor, shouting 
“ lorgesse, lorgesse.” The very use of this word, which of 
course is merely the early English “largesse,” points to the 
antiquity of the customs attendant on marling. I have already 
said that marling generally had ceased before my time ; but 1 
remember a very old man in IMobberley, who had been a great 
hand amongst the marlers in his time, who to the day of his 
death went by the name of “ Lord ” Lowndes. 
I have also said that the customs connected with marling 
are now almost, if not quite, forgotten. So completely is this 
the case, that in 18S1 I tried the experiment of marling a piece 
of ground at Norton, and opened a small marl pit. I went to 
the men and stood talking with them for some time in the full 
expectation that they would ask me for drink money according 
to the old custom — in fact, I went partly to see if they would do 
so. But they made no sign, and appeared to be quite ignorant 
of the usage. 
Probably IMr. Hope has observed what is quite common 
throughout Cheshire generally, that there are very often two 
or even three pits close together, and only separated from each 
other b}' very narrow strips of land, perhaps not more than half 
a yard wide. These strips are called “ mid-feathers,” and for a 
