210 
GEOLOGY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 
the above table, less the cost of throwing out ; for it is worth that amount 
any where in the State ; so that if the value of a given marl be $3.75 at 
the pits, it may be profitably transported 300 miles, at $1.25 per ton per 
hundred miles. Of the New Jersey marls Prof. Cook says, estimating the 
range of values at $3.50 to $8.50 a ton, “ I believe, in comparison with 
the prices paid for concentrated manures, they are worth that price to the 
farmer. 1 am confirmed in my opinion of their value by the testimony 
of successful farmers who have used them 20 years or more, and who as- 
sure me they can better afford to incur an expense of $5 or $8 a ton, than 
to farm without them, or to use any other purchased fertilizers.” Un- 
fortunately thereis no such confirmatory experience in this latitude, because, 
so far from incurring any such expense in transportation, there are few 
who have tried the experiment of hauling it even one or two miles, and its 
transportation by rail is unheard of. On the contrary it is not uncommon 
to find farmers in whose ditches and furroughs even, the marl obtrudes 
itself, paying $60 and $70 a ton for commercial manures, and leaving the 
marl untouched. But it is plain from the facts and figures above given, 
that while the marls are naturally distributed over one quarter of the 
territory of the State, they are profitably accessible to at least one half. 
The question is often asked me whether there are any minerals in the 
eastern section of the State ; the answer is, the mineral wealth of that 
section, in the form of marl , is worth ten-fold more than that of all the 
rest of the state beside, great and various as that is. If the money spent 
in gold-getting alone, which is not less than 12 or 15 millions since 1820, 
had been spent in marl-getting, the State would be worth more than 
double its present aggregate valuation. For at the rate already given, 
that sum would have marled 3 millions of acres, — more than the total 
surface now in cultivation ; that is, it would have produced a result at 
least equal to to the adequate marling, (at the rate of 10 tons to the acre), 
of every acre now in cultivation, leaving out of the calculation the iuteresf, 
that is, the results of the increased production during several decades of 
years. And I think the farmers of those neighborhoods where marl has 
been most persistently and judiciously used will testify that on an aver- 
age, an acre, which has been properly marled, is worth three unmarled. 
Of course there are instances of the injurious, because injudicious use of 
marl, such as have been referred to in the account of some of the stronger 
sorts. But it is possible to use too much stable manure, or Peruvian 
Guano, or to eat too much wheaten bread, or Irish potatoes ; and it would 
be just as wise to condemn altogether the use of these articles on that ac- 
count, as to refuse or abandon the u.e of marl for such a reason ; as some 
farmers and neighborhoods have allowed themselves to do. It has been 
