ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY. 
213 
which are found throughout the eastern region ; the specimen was ob- 
tained in a cleared and cultivated portion of such a swamp on Black 
River, New Hanover county, belonging to Jas. Murphy. A sample of 
a similar deposit analyzed for Judge Barnes, from Hertford county, not 
far from Murfreesboro, gave 57.85 per cent, of organic matter ; and a 
specimen obtained from a similar bed of several acres on the farm of 
Elias Carr, already referred to, is of about the same composition. It has 
been used for manure for a generation or more, on this farm, and with 
very marked benefit, in connection with marl. This is one of the few 
farms on which a bale and a half of cotton to the acre is a common crop, — 
to the extent of the marled and mucked surface. 
NTos. 5 and 6 are specimens of cane brake, river swamp; the first from 
Eagles’s Island, Brunswick county, opposite Wilmington ; the other, No. 
6, from the famous Big Swamp, on Lumber River, in Robeson and Col- 
umbus. These deposits are capable of becoming sources of fertility for 
the surrounding regions, and they are inexhaustible. 
It is worth while to put on record, in this connection, an analysis of 
another substance much relied on as a means of soil improvement in the 
best cotton counties of the east, Edgecombe, etc., and even used by the 
most intelligent farmers, who have easy access to indefinite supplies of 
peat and muck. I refer to what is called in cotton farming parlance 
“fence corner” and “ ditch bank.” It is the common practice to scrape 
together into conical heaps a few inches of the soil in the localities indi- 
cated, and after allowing time for the decay of the vegetable matter, — weeds, 
leaves, &c., often mixed with a little marl, to spread them upon the fields, 
or in the furrows. The object is, of course, mainly to procure a supply 
of humus. In order to demonstrate the expensiveness of such a pro- 
cedure, a sample was obtained from the farm of Mr. Carr, above mentioned, 
who is one of the most successful and intelligent farmers of the region. It 
had the appearance of being of the best quality ; and yet it contained but 
4.10 per cent, of organic matter. The advantage of even the poorer 
kinds of muck over such a manure is too obvious to be insisted on. 
A similar result would follow the analysis of the woods mould , and 
especially of the scrapings of worn out old fields , which are used for the 
same purpose, in the same region, under a mistaken estimate of their 
value. It is very important to restore the humus to these open soils, but 
not at such a cost ; more especially where muck is accessible, or where the 
cow-pea wdll flourish. 
Some other substances which are used for manorial purposes in the 
eastern part of the State are salt marsh mud, sea mud or slime, sea weed' and 
fish ref use. The analyses below will show the composition of one speci- 
