36 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
largely, sometimes almost wholly, of minute shells — a gritty, 
yet pasty mass when wet, pliable, powdery and chalky when 
dry, crumbling down to fine, white dust, if much exposed. 
They are usually found in the bottoms of morasses, drained 
ponds and lakes, though sometimes on lands so high above any 
present body or sheet of water, as to show r conclusively that 
their proper geological classification is with the tertiary forma¬ 
tions. Beds of this character are found three or four miles 
west of Genesee, and at Potosi. The first named bed is some 
seventy feet above the valley of the Fox River, the second four 
hundred feet above the level of the Mississippi. 
Good shell-marls have also been found in Waushara County, 
west of Wautoma, near Delhi in Winnebago County, at Bur¬ 
lington, Racine County, on the farm of Joseph Goodrich, at 
Milton, Rock County, and no doubt at many other places of 
which we have not received information. The specimens in 
the State Agricultural Rooms, taken from Burlington and Mil- 
ton, are of excellent quality, and would pay the farmer well in 
those neighborhoods for judicious application. 
The good effects of marl upon soils which are either physi¬ 
cally or chemically defective, have been observed from the 
earliest times, and it is hoped that the agriculture of Wisconsin 
may be made ere long to realize the benefits of its use. 
The Marsh Mud which abounds in Wisconsin, as scarcely in 
any other State, in the numerous beds of former lakes, is also 
worthy of enumeration among the natural economical products 
of the State. It has been but little used hitherto, but its rich¬ 
ness in carbonaceous matter and in various salts, cannot fail to 
render it very valuable as a means of improving our light soils, 
whether it be used alone, in combination with lime, or in the 
form of a compost with barn-yard manure. 
Peat of excellent quality has been discovered in various 
localities, and doubtless occurs in many of our dry marshes 
where it has not yet been found. Indeed it has been estimated 
by one whose observation has been extensive, that the surface 
covered with peat will scarcely fall short of 500,000 acres, with 
an average of not less than 600 cords to the acre. A single 
