766 
quality the land had before: but still I do not see 
that this is any objection to the chalking of mea- 
dows, provided, whilst by virtue of the chalk, they 
are bearing such burthens, you take care to re- 
fresh them with dung. Though chalk laid on 
meadows enables them to give a great crop for 
three or four years, and will then impoverish 
them, yet I take it to hold quite contrary on pas- 
ture; for the grass being thereby so much sweet- 
ened and increased, keeps constantly so much the 
more stock, by which it is maintained always in 
the same vigour.” 
The unctuous, soft, and saponaceous kinds of 
chalk are the most suitable to be used in a crude 
state, or in the manner of marl; and the hard, 
dry, and firm kinds are the most suitable to be 
used in a burnt or calcined condition, or in the 
manner of lime. The principal good effects of 
burning hard chalk are to lessen its weight by 
| driving off its water, and to render it more capable 
of easy and equal spreading upon the ground by 
reducing it to a state of powder. In the dis- 
tricts in which chalk is most abundantly em- 
ployed as a fertilizer, it is, for the most part, 
either mixed with earth or manure before being 
| distributed athwart the land, or laid down in 
autumn, and not ploughed in till it has been 
acted on by the frosts of winter. The quantity 
of it applied to pasture commonly varies from 
150 to 250 bushels per acre, and, on arable land, 
from 200 or 300 to 700 or 1,000 bushels; but, in 
both instances, it is very generally determined 
by mere caprice or convenience, without any ap- 
peal to scientific principle, or any reference to 
either the comparative richness of the particular 
chalk employed, or the degree of calcareous po- 
verty or destitution of the land to which it is 
applied. It can, in any case, be economically em- 
ployed only when found either below the fields 
on which it is used, or at a comparatively brief 
distance ; and it ought always to be applied with 
strict adaptation to the calcareous wants of the 
land. One dressing, if sufficiently rich and pro- 
perly applied, will slowly and regularly operate 
upon the soil through a somewhat long series of 
years; and a second should not be applied till the 
first has been allowed to expend the greater part 
of its power, or usually till a lapse of 12 or 15 
years. 
Chalk may be dug and carted throughout July, 
August, and September, when it is designed to 
lie on the land unploughed-in till spring, and 
throughout October, November, and December, 
when it is designed to be applied and covered in 
a state of mixation with earth or manure. When 
a stratum of chalk exists beneath the field to be 
dressed with it, and at no greater depth than 
twenty feet from the surface, a shaft of four feet 
in diameter is opened to it, and is propped round 
the sides with a basket-work of hazel or willow 
rods and brushwood; the earth of the shaft and 
the chalk of the stratum are brought up by means 
of a rope and bucket upon a very rude and inex- 
CHALK. 
pensive windlass; one man fills the bucket, and 
two others wind it up, and distribute its content 
with a wheel-barrow upon the surrounding land; | 
and when the stratum is worked in chambers to 
the depth of about thirty feet from the surface, 
the first shaft is abandoned, and another at a 
little distance is opened. One shaft, in an aver- 
age case, supplies sufficient chalk for six acres, 
at a cost of about sevenpence for every twenty 
bushels. When strata of good chalk occur close 
to the surface, and constitute the substance of 
hills, a large excavation is made in the form of a 
quarry; and affords a supply, by means of cart- 
ing, to a considerable surrounding district. 
The chalk of the uppermost three or four feet 
of a chalk formation, especially when it occurs 
close to the surface, is usually very inferior in 
quality to that which lies at a greater depth; but 
this, as well as any better kind of chalk, serves | 
well for making and repairing roads in districts | 
where stones and gravel cannot easily be obtained. 
Many varieties of chalk are very serviceable also 
for making mortar, and for several other coarse 
purposes to which the lime of limestone districts 
is commonly applied. Chalk may likewise be 
very servicably employed for making ponds on 
thirsty land, away from streams and springs, for 
the use of cattle; and if laid several inches 
thick, and covered with a coat of sand and gra- 
vel, it will thoroughly retain a collection of rain- | 
water, and preserve it in a clean and sweet con- 
dition. Powdered chalk may, in small quanti- 
ties, be thrown into all cattle-ponds, for the cor- | 
rection of acidity; and a lump of it should be 
laid in every pen of a fattening calf, for the ani- 
mal to lick. Prepared or levigated chalk, in a 
state of fine powder and of freedom from all im- 
purities, is externally applied, in veterinary sur- 
gery, to ulcers which make a thin and ichorous 
discharge, and internally administered, in com- 
bination with catechu and opium, as a remedy 
for dysentery and diarrhoea. “ There are few 
cases of illness in oxen, sheep, or swine,” says 
Clater, “in which there is not considerable aci- 
dity in the stomach or bowels. 
as being an alkali, and combining with the acid, 
and neutralizing it. It should form a part of 
the cordial and astringent medicine of all young 
animals. From half an ounce to an ounce will 
be a dose for a cow; a drachm will suffice for a 
sheep or hog. It should generally be accompanied 
by opium, and always by caraways or ginger.” 
Prepared chalk is used externally for ulcers and 
burns, and internally for the correction of acidity 
and the cure of dysentery, in the human subject 
as in the horse. Yet it ought by no means to 
be administered to any animal with the freedom 
and frequency which Clater seems to recommend; 
for it has a considerable tendency to create con- 
cretions and calculi. See the articles Catcutus 
and Dysenrery.—Lyell’s Geology. Grifiith’s Re- 
ports on Ireland—Parliamentary Gazetteer of Eng- 
land and Wales—Malcolm’s Husbandry and Man- 
Chalk is useful, 
