16 FEBRUARY 1934, Page 16

The Revival of Marl Some critic has said that the

Oxford Farm Economists arc

chiefly journalists. If so, they are extremely good journalists. The latest number of The Farm Economist, a leaflet now dignified with a cover as green as Mr. Robertson Scott's Countryman—also published in Oxfordshire—is full of sug- gestive hints that should concern farmers. The best con- cerns the old and, in some counties, almost forgotten art of mar- ling. Since Professor Somerville, again of .Oxford, published his little classic, Poverty Bottom, we have had no better. exam- ple of the improvement that may follow simple and natural

tnanurial experiments. Scores of farmers and landowners might do what Mr. II. E. Stubbins has done near his home at Thornton Grange in the Pocklington district of Yorkshire. We have been told that marl, which is a mixture of clay and carbonate of lime, has helped to spoil cricket by making the pitches too good. Its influence on many soils is almost magical, and there is here no fear of making the farms too good for the industry. Marl may do for Yorkshire and Suffolk and many other counties, especially in the East of England, what sea sand (well mixed with the debris of shells) is doing for lands, previously derelict, in the Duchy of Cornwall.