AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 363 



lime per acre, on my clay loam land. Lime and bone dust eradicate the 

 sorrel and moss on sour lands. I put lime on new land, make grass, then 

 two bushels of gypsum broadcast in moist weather. On 18 acres I have 

 kept 22 cattle and a horse. I grow the Lawton blackberry. Although I 

 am only a shoemaker, you see I have some of the glorious blessings of the 

 farm about me. It is true that I 'practice law, too, 



Mr. Robinson. — Thirty bushels of slaked lime every year for four years, 

 on an acre of suitable land, will make it fertile for fourteen years afterwards. 



Mr. Atwater. — Sixty bushels of slaked lime fertilizes more than one 

 hundred and twenty bushels of unslaked. We use shell. 1 hiirij lime in 

 claij pits for wjnter ; it improves it for next year's use. 



President R-enwick stated that he had visited the Club simply for the 

 purpose of showing his respect for it, and manifesting the interest he took 

 in its proceedings. He had hoped to have heard a discussion from the 

 proposer of the question. As that gentleman was not present, and as the 

 subject before the Club was one to which he had in former days given some 

 attention, he woiild draw upon his memory for the points, which, at the 

 request of the late James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, he had laid down in an 

 edition published by that patron of agriculture, of Ruffin's Treatise on 

 the use of lime as a manure. It will be recollected that this publication 

 was made many years ago, and before the day of Liebig and Johnson. 

 What he stated, therefore, of the condition of chemical science, was to 

 be considered as applicable at the time these authors began to write. 



He then went on to say that the reasons usually assigned for the use of 

 lime in agriculture, were three in number : 



1, To render argillaceous soils friable, thus rendering their tillage more 

 easy, allowing the surface water in wet weather to sink through them, and 

 preventing them from baking into stiff clods in seasons of drought, 



2, To render sandy soils more retentive of moisture ; and, 



3, To act upon inert organic matter, promoting its decomposition, and 

 fitting it to become the food of plants. 



The results of the action of lime upon the growth of plants, and of some 

 species in particular, are so wonderful that the three reasons thus stated 

 will not account for them. Those others are, however, very obvious, al- 

 though not usually stated in treatises on chemistry. These, continuing 

 the order of numbers, are : 



4. Lime is an essential constituent of a number of vegetable products, 

 if it be not of many vegetable principles. Chemists have usually limited 

 the elements of the vegetable kingdom to oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, as 

 universal, and nitrogen as occasional. The ashes of plants, with the ex- 

 ception of their soluble portions, were long neglected, and only figured 

 among the results as earthy matter. Now so far from being unworthy of 

 notice, it was in this earthy material that the distinctive character of the 

 vegetable, in its applications, lay. Thus the ashes of wheat contain the 

 sulphate, phosphate and carbonate of lime. The two former, in particular, 

 constitute its value as the food of man, and warrant its epithet of " the 



