40 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



&quot; yield rich crops when we succeed in converting the turf into 

 humus. By a happy coincidence, turfy deposits frequently alter 

 nate with layers of sand, of gravel, of clay, and of vegetable 

 earth, which have been accumulated at the same epoch. By a 

 mixture, by a division, of these different materials, preceded in 

 every case, however, by proper draining, mere peat bogs may be 

 turned into good arable soil. Pyritic turf, however, shows itself 

 more intractable ; it rarely yields any thing of importance. To 

 improve such a soil, it is absolutely necessary to have recourse to 

 substances of an alkaline nature, such as chalk or lime, wood 

 ashes, &c., which have the property of decomposing the sul 

 phate of iron which is formed by the efflorescence of the 

 pyrites.&quot; * 



The experience of a distinguished farmer in Scotland, in the 

 use of lime upon peat lands, is well worth quoting. He has im 

 proved two hundred acres of peat bog, which certainly gives him 

 a right to speak. &quot; The farmers in Scotland think that they 

 cannot raise good crops of grain without lime, as the greatest 

 part of the south of Scotland is composed of new red sandstone, 

 grauwacke and granite, and therefore devoid of lime, which 

 forms a considerable portion of every fertile soil ; indeed, it was 

 found that the soil in Dumfrieshire did not produce well-filled 

 barley-crops until the farmers employed lime, which they now 

 do to a great extent, and find it equally useful for potatoes and 

 turnip crops, which is amply testified by the fanners purchasing 

 lime to the amount of 3000 annually from my lime-quarry at 

 Close Farm.&quot; This value of lime to turnip and potato crops is 

 a new fact. Certainly, I would hint not the slightest distrust 

 upon the authority of this intelligent witness ; but matters not 

 half so weighty as 3000 worth of lime, purchased annually, at 

 one s own quarry, may, without our own consciousness, some 

 what affect the judgment. 



This farmer adds, &quot; I have employed lime, as it is practised in 

 Derbyshire, to great advantage upon the surface of moor land, 

 (i. e. bog ;) but as it requires a very large dose of lime, it can 

 only be done where lime is cheap, as it requires from 200 to 

 300 bushels of lime, per acre, to destroy the great quantity of 

 vegetable matter in moor soils, which it soon accomplishes, as is 



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