44 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



sufficiently dosed. Indeed, in such cultivation it can scarcely 

 be called the culture of the peat, but the actual bringing up of a 

 new soil, wholly different from the peat, and the cultivation of 

 that. It would be a great error to suppose that the land in this 

 case was not manured. Two or three of the crops of cole or 

 rape grown upon the land were eaten off by sheep, folded on the 

 land ; and other dressings of manure were liberally applied. 

 Other examples of the advantages of claying peat might be 

 referred to as equally decisive. But I shall quote the account 

 given by Mr. Morton, to whom I have already referred, and the 

 proofs of whose skill, and science, and success, I have witnessed 

 with the highest pleasure, on that which deserves to be called a 

 pattern farm. 



&quot; The fens of Lincolnshire,&quot; he says, &quot; have been increased in 



part with the lime, are resolved into their simple elements, and, assuming a new 

 character, gradually become capable of sustaining an improved vegetation. Of 

 course, as we have already shown, the lime will act on the fibrous vegetable re 

 mains in the soil, combine with them, and convert them by degrees into soluble 

 and fructifying nutriment for vegetables. If, after peaty lands have been once 

 limed, it should be found advisable, for any cause, to break up a lea, (and this 

 should be as seldom as possible, such lands being better laid to grass,) it would 

 be an improvement to do so by paring and burning, as, by the application of heat, 

 a portion of the lime now converted into carbonate, from being so long buried 

 and in close contact with the soil, would be freed from its acquired acid, and re 

 stored anew to its original purity when first applied or, in other words, be re 

 converted into quicklime, and would thus be rendered capable of exerting a 

 renewed action on the peaty substances present, and, from its recovered causticity, 

 again promote the various processes of decomposition and recomposition, so favor 

 able to the development of healthful and luxuriant vegetation.&quot; Journal of the 

 Highland and .Agricultural Society, for October, 1843. 



li The decay of woody fibre,&quot; says Liebig, &quot; is very much accelerated by con 

 tact witli alkalies or alkaline earths ; for these enable substances to absorb 

 oxygen which do not possess this power themselves. Alcohol, gallic acid, tannin, 

 the vegetable coloring matters, and several other substances, are thus affected 

 by them. Acids produce quite an opposite effect; they greatly retard decay.&quot; - 

 Page 301, Boston edition. 



I give these quotations for the benefit of my readers. They are among the 

 best scientific explanations, which we have had, of the effect of lime upon peat. 

 It would be quite presumptuous in me to say that I endorse or deny them. Some 

 of my readers will think that the explanations need explaining ; and I am not 

 without some sympathy in their difficulties. Most of us get on as far as the 

 Oriental philosophy, that the earth rests upon the back of an elephant, and the 

 elephant stands upon the back of a tortoise. But what does the tortoise rest 

 upon? Here we are obliged to stop; and here, too, science, in all its pride, is 

 often compelled to stop with us. 



