USE OF LIME. 365 



quantity of waste peat meadow, and clay is frequently 

 near at hand. It may be removed and prepared at a 

 season of the year when there is but little else to do. 

 The expense, therefore, need not deter any one from 

 its use. 



But there is another substance equally accessible, 

 which acts both as an ameliorator and a fertilizer of 

 the soil. It is, perhaps, one of the cheapest and most 

 profitable top-dressings. It is the rich loam which 

 accumulates in the holes by the road-side, and wherever 

 the wash gathers from hills. Every one has observed 

 the effect of the loam thrown out upon the grass in 

 ploughing. The grass along the edges soon becomes 

 greener in spring, and grows with greater luxuriance. 

 The wash by the road-side would have a far more power- 

 ful effect. For this contains, besides the putrescent ani- 

 mal matters from the road, a quantity of fine sand, which 

 rich soils, wanting closeness and consistency, require on 

 the surface. Spread upon such soils when covered with 

 grass, it is very efficacious, and often makes the vegeta- 

 tion as vigorous as stimulating manure. Experiments 

 have clearly shown that the effect of sand on some soils 

 is to operate as a manure. 



Among the mineral manures, lime has sometimes been 

 used as a top-dressing. Its effect arises not so much 

 from any direct nutriment furnished by it to the grass, 

 as from its influence on the substances in the soil. It 

 hastens the decomposition of vegetable and mineral 

 matters in the earth ; and in this way it may be said to 

 renew exhausted soils. It increases the temperature 

 of cold, sour lands, after being drained, and causes a 

 rapid decay of peat substances. Hence its use in the 

 compost heap. It destroys the mosses and coarse herb- 

 age which work in among the grasses, and indicate the 

 want of lime in the soil. It produces from them a fine 

 31* 



