34 



of securing good beets in as short a season as pos- 

 sible. It cannot exercise a hurtful action even if 

 employed in too large quantities so as to extract 

 from organic substances more ammonia than can 

 be retained by the earth. Lime does not exhaust the 

 soil by prematurely subtracting therefrom, but 

 rather returns to the earth the interest of the dead 

 capital lying enclosed in it. 



Naturally lime is only useful when the soil has in 

 it large and undecomposed quantities of mineral and 

 organic substances, and when the land is of itself 

 neither active nor warm enough to extract all these 

 necessary substances without assistance. Lime is 

 therefore a method of assuring the most prompt 

 utilizing of the manure, and it is for this purpose 

 that it is mixed in compost. Lime decomposes organic 

 substances and it is through it that the hurtful 

 decomposition of plants is transformed into fermen- 

 tation, which is necessary for vegetation. 



Lime is used in various ways. Quicklime is 

 mixed with vegetable refuse, cleanings of streams 

 and ditches, and dust from roads. When the lime 

 is quickly slacked, it is mixed as much as possible 

 with the other matters by moving the mass with a 

 shovel. This manure is applied to fodder crops in 

 the spring or on the same crops in the fall before 

 ploughing ; or, and very advantageously, upon the 

 fields in preparation to receive the seed of the beet 

 Sometimes small heaps of lime are made regu- 

 larly in the fields and they are covered with a few 

 shovelfulls of earth, and when the lime is slacked 



