LIME. 



405 



ill going in debt, that commoditi/ is lime ! and 

 if prudent and judicious young farmers could 

 coniinand the capital to buy it, even borrowed 

 capital, llie increased product of the land would 

 redeem the debt with more certainty than most 

 mercantile adventures can do, for which it is so 

 easy in towns to raise the means ; and the whole 

 aspect of the country would be changed and im- 

 proved. 



Let any one who wants to see the effect of 

 capital so applied, and especially as far as lime 

 may be involved in the inquiry, look at the farm 

 of F. P. Blair, Esq. near Washington. Re- 

 ference to all such cases, we are aware, is apt to 

 be met by the ready suggestion, that "with 

 plenty of money, every one can improve and 

 fertilize and give a new aspect to poor land ;" 

 but this is not true, for many a man, though not 

 meaning to be improvident, squanders his 

 means and wastes bis exertions in unskillful ap- 

 pliances of both; but even if it were true, what 

 better service to the landed interest, ay, and to 

 Uie country, can any man of means render, than 

 to show how capital may be made to yield ade- 

 quate return, when applied with julSgment to 

 the most important and useful of all human 

 pursuits ? Such men become eminent bene- 

 factors of the commonwealth, by demonstrating 

 under the very eye of city capitalists, that their 

 sous would do wisely to betake themselves to 

 farming, instead of being all huddled together 

 in cities, as if it were the country that is infected 

 with plague, pestilence and famine ! 



Returning to lime, which, with ashes, we un- 

 derstand to be the basis of regeneration, effected 

 in the estate to which we have already referred, 

 we may add that we understood Hon. Wil- 

 loaghby Newton of Westmoreland, Virginia, 

 \ fome days since to say, that he had made on an 

 ) estate on the Potomac, this year, eight per cent 

 [ on all the capital embarked, as well in the cost 

 \ of the farm, as on all the property emploj-ed and 

 * all the expenses incurred in the cultivation, and 

 . his chief reliance is on lime. The staid and ju- 

 ► dicious farmer of Montgomery county — exem- 

 \ plary in all things, with a few exceptions (such 

 \ as not taking the Farmers' Library) don't 

 ' 8top to inquire' whether lime " enrichuth the 

 I ftither but impoverisheth the son." All he asks 

 ■ is, (and that after ample experience and close 

 ' calculation.) " Z»y what means, and how much 

 can I get." To get money to buy lime, they 

 will sell almost any thing but wife and children 

 and a favorite dog ; for they know that if tlie}' 

 can get enough of it, instead of impoverishing 

 the son, they can " set him up" in their own life 

 time. 



Referring once more to the motto that " Lime 

 enricheth the Father, but impoverisheth tlie 

 Son," the true explanation is so well given in 

 (817) 



the following which we find in the North British 

 Review, that we give it in lieu of, and as bet- 

 ter .said, than any thing we could offer: 



" The addition of lime to the land has, in nearly 

 all well cultivated countries, extensively pre- 

 vailed at every period of authentic history. In 

 Europe, its u.se has been universal, and every 

 where the .same observation has been commonly 

 made, and has become a proverb in almost every 

 language. "Lime." the proverb saj's, "enrich- 

 eth the father, but impoverisheth the son." 

 Laid on in repeated doses, and for a length of 

 time, tlic luxuriant crops it raises at first gradu- 

 ally fall off, till at length, even with the stimu- 

 lus, as it is called, of larger doses, the land re- 

 fuses to be excited. A like result has been obser- 

 ved of late years fi-om the application of gyp- 

 sum, of nitrate of soda, of common salt, or of 

 saltpetre. Their good effects were apparent for 

 a certain number of years, but they gradually 

 ceased to act, and the land was afterwards be- 

 lieved to be even ^veaker and less productive 

 than before. How are these results to be ex- 

 plained ? Can this apparent exhaustion be pre- 

 vented ? Can it easily be remedied ? Is it a 

 necessary consequence of the use of lime, and 

 of the other substances we have mentioned ? Is 

 the manure or the farmer to blame for the re- 

 sult ? The plant carries away from the soil say 

 10 substances. The soil is deficient in one of 

 these, and the plant cannot grow. That one is 

 lime or soda. You add it to the land, and yonr 

 crops spring up luxuriantly. Rejoiced at this 

 result, you add more lime, and your crops still 

 grow well — for it requires the addition of 300 or 

 400 bushels to an imperial acre to add one per 

 cent, of lime to a soil which is 12 inches in 

 depth. But after many crops the lime at length 

 ceases to benefit the land, the crops are even 

 smaller than they were before lime was first 

 added, and the farmer is at a dead stand. Now 

 what has he been doing all this time ? He has 

 been adding one thing only in his lime — he has 

 been carrying off 10 in his crops. Is it any won- 

 der, then, that after a lapse of years, the land 

 •should become poor in one or more of the other 

 nine ? The iron-smelter throws into his furnace 

 his ore and his coal, but he pets no metal until 

 he puts in lime also. He adds a dose of lime, 

 and he draws off a running of metal. He adds 

 more lime, and he procures perhaps more iron. 

 But he very soon finds that lime does no faither 

 good ; he has melted out all the iron ; he has ex- 

 hausted his funiaco ; the stimulusof lime hasno 

 effect. He must add ore and coal again, and 

 again he will obtain his periodical fiows of met- 

 al. So it is with the t^oil. The farmer who 

 hopes by the continual addition of one thing, to 

 make his land produce continual good crops, 

 hopes and acts against reason. It is his fault 

 that the land has become exhausted, and the 

 cure is in his own haud.s. Lime, therefore, does 

 not necessarily " impovcri.sh the son." But any 

 treatment will ultimately make the land poorer 

 which does not return to the soil all the things 

 which the crops have carried off and at least in 

 equal proportion." 



Remarkable and Important Discovery. 

 An Italian chemi.«t has discovered a liquid pre- 

 paration which will .stop the worst hemorrhage, 

 even that from cutting an arterj'. Tt is applica- 

 ble to many other purposes; and if half that is 

 said of it be true, it must prove of great value. 



