ont of the vegetable and mineral substances 

 which compose it. would require me to write a 

 much ioE^r letter than you wonld read wiih pa- 

 tience. I bave touched on the most prominent 

 onlv. The general consequences, however, 

 ■whjch follow, and Tsrhich are regarded as arising 

 peculiarly from its applications to land, require 

 to be glanced at. 



By opening stiff land, it renders it more per- 

 roeable to the air. and more subject to atmos- 

 piieric influence, ■while its surplus water more 

 readily escapes. Q.uick-lime. when saturated, 

 holds more water than common clay, such as 

 yours, hot yields it more readily to heat, and is 

 therefore of great use in drying damp lands and 

 rendering them warmer. But it does not give 

 lip its water so promptly as sand, and therefore 

 renders tha: more retentive of moisture. In feet, 

 marl conuiiniiig ZO per cenL of carbonate of 

 lime, and 'be residue chiefly fine sand, will ab- 

 sorb more water than the common clay of your 

 lands, and retain it as long. During the extreme 

 drouth last year, at one time, the plow mmed up 

 dry dirt in a field of mine marled that year at 

 100 bndjels per acre, and not yet sufficiently 

 mixed in the soiL ■while several days later, with- 

 OTJt intervening rain, in a soil equally sandy and 

 baving lerss vegetable matter, but marled fotir 

 years ago -with -200 bushels per acre, earth quite 

 moist was turned up at the same depth. You 

 will readily perceive and appreciate the value 

 of marl in this respect- 

 By rapidly neutralizing the noxious, and -vivi- 

 fying the good prtipernes of the subsoil brought 

 up in breaking land, lime enables the fermer to 

 deepen bis soil more speedily and -without risk. 

 Mr. fiuSn's experience confirming the theory, 

 is decisive on tlus point ; mine, so far as it goes. 

 is to the same efiect. Lime undoubtedly has- 

 tens the maturity of crops. Writers abroad state 

 that it advances them a fortnight. Before seeing 

 these statements, my observation of my o^wn 

 crops had led me to the same conclusion. Two 

 ■weeks gained to the cotton-plant is equivalent 

 to a degree of latitude — a very material gain to 



U-S. 



It is also stated on good authority, that lime in 

 land improves the quality of every culrivated 

 crop — and that it has the eflect of increasing the 

 fruit in proportion to the weed. It is well 

 kno-i*-n, that while the straw, stalks. &c. of plants 

 contain more of the carbonates, the seeds con- 

 tain more of the phosphates. If the application 

 of carbonate of lime increases the fruit more than 

 it does the stalk, its indirect influence in produ- 

 cing phosphates is greater and more important 

 than has been generally supposed, and its value 

 is enhanced in a corresponding degree. It is 

 said also to extirpate many noxious weeds. 

 However this may be, I can testify that it gives 

 great luxuriance to the growth of all the grasses 

 with which our crops are infested. This, to the 

 ;nere com and cotton planter, may be no recom- 

 mendation of it I ■will state, however, that in a 

 field planted in cotton in 1?44, and rested last 

 year, which usually produces a beavj' crop of 

 bog-^weed. when tanid out, there came up, al- 

 though it had not been plowed at all, an uncom- 

 monly fine gro^wth of cro^*'-foot ; which lean on- 

 ly account for from its having been marled. The 

 pare longest marled had the best crow-fboL 



Lime is thought in England to prevent smut 

 in ■wheat — to destroy many injurious in sects — to 

 preserve sheep pastured on land after its use 

 from rot and foot-rot — and it is everywhere re- 

 garded as improvicg the healtbfulness of drain- 



ed lands. In dwrt, it is no'w generally agreed, 

 not only by scientific men, but by the "best and 

 most experienced farmers in every part of the 

 world where it has been properly tested, that 

 •■ Lime is the basis of all good hnsbandr\-," — in 

 ■which opinion 1 fully and cordially concur. 



In endeavoring to furnish you with something 

 like a theory of the action of lime. I have stated 

 some — perhaps many things — ■which are ques- 

 tioned by men of great scientific attainment. — 

 Agricultural Chemistry — indeed the whole sci- 

 ence of chemisny- — may be said to be yet in in- 

 fancy. If it is difficult to penetrate the arcana 

 of passive nattire, it is far more so to investigate 

 those active operations which are conducted in 

 the air and tinder the ground, in the formation of 

 plants, complicated as they are in addition by the 

 yet unkno^wn ■vital agency of the plant itself. Al- 

 though, on the whoie, the art of Agriculture has 

 been ■vastly advanced by the discoveries and ex- 

 periments of chemists, and he who shuts his 

 eyes to the light they are constantly sheddin? 

 for the benefit of farmers, is now, and ■will scon 

 be much farther behind his age : still it is well 

 known that great absurdities have been put for- 

 ward, and with the utmost confidence, by the 

 most eminent characters in modem science. In 

 speaking, then, of the peculiar action of any of 

 the elements out of which plants are fbnned, and 

 its agency in the mysterious operations consum- 

 mated in the production of a full-gro^vn, matured 

 and fruit-bearing plant, it is not only becoming, 

 bat necessary that every one, most especially a 

 mere farmer like myselt, should express opinions 

 ■with great diffidence and caution, and hesitate 

 before drawing, even from established facts, in- 

 ferenq&s of important and extensive bearing. In 

 view of this. I ought not to omit to state to you. 

 that ■within a few years past, a sweeping theory 

 has been suggested by one of the first chemists 

 and most popular ■writers of the age. that has 

 found some able supporters, and which if true, 

 apparently upsets everything that has been said 

 of the efiect of lime in furnishing food to grow- 

 ing plants out of decayed vegetable matter. Dr. 

 Liebig asserts that that the decayed vegetable 

 matter of the soil called humus, or mould, affords 

 no direct nourishment whatever to plants. That 

 they derive all their organic constituents from 

 the atmosphere, and only their inorganic from 

 tlie earth. The organic constituents of plants are 

 those which are dissipated when they are burnt 

 and in most vegetables amount to from 97 to 99 

 parts in ICO. The organic constituents compose 

 the ashes which are left by fire, amounting 

 usually bom 1 to 3 parts in 100. in some rare 

 cases to as much as 1-2 per cent. The only nour- 

 ishment » hich, according to this theory, the soil 

 affords to plants, being thus limited to from 1 to 

 3 parts in 100, the utmost direct influence of good 

 or bad soils, oi manure of all kinds — of lime, 

 alumina, silica and all mineral elements, can 

 reach no ferther than to the modification of an 

 hundredth or at most a Uiirtj-third part of the 

 crops we cultivate. It follows that the world 

 has all this time labored under a most important 

 error in estimating at such vastly difierent values 

 what ■we call rich and poor lands. That the ef- 

 fects of manure are in a great measure fanciful, 

 or at least that from 1 to 3 lbs. of ashes are 

 equivalent to 100 lbs. of vegetable matter, as an 

 application to the soil, and that it is useles.s labor 

 to put on manure in any other form. Knowing 

 as we do that a single drop of prussic acid will 

 almost instantly extinguish life, it would not be 

 fair to deny very great influence to even the 



