THE FAUxMERS' REGISTER. 



153 



uiy mode ol' laruiiiig. 11" ihis be the case, 1 shall 

 sincerely regret it, but shall, notwithstanding, pro- 

 ceed in my own simple but candid way. 



No one, ihen, as lar as I am inlbrmed, pretends 

 that huie is an eiiricJier, or that il h.ts one single 

 enriching quality. The early opinion was thai it 

 acted aa a siiniuius, strongly exciting a plant to 

 seek lor all the lood that might be m its reach. 

 -But this opinion is now, 1 believe, pretty generally 

 exploded ; and the more nioJern phrase is, ihat ii 

 is chiefly useful in fixing the manures in the toil. 

 and thus rendering them permanent. This, if I 

 understand him aright, la the idea which the editor 

 intends to convey in his note. Now in this I do 

 most cordially and lully agree with him, and 1 do 

 contend (hat my practice has been unil'armly in 

 accordance with the same. The editor, and all the 

 advocates lor lime, will admit that manure or ve- 

 getation ofsome kind is necessary as a preparatory 

 application. No one, at the present day, will 

 tliink of ap|)lying lime to a naked soil. Bat the 

 first eflbri is to charge the soil with vegetaiicii, 

 and then the lime will have eomething to aci 

 upon. Now 1 have been doing this very thing 

 ever since 1 became a farmer. My land, as 1 be- 

 Ibre siated, was perlecily naked. It would not do 

 to resort to lime, whilst it was in that state. It 

 needed manure, il needed a cover, it now has 

 both ; and now, and not till now, was it in a state 

 to receive lime. 



But it seems that manure will not be permanent 

 unless it has been yixcd by lime. This, I conless, 

 I do not thoroughly understand. My idea is, that 

 the manures fix themselves. The reason why 

 they are not permanent, is because there is a de- 

 ficiency in the supply. Make the supply ample, 

 and 1 will guaranty that they will be permanent. 

 In accordance with this, we see that in cases ol 

 great fertility the crop is uniformly a large one. 

 Now let this crop fall and rot on the land, and thus 

 keep up the necesssary supply, and the conse- 

 quence will be, thai lerlility will not only be per- 

 manent, but will actually increase, in forests, 

 therefore, where the whole product is deposited, 

 and nothing is taken of], the lands are in a state oi' 

 continual progressive improvement, and that too 

 without a particle of lime to fix the manure. 



But it will be said that, according to this, the pur- 

 poses of cultivation will be defeated ; ihat the ob- 

 ject of tillage is not merely to keep up fertility, 

 but to obtain supplies for the other necessary pur- 

 poses of lile. This is all granted, and at the same 

 lime 1 maintain that, where the products are re- 

 gularly removed iirom the land, depreciation will 

 necessarily ensue, unless other vegetation is fur- 

 nished to supply the deficiency, l^ime alone, 

 without other enriching substances lor it to act 

 upon, will not answer the purpose. '• The one 

 thing needllil," then, is not lime, but enriching 

 vegetation, to make lertiliiy permanent. I will 

 now inlbrm the editor that, some time ago, I did 

 use lime to some extent. My first experiment 

 was with burnt oyster shells, and on a piece ol 

 land which had been recently cleared. Here the 

 effects were evident and highly satisfactory. 

 About this time I goi hold of the editor's invalua- 

 ble Essay on Calcareous Manures. Oilier shorter 

 productions, also, setting forth the great value of 

 lime as a manure, were constantly coming under 

 my notice ; from all which I concluded that this 

 was indeed " the one thing needlul" as aici im 

 Vol. X.--20 



prover of the soil. A. Robinson, esq., my next 

 neighbor, had also taken up the same opinion. 

 Accordingly we both procured lime, and without 

 regard to any previous preparation, made our ap- 

 plications with the most confident expectations of 

 success. But monilying to tell, our eflfbris were 

 without any beneficial effect whatever. We had 

 expended our money and labor, both to a consi- 

 derable extent, and our only reward was mortifi- 

 cition and disappointment. 



In connexion with the above vievvF, and going 

 a great way towards confirming them, I wilf state 

 thai I lately made a visit to iVlr. F. Staples, who 

 is one of ray most industrious and enterprising 

 neighbors. I found him, just where I like to see 

 every young and healthy farmer, in the midst of 

 his negroes, not sitting on a stump, indulging his 

 owninJolence whilst taxing their exertiona, but 

 actually holding the handles of i he plough and tak- 

 ing his lull part in the labors of the day. Whilst 

 there, besides several piles of manure which were 

 deposited in his field at convenient points for his 

 c-op, I observed a considerable quantity of oyster 

 shells, some already bumf, and others In a situa- 

 tion ready to undergo that necessary operation. 

 I ought to inform the reader that, fbr two years 

 or more, Mr. Staples has been in the habit of 

 triaking considerable use of this article on his 

 farm. And here 1 could not but be struck with 

 the remarkable coincidence, that without any 

 previous observation leading to the remark, this 

 judicious manager, pointing to the lime did say, 

 "I have been greatly disappointed in that article!"' 

 Having been disappointed myself in the same 

 manner, 1 was at no loss to explain the cause of 

 his failure. It was simply because his land was 

 not prepared for it. It needed the great prerequi- 

 site, 7nfl?iM;e; and all doses of lime administered 

 in this state, instead of curinsr the patient, did 

 but aggravate the malady. Here then is a dis- 

 tinction which I think of paramount importance, 

 and I hereby give it all the prominence of which 

 I am capable. By not attending to this distinction, 

 I am liilly convinced that much mischief has 

 been done, and the only way to counteract the 

 evil is to arrest it at once' How much my neigh- 

 bors and others may have suffered in this way 

 I cannot tell, but in my own case I arn confident 

 that ^100 would not cover the loss. The editor, 

 therelore, and all others who are so earnest about 

 fixing manures with lime, will see to il, that the 

 manures are in the land before they attempt to 

 fix them. 



But it will be objected, Ihat according to my 

 own account of the matter, one experiment in 

 the use of lime was a successful one. To this I 

 reply, that this only confirms the pooition taken 

 above. It will be recollected that this experiment 

 was on land nevv'Iy cleared. Here there were 

 many small roots and other litter fbr the lime to 

 act on, without which, I hesitate not to say, there 

 would have been the same disappointment as in.- 

 tlie other cases. 



And here perhaps I ought lo conclude, but 

 still I am unwilling to tiop, fearing that I may 

 not have been fully understood, and thus may 

 draw upon myself the animadversions of others 

 lor sentiments which I do not entertain. I do 

 therefore candidly stale, that whilst 1 regard lime 

 under some circumstances as a most valuable ar- 

 ticle, i do at the same litjie consider it a most 



