CALCAREOUS MANURES— PRACTICE. j ] 9 



this power seems to be possessed in an eminent degree by tliis new com- 

 bination of lime. If this salt is the oxalate of lime, (as there is most rea- 

 son to believe,) it Is insoluble in water, and consequently safe from waste ; 

 and the same property belongs to most other combinations of lime with 

 vegetable acid. The acetate of lime is soluble in water, and while alone, 

 might be carried off by rains. But if it combines with putrescent matter, 

 by chemical affinity, its previous solubility will no longer remain. Sulphate 

 of iron (copperas) is easily soluble; but when it forms one of the compo- 

 nent parts of ink, it can no longer be separately dissolved by water, or 

 taken away from the coloring matter combined with it. In rich limestone 

 soils, and some of our best river lands, in which no carbonate of lime now 

 remains, we may suppose that its change of form to some other salt of lime 

 took place centuries ago. Yet, however scourged and exhausted by cul- 

 tivation, these soils still show, as strongly as ever, the qualities which 

 were derived from their former calcareous ingredient. When the dark color 

 of such soils, their power of absorption, and of holding manures, their friabi- 

 lity, and their peculiar fitness for clover and certain other plants, are no 

 longer to be distinguished, then, and not before, may the salt of lime be 

 considered as lost to the soil. 



But though all persons would probably admit this general proposition, 

 that these natural qualities of good soils, including a certain degree of, or 

 tendency to productive power, are permanent, (which is but stating in other 

 words, that the good effects of calcareous manures are permanent — ) 

 still perhaps few would grant the possibility of permanency of effect to 

 putrescent manures also, when added thereafter. Yet this latter proposition 

 is as legitimate a deduction from the former, as the former proposition is . 

 from the theory which iias been maintained of the action of calcareous ma- 

 nures. The attention of the reader is requested to the argument which 

 will now be offered to sustain this important deduction. 



We have all been trained to consider farm-yard and stable manures, 

 dung, and all vegetable and other putrescent matters, when applied to soils-, 

 as having temporary effects only ; and whether the effects lasted for but 

 the first crop, as on acid sandy soils, or for four, six or even eight years 

 on well constituted natural soils, still the effects were truly, as usually con- 

 sidered, only for a limited time, and would at some period be totally lost, 

 and the ground so manured would return to the same state of less produc- 

 tiveness, as of the surrounding land, previously equal, and which had re- 

 ceived no such manuring. Such views are almost universal ; and the utmost 

 that would be claimed by the most zealous and sanguine advocate for ex- 

 tending the use of such manures, would be a protracted though still limited 

 and temporary duration of effect. And the actual results would always 

 accord with these opinions, (and also with my theory of the action of cal- 

 careous manures,) both on good and on bad soils, before making them 

 more calcareous. All natural soils (not excessively and injuriously calca- 

 reous,) have secured by their natural powers and facilities, and have had 

 fixed in them, as much alimentary matter as their natural ingredient of lime 

 could combine with. If that ingredient had been very small, the soil would 

 be poor; if large, then the soil would be rich. But in neither case would 

 there be power in the soil to combine with an additional supply of alimen- 

 tary manure; and if such were applied, it would be exhausted and pass 

 away, rapidly on the bad soil, and more slowly on the good ; but certainly, 

 in the end, on both. 



Again, suppose the soils to he more or less exhausted by scourging cul- 

 tivation. Then their actual amount of alimentary matter would have been 

 reduced below what their respective shares of lime could combine with 



