362 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 6. 



Of liming — on the use of lime for the improve- 

 ment of SOU. 



1. Among the immense variety of substances, 

 and of combinations which compose the upper 

 layers of the globe, the earthy substances, silex, 

 alumine, and lime, ibrm almost exclusively the 

 surface soil: the greater portion of other sub- 

 stances being unfit to aid vegetation, they ought 

 to be very rare upon a surface where the supreme 

 author willed to call forth and to preserve the mil- 

 lions of species of beings of all nature, which 

 were to live on its products. 



It was also a great benefit to man, whose intel- 

 ligence was to be exercised upon the surface of 

 the soil, to have so few in number the substances 

 proper to support vegetation. The art of agricul- 

 ture, already so complex, which receives from so 

 many circumstances such diverse modifications, if 

 there had been added new elements much more 

 complicated, would have been above the reach of 

 human intelligence. 



2. But among these substances, the two first, 

 silex and alumine, form almost exclusively three- 

 fourths of soils; the third, the carbonate of lime, 

 is found more or less mixed in the other fourth: all 

 soils in which the latter earth is found, have simi- 

 lar characters, producing certain families of vege- 

 tables which cannot succeed in those in which it 

 is not contained. 



The calcareous element seems to be in the soil a 

 means and a principle of friability. Soils which 

 contain calcareous earth in suitable proportions, 

 sutler but little from moisture, and let pass easily, 

 to the lower beds, the superabundant water, and 

 consequently drain themselves with facility. 

 Grain and leguminous crops, the oleaginous 

 plants, and the greater part of (he vegetables of 

 commerce, succeed well on these soils. 



It is among these soils that almost all good 

 lands are found. Nevertheless, the abundance of 

 the calcareous principle is more often injurious 

 than useful. Thus it is among soils composed 

 principally of carbonate of lime that we meet with 

 the most arid and barren, as Lousy Champagne, 

 part of Yonne, and some parts of Berry. 



3. The analysis of the best soils has shown that 

 they rarely contain beyond 10 per cent, of carbonate 

 of lime; and those of the highest grade of quality 

 seem to contain but from 3 to 5 per cent. Thus 

 the analyses of Messrs. Berthier and Drapiez, 

 show 3 per cent, of it in the celebrated soil of the 

 environs of Lille. 



4. But all these properties, all these advantages, 

 all these products, calcareous manures bear with 

 them to the soils which do not contain the calca- 

 reous principle. It is sufficient to spread them in 

 very small proportions: a quantity of lime which 

 does not exceed the thousandth part of the tilled 

 surface Jayer of soil, a like proportion of drawn 

 ashes, or a two-hundredth part (of even less) of 

 marl, are sufficient to modify the nature, change 

 the products, and increase by one-half the crops 

 of a soil destitute of the calcareous principle. 

 This principle then is necessary to be furnished to 

 those soils which do not contain it; it is then a 

 kind of condiment disposed by nature to meliorate 

 poor soils, and to give to them fertility. 



jfneient date of the use of lime. 

 5. Lime, as it appears, has long ago been used in 



many countries. However, nothing proves thai 

 its effect was well known to the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans, the then civilized portion of mankind. 

 Their old agricultural writers do not speak of the 

 use of lime on cultivated lands, nor on meadows. 

 Pliny, the naturalist, tells us however, that it was 

 in use for vines, for olives, and for cherry trees, 

 the fruit of which it made more forward: and he 

 speaks of its being used on the soil generally in 

 two provinces of Gaul, those of the Pictones and 

 iEdui,* whose fields lime rendered more fruitful. 

 The agriculture of the barbarians was then, in 

 this particular, more advanced than that of the 

 Romans. After that, all trace of the use of lime 

 in agriculture, is lost for a long time — whether 

 that it had ceased to be used, or only that the no- 

 tice of it was omitted by writers on agriculture. 

 The trace is again recovered with Bernard Pallis- 

 sy, who recommends the use of it in compost in 

 moist lands, and speaks of his use of it in the Ar- 

 dennes. Nearly a century later, Olivier de Serres,f 

 advises its employment in the same manner, and 

 reports that they made use of it in the provinces 

 of Gueldres and Juliers [in Belgium.] He makes 

 no mention of its use in France: but as the prac- 

 tices of agriculture were not then much brought 

 together, and were but little known, it may be be- 

 lieved that at that time, Flanders, Belgium, and 

 Normandy, made use of lime. 



In England, liming seems to have been in use 

 earlier and more generally than in France. But 

 then, and in all time since, good agricultural prac- 

 tices have remained in the particular countries 

 where they were established, without beingspread 

 abroad. Now, noveliies carry no alarm with 

 them — anil in the last twenty years, liming has 

 made more progress than in the two preceding 

 centuries. 



Of soils suitable for liming. 



6. Lime, as has been said before, suits the soils 

 which do not contain it ahead)'. To distinguish 

 these soils from others, chemical analysis is, with- 

 out doubt, the surest, means; but it offers often too 

 many difficulties, and lime may be met with in a 

 soil in proportion great enough to exert its power 

 on vegetation, without producing effervescence 

 with acids. J But visible characters may furnish 

 indications almost certain. The soils where the 

 cow wheat [mclampijre,~\ rest-harrow, [Pononis, ou 

 arret e-b(Buf\ thistles, colt's foot, [htssilage], and 

 red poppy, spring spontaneously. — which produce 

 well in wheat, legumes, (or plants of the pea kind,) 

 and especially sainfoin — where the chestnut suc- 

 ceeds badly— which shows but little of dogstooth, 

 [chiendent,'] volunteer grasses, or common weeds, 

 [graminees adventices,) except of the small legu- 

 minous kinds — soils which after being dry, crum- 

 ble with the first rain — all these are almost cer- 

 tainly calcareous, have no need of lime, nor its 



* JEdui et Pictones cake uberrivws fecere agros. 



fWho wrote on agriculture in the reign of Henry 

 IV. of France. Tr. 



JThis is a full though indirect admission of the truth 

 of the doctrine of neutral soils, maintained in the Es- 

 say on Calcareous Manures. Tr. 



