1846.] Orange County Manures. 41 



Liming the soil. — Lime is an essential ingredient in a fertile 

 soil, yet by the pi'ocesses of tillage it becomes entirely exhausted. 

 This takes place either by the extraction of the lime by the roots 

 of growing plants, or by its being dissolved and washed down 

 through the soil by water. A French writer on agriculture, M. 

 Puvis, attempts to fix laws for the liming of lands, and supposes 

 that land which contains 9 or 10 per cent of lime requires no 

 more, but if it contains less it should be applied. That some 

 laws of this kind might be established, very rationally, we have 

 no doubt. But the impossibility of reducing them to general 

 practice in this county, would render them utterly useless. It 

 would require an accurate analysis of a soil before a farmer could 

 determine whether he should apply lime to it. Such a practice 

 would not suit the farmers of Orange. It will, therefore, be a 

 better general rule for them, that all land which has been sub- 

 jected to long and severe cultivation, needs lime. This will not 

 require an analysis of the soil to determine whether the land has 

 the 10 per cent of M. Puvis, but from the known deterioration of 

 land by tillage, it is certain that the lime, one of the most easily 

 dissolved of the earths, will be exhausted with equal pace V\ith 

 other substances; and when other manures are applied, lime should 

 also be used. But a prominent use of lime in the soil is owing 

 to its effects upon vegetable matters, in decomposing them. It will, 

 therefore, be advisable to add lime to soils abounding in vegetable 

 mould, without so much reference to the quantity already con- 

 tained. To peaty lands, after they have been drained, lime will 

 be eminently useful. To all lands which abound in inert vege- 

 table matter, the lime should be slaked and not applied in a 

 caustic state. 



But in the marls of Orange county, the lime does not exist in a 

 caustic state, but in the form of a carbonate of lime. In this con- 

 dition, besides a mechanical action upon the soil, it acts directly 

 upon the growing plants, supplying them with an indispensable 

 portion of food. Not only does it furnish lime, but being com- 

 posed to a considerable amount of the shells of once living crea- 

 tures, it is found to contain still the remains of animal matter, to 



Vol. II., No. 1. 5 



