150 ESSAY ON TOP DRESSINGS 



land into cultivation. In these situations, then, as well as on 

 low pastures, it may be called one of the cheapest and most 

 useful applications that can be made. Such lands will bear 

 an abundant supply of lime, without exhaustion. Indeed, the 

 effect of lime on these lands is better and more lasting than 

 that of any other manure. But on poor sandy soils it should 

 never be used. It will soon exhaust and render them com- 

 pletely barren. When it meets with clay in lands to which it 

 it is applied, it forms a kind of marl, and greatly improves the 

 texture of the soil. But when it comes in contact with sand, 

 it forms, rather, a sort of mortar. Hence it is injurious on 

 sandy soils. Many earths have naturally a sufficient quantity 

 of lime. On these a further application is not needed. 



No definite rule, with respect to the amount required, can 

 be given. It must depend upon the nature of the soil, and 

 must be left to the judgment of those who use it. In general, 

 on peat and clay soils, from ten to fifty bushels to the acre will 

 be required, though less would be beneficial. 



The addition of lime to the compost heap, is always of the 

 highest importance. The decay of all vegetable substances is 

 greatly accelerated by it. We shall have occasion to allude to 

 this hereafter.* 



* These opinions with reference to the use of lime, had been written before 

 •we had the satisfaction of finding that they agreed substantially with the views 

 expressed by Prof. Playfair. Mr. Anderson, in the Journal of the Highland 

 and Agricultural Society, for 1843, says : " Whether spread on the surfice of 

 pasture land alone, or in compost with earth, or applied with a crop and grass 

 seeds, with a view to pasture, it never fails to call into existence the dormant 

 seeds of the superior grasses in the soil, and to nourish and facilitate the growth 

 of those that may have been confided to it by the agriculturist. This is a fact 

 beyond dispute. It is a never failing fertilizer of grass land." 



Prof Playfair, speaking of the application of lime to grass land, says : " The 

 farmer liberates, by this means, the silica, the potash, and the phosphates from 

 the soil, and enables them to administer to the wants of vegetation. But by 

 the operation, he has furnished no equivalent for that removed by the crops. 

 The lime is the key, merely, by which you opened the magazine of food con- 

 tained in the soil. But it not unfrequently happens, that it may itself supply 

 an absent constituent of the soil, especially in cases such as clover and grasses 

 which experience much benefit from this article. There is no manure more 

 beneficially used or more disgracefully abused, than lime." 



European Agriculture, 11, page 3G1, Note. 



