38 On the use of Lime in England. 



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into Lancashire, which abounds with coal, and carries 

 back coal to burn the lime. 



Chymistry, had not then been so much applied to 

 Agricultural purposes as now ; and I have heard intel- 

 ligent men frequently give it, as their opinion, that the 

 caustic quality of the lime, had little or nothing to do 

 with its vegetative powers, and that the only operation it 

 performed, was mixing intimately with the soil, and 

 pulverizing and making it more porous : and the 

 principal reason for this supposition was, that the more 

 was laid on, the more it fertilized, whereas, had it acted 

 by its causticity, it might have been over done, and as 

 this part of the country produces but one kind, they 

 could not judge by comparison. The whole of this 

 lime, in its native bed, appears a solid body of chrys- 

 tals or spars, from ten to fifteen feet thick, and lumps 

 of it make handsome ornaments for chimney pieces. 

 I frequently have seen it laid on so thick, that at a dis- 

 tance it appeared as white as snow ; it was commonly 

 laid on the sod, and left to mix of itself, with the earth; 

 though some, more enterprizing than the rest, had 

 begun to lay on half that quantity, and harrowed till it 

 was well mixed with the top earth, and found its vege- 

 tative powers much encreased. 



I moved from the county of Lancaster, into the 

 West Riding of Yorkshire, a district where tillage 

 farming is managed, perhaps to as great perfection, as 

 in any part of England, where I have had an op- 

 portunity of comparing produce, owing to the improv- 

 ed turnip husbandry, by hoeing, introduced by the 

 Marquis of Rockingham, and on a soil that before this 

 introduction, was deemed scarce worth cultivating, I 



