CHLORIDE OF LIME. 



CHOCOLATE. 



each hole. The only cultivation required is to 

 keep them free from weeds. By autumn they 

 multiply into large-sized bunches ; and if re- 

 quired may be taken up as soon as the leaves 

 decay, and be stored, after the necessary 

 precautions, as a substitute for the onion : 

 the leaves, which are fit for use as long as they 

 remain green, must, when required, be cut 

 down close to the ground, when they will 

 speedily be succeeded by others. (G. W. John- 

 soil's Kitch. Garden.) 



CHLORIDE OF LIME. This substance is 

 a compound of lime in its slacked state, or as 

 a hydrate and chlorine. The combination is 

 loose, and the chlorine is exposed to the air, 

 affording the colour of that gas. It dissolves 

 only partially in water; and the solution when 

 exposed to the air, evolves chlorine, whilst the 

 freed lime attracts carbonic acid, and forms an 

 insoluble carbonate of lime, which collects in 

 the bottom of the vessel. The use of the 

 chloride of lime, or bleaching-powder, has 

 been recently proposed again as a manure; 

 and I am much inclined to believe that on hot 

 sandy soils, if used in proper proportions, it 

 would be productive of very good results ; for 

 it not only, when applied with the seed, stimu- 

 lates its germination, but also by gradually 

 giving out a portion of its chlorine, and being 

 converted into carbonate of lime, it produces 

 much good. It is only in this way that chloride 

 of lime can be useful to vegetation, unless, as 

 an experiment of Mr. Fincham's suggests, its 

 odour may be found to keep off the attacks of 

 the fly ; for chloride of lime is certainly not a 

 food, nor constituent part of vegetation. 



It is important not to confound chloride of 

 lime with chloride of calcium, which is a com- 

 pound of chlorine and the metallic basis of 

 lime. The latter salt is a perfect chemical 

 compound ; but the former is an imperfect 

 compilation of chlorine and lime ; and, as the 

 lime has a greater affinity for carbonic acid 

 than for chlorine, it attracts the former and 

 evolves the latter when it is exposed to the air. 

 Davy investigated the fertilizing, or rather 

 stimulating properties of chlorine, but he made 

 no experiment on its compounds : what he did 

 he did well ; yet in this instance he stopped 

 short at the very threshold of the investigation. 

 But he shall tell his own story : " There are 

 several chemical menstrua," says this great 

 chemist, " which render the process of germi- 

 nation more rapid, when the seeds have been 

 steeped in them. As in these cases the seed 

 leaves are quickly produced, and more speedily 

 perform their functions, I proposed it as a sub- 

 ject of experiment, to examine whether such 

 menstrua might not be useful in raising the 

 turnip more speedily to that state in which it 

 would be secure from the fly ; but the result 

 proved that the practice was inadmissible ; for 

 seeds so treated, though they germinated much 

 quicker, did not produce healthy plants, and 

 often died soon after sprouting. I steeped 

 radish seeds, in September, 1807, for twelve 

 hours in a solution of chlorine, and similar 

 seeds in very diluted nitric acid, and in very 

 diluted sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), in weak 

 solution of ox-sulphate of iron (green vitriol), 

 and some in common water. The seeds in so- 



lutions of chlorine and ox-sulphate of iron 

 threw out the germ in two days, those in nitric 

 acid in three days, in sulphuric acid in five, 

 and those in water in five. But in every case 

 of premature germination, though the plume 

 was vory vigorous for a short time, yet it be- 

 came at the end of a fortnight weak and sickly, 

 and at that period less vigorous in its growth 

 than the sprouts which had been naturally de- 

 veloped, so that there can be scarcely any 

 useful application of these experiments. Too 

 rapid growth and premature decay seem in- 

 variably connected in organized structures, 

 and it is only by following the slow operations 

 of natural causes that we are capable of 

 making improvements." (Jlgr. Chew. p. 217.) 



Chloride of lime is prepared in large quan- 

 tities for the service of the bleachers in most 

 of the manufacturing districts. It is composed, 

 according to the analysis of Dr. Marcet, of 



Chlorine 

 Lime - 



Pirti. 



- 6323 



- 36-77 



100 



Dr. Ingenhouz, in a paper published by the 

 Board of Agriculture in 1816, remarks, in al- 

 luding to some experiments he had tried at 

 HIM tford in company with the Baron Dimsdale 

 with various salts, " Be it sufficient to say 

 here, that of all the neutral salts we tried, the 

 glauber salt did seem to be one of the best in 

 promoting vegetation ; and the steeping the 

 seeds in water, impregnated with oxygenated 

 marine salt (which is now employed in bleach- 

 ing linen in an expeditious way), had a par- 

 ticularly beneficial effect in producing vigorous 

 and early plants. We were somewhat as- 

 tonished that those seeds, viz: of wheat, rye, 

 barley, and oats, which had been steeped in 

 the above mentioned oxygenated muriatic 

 liquid, even during forty-eight hours, did thrive 

 admirably well ; whereas, the same seeds 

 steeped during so long a time, in some of the 

 other medicated liquids, were much hurt, or 

 had lost their vegetative power. The same 

 oxygenated liquid poured upon the ground had 

 also a beneficial effect." These experiments 

 of Ingenhouz were made, it appears, in 1795. 

 See SALTS, their uses to vegetation. Leibig 

 regards chloride of lime as a fertilizing salt, 

 its virtues being similar to that of plaster of 

 Paris, both of which, he says, fix the ammonia 

 which is brought into the soil in rain water, 

 which ammonia is indispensable for the nou- 

 rishment of plants. A few table-spoonfuls of 

 chloride of lime or bleaching salts, sprinkled 

 occasionally in privies and other places where 

 it may be required, corrects offensive odours. 

 (Brit.' Farm. Mag. vol. ii. p. 258 ; " On Ferti- 

 lizers," p. 366.) 



CHOCOLATE is an alimentary preparation 

 of very ancient use in Mexico, from which 

 country it was introduced into Europe by the 

 Spaniards in the year 1520, and by them long 

 kept a secret from the rest of the world. Lin- 

 nceus was so fond of it, that he gave the spe- 

 cific name, theobroma, food of the gods, to the 

 cacao tree which produced it. The cacao- 

 beans lie in a fruit somewhat like a cucumber, 

 about five inches long and three and a half 

 2E 325 



