LIME. 



LIME. 



ing, the benefit produced becomes less and less, ] 

 and finally the cultivator informs us that "the 

 land is tired of lime." This result has been 

 experienced to a very considerable extent in 

 the north of England, where the cheapness of 

 fuel and the abundance of the common lime- 

 stone has, in too many instances, tempted the 

 farmer to add to his land lime in excessive 

 quantities. For such over-limed soils, the only 

 remedy is the addition of organic matters. In 

 such cases, peat will, in moderate quantities, 

 be occasionally found an excellent dressing. 



The quantity of lime used per acre of neces- 

 sity varies with the soil, and the expense with 

 which it is procured. The heavy clay and peat 

 soils require the largest proportions; the light 

 lands need a much smaller quantity to produce 

 the maximum benefit. I have used it at the 

 rate of 25 bushels per acre, mixed with earth, 

 on light soils, and never more than 100 bushels 

 per acre on clays. This is the proportion com- 

 monly used on the heavy soils of the midland 

 counties, and the deep clays of the weald of 

 Kent. In Scotland they apply sometimes as 

 much as 360 bushels per acre, and in Ireland 

 still larger quantities have been successfully 

 employed; and on some of the peat mosses of 

 the north of England, more than 1000 bushels 

 have been used with good effect. The employ- 

 ment of such large proportions, however, can 

 rarely be justified, even when the lime is ob- 

 tainable at a very low rate. 



I have used lime, and have been present at 

 other liming operations for many years. I 

 have chiefly employed it either as a top-dress- 

 ing, or which, for light soils, I much prefer, 

 mixed with ditch scrapings, old banks or pond 

 mud, at the rate of one bushel of lime to a cubic 

 yard of earth. And then, after thoroughly mix- 

 ing them together, and allowing the mass to 

 remain for a month or six weeks, I have al- 

 ways succeeded in forming a most enriching 

 compost, which, on even the gravelly soils of 

 Essex, applied at the rate of 20 to 25 cubic 

 yards per acre, both for wheat, clover, and po- 

 tatoes (to which crop, in general, lime is pre- 

 judicial), has produced the most powerful 

 effects, certainly increasing by one-third the 

 produce of the natural soil. It is only in the 

 state of mixture with earth, or peat, or salt, that 

 I have found lime profitably useful for light, 

 gravelly soils. Yet I have varied the applica- 

 tion in a variety of ways and proportions, but 

 still, for the gravels or sands, the result wa 

 never entirely satisfactory. But I have wit- 

 nessed, as a dressing for the black hungry 

 gravels of Spring Park, near Croydon, lime 

 and peat mixed together, at the rate of 1 part 

 of lime and 3 parts of peat, with the most com- 

 plete success. The peat is reduced to a finely- 

 divided state, and rendered partially soluble by 

 the action of the lime, and is a most powerful 

 top-dressing for young clovers. This is ex- 

 plainable (amongst other reasons) by the fact 

 that the peat employed being saturated with a 

 solution of sulphate of iron, the lime converted 

 it into sulphate of lime, which is a constituen 

 or direct food of clover. Equally successful 

 on light soils, have been my trials of lime, when 

 mixed with common salt; 2 parts of lime 

 mixed with 1 part of salt in a dry state, and 

 718 



suffered to remain for three months previous 

 to its being used in a dry place. By applying 

 this mixture at the rate of from 40 to 50 bushels 

 3er acre, crops of turnips have been grown 

 inder my directions fully equal to any produced 

 jy 20 cubic yards per acre of farm-yard com- 

 post: and in 1840, the produce of ground thus 

 dressed fully equalled that of some adjoining 

 ands of the same field, which had been ma- 

 nured with the ordinary compost. And an 

 excellent neighbouring farmer, Mr. Foster, of 

 Great Totham, in July, 1840, made an experi- 

 ment with turnips, entirely confirming those 

 I had elsewhere instituted. He applied a mix- 

 ure per acre of 30 bushels of lime with 15 

 bushels of salt, to 10 acres of a field contain- 

 ing 12 acres. The land previously had a crop 

 of rye, which was fed off with sheep ; and on 

 the 2 acres to which the salt and lime were not 

 applied, the sheep had oil cake given to them, 

 and, moreover, the land was sub-soiled to a 

 depth of 18 to 20 inches. The field previous- 

 ly had a good summer fallow. The lime and 

 salt was spread broadcast after the last plough- 

 ing, and harrowed in before the seed. The 

 turnips were of the variety called green rounds. 

 The land slopes to the south, and its soil is a 



ht, mouldy turnip soil. In examining them 

 in company with Mr. Foster, in the last week 

 in August, he expressed himself abundantly 

 satisfied with the result. The crop of turnips 

 was equally good all over the field; if there 

 was a shade of difference, it was in favour of 

 the sub-soiled and cake-fed land ; but the ad- 

 vantage, if any, was exceedingly inconsider- 

 able. 



In the use of this mixture, I have found the 

 moisture of the atmosphere highly advanta- 

 geous in increasing the operation of the lime 

 and salt; an observation, too, which is not 

 confined to the dry, gravelly soils on which 

 my experiments were carried on. Thus, in 

 1839, on an exhausted, rather heavy turnip 

 loam, 80 bushels per acre of a mixture of salt 

 1 part, and lime 2 parts, made three months 

 previously, were spread in July, and sown 

 with the white round turnips. The turnip 

 plants came up equally well all over the field; 

 but on the portions where the salt and lime 

 were omitted, they speedily perished; but in 

 every part dressed with the lime and salt, the 

 crop was excellent. 



In the dry season of 1840, however, another 

 portion of the same field being treated in a 

 similar manner, the effect produced by the 

 lime and salt was not nearly so decisive ; the 

 plants were weak, the crop inferior. 



I have found the lime and salt equally bene- 

 ficial as a dressing for wheat and barley; but 

 a description of those experiments will more 

 properly be found under the head SALT and 

 LIMK ; for when the application is made to the 

 land, the lime and salt have, in fact, entered 

 into new combinations ; the compound applied 

 is no longer a dressing with lime and salt, but 

 with a mixture chiefly composed of chloride 

 of calcium and carbonate of soda, with a por- 

 tion of undecomposed lime and common salt. 

 I have several times mixed lime, in cases 

 where I suspected the presence of grub and 

 the seeds of weeds, with farm-yard compost, 



