LIME. 



LIME. 



of necessity, bear a larger proportion than that 

 which is more free from vegetable or animal 

 remains. The quantity usually applied is 

 much too large, and the dressing too often re- 

 peated without proper consideration ; and it is 

 not until the land becomes absolutely over- 

 charged with lime, that the farmer begins to 

 have a suspicion that his land is tired of it. In 

 Ireland it is sometimes applied to old pasture 

 leys intended for potatoes, at the rate of 400 

 bushels per acre ; and on some of the moors 

 in Derbyshire, 1500 bushels per acre have 

 been found not too large a quantity. In Scot- 

 land the quantity usually applied for light 

 land is about 160 bushels per acre; for stiff 

 ciay soils from 240 to 360 bushels. On the 

 stiff clays of the Weald of Kent, the quantity 

 usually employed is about 100 bushels per 

 acre, and that is often repeated every 5 years, 

 on the fallow before wheat, for many years. 

 Lime may be as readily produced by burning 

 limestone with peat as with coals ; the heat 

 produced is amply sufficient, and the heat 

 more easily managed. 



"I conceive," says Mr. Hillyard of North- 

 amptonshire, " lime to be a stimulant only, and 

 not a manure. Lime gives solidity to light 

 land, the means of retaining moisture, and in 

 some degree prevents the rays of the sun from 

 penetrating so deep into the soil, and drying 

 up the roots. Lime also encourages the growth 

 of clover; but it does not do the good that is 

 equal to the expense, when applied to land that 

 has for a length of time had it periodically laid 

 on. It is the common practice in this county 

 lo lime and dung the land for turnips nearly 

 at the same time, just before sowing. To put 

 on materials that must cause such different 

 effects cannot, I think, be quite right, and there- 

 fore it would be better not to put on the lime 

 till the next spring, before sowing barley and 

 seeds. I have heard of lime being laid on a 

 stubble or clover ley, and when slacked, 

 ploughed in, thus depositing it at the bottom 

 of the furrow, where it can do but little if any 

 good, and it naturally will get lower. It should 

 be laid on the land after it is ploughed, and, 

 by harrowing, well incorporated with the soil. 

 Very little benefit," concludes Mr. Hillyard, "is 

 derived from laying on a small quantity of 

 lime : it requires 20 or 25 quarters per acre to 

 do a very essential good." 



"In the county of Dublin," says Arthur 

 Young, " they lay 160 barrels, or 640 bushels 

 on an acre ; strong loam or limestone finds the 

 greatest benefit from it, and the farmers say it 

 lasts as long as limestone gravel. In the county 

 of Cork, Mr. Aldworth found lime to have a 

 vast effect on strong loam or limestone. . On 

 all poor, thin, light soils, and others, on a 

 quarry of stone, especially limestone, that have 

 been long in tillage, lime is found to do no 

 service. Upon wet, cold loams, that have not 

 been sufficiently drained, lime does no good : 

 and when they' are dry, unless they are rich, 

 this manure will operate very little ; on cold, 

 wet, tenacious clays, it has often failed, and 

 also on strong, stony land. Lord Holderness 

 found some very good land of this description 

 almost ruined from a long course of liming. 

 Where there is a great mass of vegetable or 

 720 



animal matter not putrid, and which cannot 

 putrefy sufficiently, there lime does the busi- 

 ness at once, and has an effect which has been 

 thought astonishing. 



Arthur Young was of opinion, that the lime 

 made by calcining limestone was much supe- 

 rior for agricultural purposes to that made 

 from chalk, of which last description he had 

 evidently but a poor opinion as a fertilizer. He 

 thought too, and very justly, that this earth 

 was not so advantageously applied, when 

 mixed with farm-yard dung, as when applied 

 in its simple state ; a conclusion in which he 

 was no doubt pretty near the truth, although 

 he gives some facts observed by a farmer at 

 Belchamp Water, in Essex, which rather mili- 

 tates against this conclusion: "It destroys," 

 says the Rev. P. Raymond, " all the seeds of 

 weeds in the crop 25 bushels of lime to 20 

 loads of dung per acre. It is found, however, 

 to be rather detrimental to turnips. Crude 

 lime, laid upon light, dry land, at the rate of 

 one bushel to the rod, has produced benefit for 

 seven years: it is generally in this parish car- 

 ried on to stiff clay, with great advantage, mixed 

 with dung. It is of still more use to wheat and 

 barley." (Johnson on Fertilizers, p. 294.) 



There is perhaps no other country so richly 

 endowed with this earth as England, for, 

 to say nothing of its great strata of chalk, 

 how endless are the masses and varieties of 

 limestones. Let us not therefore neglect, but 

 extend, by every means in our power, the use 

 of the treasures we possess ; for by so doing 

 we may not only increase the fertility of lands 

 already (like the more tenacious clays for in- 

 stance) in some degree productive of food, but 

 we can bring into cultivation, by the judicious 

 employment of this powerful earth, the most 

 sterile peats, the trembling bogs, the most 

 worthless heaths : the inferior plants, such as 

 the acid sorrel, are banished by its influence, 

 and the soil which once only held the stagnant 

 water impregnated with unwholesome vegeta- 

 table and mineral matters, is now made to pro- 

 duce the most useful of the cultivator's crops; 

 and the improvement, too, is of even national 

 importance, for such lands not only furnish 

 additional employment to the labourer, but 

 they now purify an atmosphere which their 

 exhalations in an unimproved state once cor- 

 rupted. 



" Much has been written and said relative to 

 the preservative and destructive effects of lime 

 on organic manures, from which we learn that 

 it operates both ways, according to its chemical 

 state. If employed as quick-lime, and placed 

 in contact with organic matter, its alkaline pro- 

 perties would lead us to infer a decomposing 

 influence, which is confirmed by experience; 

 but the effect is of short duration, and is suc- 

 ceeded by the reverse operation, that of pre- 

 serving such matter from farther decomposi- 

 tion. The truth is, if we could insure a con- 

 tinuance of its caustic state, we might be 

 equally sure of its constant decomposing 

 power, but by this action it generates carbonic 

 acid from the organic matter uniting with it 

 and forming a neutral carbonate, which either 

 acts like other salts in preventing decomposi- 

 tion by its presence or catalytic influence, or 



