CHLORIDE OF LIME. 



CHOCOLATE. 



after the green cane. See Treatise on Sorgo 

 and Imphe'e, by H. S. Alcott. Also the annual 

 Reports of the Agricultural Bureau, especially 

 the volume for 1857. 



(Mil SLY LAND. A kind of soil between 

 sandy ;ind clayey, with a large admixture of 

 small pebbles or gravel. 



CHIVES, or GIVES (AUium schxnnprasum), 

 a garden-plant allied to the leek and onion, 

 growing in tufts The long filamentary leaves 

 are cut close to the ground for eating, &c. 



CHLORINE. One of the elements found al- 

 ways in vegetable substances, among the inor- 

 ganic or mineral constituents derived from the 

 soil. It is a kind of gas of a greenish colour, 

 with u peculiarly strong odour, and so much 

 heavier than common air, that, like carbonic 

 acid IMS, it may be poured from one vessel into 

 another. A taper will burn in it, giving a fee- 

 ble reddish light, which soon goes out. I 

 in all fertile soils, not separate, but combined 

 with soda, in the familiar form of common salt, 

 every 10 Ibs. of which contains about 6 Ibs. of 

 chlorin 



CHLORIDE OF SODIUM: Muriate of Soda, 

 or Common >',///. This mineral production, so 

 : ! y to the wants of mankind, is universally 



distributed over the globe, either in solution, as 

 in sea water and mineral springs, or in beds and 

 solid rocks, forming mountains, from which it 

 is procured in masses by blasting and n-gular 

 mining operations. Most animals have an in- 

 stinctive taste for this salt, and all fertile soils 

 contain it, so that to the growth and well-being 

 of both animals and vegetables, salt ia 

 pensable. For its uses as a fertilizer, see SALT. 



CHLORIDE OF SODA. A well known pow- 

 erful disinfectant or destroyer of offensive smells, 

 discovered and brought into use by a French 

 ch.-mUt, who prepared from it a solution sold 

 extensively under the name of LABARRAQUE'S 

 DISIMKCTIVE SOLUTION. It is employed by 

 sprinkling in sick rooms, pri/ies, &c. Like the 

 chloride of lime, it possesses the extraordinary 

 property of preventing or arresting animal and 

 1" putrefaction, and of destroying those 

 effluvia which are not only offensive to the smell 

 but injurious to the health of men and other 

 animals. To preserve animal bodies from pu- 

 trefaction, or correct their offensive odours, the 

 solution of chloride of soda may be applied by 

 sprinkling or covering them with wet cloths. The 

 chloride of soda, in which chlorine gas is com- 

 bined with the alkali soda, must not be con- 

 founded with chloride of sodium, in which the 

 same gas is united with the metallic base sodium, 

 to form common salt. 



CHLORIDE OF LIME. Commonly known 

 as Ble<rcking Salt, or Bleaching Powder, is a 

 dry grayish-white powder, possessing a hot pe- 

 netrating taste, and, when pure, soluble in water. 

 It is used by putting a few tablespoonsful of the 

 salt in a plate or shallow earthen vessel, and 

 pouring on, from time to time, a little oil of vit- 

 riol or vinegar, which brings out the chlorine 

 gas, that corrects offensive smells and deleterious 

 airs in houses, privies, stables, &c. It has been 

 proposed as a fertilizer. 



Davy reports that he steeped some radish 

 seeds for twelve hours in a solution of chlorine, 

 some in nitric acid, some in very dilute oil of 

 vitriol, some in a weak solution of 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 witric 

 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 very 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." (^gr. Cheni. 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 



Part*. 



Chlorine 

 Lime - 



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 

 Hert!'.>rd 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 

 i 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- 

 naeus 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 halt 

 2E 325 



