398 



NEW ENGLAND FAUMEU, 



June 2T. 1832. 



srsw iBsriaiLiisnD a>iii2sas®a 



Boston, Wednesday Evening, June 27, 1833. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



LIME, GYPSUM, &c, AS MANURES. 

 Mr Editor — I have no desire to disturb Pro- 

 fessor Eaton in liis school-room, nor in his labora- 

 tory ; but when he leaves these and sets up as a 

 teacher of practical agriculture, his opinions are 

 fair subjects of criticism. If they are crude or in- 

 consistent, he should be permitted to explain the 

 one and reconcile the other. If erroneous, they 

 should be exposed ; for error becomes pi-ejudicial 

 in proportion to the elevation of the source from 

 which it emanates. A Professor of the Sciences 

 and a teacher youth, ought, above all others, to be 

 circumspect in the assumptions he makes on prac- 

 tical subjects. 



You published in a late paper, a letter from 

 Professor Eaton to Mr C. Minor, some e.\tracts 

 from which follow, and which I beg you to re- 

 publish with the accompanying remarks. 



"Pulverized limestone (carbonate of lime) will 

 supersede," says the Professor, "all manures, when 

 it is well understood." 



Again. " Four times the quantity of groimd 

 limestone is required, to equal quick lime the third 

 year, but it will continue its effects unabated ten 

 times as long. Quick lime loses its ettects in 

 about ten years ; carbonate of lime improves the 

 first ten years and diminishes but little the next 

 ten years, and its effects may be perceived fifty 

 years." 



Here wc are treated with an entire new theory 

 as to the food of plants, without a reason being 

 assigned, or a single experimental demonstration 

 given ; and this too by a philoso|iher and a teach- 

 er ! and a man withal, who, according to his own 

 declaration, has ibr twelve years had the care of 

 a million and a half acres of land ! ! 



I had considered it a pretty well settled opinion, 

 that carbonate of lime (powdered limestone) pro- 

 duced no other than a mechanical efl'ect upon the 

 soil ; i. e. that it rendered clays more porous, and 

 sands mote compact and retentive of moisture, and 

 in this way was beneficial to most spils in the same 

 way that sand and clay are, as mere earths,and in no 

 other. And although it has been experimentally 

 tried, I have never heard of its being apjilied in 

 quantity, and seriously doubt if a single load has 

 ever been applied under the Professor's eye, or 

 even in the State of New York, as a fertilizer to 

 soils. 



As the extract I have made aflords no clue, I 

 was extremely at a loss to understand the modtis 

 operrimli of this all-quickening principle, which is 

 destined to supersede animal and vegetable ma- 

 nures, until 1 read the following. 



" Partners," continues the Professor, " will nev- 

 er reason correctly until they submit to the estab- 

 lished maxim, [established how am] by ivhom'i] 

 that their cultivated vegetables receive their chief 

 nutritious matter from the atmosphere." 



The oidy way to perceive the Professor's con 

 sisteiicy, is to suppose that he designs, by some 

 occult process to convert this carbonate of lime in 

 to atmospheric air, that all plants may then feed 

 themselves and to the full, without the aid of man, 

 with this true pabulum of vegetable hfe and devel 

 opeinent. What a discovery this to the proprie 

 tors of sandy barrens, who spend their time and 



money in transporting to their farms the ])ruires- 

 cent manures of your city. 



But I have not done with the wonders of this 

 wonderful man. " Plaster of Paris," says he, 

 " stiuiulates vegetable action, as a glass of brandy 

 stimulates a hardy laborer to eat an unusual quan- 

 tity, but it aflords no nutritious matter." Now I 

 beg leave respectfully to inform the Professor of a 

 fact, which I presume has not come to his knowl- 



tn be highly soluble in water, which accounts for 

 the admission of lime into the structure of plants; 

 and that excess of carbonic acid adheres very 

 loosely to its base (the mild linle,) and is liberated 

 without any extraordinary degree of heat. The 

 carbonic acid, a most important article of vegeta- 

 ble food, is copiously evolved in the prutrefactive 

 process of manures; the calcarious earth fixes and 

 prevents its escape, forms with it a hypercarbo- 



edge, viz., that many entire plants, such as in New iiate, and readily imparts it in union with water. 



England are denominated English grains and -E»g- 

 lish grasses, belong to the temperate cause and ab- 

 solutely resist the intoxicating influence of this 

 vegetable stimulant ; or in other words, that it 

 neither causes them to eat more nor to grow more ; 

 and that all the families of plants which inhale the 

 saline breezes of the ocean, have declared a total 

 abstinence from all gypsum stimuli. 



As my sheet is not full, I send you one otlier 

 specimen of agricultural quackery, recorded in the 

 same paper which cotitains Professor Eaton's 

 learned letter. It follows : — 



" But neither uuleached ashes, nor lime in caus- 

 tic state, should in any case come in contact with 

 the seed corn or young plant." I can only regret 

 that the adnjonition came too late to enable me to 

 profit by it, as I had limed my corn as I do my 

 at, before jilantiiig ; and have often strewed 

 lime on my wheat crop to destroy the fly, and un- 

 leached ashes on my corn to kill grubs, and to im- 

 part fertility. Indeed, Mr Editor, it is the first 

 time that I learnt that lime and ashes were destruc- 

 tive, in the ordinary topical aj)j)lication, to the vi- 

 tality of plants. B. 



Memorandum. — May 29. Sent my man with 

 one of Pickering's caterpillar brushes, affixed to a 

 pole, at 8, A. M., into the orchard. At 11 he re- 

 turned, having <leslroyc(l, according to his account, 

 more than two hundred nesl.s of caterpillars. — 

 June 1. Finding he had not done his work 

 thoroughly, sent hiu) out again two hours. — June' 

 14. Have not seen a worm on the trees since the 

 last operation. Pomologist. 



towards the nourishment of crops. It is supposed 

 to do more ; it unites with the carbonic acid float- 

 ing in the air ; and when there is a scarcity of ali- 

 ment in the soil, it seizes and secures this food in 

 the atmosphere, and afterwards tlisperses it accord- 

 ing to the calls and necessities of vegetation. 

 Hence the necessity of keejfing lime on the sur- 

 face. It is then ready to intercept and combine 

 widi the carhotuc acid, which is generated by the 

 fermentation of the putrescent matter lying at low- 

 er depths, and to attract the same gas (the carbonip 

 acid )y>07r. the surrounding air.* 



There are three forms in which lime is gener- 

 ally used in agriculture. 1. Carbonate of lime. 

 This is the most common state in which it is found 

 on the sinface of the earth, in quarries of marble, 

 &,c, and it is then combined with almost half its 

 weight of carbonic acid or fixed air. 2. Quick 

 lime, or caustic alkali. When limestone is strong- 

 ly heated, the carbonic acid gas is expelled, and 

 then nothing remains but the pure alkaline earth ; 

 in this case there is a loss of weight, and if the 

 fire has been very high, it apjjroaches to one half 

 the weight of the stone ; but in common cases, 

 limestones, if well dried before burning, do not 

 lose much more than from thirtyfive to forty per 

 cent, or from seven to eight parts out of twenty. 

 3. Slacked lime. This is merely a combination of 

 lime with about one third |)art of its weight in 

 water ; i. e. 55 parts of lime absorb 17 parts of 

 water; and in this case it is composed of a defi- 

 nite proportion of water, and is called by chemists 

 hydrate of lime ; an<l when hydrate of lime be- 

 comes carbonate of lime by long exposure to air. 



the water is expelled and the carbonic acid gas 

 Remarks by the Editor. — We are sorry not to takes its place.f We will briefly advert to the 

 be able to agree with our respected correspondent, peculiar uses of lime in each oftlwse states, 

 in sotne of his theories, opinions, &c. But as the i Carbonate of lime is the only state in which 

 points on which we differ are among those most lime can become a part of the substance of plants, 

 controverted, and may be called the metaphysics of As well unght an animal swallov/ red hot cinders 

 agricidture, it will not be at all wonderfid if we do ' as plants be nourished by lime, except when it is a 

 not always exactly coincide. The theory of the carbonate, i.e. mild or efl'ete. When lime is quick, or 

 action of lime on soils is as unsettled as that of j caustic, or waterslacked, orair slacked, it consumes 

 magnetic attraction, or the causes and sources of! or corrodes plants, more or less, according to the de- 

 caloric ; but its discussion can do no hai'm and j g-cfe o/ i7s causticity; and in one of those states. 



may be beneficial 



Mr B. says, " 1 had considered it a pretty well 

 cttled opinion, that carbonate of lime (pounded 



(viz. quick or caustic,) it is used to destroy useless 

 or noxious vegetation. But caustic lime cannot 

 ong remain on the ground or exposed to air, with- 



imesione,) produced no other than a mechanical ' out passing into a carbonate and becoming nuld. 



fleet upon the soil ; i. e. that it rendered clays 

 more porous, and sands more compact and reten- 

 tive of moisture, and in this way was beneficial to 

 most soils in the same way that sand and clay are, 

 as mere earths, and in no other." This is a well 

 ex|)ressed condensation of Sir Humphrey Davy's 

 doctrine; but other.philosophers have held tenets 

 a little variant from those of that great chemist. 

 It is now contended, that lime when mild contains 

 an excess of carbonic acid. It is capable of ab- 

 sorbing not only that quantity which it possessed 

 in its natural stale, (being about fortyfive parts ir. 'See Letters of Agiicold, and Mi Pickering's Address 

 one hundred,) but an adcfitional quantity, forming •<> Mass. Agr. Soc. N. E. Farmer, vol. 1. page 218. 

 what chemists call an hypercarbonate. This is said ' t Davy's Agr. Chemistry. 



Suppose a given quantity of lime is wanted lor 

 a given area of land ; there are advantages in em- 

 ploying highly caustic lime, because it is lighter, 

 and will manure more soil, poui>d for pound, than 

 mild lime. Limestone, in burning, generally loses 

 from thirtyfive to forty per cent of its weight, and 

 if while yet in its most caustic state it is S|)read up- 

 on the soil, it recovers at least its original weight 

 (some writers say somewhat more,) while lying 

 where it has been spread ; and is then and there 



