NEW EWGL.AND FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY J. B. RUSSELL, NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural Warkhouse.) — T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOT^. XI. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUI^Y 25, 1833. 



NO. 2. 



C o in an u 11 i c a t i o n § 



OPERATIONS OF LIMK, ASHES, &c, AS 

 APPLICATIONS TO SOIL, &c. 



Mr Editor — I avail myself of the first rainy 

 day wliii'h lias driven mo from the field and gar- 

 den, to make a brief comment upon your remarks 

 on my communication, published in the Farmer of 

 the 27th ultimo. 



The points upon which we differ, if I appre- 

 hend you right, are these : — 



1. Professor Eaton and yourself, maintain, that 

 carbonate of lime causes fertility, by its chemical 

 operations upon the soil or atmosphere. I hold 

 the negative. 



2. The Professor says, and your arguments 

 seem intended to support his position, that " cul- 

 livated vegetables receive their chief nutritious mat- 

 ter from the atmosphere." I have the misfortune to 

 dissent from this hypothesis. And 



3. You cautioned your readers not to permit, 

 in any case, unleachcd ashes, or lime, in a caustic 

 state, to come in contact with the seed corn or 

 young plants, lest this contact should destroy them. 

 I treated the caution, I admit, with rather unbe- 

 coming levity ; but must yet persist in saying, that 

 it was altogether uncalled for, certainly in the case 

 where the admonition was so gravely applied 



soil. According to the new theory, this sliould 

 possess unusual fertility; yet,so faras I can learn, 

 such a belief has never yet obtained currency. 



Caustic lime is not a manure. If it was, its ap- 

 plication to poor soils would induce fertility,wliere- 

 as the contrary is known to be the fact. It is not 

 a natural aliment of plants, though it is often an 

 adventitious constituent. It facilitates the prepar- 

 ation of vegetable food, and is ultimately exhaust- 

 ing. It forms with fibrous vegetable matter, a 

 compost, partly soluble in water, and thus renders 

 matter nutritive which was before inert. Car- 



the skill and the judgment with which this branch 

 of husbandry is managed, that especially marks 

 the difference between good and had, between 

 profitable and unprofitable husbandry. The care 

 which is profitably bestowed in feeding and fat- 

 tening animals, is no less profitably bestowed in 

 feeding and fattening vegetables. They both sub- 

 sist on the same food, though under difiereut mod- 

 ifications. 



3. In discussing tlie third point, I must recur 

 to the origin of our difl^erence. At the bottom of 

 directions for a compost for five acres of corn, 



bonate of lime has no action of this kind upon ' which would amount in the aggregate to 60 bush- 

 vegetable matter. Quick-lime is soluble in wa- ' els, and of which ashes and lime were to consti- 

 ter. Carbonate of lime is insoluble. It only ini- j tute a))ont 13 per cent of the mixed mass, you ap- 



proves the texture of the soil, or its relation to ab 

 sorption, and acts merely as one of the earthy in- 

 gredients. I quote the opinions of Loudon (Enc. 

 of Gard. p. 244) Davy, Park, Brown, &c, &c, and 

 am supported by the deductions of experience. 



Again. If the operations of caustic and carbonate 

 of lime are analogous, as J thiidi you as well as 

 the professor would maintain, why is the former 

 most extensively and beneficially applied to soils 

 already surcharged with the latter? I mean lime- 

 stone lands. That this is the case, particularly in 

 Pennsylvania, where caustic lime is most exten- 

 sively used in agriculture, may be seen from the 



I will examine the points of diflTerence in the letters of Messrs Jacobs and Buckley, inserted 

 order I have arranged them. And '" t'le 3d vol. of the Memoirs of the New York 



1. Is powdered limestone a mantn-e, or does ilsPoai"d of Agriculture, pp. 123—125. 



chemical operation upon the soil or air increasj 

 fertility ? I have examined your remarks \t> Siij)- 

 port of the affirmative, and am compelled to say, 

 that although I find detailed many valuable philo- 

 sophical facts, I can discover nothing like practi- 

 cal proofs. And yet this is a question, above all 

 others, which is capable of a ready practical solu- 

 tion. The only thing that tends to favor your po- 

 sition is the assumption, that carbonate of lime 

 seizes upon the acids evolved in the putrefiictive 

 process of vegetables, and is by them converted 

 into an hypercarbonate, soluble iu water, and 

 which, through that medium, becomes the food of 

 plants. An<l, that ''when there is a scarcity of al- 

 iment in the soil, it seizes and secures the carbonic 

 acid of the atmosphere, and afterwards disperses 

 it, according to the ccdls and necessities of vegeta- 

 tion." A very provident and discreet purveyor, 

 this, for the vegetable community, it must be con- 

 fessed. Without however, scanning the laws of 

 chemical aflinity, or bewildering your readers with 

 the subtleties of the "nietapliysics of agriculture," 

 permit me to ask, if carbonate of lime performs 

 such wonders, by natural means, in seizing, secur- 

 ing, and dispersing vegetable food ; and is withal 

 endowed with a prescience which enables it to 

 know the loanls of the soil, as well as with a fac- 

 ulty of hearing the calls and of administering to 

 the jiecessities of plants — how comes it that lime- 

 stone lands are not naturally and uniformly supe- 

 rior in fertility to those which are not denomina- 

 ted calcareous. There is an extensive belt of 

 country, extending along the borders of Conncc 



2. The agency of the atmosphere is as neees 

 sat-y to vegetable as it is to animal life ; yet it is 

 not the chief, nor material source of nutriment to 

 either. Animals, without other food, famish and 

 die. Vegetables, upon an arid soil, or one desti- 

 tute of vegetable and animal matter, if they grow 

 for a time, soon wither and die, or are rendered 

 useless to agriculture, under the influence of a 

 summer's sun. Although some animals and veg- 

 etables may seem to form a partial exception, 

 these are insufficient to impair the authority of a 

 general rule. And besides, the daily observation 

 of every intelligeht man conclusively contradicts 

 the assumption, that plants receive their principal 

 nourishment from the atmosphere. The atmos- 

 pliere it is admitted, contains the aliments of both 

 vegetable and animal food, and imparts a portion 

 of these to the respiratory organs of both. The an- 

 imal imbibes oxygen, and gives off carbonic acid 

 gas. The vegetable, by its leaves, which perform 

 the office of lungs, receives carbonic gas, and im- 

 bibes and gives off, alternately, oxygen. The at- 

 mos])here is essentially the same, as to its elemen- 

 tary constituents, in all climates, and particularly 

 in the same district of country ; and it is impar- 

 tial and equable in the distribution of its benefits 

 to the vegetable tribes. Whence the great dispar- 

 ity, then, in the fertility of adjoining fields, if the 

 atmosphere is the grand source of vegetable 

 growth and development ? fllan cannot modify 

 nor control this element. It is as unchangeable 

 and diffusive as the light and heat which eman- 

 ate from the solar orb. But man can modify and 

 control inert vegetable and animal matter, the true 



ticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont, 



^f^ from Long Island Sound to the Canada line, in ] basis of the food of vegetables ; he can preserve 



which limestone is a principal rock, and the debris i them from waste, husband them with care, and 



of which must form a material constituent of the ' apply them with effect. And it is the industry, 



pended a caution, that neither the unleached ash- 

 es, nor the caustic lime should in any case come 

 in contact with the seed corn or young plants, 

 lest it shoulil destroy them.* This brought to rny 

 mind so forcibly a grave caution which 1 once 

 read in a iiev. spaper, jiet^er to shave in a room 

 where there is a monkey, because one of these pet 

 animals had cut his throat in attempting to imi- 

 tate his rtiaster in the shaving process, that my 

 mind lost its balance, and I confess I treated the 

 admonition with a levity which neither the sub- 

 ject, nor the respectability of the monitor, justi- 

 fied me in indulging in. But the introduction of 

 Doctor Dean, Sir H. Davy, and Sir J. Sinclair, to 

 give a sort of plausible support to your ojiinions 

 has awed me into sober seriousness. And yet, 

 should their ju.igments be construed to favor your 

 tliesi.o, I nll'.st .ij-jjcal to a higher tribunal — from 

 the speculations of the philosopher to the practi- 

 cal experience of the farmer. For however you 

 may speculate in your closets, the trial after all, 

 must, in these matters, be made in the feld. I 

 then reiterate, that neither unleached ashes, nor 

 hydrate of lime, i. e. lime slacked by water or 

 air, the only caustic slate in which it is ever ap- 

 plied in agriculture, are neither of them hurtful to 

 the vitality of seeds and plants, in the mode in 

 which they are ordinarily applied, even in a pure 

 state, and more especially in a compost in which 

 they form but an inconsiderable portion of the 

 mass. L^nlcached ashes are unhesitatingly sprink- 

 led upon young corn, grass and garden crops, of 

 the tenderest kinds, without prejudice. Lime is 

 freely used, with equal impunity, in the prepara- 

 tion of seed grain, as a top dressing for young 

 crops, and with water, as a wash for fruit and 

 other trees. And since I penned my former com- 

 munication, observing that the black flea was de 

 stroying my cabbage and egg plants, which were 

 unfolding their second pair of leaves, I immedi- 

 ately wet the plants w ith a watering pot, and then 

 literally covered their leaves with recently slacked 

 lime, procured for white washing, which saved 



*" 1 tie wliole seiitunce is as lolluws ; — *• Tho farmers 

 of Rensselaer County, New York, say, that ashes or 

 quick-lime ought always to be applied to the top of a 

 cornhill immediately alter planting if it follow sward, to 

 prevent ^rub larvae tVoin destroying it. The same appli- 

 cation will have a similar effect if applied to the top of a 

 potato bill. But neither unleached ashes, nor lime in 

 its caustic state, should, in any case, come in contact 

 with the seed corn, or the young plant." [See N. E. 

 Farmer, vol. x. p. 350.] It did not lefer to compost. We 

 intend as soon as our avocations wil permit, to resume tho 

 foregoing topics of discussion. — Editor, 



