THE FARMERS' CABINET, 



american'herd-book, 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



" Thn Productions of the Enrth will always be in proportion to tlie culture bestowed upon it." 



Vol. VI — No. 7.] 



2d mo. (February,) 15th, 1842. 



[Whole No. 85. 



KIMBER & SHARPLESS, 



PROPRIETORS AND PUBLISHERS, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — For conditions see last page. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Lime, No. 1. 



Mr. Editor, — The following essays were 

 written to while the tedium occasioned by 

 confinement to the house consequent on a 

 fractured limb. It is not pretended that they 

 contain any thing new, or that they will set- 

 tle the long-contested question on which they 

 treat. That was not so much the object in 

 view, as by pointing out the results of expe- 

 rience to show what the real questions at 

 issue are, and also to point out the true me- 

 thods of acquiring knowledge, and of philoso- 

 phizing, which, if we are to judge by the 

 many crude essays daily appearing, are either 

 not understood at all, or are fast being lost 

 eight of in the mists of metaphysical disquisi- 

 tion. 



I am not engaged in farming at present, 

 though my youth and many subsequent years 

 of my life were spent in its practical duties. 

 A recollection of the difficulties then encoun- 

 tered in acquiring knowledge, and a deep- 

 seated conviction of its importance in the pro- 

 eecution of an art on which the comfort and 

 wealth of every civilized nation mainly de- 

 pend, has induced me to throw my mite into 

 the general stock. Should you deem my lu- 

 cubrations worthy of insertion, and other avo- 

 cations permit, I shall occasionally send you 

 an essay on some subject connected with agri- 

 culture, and in the mean time I remain, 

 Very respectfully, 



Samuel Lewis. 



Pottsville, 3d Jan. 1842. 



On turning over the pages of the Cabinet 

 I observe many essays on lime. Some prac- 

 tical — some speculative — and some a mixture 

 of both. Many of the speculative class incline 

 to the English doctrine of the deleterious na- 

 ture of magnesian lime to vegetation. Some 

 of your correspondents, however, have taken 

 up the cudgels on the other side, and I think 

 with some efiect ; but the subject is not yet 

 exhausted, and, from its importance, merits 



Cab.— Vol. VI.— No. 7. 



further illustration. I shall not attempt to 

 add any thing new, but only endeavour to 

 place the teachings of theory and practice in 

 striking contrast. The opinion, so far as we 

 have any account of its origin, that magnesia, 

 and of course magnesian lime, is deleterious 

 to vegetation, has the very narrowest possible 

 foundation in fact; and has been copied by 

 subsequent writers, with little inquiry, from 

 the deference paid to great name?, or from 

 that apathy which sometimes comes over 

 great and inquisitive minds; and hence has 

 become widely disseminated, and, what is 

 more, I believe, pretty generally believed in. 



But while this doctrine was spreading wide 

 and taking deep root in Europe and even in 

 this country, our farmers of south-eastern 

 Pennsylvania, by their silent unostentatious 

 practice, were knocking the whole theory on 

 the head — or, in common parlance, " into a 

 cocked hat." They have conclusively shown, 

 and not on a very small scale either, tiiat the 

 whole doctrine is without foundation as re- 

 spects this country, and have given us good 

 ground to infer that, with respect to Europe, 

 it is little better than sheer humbug. 



Lime has been used for manure in the 

 south-eastern part of Pennsylvania, to some 

 extent, for at least 80 years, and for more than 

 half that time in immense quantities. This 

 lime was pi-ocured, in a great measure, from 

 the deposite of limestone in the Great Valley 

 in Chester county. At least it was with 

 lime from this stone that the great value of 

 the article as a manure was first proved in 

 America. This limestone has been shown by 

 repeated analysis to belong to the magnesian 

 class, and much of that, the most esteemed 

 for manure, highly magnesian in its compo- 

 sition. 



Sixty years ago the soil of this part of the 

 state was so reduced and worn out by severe 

 cropping and bad management as scarcely to 

 repay the cost of cultivation. What it is now 

 is well enough known without any elaborate 

 description of mine. Yet in all this time, 

 lime, and highly magnesian lime too, has 

 been spread on it in immense quantities. 

 Enough of it, if it were as deleterious as it 

 has been represented, has been put on some 

 of this land to ruin it for ever. But so far from 

 this being the case, the whole country has 

 improved and is improving rapidly, and the 



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