252 



Magnesian Lime. 



Vol. VL 



For the Farmers' Cabinets 

 Alagnesian Limei 



Having noticed an article in the March 

 number of the Farmers' Cabinet, for 1841, 

 which was extracted from an old report on 

 the agriculture of Scotland ; militating most 

 unequivocally against an axiom long since too 

 firmly established, by the experienced and 

 learned practical farmers of this country, to 

 be shaken. The conviction that the anti- 

 magnesian notion had come regularly up, and 

 had gone regularly down, for the last half- 

 century, and owed its origin long behind the 

 enlightened age in which we live, induced 

 me to animadvert on the article in question, 

 in a succeeding number of the Cabinet. My 

 strictures having reflected, in some degree, 

 on the Editor's discrimination for publishing 

 an article in such " bad odour" in this part of 

 the world, where every practical farmer has 

 had experience to teach him better, — brought 

 up the following clause, in a note, by the 

 Editor: " The subject will bring forth com- 

 munications from those of our friends* who, 

 without going back to the time of Dr. Tenant 

 or Dr. Davy, conceive they have had expe- 

 rience of the fact, that magnesian lime has 

 been injurious to their land rather than other- 

 wise." Is the Editor not aware of the fact, 

 that lime, as a fertilizing agent, is now meet- 

 ing universal favour, and already transcends 

 in importance any one subject connected with 

 agriculture ] Is he aware of the vast amount 

 of improvement already effected by it, parti- 

 cularly in Lancaster, Berks and Chester Cos., 

 Pa., and Cecil Co., Md., in parts of which, 

 without lime (humanly speaking) some of the 

 farmers could not live 1 I now, therefore, 

 propose a very easy and ready way to satisfy 

 demurring minds — 'tis this, let it be ascer- 

 tained whether the lime, which has, as above 

 stated, " worked wonders," is, or is not, mag- 

 nesian. We, who profess to know, avow that 

 all the best lime in use for agricultural pur- 

 poses, in the above districts, is more or less 

 impregnated with magnesia. In the very 

 districts above named, where the application 

 of litno has long been in full tide of successful 

 experiment, are found as good, if not the best, 

 samples of husbandry and the most produc- 

 tive agriculture in the United States. With- 

 in ten square miles in the neighbourhood 

 where I reside, 2()0,tX)0 bushels of magnesian 

 lime are annually burned, and the quantity 

 is increasing. 



The principal reasons why magnesian lime 

 is being more valued in this country and Eu- 

 rope than other lime at present, are substan- 



• Our correspondent has aflixed a meaning to the 

 term " friends," which it ouglit not to be made to bear 

 —he himself is one of our best " friends" and corres- 

 pondents. — Kd. 



tiated by the array of scientific testimony to be 

 found at pages 339 and 340 of vol. 5 of the Ca- 

 binet, from which we may deduce as follows: 



1st. In our most fertile soils, carbonate of 

 magnesia is found to be one of the principal 

 constituents. 



2d. In magnesian lime we have, by its ac-» 

 tion, a two-fold advantage, carbonic acid hav- 

 ing a greater affinity for lime than magnesia, 

 the lime carbonating almost immediately, 

 while the magnesia retains its causticity, or 

 corrosive alkaline quality, much longer, thus 

 acting more powerfully in destroying unde- 

 composed vegetable matter, than common 

 lime, (or the advocates of the antiseptic doc- 

 trine would say, staying or retarding too ra- 

 pid decomposition) answering either view. 



3d. A much smaller quantity of magnesian 

 lime answering the purpose, and the effect 

 more durable. 



4th. In common lime the proportion made 

 up by magnesia, in magnesian lime, is sup- 

 plied, it is ascertained, by sand, flint or silica 

 and other drossy substances entirely useless. 



5th. Magnesian lime has less specific gra- 

 vity, and is composed, when fresh burned, al- 

 most entirely of lime and magnesia, frequent- 

 ly less than one per cent, of silica or sand. 



6th. Much of the vague conjecturing, pre- 

 judicial to magnesian lime, it is believed origi- 

 nated in the unskilled and unpractised hand, 

 which being accustomed to lay on impure com- 

 mon lime in large quantities, without percepti- 

 ble injury, by applying magnesian lime, in the 

 same quantity, would of course for a time ra- 

 ther injure vegetation, by reason given and 

 explained, No. 2, above; yet, in the end, this 

 same heavy application of magnesian lime, 

 when after having had time to carbonate and 

 yield its causticity, will be very efficacious. 



The Editor having promised communica- 

 tions from those who conceived they had ex- 

 perienced injury from the use of magnesian 

 lime, has kept me waiting anxiously to learn 

 what ground they would stand upon, — would 

 it be fair to apprehend that, like Archimedes, 

 when he undertook to raise the world by a 

 lever, they could find no ground to stand 

 upon ] However, without vaunting of the 

 feeble hold, that the advocates on my side 

 may take of the subject, we nevertheless in- 

 vite the anti-magnesian farmers to come out 

 boldly on this all important subject. Our 

 knowledge extends over four or five counties, 

 embracing about as many thousand square 

 miles, by way of laboratory, so we can of 

 course admit no " two-penny experiment in a 

 garden-pot," according to S. Lewis, in your 

 last number, whom, 1 am happy to acknow- 

 ledge as another strong spoke in the great 

 wheel of truth. But really when the period 

 arrives when we who attribute so much of 

 our success in farming to the application of 



