No. 3. 



Lime as a Top-Dressing. 



99 



5th. Sterile magnesian soils may be fer- 

 tilized by means of calcareous substances, 

 such as plaster, chalk, ashes, marl, &c., pro- 

 vided the other conditions are attended to." 



Lime as a Top-Dressiag. 



In improving hilly land with a view to pas- 

 ture, a much smaller quantity of lime has 

 been found to produce permanent and highly 

 beneficial effects when kept as much as pos- 

 sible near the surface, by being merely har- 

 rowed in with the seeds after a fallow or 

 green crop, instead of being buried by tlie 

 plough. As this is a matter of much import- 

 ance to farmers of such land, the successful 

 practice of one of tlie most eminent farmers 

 ia Britain cannot be too generally known. 



"A few years afler," says Mr. Dawson, 

 "having a considerable extent of cut-field 

 land in fallow, which I wished to lime, previ- 

 ous to its being laid down to pasture, and 

 finding that I could not obtain a sufficient 

 quantity of lime for the whole in proper time, 

 1 was induced, from observing the effects of 

 fine loam upon the surface of similar soil, 

 even when covered with bent grass, to try a 

 small quantity of lime on the surface of this 

 fallow, instead of a larger quantity ploughed 

 down in the usual manner. Accordingly, in 

 tlie autumn, about twenty acres of it were 

 well harrowed, and then about 56 bushels 

 only of unslaked lime were, after being 

 slaked, carefully spread upon each acre, and 

 immediately well harrowed in. As many 

 pieces of the lime, which had not been fully 

 slaked at first, were gradually reduced to 

 powder by the dews and moisture of the 

 earth : to mix these with the soil, the land 

 was again well harrowed after a few days. 

 This land was sown with oats in the spring, 

 with white and red clover and rye-grass, and 

 well harrowed, without being ploughed again : 

 the crop of oats was good, and the plants of 

 grass sufficiently numerous and healthy, and 

 they formed a very fine pasture, which con- 

 tinued good until ploughed, some years after, 

 for graiu. 



About twelve years after, I took a lease of 

 tlie hilly farm of Grubbet, many parts of 

 ■which, though of an earthy mould tolerably 

 deep, were too steep and elevated to be kept 

 in tillage ; and as these lands had been much 

 exhausted by cropping, and were full of couch- 

 grass, to destroy tliat and procure a covering 

 of fine grass, I fallowed them, and laid on 

 the same quantity of lime per acre, and well 

 harrowed it in the autumn ; then sowed oats 

 and grass-seeds in the spring without plough- 

 ing, exactly as in the last mentioned experi- 

 ment: the oats were a full crop, and the 

 plants of grass abundant. Several of these 

 fields have been now above thirty years in 



pasture, and are still producing white clover 

 and other fine grasses ; no bent or fog has yet 

 appeared upon them. And it deserves par- 

 ticular notice, that more than treble the quan- 

 tity of lime was laid upon fields adjoining, of 

 a similar soil, but which being fitter for oc- 

 casional tillage, upon them the lime was 

 ploughed in ; these fields were also sown 

 with oats and grass-seeds ; the latter throve 

 well and gave a fine pasture- the first year, 

 but afterwards the bent grass spread so fast, 

 that in three years there was more of it than 

 of the finer cfrasses." 



The conclusions which Mr. Dawson draws 

 from his extensive practice in the use of lime 

 and dung, deserve the attention of all culti- 

 vators of the soil. 



" 1. That animal dung, dropped upon coarse, 

 benty pastures, produces but little or no im- 

 provement upon them ; and that, even when 

 sheep or cattle are confined to a small space, 

 and, as in the case of folding, their dung 

 ceases to produce any beneficial effect after 

 a few years, whether the land is continued in 

 pasture or brought under the plough. 



2. That even when land of this description 

 is well fallowed and dunged, but not limed, 

 although the dung augments the produce of 

 the subsequent crop of grain and of grass 

 also, for two or three years, that thereafter 

 its effects are no longer discernible, either 

 upon the one or the other. 



3. That when this land is limed, if the 

 lime is kept upon the surface of the soil, or 

 well mixed with it, and then laid down to 

 pasture, the finer grasses continue in pos- 

 session of the soil, even in elevated and ex- 

 posed situations, for a great many years, to 

 the exclusion of bent and fog: in the case of 

 Grubbet-hills, it was observed that more than 

 thirty years have now elapsed ; and, besides 

 this, the dung of the animals pastured upon 

 such lands adds, every year, to their luxuri- 

 ance and improves the quality of the pasture, 

 and augments the productive powers of the 

 soil when afterwards ploughed for grain ; 

 thus producing, upon a benty, outfield soil, 

 efl^ects similar to what are experienced when 

 rich, infield lands have been long in pasture, 

 and which are thereby more and more en- 

 riched. 



4. That when a large quantity of lime is 

 laid on such land and ploughed down deep, 

 the same effects will not be produced, whe- 

 ther in respect to the permanent fineness of 

 the pasture, its gradual amelioration by the 

 dung of the animals depastured upon it, or its 

 fertility, when afterwards in tillage : on tha 

 contrary, unless the surface is fully mixed 

 with lime, the coarse grasses will, in a few 

 years, regain possession of the soil, and the 

 dung, thereafter deposited by cattle, will not 

 enrich the land for subsequent tillage. 



