848 



Lime, a Septic. 



Vol. V. 



Fi)r tlie Farrnerfi' Caliinet. 

 Lime, a Septic. 



Mr. Editor, — I must claim tho privilefje 

 of a brief reply to the cominunicatioii of Ag- 

 ricola, in the Ciibinel for April, in wliich he 

 has been at some pains to prove that which, 

 if he had lalcen the trouble to read my paper 

 throughout, he would have seen I had fully 

 admitted ; as my object was, to show by quo- 

 tation and experience, that lime, under cer- 

 tain chxitmstauces, had an effect differinnr 

 from its ordinary operation ; and if proofs of 

 its anti-septic powers were wanting, 1 could 

 have referred him to some which (unlike iiis 

 ego; and white-wash experiments) would iiave 

 had, at least, some little bearinir upon the 

 question: by neutralizincr the acids, it arrests 

 the fermentation in cider and preserves it 

 sweet, and its mixture witJi bad wines was 

 an imposture as old as the days of Henry IV. 



Falstaff.—" You rogiii\ Iktc 's lime in this sack, too." 



Now, what are the facts which he so triumph- 

 antly parades, as decisive of the (piestion ! 

 The preservation of boards for JVl years by 

 lime-wash. It may be a secret worth know- 

 ino^ to Asjricola, but long known to practical 

 men, that white-pine, walnut, or chesnut 

 boards, exposed to the sun and air, will im- 

 perceptibly wear away by the abrasion of the 

 weather, hut icill not rot at all. Under any 

 circumstances, a thin pellicle of carbonate of 

 lime, (which white-wasii immediately be- 

 comes,) could have no other effect than the 

 exclusion of air and water. For this pur- 

 pose, oil and brick-dust are as pood ; and var- 

 nish would be much better, with the advan- 

 taore, that it will not be washed off by the 

 rains, as in the case of the Montgomery farm- 

 er's chips. 



Fact 2d, proves, that lime-wash will pre- 

 serve efjafs from corruption — admitted. His 

 old woman, who flourishes the white-wash 

 brush, could have told him that lard, or any 

 other unctuous substance which would ex- 

 clude air, will answer the purpose equally 

 well. 



I omitted to mention in my former com- 

 munication, that the suggestion which led to 

 my experiment was taken from Chaptal's 

 Agricultural Chemistry, Boston edition, page 

 60, where he says: "We are indebted to 

 Davy for some experiments which throw a 

 great light upon the action of liino upon vege- 

 tables. He has proved, that the fibrous por- 

 tions of plants, deprived of all the particles 

 which can be dissolved by water, presents 

 another series, soluble, after having been for 

 sometime macerated with lime : thus lime 

 (he says) may be very efficaciously employed, 

 when it is wished to convert dry wood or 



fibrous roots and slocks, to the nourishment 

 of plants." 



After slating that lime, in the state of a 

 carbonate, will not produce this efiVct, he 

 goes on to gay, that " it is necessary to cm- 

 ploy lime slacked with water and mixed with 

 a fresh portion of that fluid, and the fibroua 

 substances must remain for sometime exposed 

 to the action of this solution." 



Then follows the quotation which I had 

 supposed to be an extract from Davy, but 

 which turns out to be (t>om the absence of 

 inverted commas) a part of the text. Thus 

 it appears that we have the testimony of the 

 two greatest agricultural chemists of the age, 

 that "lime," in the words of Chaplal, "ren- 

 ders soluble and suitable to the nourishment 

 of plants, some substances which, in their 

 natural state, do not possess this characteris- 

 tic," &c. 



In my experiment, it was proved that 

 all that is required to attain the desira- 

 ble result is, to incorporate the vegetable 

 matter .saturated with water, witii a sufficient 

 quantity of quicklime, and leave the rest to 

 the rains, to produce the necessary macera- 

 tion and solution. 



In the experiments which Agric(;la pre- 

 scribes for me, I am to deal very tenderly 

 with the chips, through fear of destructive 

 decomposition, a combustion as he calls it. 

 After all, this is very probably the great de- 

 sideratum : as to combustion, properly ?o 

 called, or the ashes of wliich he speaks, I 

 saw nothing of the kind; and I defy him to 

 produce cither the one or the other, by the 

 agency of slacked lime. 



Now, Mr. Editor, after having sifted the 

 useless out of his production, what have 

 we left to disprove the solvent powers of 

 lime! Nothing. On the contrary, he has 

 given tne fresh encouragement to pursue the 

 experiments; and if, in a result, I tind I have 

 mistaken the cause, I will most cheerfully 

 make all due acknowledgments. As to the 

 charge of maUing facts, I shall only say that 

 it is as unworthy of Agricola, as it is unjust 

 to 



Arator. 



Kishacoquilas Valley, May 5. 



P. S. I must apologize for having inadver- 

 tently appropriated a signature which of right 

 belongs to another of your correspondents. 



The sooner a farmer gets a profitable re- 

 turn for one dressing of dung, the sooner he 

 can afibrd another; and if a proper course of 

 crops be taken, he may go on a very long' 

 time without feeling cause to complain that 

 his lands are too rich. 



