No. 3. 



Lime, 



93 



will believe me, sir, it is the first I have 

 tasted this year !"*— Z)ot/;nin,g-'s Horticultu- 

 rist. 



Lime. 



Read before the Fanners' Club, and communicated to 

 the Fanner and Mechanic for publication. 



Rondout, Aug. 10th, 1847. 



Henry Meigs, Esq., ) 

 Secretary of (he Farmers' Club. C 



Dear Sir, — Seeing by the accounts of 

 the late excursion of the American Insti- 

 tute over part of Long Island, that much at- 

 tention is just now paid to that important 

 portion of the State; and supposing that in 

 the meetings and conversations of so many 

 competent men, brought together on the oc- 

 casions, many suggestions have been made 

 for improving the natural soil of the Island : 

 permit me to trouble you with the following 

 inquiries, to wit : • 



1st. Has the use of lime been recom- 

 mended 1 



2nd. If so, in lohal state should it be ap- 

 plied"! 



And this brings me to a question I have 

 often thought of putting before the Farmers' 

 Club, if it has not already been a subject of 

 discussj^n among its members, namely: 



" Would not coarsely pulverized raw car- 

 bonate of lime, mixed up with a soil de- 

 prived of the lime principle, be a more per- 

 manent way of improvmg such soil, than 

 the same stone used in the ordinary way, 

 after burning and slacking with water, as 

 it is most generally done now!!" 



This is a very old question. If we open 

 the books, we find many valuable papers 

 written on the subject, which leads to the 

 belief, that in many cases, raw limestone 

 ought to be preferred ; and it is remarkable 

 that most all the accounts given, of direct 

 and judiciously conducted experiments, — 

 some of them of many years continuance, 

 both in England and this country — agree in 



* We should rather incline to call this an instance 

 of the sailor's coarse appetite, than his taste. Indeed, 

 no word is so much misapplied as the latter. We con- 

 sider a taste, by which we mean a nice sense of dis- 

 crimivation, as the result of good natural organization, 

 joined to a familiar acquaintance with a great variety 

 of the different objects on which the taste is to be ex 

 ercised. Thus no man could be said to have a fine taste, 

 in pictures, who had never seen anything better than 

 the daubs of a village sign painter. To go lower, we 

 believe M. Soyer would not give a person credit for 

 any taste in cookery, who had never eaten anything 

 except " plain boiled and roasted;" and we should cer- 

 tainly deny any one the right to claim a taste in fruits 

 who does not know by heart, at least all the finest 

 standard varieties. — Ed. 



the conclusion that carbonaceous matters* 

 thus applied in a raw state, have proved 

 very beneficial upon barren silicious soils, 

 which afterwards, by judicious management, 

 were rendered capable of bearing crops of 

 cereals, with advantage. But it is also re- 

 markable that most of the same accounts 

 came to the same following conclusion, that, 

 "The expense of reducing limestone to pow- 

 der, would probably prohibit its extensive 

 use in that state." Now, this objection 

 might be well founded " Long time ago," 

 but now, machinists have made such aston- 

 ishing progress with their ingenious inven- 

 tions, that it would indeed be doing injustice 

 to them, to suppose that they cannot find means 

 of crushing raw limestone into a coarse pow- 

 der, — for the same costs incurred now by 

 the operations of kiln burning and water 

 slacking, I, for one, say that it can he done: 

 so that, assuming this to be a fact, for the 

 sake of the argument, the simple question 

 remaining is, "Would it be more judicious 

 to apply raw limestone pulverized, than the 

 same stone burnt and slacked on, the poor 

 soils of Long Island !" 



If it is true that the burnt lime, — that is 

 to say, limestone deprived of its carbonic 

 acid, — does not benefit the soil, until it has 

 reabsorbed from the atmosphere the greater 

 part of the carbonic acid which it has lost 

 by burning, and has thus returned to the 

 state of a carbonate again, then indeed, it 

 would appear that these operations of burn- 

 ing and slacking, were mere contrivances 

 to reduce the stone into powder; and that 

 the raw stone reduced to powder, ought to 

 claim the preference, as affording at once a 

 larger proportion of carbon. 



It may be objected that the raw stone 

 would undergo a slower disintegration and 

 decomposition, and not act so immediately 

 as a manure : but if long duration, and even 

 permanency in the improvement of the soil, 

 are the objects in view, a slow disintegra- 

 tion should not be an objection. There 

 would always be a sufficient proportion of 

 the crushed stone in minute particles, for 

 immediate action. 



But, sir, I do not wish to trouble you any 

 longer with a discussion which can be car- 

 ried on, and perhaps has already been so, by 

 much more able men. My principal object 

 in addressing you, is to draw attention, and 

 to make it known, in proper quarters, that, 

 in case the farmers and land owners of Long 

 Island should wish to give a fair and exten- 

 sive trial to the raw pulverized limestone, I 

 think it could be furnished to almost any 

 quantity, and of various qualities — some of 

 it is almost pure carbonate of lime, — from 

 this place and vicinity, and at prices which 



