250 



Lime. 



Vol. VIII. 



its preventing the ripening of wheat and 

 other grain, frequently causing wheat to 

 mildew. 



One of my neighbours, Mr. Penrose, 

 limed a field for corn, at the rate of 40 

 bushels per acre; having 80 bushels left, he 

 went over two acres again, making 80 bush- 

 els per acre ; after corn and oats, he sowed 

 wheat, and at harvest the two acres were 

 mildewed, and scarcely worth cutting; tiie 

 remainder was plump heavy grain. And 

 this effect is generally observed where lime 

 heaps have laid ; both in oats and wheat, it 

 ^s shorter and greener at harvest. We have 

 in the same number of your Cabinet, another 

 long extract from Johnston's Lectures on the 

 same subject, all English, of course, which 

 has repeatedly been shown not to apply to 

 this country, at least not to the upper part 

 of Chester county. Plaster, we are told by 

 English writers, does little or no good in 

 England. Might we not, with the same 

 plausibility, recommend gypsum to them, 

 that they recommend lime to usi One of 

 your correspondents tells us, that the marl 

 from New Jersey, is of no advantage on 

 this side the Delaware. If crossing a river 

 make such a difference, what may not 

 crossing the Atlantic ocean dol The 

 lime may be very different in quality: the 

 only place in which he mentions the kind of 

 lime, shows that it was "shells," which any 

 practical man will tell you, may be applied 

 to land in tliis country, in almost unlimited 

 quantity, without doing much harm.* 



What I have been contending against 

 from the beginning, is the universal applica- 

 tion of their theories. Your Darby corres- 

 pondent, notwithstanding all the testimony 

 to the contrary, says, " lime is universally 

 used." What he understands by universally, 

 I cannot say, but if he limits it to " the uni- 

 versal Yankee nation," he will have to leave 

 out the New England States, for one of your 

 correspondents says lime does no good there, 

 and I am afraid the Great West must follow, 

 for another correspondent that experimented 

 with lime, tells us that it can only be ap- 

 plied there beneficially, with the troioel. If 

 he included the whole globe, he must in ad- 

 dition leave the 300,000,000 of China, out 

 of his universe ; for if we believe the reports 

 of travellers, they do not so much as mix 

 lime with their poudrette,f and yet are said 



* I wish it to be distinctly understood, that all my 

 experience was with magnesian lime: pure, orncarly 

 pure carbonate, such as thegreatVaUey marble, I have 

 never tried. 



t Lime should never be used in the preparation of 

 Poadrette. The Chinese understand their business, 

 —Ed. 



to understand the nature and use of manures 

 better than any people on the globe. All of 

 which is very unfortunate for your Darby 

 correspondent, as part of China is our anti- 

 pode, and perhaps approaches nearer our 

 climate, in some particulars, than any other 

 part of the earth. 



But after all the professor says about lime, 

 his conscience would not let him close, with- 

 out adding the following: "Organic matter, 

 in the form of farm-yard manure, of bone, or 

 rape-dust, of green crops ploughed in, or of 

 peat and other composts, must be abundantly 

 and systematically added, if at the end of 

 twenty or forty years, the land in which the 

 full supply of lime is kept up, is to retain its 

 original fertility, otherwise present fertility 

 and gain, will be followed by future bar- 

 renness and loss." 



I think I have shown in former communi- 

 cations, that the organic matter enumerated 

 by the professor, with the addition of plaster, 

 leaving out bone and rape-dust, is sufficient 

 without lime, to keep up the fertility in 

 Chester county, for more than one hundred 

 years. And in order to give this argument 

 its proper weight with practical men, I will 

 so far presume on Mr. Townsend's good na- 

 ture, as to give a short extract from a letter 

 I received from him, in answer to a note, 

 asking information on this subject. Mr. 

 Townscnd says, " The farm on which I re- 

 side, I have been informed by my father, 

 has never had any lime applied to the soil 

 prior to the period you have alluded to, ex- 

 cept in one instance, when he was induced 

 for the sake of experiment, many yeara 

 since, to lime about half a field, from which 

 he said that he never was able to discern 

 any beneficial effects. He accordingly aban- 

 doned the idea of liming altogether, and re- 

 lied exclusively upon gypsum as a stimu- 

 lant, and the barn-yard for manure. The 

 consequence was an exuberance of produce, 

 of both grass and grain, without impoverish- 

 ing the soil in the least, although in the 

 habit of selling annually, a considerable 

 quantity of hay, and frequently straw. This 

 course he pursued nearly fifty years." I 

 will only add, that if Mr. Townsend's farm 

 had been heavily limed, it would have been 

 pointed to, as an unanswerable argument in 

 favour of lime, and we should have been 

 triumphantly asked, what but the lime, could 

 compensate for the large quantities of hay 

 and straw sold 1 J. W. Van Leer. 



CHARITY. 



Believe not each accusing tongue, 



As most weak persons do ; 

 But still believe that story wrong, 



W^hich ought not to be true. 



