1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



77 



acrid state, so that the ploughing will be better de- 

 ferred for another week, or even longer*. 



When quiclv-Iime has been deprived of lis caus- 

 ticity, it is called by clni\ms\s carbonate nf lime, and 

 in that: mild state it does not act upon animal or 

 vegetable matter with the same violence as quick- 

 lime, but instead of dissipating any portion of the 

 substance which may be containeil in the soil, it 

 facilitates its reduction into that state by^which ii 

 the most effectually assists vegetation. 'Neither 

 has it the same tendency to combine, as it were 

 into a mortar, with the sand of fioor clays. 



Lime, however, whether quick or slaked, when 

 used by itself", without any addition of earth, is not 

 possessed of any vegetative quality : thus, ' seeds 

 planteil in a flower-pot filled with powdered carbo- 

 nate of lime, regularly watered, vegetated feebly, 

 made little progress, and died without coming to 

 perfection ; but when partly filled with garden- 

 mould, and carbonate of lime 1^ inches thick over 

 it, the plants put down their radicles straight 

 through the lime, without ramifying or stretching 

 sideways, till they arrived at the mould. ICven in 

 a mixture where lime was onlyone-fifih, the plants 

 were poor and sickly, and made no prosress ; and 

 when quick, it. with the aid of water, suddenly de- 

 stroys all vegetable substance.'! It may even be 

 hurtful to vegetation when laid in too large a quan- 

 tity upon very light and warm soils; for, by quicken- 

 ing evaporation, it dries the land too much, by 

 which means, plants are deprived of the moisture 

 necessary to their sustenance; tberetbre it is, that 

 calcareous earths are frequently known by farmers 

 as 'burning soils ;' and, by its injudicious ui?e or 

 repetition, without the aid of animal or vegetable 

 manure to supply the nourishment ot which they 

 have been deprived by crops, the growth of which 

 has been thus forced, land, though of superior 

 quality, may at length become exhausted. f Thus 

 experience teaches that lime, when applied to land, 

 has difttjrent efl'ects upon some soils than it has up- 

 on others : on many there is a rapid and perma- 

 nent improvement, on others there is less benefit, 

 and on some it is said rather to retard than to pro- 

 mote vegetation. This is no doubt chiefly influen- 

 ced by various unascertained properties in the soil, 

 and partly also by difl'erence in the qualities of the 

 lime itselfj arising from its mixture with other 

 earths. 



Whether it possesses any further properties, 

 through the stimulating effects of light and heat 

 upon the vegetable fibre, has been conjectured, but 

 has not been supported by any positive fact, and 

 seems to be contradicted by the slow effect of eflete 

 lime in it> operation upon the soil. It is, however, 

 worthy of remark, that calcareous earth is found 

 in the ashes of all vegetables ; that it is present in 

 a larger proportion in wheat, clover, and some 

 other plants whose growth is especially promoted 

 by the use of calcareous manures, and many are 

 said not to ripen in ground in which it is entirely 



*Andersons's Essays, vol. i. Essay vi. part ii.; Mal- 

 colm's Survey of Sui'rey, Kent, Sec, vol. ii. p. 5S; 

 Theaer, Principes Raisonnes d 'Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 

 392. » . 1 



fNaismith's Essay on Manures in vol. ii. of the Ap- 

 pendix to the General Report of Scotland, chap. xii. p. 

 89. ' i. I 



J Gyllenbor(2j's Chemical Treatise on Agriculture; 

 Pilkington's Trans., chap. x. sect. viii. 



wanting.* We may therefore conclude that it is 

 of the highest importance in the process of vegeta- 

 tion, and that an accurate investigation of its mode 

 of action, by enabling us to judge with more cer- 

 tainty of its powers, would greatly tend to the im- 

 provement of agriculture. It is indeed much to be 

 regretted that the subject has not been more fully 

 investigated, and that some more definite judg- 

 ment has not been li-amed regarding the properties 

 of lime, the effects of vvliich in its application to 

 the soil are exposed to t be most contradictory re- 

 sults. Much money has thus been uselessly ex- 

 Yiended, and labor thrown away, which, under bet- 

 ter information, might have been saved ; and 

 without scientific analyses of the component parts 

 both of soils and of lime, we remain much in the 

 dark regarding their efl'ects on vegetation; but, 

 judging from the faint liixhts with which we have 

 been furnished, we shall still endeavor, by com- 

 paring science with practice, to obtain such in- 

 struction as may guide us to an economical and 

 useful application of this manure to field culture. 



j/pplicattnn of Lime. 



Those purposes appear to be — first, to render 

 whatever substances may be lodged in the soil, or 

 matter which forms part of if, and which may be 

 injurious to vegetation, either harmless or useful ; 

 and thus to prepare the soil for the reception and 

 nourishment of seeds and plants : and secondly, to, 

 liicilitaie the decomposition of putrescible matter, 

 so as to furnish food to vegetables during their 

 growth. It has been proved by careful experiment, 

 thatthe application of lime is the only known alter, 

 ative which, upon poor, weak, and weeping clays, 

 has power to heal the soil. With the assistance 

 of water, it suddenly decomposes all animal and 

 vegetable bodies, and when thus spread upon ne- 

 glected ground covered with heath and moss, the 

 old turf is decomposed, and a saponaceous matter 

 is formed, which sinks into the soil and covers it 

 with sweet herbage. We also know that it im- 

 parts a certain degree of vigor to some peculiar 

 plants, — as, for instance, sainfoin, the roots of 

 which penetrate far into the interstices of chalk, 

 and grow luxuriantly, though only covered by a 

 slight coat of inferior soil.f 



It is however an error, though entertained by 

 many farmers, — to suppose thatlime in any state 

 comprizes fertilizing properties within itself; and 

 that, without operating upon the soil, or upon the 

 substances which it contains, it is an enriching ma- 

 nure. It does not possess any fertilizing principle 

 in its own composition ; it is merely a calcareous 

 earth combined with fixed air, and holding a me- 

 dium between sand and clay, which, in some mea- 

 sure, remedies the deficiencies of both. But 

 though, when alone, unfcivorable to the growth of 

 plants, yet experience shows that it is an ingredi- 



* Malcolm's Comp. of Agric, vol. p. 57 ; Ander- 

 son Essays, vol. i. 



t See Naismith's Elements of Agriculture p. 334. 

 Thaer, Principes Raisonnes d'Agriculture, 2nde edit., 

 tome ii. p. 387; and Anderson's Essays, No. vi., part 

 2, Aphorism iv., in which it is stated, that calcareous 

 matters act as powerfully upon land that is naturally 

 poor, as upon land that is more richly impregnated with 

 those substances which tend to produce a luxuriant ve- 

 getation. 



