80 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



No. 2 



augments the crops, but the finer grasses continue 

 in possession of the soil, and the land is tlaus 

 doubly benefited; tor the dung dropped by the 

 stock on wliich it is pastured, is both increased in 

 quantity, and improved in quality.* Farmers 

 should never consider lime as the food or nourish- 

 ment of plants, but as an alterative of the soil; 

 never to be used but when nature requires it, ei- 

 ther to dissolve noxious combmations, and to Ibrm 

 new ones; to bind loose soils, or to diminish ex- 

 cessive cohesion; and to reduce the inactive ve- 

 getable fibre into a fertile mould. For such pur- 

 poses there is not, perhaps, a more valuable arti- 

 cle in the whole catalogue of agricultural reme- 

 dies; but some farmers, who do not reflect upon 

 the subject, when they perceive that lime has once 

 excited the dormant powers of the soil into action, 

 and that good crops succeed lor a lew years, are 

 apt to draw from thence very false conclusions, 

 and continue liining and tilling without the assist- 

 ance of putrescent manure, until their land at 

 length is rendered incapable of the production of 

 corn. It has indeed been pertinently observed by 

 a good judge of such matters, 'that there is an 

 analogy between the treatment suitable to the 

 animal and vegetable creation. When medicines 

 have removed the cause of their apjilication, they 

 are discontinued, and the patient, rendered weak- 

 er by the application, requires some invigorating 

 aliment: in like manner, some time after an effec- 

 tual liming, the soluble carbon of the rotten dung, 

 or some such restorative, should be applied to the 

 soil to replenish it with what it may have been 

 robbed of by the action of the lime.'f 



In fine, lime should alwa3's precede putrescent 

 manures when breaking up old leys for cultivation, 

 for, if the land contains acids, or noxious matter 

 that is poisonous to plants, they will be decom- 

 posed and rendered fit for vegetation; and hence 

 the superiority of lime to dung on new lauds. 

 But calcareous and putrescent manures operate 

 very differently: Mhe former, being more stimulant 

 and corrective, help the farmer to an abundant 

 crop at the expense of the soil alone; while the 

 latter f\u-nish the land at once with fertilizing fiuids, 

 and will insure a fjood crop on a place perfectly 

 barren before, and after the application of lime. 'J 



Much uncertainty prevails among farmers re- 

 garding the state nf lime: some contending that it 

 should only be applied when hot and powdered, 

 and that when it has been slaked, its effect is com- 

 paratively trifling; others maintain the contrary. 

 But these disputants consist chiefly of men whose 

 experience has either been confined to one kind of 

 soil, or who have only used it under particular cir- 

 cumstances, and as they only condemn the sys- 

 tem of others because their own has turned out 

 successful, or the reverse, it is not improbable that, 

 in the view they take of the subject, each may be 

 in the right. It will therefore probably be found, 



* In Derbyshire the farmers have found that, b)' 

 spreadinn; liine in considerable quantities upon the sur- 

 face of their heathy moors, after a few times the heath 

 disappears, and the whole surface becomes covered 

 with a fine pde of grass, consisting of white clover and 

 the other valuable sorts of pasture-grasses. Anderson's 

 Essays, 4th edit., vol. i. p. 527. Survey of Derby, 

 vol. ii. p. 437; and of Westmoreland, p. 235. 



t Walter Davis, Survey of North Wales, p. 303. 



X Finlayson's Practical Essays on Agriculture, 2nd 

 edit., p. 112. 



that in all cases where the land is constitutionally 

 disposed to receive benefit fronri a calcareous 

 dressing, that is to say, when it has not been pre- 

 viously limed, or when it has been long laid down 

 and reli-eshed by grass, or enriched by the appli- 

 cation of dung, it is of fitile im| ortance whether 

 the operation take place when the lime is quick or 

 etlijte. Upon waste lands, however, its causticity 

 has an evident and necessary effect; for the unde- 

 cayed vegetables, which abound in all soils in a 

 state of nature, should be speedily decomposed, 

 and it should therefore be spread hot from the kiln. 

 In point of economy, too, there can be no doubt 

 but that it is most thriftily used when laid upon 

 the land in the latter state: for the labor is less; 

 and a smaller quantity will serve the immediate 

 purpose. It is, however, obvious that the clioice 

 of circumstances and season is not always in the 

 farmer's power; and that necessity often obliges 

 him to lay it on when completely effete. It has 

 been said, indeed, upon high authority, that caus- 

 tic lime exhausts the land; but repeated trials have 

 shown that its ultimate effects are equally bene- 

 ficial in the one state or the otfier, though there is 

 a more immediate advantage in the employment 

 of quicklime by the destruction of weeds. A 

 common method is to leave it spread during some 

 months upon clover or sainfoin, not intended to be 

 broken up until the following year — a plan which 

 is advisable with regard to marl, which partakes of" 

 some of the qualities of lime, and is the better if 

 allowed to/emain during a season exposed to the 

 atmosphere; but the stimulating properties of 

 quicklime will be thereby lost, as it will be con- 

 verted into mere chalk. Opinions are also much 

 divided respecting its effects when laid upon pas- 

 ture land wliich is intended to be kept in grass. 

 There is indeed no question that, in either stale, if 

 applied in modeiate quantities to a dry soil, or to 

 land that has been completely drained, sych atop- 

 dressing will have the most beneficial effect upon 

 the herbage; but it must be admitted, that when 

 laid on quick, it requires more circumspection in 

 its application, and should not be employed in the 

 same quantity as when effete.* 



We learn, from the General Report of Scot- 

 land, that there, 'in the best cultivatetl counties, 

 hme is now most generally laid on finely pul- 

 verized land, while under a flillow, or imme- 

 diately afterbeing sown with turnips. In the lat- 

 ter case, the lime isunilbrmly mild: in the former, 

 quicklime, as pernicious (in a certain extent) to 

 vegetation, may be beneficial in destroying weeds; 

 and some experiments have been recorded, show- 

 ing it to have a very powerful effect upon the fly, 

 to which we shall find future occasion to advert. 

 Sometimes mild lime is applied in the spring to 

 land, and harrowed in with grass-seeds, instead of 

 being covered with the plough; and under this 

 management a minute quantity has jiroduced a 

 strikinii; and permanent improvement in some of 

 the hill-pastures of the south-eastern counties. Its 

 efli'cts arc yet perspicuous, after the lapse of near- 

 ly half a century. In some places lime is spread 

 on grass-land a year or more before it is brouirht 

 under the plough, by which the pasture in the first 



* Essay on Manures, by Arthur Young, in the Pa- 

 pers of the Bath Agricultural Society, vol. X. ]). 119. 

 Fanner's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 77. Tliaer, Principes 

 Raisonncs d'Agriculture, 2de edit., torn. ii. pp. 388, 

 399. 



