180 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Aug. 



unmingled with private speculation — science that 

 looks only to the public good — can find neither 

 land nor buildings in the Empire State which it 

 can occupy without paying a ruinous rent. 



One word more on the subject of Ammonia. 

 Before -Mr. Horsford went to Europe, if we 

 mistake not, he was present at an Agricultural 

 Meeting in the Geological Rooms of the old 

 State Hall, Albany, at which Mr. Humphrey, 

 then Mayor of the city, stated that, on two acres 

 of the naturally sterile sand plains near that city 

 he had raised 120 bushels of shelled corn, sim- 

 ply by puttinga handful of the scrapings of horns 

 obtained at a comb factory, in each hill at plant- 

 ing. On another acre hard by, of equal quality, 

 on which no horn shavings were applied, the 

 yield was less than 15 bushels. Did tlie large 

 amount of ammonia, furnished on the decay of 

 this highly nitrogenous substance, do no good in 

 the way of augmenting the crop four fold? We 

 should like to hear something farther on this im- 

 portant subject, from bur friend Prof. H. 



Action of Lime on Soils. 



It would be amusing to publish, in one volume, all the 

 reasons that have been given why lime is so benetieial in 

 ;]griculture(!) were it not for the recollection of the mischief 

 that the writers have done in leading farmers astray, and 

 causing them to throw away their money. 



All may remember the various reasons that philosophers 

 assigned to show why a pail of water would not weigli more 

 with a fish in it than without the fish. At length one of 

 them suggested a doubt as to the fact ! This led them to 

 weighing, and weighing to laughing at each other. 



If this question could be settled at once by the steelyard, 

 iwme would laugh, but more would have reason to cry. — 

 Our New England and our New York papers have had less 

 , and less to say in fevor of the action of lime on soils in gen- 

 t'lal, for a number of years past. But occasionally an anon- 

 yinous writer puts forth the old pntTs in favor of lime, assu- 

 ming the position that it is beneficial on all kinds of land. 



A writer in the Maine Farmer, under the signature W. . 

 came out last week with the following explication in the 

 name of Von Timer : — 



"Action of Lime. — ' Both the chemical action of lime, 

 and the effect which it produces as a manure,' says Von 

 Thaer, ' appear to be of two kinds. On one hand, it acts 

 on the humus by accelerating ils decomposition, and render- 

 ing it soluble, and thus fit to enter the minuter fibres of the 

 roots of plants. This is the reason that an amelioration, 

 f-omposed of lime, is the more efficacious the richer the soil 

 is in humus, and that its action Ls the more sensible the 

 more this hamns is of an insoluble nature. Liinc deprives 

 Mour humus of its acidity, and renders it fertilizing. But, on 

 the other hand, there is every probability that by means of 

 its carbonic acid, lime also produces some other effect, and 

 furnishes the plant with some nutritive matter. The roots 

 «f some vegetables, in a particular manner, appear to have 

 the faculty of depriving lime of its carbonic acid, which it 

 immediately re-absorbs in equal proportion from the atmos- 

 phere, with which it comes in contact.' These hints are 

 important. W." 



ID" It will be recollected by many of our re.iders that ' 

 more than one correspondent of the Ploughman after trying 

 the experiment, denies the fact that lime is useful on sorrelly 

 soils— one of them says it rather promoted the growth of 

 Horrel, than otherwise. 



In regard to another operation of lime, in the article now 

 quoted, we undertake to dispute the fact stated. We say 

 time does not accelei-ate (he decnmjioKitioii nfhiimus, or of any 

 vegetable matter. And any one may satisfy himself of this 

 by trial. 



We K-wc long suspected, as our re.-iders know, that lime 

 is of no service unless it be to correct the acid occasioned 



by the prevalence of iron ore in the soil. This ore gives it 

 a red color ; it is often found in clayey soils, but not in what 

 we call sandy, the prevalent soil of Massachusetts. When 

 this is generally known, the papers will liave it. Till then 

 the old saw will go the rounds ; and lirae will be numbered 

 by copyists among the excellent things to be applied to all 

 kinds of soil. — Massachusetts PLoughman. 



WiTHOtrT endorsing what is said by the writer 

 in the Maine Farmer, we must express our sur- 

 prise that the action of lime is a matter of so 

 much dispute in New England ; and to hear the 

 editor of an agricultural journal question its Tal- 

 ue "unless it be to correct the acid occasioned 

 by the prevalence of iron ore in the soil." 



At the risk of being placed among the "copy- 

 ists" and dealers in " old saws," on the books ©f 

 the Ploughman, we must call attention to the fact 

 that, no other single element found in all ciilti- 

 i vated plants, has been so generally, and so suc- 

 cessfully used as a fertilizer both in Europe and 

 in this country, as this same mineral called lime. 

 As Caleb Gushing would say, this is " a fixed 

 fact." 



It would be no easy task to make a sound 

 healthy bone in the body of any animal, unless 

 there was a little lime in the food on which such 

 animal subsisted. And if the soil was quite de- 

 void of this mineral, how could the plants raised 

 upon it, to feed man and his domestic animals, 

 extract lime therefrom 1 



Will the Ploughman assert that all soils con- 

 tain a supply of available lime, fully equal to tlie 

 utmost demand of wheat and all other crops ? If 

 so, how does it happen that the limestone lands 

 of Western New York have yielded for the last 

 30 years so fine crops of this bread-bearing plant, 

 while all the counties in this State and New Eng- 

 land, where lime exists in its minimum quantity, 

 wheat culture is almost unknown ? Facts like 

 these can hardly be put down by a sneer at "cop- 

 yists and old saws." It is confessedly by the use 

 of lime mainly, that hundreds of farmers in Ma- 

 ryland are renovating their worn out fields, and 

 harvesting good crops of wheat and grass. The 

 same is true in Virginia and portions of Pennsyl- 

 vania. But it is no less true that, lime alone 

 will not sulhce on the granite soils of New Eng- 

 land, nor elsewhere to bring forth abundant crops. 

 No one mineral can perform the ofilce in the 

 vegetable economy which God has assigned to 

 the joint agency of some eight or ten earthy sub- 

 stances. You might as well expect to increase 

 the human race on a remote island in the Pacific, 

 whose every inhabitant is an old bachelor. No 

 suoli caustic single bles-sedness as lime alone, by 

 neutralizing acid, will impai't fertility to the earth. 



f f the Massachusetts farmerswill mix with their 

 lime all the other ingredients that nature uses in 

 organizing the crop cultivated, we venture to as- 

 sert that lime will do its share in giving fecundi- 

 ty to the soil. Don't say that both blades of a 

 pair of sliears are worthless, because neither half 

 can cut alone. 



