1847. 



GENESEE FARMEH. 



227 



therefore the food of animals must contain lirae in order to 

 make bone, and therefore lime must be procured and spread 

 on to lands or the plants on whicli animals feed v\ill lind no 

 lime, and cattle will have no bones ! 



Our Genesee friend seems to forget our admission that 

 lime is beneficial on certain soils. We admit its usefulness 

 wliere iron ore abounds, and has he shown that it is useful 

 any where else .' 



He supposes that the adding of lime to all soils has im- 

 proved tliem. .He ought to recollect that in England many 

 farmers deny that lime has been of the least service when 

 applied to their lands. 



But " lime is found in all plants." So is sand, or what 

 is called silex — but it does not exactly follow that sand 

 would always prove a very useful adjunct to our New Eng- 

 land soils. Lime is found in all the varieties of soil, and 

 plants liave lime in them. What then ? It was found by 

 Dr. Jackson, on analyzing the soils of Maine, that soils 

 containing the greatest quantity of lime did not produce tiie 

 largest crops of wheat. 



It is a singular fact, admitted by all the lime advocates, 

 that lime, spread on the surface of soils that are based on 

 limestone rock, daes more service than on. soi/s without such 

 liasis. It may be inferred from this that the more lime there 

 is the better is the soil. Is this the theory of our friend ? 



We have lands here that would be improved by spread- 

 ing 100 casks of sand on an acre. We have peat bogs tliat 

 are more benefitted by one load of common gravel than by 

 100 loads of lime. Mixtures of di.lerent kinds of soil are 

 generally useful ; and we much incline to ihink that many 

 who have been so much delighted with the advantages they 

 have derived, from spreadir^ a hundred casks of lime on an 

 acre of their land, will find that 100 casks of sand, well 

 spread, well mixed, and well tended, with a view to a pre- 

 mium crop, will help them as much as the 100 casks of lime. 



It is pretty evident that the writer of the above 

 thinks very little of lime, either as a constituent 

 of cultivated plants, or as a hastener of vegetable 

 decomposition. We do not regard (as he inti- 

 mates) " lime as the most important article which 

 a farmer can procure for his fields ;" but as one 

 of several equally indispensable elements in all 

 cultivated crops. 



There are instances in which humic and other 

 organic acids so abound as to arrest decomposi- 

 tion in swamp muck, and peat bogs. Draining 

 and liming these hasten the rotting of the organ- 

 ic matter. We shall not dwell on this property 

 in lime, for we understand the Ploughman as 

 admitting that lime is useful in the way of cor- 

 recting all acidity in soils. 



When we say that " no other element has 

 been so generally and successfully used as a fer- 

 tilizer, both in this country and Europe, as lime," 

 we do not intend to offset it, or one element, 

 against fertilizers that contain from ten to four- 

 teen elements, like " the excrements of horned 

 cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs." We took 

 especial pains to guard against such a mistake, 

 by comparing lime "to the half of a pair of 

 shears" — worthless without the other essential 

 elements of plants. We know not how to ex- 

 press ourself in plainer terms. 



What we said about the formation of bones in 

 domestic animals without lime, is not met at all 

 by the Ploughman. No animal can know wheth- 

 er gras.-:, hay, or grain, contains bone earth or 

 not ; and if Providence permitted vegetables to 

 grow without the elements out of which animals 

 form their solid frames, it is obvious that a calf 

 could have no more bones than a naked snail. — 



To prevent a catastrophe that would be alike 

 fatal to all birds and mammalia, Nature will not 

 organize the seeds of plants like wheat, corn, and 

 flax, no farther than the soil contains phosphates 

 in an available form. Neither can timothy, clo- 

 ver, or red top be grown to perfect maturity 

 without some lime, as well as other minerals. 



Nothing is more common than for drift over- 

 lying lime rock to lack available lime. The 

 loose earthy matter drifted on to rock, is made 

 up of the debris of sand stone, and other rocks 

 which contained little or no lime. Beside this 

 cause of deficiency, this mineral readily sinks 

 down into the sub-soil on tilled land ; and hence 

 is often deficient in surface soils that abound in 

 lime stones which are hard and yield slowly to 

 the action of the elements. If they are soft, as 

 are most of the Onondaga limestones, (which are 

 remarkab'le for yielding great crops of wheat,) 

 there will be no lack of available lime in the 

 earth. 



As to using " 100 casks of sand on peat bogs," 

 we have seen both sand and gravel applied to 

 such land with signal benefit. Nevertheless, 

 after peat meadows are well drained, as they 

 should be, our personal observation, as well as 

 reading, lead us to believe that lime with sand 

 is much better than to apply the latter alone. 



Our friend observes truly " mixtures of differ- 

 ent kinds of soils are generally useful ;" and 

 why ? Because a wheat, corn, timothy, or pota- 

 to plant, when ripe and perfect in all its parts, is 

 a most admirable mixture; and by mixing differ- 

 ent kinds of soil together, the chances are great- 

 ly in favor of getting in the last compound, of 

 several compounds, all the elements used in or- 

 ganizing the crop. Feed the latter to cows, 

 sheep, pigs, horses, and men, and save all their 

 excretions, and then you will have the raw ma- 

 terial for making a second harvest. 



To CURE HovEN IN Cattle. — Among the 

 numerous recipes for curing hoven in Cattle, I 

 have never seen published the following easy 

 and simple method : — Melt an half pint of hogs- 

 lard and an half pint of molasses together, and 

 drench the animal with it. We have used it 

 several times with invariable success; it is as 

 speedy as sure. If you think the recipe worth 

 publishing, it is at your service. 



Yours truly, E. S. R 



Romulus, N. Y., 1847. 



Potato Rot. — A farmer of this (Monroe) 

 county has called to say to us, that the rot has 

 attacked his potatoes which grow on new land 

 that has borne but one crop (wheat.) The cir- 

 cumstance most worthy of record in this case is 

 the fact that the potatoes near the woods ^.re 

 much more affected than those remote from . e 

 forest. The ground is quite moist generally 

 over the field. 



