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of tlie lime required to fulfil all the functions of this mineral ; and therefore the dose to 

 be administered varies indefinitely. Of all chemical manipulations, that of separating 

 carbonate of lime from a soil is the most simple and satisfactory ; but a vast number of 

 analyses must precede any trust-worthy generalizations in answer to the question, " How 

 little lime in a soil will suffice for all useful purposes ?" 



Thousands of cases might be cited where the limeing of meadows, pastures and 

 tilled lands has operated beneficially ; but, unfortunately, no one knows or ever knew, 

 the quantity of lime in these soils at the time more was applied to them. To remedy 

 this defect, we intend to analyze to the extent of ascertaining the amount of lime in a 

 cubic foot of the soil, a large number of samples from the districts where marling and 

 limeing are most extensively practiced. One farmer in the State of Delaware who uses 

 over seventy tons of Peruvian guano a year, at a cost of some $3,500, told us a few 

 days since, that about a million bushels of lime a year are bought and used by the 

 farmers of that little State of three small counties. Whatever elements of grain, grass, 

 and roots, air and water do not supply, the cultivators of the poor soils of that State are 

 compelled to furnish. This is bringing tillage and husbandry up from an empirical 

 or imitative art, like squirrels gathering into their holes the nuts that nature produces, 

 to the dignity of a study, and a learned profession. How much of the substance of the 

 soil is consumed in growing an acre of wheat yielding twenty-five bushels, or one of 

 corn, producing fifty bushels ? What part of these and other crops will air and water 

 supply ? 



Some of the farmers of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, 

 are beginning to investigate these interesting problems. The readers of this journal for 

 the last ten years need not be told that the writer studied them at an earlier date. 

 These problems are inseparably blended with the action of lime in the soil, as the most 

 successful improvers of poor lands in the States named, have found out by i*epeated ex- 

 periments in marling and limeing. Such improvements, including the purchase of bone 

 dust, super-phosphates, gypsum, poudrette, guano, and stable manure, are expensive ; 

 and whether too mu.ch or too little lime is used may decide the important question 

 whether a loss or a^^rq^^, is realized in the operation. The right use of manures of all 

 kinds, is a matter yet to be decided by experiments conducted with great care and on 

 true scientific principles. One thing, however, may be regarded as settled, and that 

 is, the fact that any given quantity of the dung of animals, whether of birds, cattle, 

 sheep, horses or swine, will produce more grass and gi-ain on a calcareous than on a 

 non-calcareous soil. If any one doubts this, Ave respectfully invite every agricultural 

 society iu the United States to investigate the causes why limestone lands are richer than 

 others ; and why so many millions of tons of lime, since the conquest of Spain, France, 

 and Britain by the Romans, have been used as amendments ,to arated fields. Lime 

 alone never formed the thousandth part of a grain of wheat. There is usually twice 

 as much magnesia, and five or six times more potash in a bushel of wheat, than lime. 

 It is then an exceedingly interesting question, how little is enough to secure the highest 

 fertility to all improved lands. No society, or legislature ever aftbrded us the least 

 assistance in prosecuting researches connected with the critical study of soils ; and as we 

 have no peculiar -interest in agricultural science, and not the means to labor fur nothing, 

 we are compelled to wait for public opinion to ripen, however unpleasant the long delay. 

 The time approaches when capital to the extent of indefinite millions, will be invested 

 in making American lands precisely what they ought to be, to yield their maximum of 

 all desirable and appropriate crops. In this great agricultural labor, lime will play a 

 conspicuous part. If one were to separate all the lime in an acre of the best wheat 

 lands in Western New York, to the depth of ten inches, he would have from ten to 

 twenty tons. Assuming that an average of five tons per acre are needed on fMir-fifths 

 of the improved farms in the Union, we discover at once a market for' 500,000,000 tons 



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