CHAPTER XIV. 



EFFECTS OF CALCAREOUS MANURES ON " FREE LIGHT LAND." 



PROPOSITION 5 continued. 



The soil known in this part of the country by the name of " free 

 light land" has so peculiar a character that it deserves a particular 

 notice. It belongs to the slopes and undulating lands, between the 

 highest ridges and the water-courses, but has nothing of the dura- 

 bility which slopes of medium fertility sometimes possess. In its 

 wood-land state it would be called rich, and may remain productive 

 for a few crops after bekig cleared j but it is rapidly exhausted, 

 and, when poor, seems as unimprovable by vegetable manures as 

 the poorest ridge lands. In its virgin state, this soil might be sup- 

 posed to deserve the name of neutral ; but its productive power is 

 so fleeting, and acid growths and qualities so surely follow its ex- 

 haustion, that it must be inferred that it is truly an acid soil. 



Experiment 14. 



The subject of this experiment presents soil of this kind with 

 its peculiar characters unusually well marked. It is a loamy sandy 

 soil (the sand coarse), on a similar sub-soil of considerable depth. 

 The surface waving, almost hilly in some parts. The original 

 growth principally red-oak, hickory, and dogwood, not many pines, 

 and very little whortleberry. Cut down in 1816, and put in corn 

 the next year. The crop was supposed to be twenty -five bushels to 

 the acre. Wheat succeeded, and was still a better crop for so 

 sandy a soil ; making twelve to fifteen bushels, as it appeared 

 standing. After 18 months of rest, and not grazed, the next corn 

 crop, of 1820, was evidently and considerably inferior to the first ; 

 and the wheat of 1821 (which however was a very bad crop, from 

 too wet a season) could not have been more than five bushels to 

 the acre. In January, 1820, a piece of 1 J acres was limed, at 100 

 bushels the acre. The lime, being caught by rain before it was 

 spread, formed small lumps of mortar on the land, and produced 

 no benefit on the corn of that year, but could be seen slightly in 

 the wheat of 1821. The land again at rest in 1822 and '23, when 

 it was marled, at 600 bushels (37 per cent.), without omitting the 

 limed piece ; and all sowed in wheat that fall. In 1824, the wheat 

 was found to be improved by the marl, but neither that, nor the 

 next crop of 1828, was equal to its earliest product of wheat. The 

 limed part showed injury in 1824, from the quantity of manure, 

 but none since. The field was now under the regular four-shift 



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