SUPPOSED REMOVAL OP LIME FROM SOILS. 



199 



have of them. I proceed to quote the author's explanations of the 

 manner in which he infers that the lime is lost to the land. 



1. "A considerable quantity of lime/' he says, " is annually 

 removed from the soil by the crops reaped from it. We have 

 already seen (Lecture X., 4, p. 221) that in a four-years' rota- 

 tion of alternate green and corn crops, the quantity of lime contained 

 in the average produce of good land amounts to 149 Ibs.* This is 

 equal to 37.5 Ibs. of quick-lime, or 67 Ibs. of carbonate of lime, 

 [per acre] for each year. The whole, however, is not usually lost 

 to the land. Part, at least, is restored in the manure, into which 

 a large portion of the produce is usually converted. Yet a con- 

 siderable portion is always lost escaping chiefly in the liquid 

 manure and drainings of dung-heaps/' (p. 399.) 



Answer. To some extent, the loss of lime to soil, by being ta- 

 ken up into the crops, is certain ; and I always before admitted it 

 expressly. But, on the author's own showing, the quantity lost in 

 this manner is very much smaller than would appear from the 

 above statement, if received without examination. The table 

 given previously in the " Lectures," and referred to above, of the 

 amounts of various inorganic matters abstracted from the soil by 

 all the crops of the ordinary Norfolk rotation, in four years, shows 

 the following amounts of lime so lost per acre : 



By my thus presenting separately the respective quantities of 

 lime taken up by the grain alone, barley and wheat, which may be 

 supposed to be mostly sold and removed from the farm, and of the 

 turnips, hay, and straw, which mostly are consumed on the farm, 

 and the lime in them again returned to the fields somewhere in 

 the manure, it appears that the total loss of pure lime per acre, in 

 four year's, by removal from the farm in the grain crops, is only 

 3.6 Ibs. 5 and annually, the average (0.9 Ibs.) less than 1 Ib. per 



* This is stated as 248 Ibs., and the numbers following in proportion. 

 But it is manifestly by mistake, as is seen by the table referred to (in 

 Lect. X.), and by which I have corrected the sums above. The difference, 

 however, does not materially affect the argument or conclusion. E. E. 



