OTHEE ALLEGED CAUSES OF WASTE. 203 



Answer. Admitted fully, as to the supposed chemical changes, 

 and the solubility of some of the new compounds. But these new 

 compounds are produced only so long as the lime remains either 

 caustic or carbonated in the soil, neither of which conditions ex- 

 tends beyond a few years, if dressings be not excessively hea^y, 

 and if the material is finely divided and well diffused through the 

 soil } and while in progress, the formation of these acid products, 

 and their resulting salts of lime, must be so extremely slow and 

 gradual, that probably nearly as fast as produced they are further 

 combined with other solid matters, and secured from the waste 

 which possibly might be caused by their solution in water. Of 

 course, it is impossible to estimate the measure of this supposed 

 saving process. The general effects are inferred from the known, 

 unquestionable, and grand results of thousands of years old, seen 

 in the still preserved constituents of lime and of fertilizing organic 

 matter in combination, in all the natural moderately calcareous and 

 rich neutral soils known. If we were to admit the full operation 

 of causes of waste of lime, as supposed by Professor Johnston, then 

 every natural and moderately calcareous soil must long ago have 

 lost nearly or all its lime, by one or all of the several preceding 

 operations of solution and removal. And if deprived of the lime, 

 it would be a certain consequence (according to my views) that the 

 soluble and useful organic matter, however abundant, under ordi- 

 nary circumstances of soils, would also be carried off, leaving the 

 uncultivated land throughout the world destitute of both lime and 

 organic matter, and therefore completely and hopelessly barren. 

 Such results, or even any approaching thereto, are unknown; and 

 their possible existence is as much opposed to all known facts of 

 natural soils, as they would be to our belief in final causes and the 

 all-benevolent care and protection of his works and creatures by 

 Almighty Grod. 



But however strong may be these general reasons for denying 

 the wasting of lime and its resulting salts, there is a particular 

 chemical power asserted by recent authority, which, if true, covers 

 and sustains nearly my whole ground of objection. Professor 

 Gardner, in his late work, " The Farmer's Dictionary" (published 

 1846), in the article " Humus," refers to, as a known and undis- 

 puted chemical truth, that the Jiumate of lime is nearly insoluble 

 in water.* Now, though the humic acid is but one of four or five 



* Of the fact of the insolubility of humate of lime, the authority of Prof. 

 Gardner, or of any recent chemical writer, must be sufficient. But I would 

 deny his deduction from that property, that therefore humate of lime can- 

 not directly act to feed plants. Vegetable life can exert dissolving and 

 decomposing powers that the chemist in his laboratory cannot imitate or ap-< 

 proach. If the property of insolubility in pure water rendered any substance 

 necessarily useless as a direct manuring agent, we should be compelled 







