208 ABSURDITY OP THE DOCTRINE OPPOSED. 



If the lime in soil was indeed subject to waste and loss in the 

 manner and to the extent maintained by Prof. Johnston, the ill 

 consequences would necessarily be general, and so disastrous that 

 there could be no possible mistake of the operation and its results. 

 Upon his own premises, the actual (and always admitted) removal 

 of lime from the soil in its crops, though certain, is too small to 

 be appreciable. It is a theoretical truth, of which the practical 

 operation is imperceptible. And this imperceptible part of the 

 alleged loss of lime is all that is caused by tillage and the removal 

 of the crops. It is by the lime (either as quick-lime, carbonate, or 

 other salts) being dissolved in water, according to Prof. Johnston's 

 views, that the great loss is incurred, and that all, or nearly all, 

 the lime furnished for manure is finally lost, and within not very 

 long periods of time. This, the great cause of waste, is operating 

 (as asserted) by every considerable or excessive rain, on all soils 

 containing lime, and through all time. This operation, too, would 

 not be less sure on lime existing naturally in soils, than if supplied 

 as manure, and as thoroughly incorporated as in a natural calcare- 

 ous or neutral soil. And if twenty or thirty years' operation of 

 the solvent power of rain-water suffices (as asserted) usually to re- 

 move either mostly or completely the lime before furnished to the 

 land as manure, then, surely, the same universally operating power 

 of rain-water must as completely remove and utterly waste any 

 barely sufficient natural ingredient of lime, say in 100 years. So, 

 all lands throughout the world, moderately and properly supplied 

 by nature with lime, would thus have lost the whole thousands of 

 years ago. And they would all have thenceforward remained thus 

 destitute of lime, until being re-supplied by man. This kind of 

 artificial manuring has never been used on but a very small pro- m 

 portion of. all the lands of the world under tillage ; and even on such* 

 small proportion, for but a short portion of all the time in which 

 tillage has been in use. Of course, then, on all other lands not 

 containing an excessive store of lime, the whole of this essential 

 ingredient, in every form of combination, should be entirely want- 

 ing ; and, therefore (according to my views of the absolute neces- 

 sity for, and the action of lime), much the greater portion of the 

 surface of the earth would have been thus rendered perfectly bar- 

 ren. For, without lime to combine with and fix organic matter, 

 there would be nothing to retain the latter; and the complete 

 waste of the lime would be necessarily followed by the waste of all the 

 enriching matter in the soil, and the inducing of complete sterility. 

 The known fact that no such effects are produced, or any even ap- 

 proaching to them, is alone sufficient proof that the waste of lime 

 in soil cannot occur, as supposed by Prof. Johnston. 



Enough has been said in opposition both to the alleged fact of 

 the natural waste of the acting and requisite liine in soil, and the 



