FERTILIZERS. 



A Few Words About Lime. — Professor Puryear, who is recognizea as 

 A skillful chemist, gives in a recent paper the following succinct suggestions 

 »n the uses and misuses of lime: 



What are the iises of lime in agriciilture ? 



1. Lime is always one of the nine substances found in the ash of plants. 

 Tlie grasses and forest trees particularly take it up from the soil in great 

 abundance. When hme is not i^resent in the soil in sufficient abundance to 

 meet this demand, it should be added. 



2. Lime is needed to hasten the decomposition of vegetable matter, and 

 80 make it available as plant food. If we wrap up a piece of lime in a cloth, 

 in a short time the cloth is so decomposed that it will fall into shreds from 

 its own weight. Tanners use lime in their vats to rot the hair from the 

 hides. Now, lime behaves exactly in this way in the soil. The vegetable 

 matter in the soil is useless until it decomposes, and lime hastens the pro- 

 cess of decomposition. 



3. Lime is frequently necessarj' to correct acidity in the soil. Soils 

 charged with vegetable acids are never productive. On such soils we put 

 lime, which, combining with these acids, forms neutral salts of lime. A 

 person takes a little lime-water for the same reason when he suffers from 

 acidity of the stomach. When lands have been freshly drained, they are 

 always acid. The excess of water, with which the land was satiirated, had 

 excluded the atmosphere, and so had prevented the complete decomposition 

 of vegetable matter. This vegetable matter, if the air had not been excluded, 

 would have been converted by atmospheric oxygen into carbonic acid, am- 

 monia, etc., out, without oxygen, its elements rearrange themselves, and 

 form those injurious compounds, ulmic, humic, and geic acids. When the 

 soil is drained, the atmosphere strikes through and destroys these acids, 

 but not entirely in a single season. The process, of necessity, is slow. The 

 soil to the depth of several feet, it may be, is sour, and it will be some time 

 before the atmosphere can thoroughly pei'meate this soil and burn out these 

 hurtful acids. Lime, then, comes to help the slow operation of natural 

 causes. ^Yhen it is spread upon the soil, it is carried downward by the 

 rains, and combines with and neutralizes speedily and effectually the vege- 

 table acids. We cannot possibly err, then, when we put lime on freshly- 

 drained lands. In such lands there are not only fi-ee acids, but a large 

 amount of organic matter, which has not been decomposed because of the 

 exclusion of atmospheric oxygen. The application of lime to such soils cor- 

 rects this acidity, and, by decomposing, renders immediately available this 

 large amount of vegetable matter. 



The ash of the grasses contains twenty-two per cent, of lime. Hence the 

 practice of top-dressing the grasses with gypsum, which is the sulphate of 

 lime. 



Lime may be injuriously applied. If the soil contain but little vegetable 

 matter, the application of lime, particularly heavy applications, will cause 



