94 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



lime is uniformly mild : in the former, quicklime, as pernicious 

 (in a certain extent) to vegetation, may be beneficial in de- 

 stroying- weeds; and some experiments have been recorded, 

 showing it to have a very powerfijl effect upon the fiy, to 

 which we shall find future occasion to advert. Sometimes 

 mild lime is applied in the spring to land, and harrowed in 

 with grass-seeds, instead of being covered w^ith the plough ; 

 and under this management a minute quantity has produced a 

 striking and permanent improvement in some of the hill-pas- 

 tures of the south-eastern counties. Its effects are yet per- 

 spicuous, atler the lapse of nearly half a century. In some 

 places lime is spread on grass-land a year or more before it is 

 brought under the plough, by which the pasture in the first 

 instance, and the cultivated crops subsequently, are found to 

 be greatly benefited. But in whatever manner this powerfi.il 

 stimulant is applied, the soil should never be afterwards ex- 

 hausted by a succession of gram-bearing crops — a justly 

 exploded practice, which has reduced some naturally fertile 

 tracts to a state of almost irremediable sterility.' 



To point out the precise effects of lime, and the proper 

 quantity to be applied, to the extent to which it has been 

 already ascertained, would greatly exceed the limits of this 

 publication; and w^ere it possible to define its powers upon 

 every gradation of soil, a series of experiments would be re- 

 quired which would occupy the labour of a long life. Its 

 qualities, too, differ materially in various places, from the 

 greater or less quantities of extraneous substances with which 

 it is combined. It is very rarely that any farmer can obtain 

 a choice of lime, and when only one species can be procured, 

 he must be content with it; but he may, nevertheless, be 

 benefited by the following observations: — 



Qualities and Quantity of Lime. — Pure limestone, or 

 chalk, when fully calcined, is reduced to a fine impalpable 

 powder, that feels soft within the fingers, without the smallest 

 tendency to grittiness: but such lime as contains sand is 

 neither so sofl nor fine, but feels more or less gritty in propor- 

 tion as the sand is coarser or finer, and more or less in propor- 

 tion. Commonly, the whitest lime is the best; when perfectly 

 calcined, it is generally of a bright white, without any shade 

 of colour, and if clouded, it is thought to proceed from a 

 mixture of other matter; but the colour is not an infallible 

 criterion, for dark-coloured lime has, in some few instances, 

 been found stronger than that which was perfectly white. The 



