98 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



retentive of moisture, to the extent of 300, 450, and 550 

 bushels, which, after eight successive years, showed no per- 

 ceptible difference arising- from the quantity laid on, and simi- 

 lar instances are too numerous to require mention ; but these 

 failures may, not improbably, have been occasioned by the im- 

 perfect state of the drainage. Lime has, however, been on so 

 many occasions used at random, without inquiry being made 

 or attention paid to the state of the land, — whether it has been 

 over-cropped and worn out, or has been left under pasture and 

 enriched by dung, — that, without regard to these particulars, 

 jnuch money has been uselessly expended, and many attempts 

 at improvement have been rendered unsuccessful. A system 

 also prevails in the cultivation of many estates in various parts 

 of the kingdom, under which the tenants are bound by their 

 leases to fallow the land at fixed periods, and to dress the 

 fallows with a certain quantity of lime ; which being thus 

 repeated when the condition of the ground does not always 

 require it, it necessarily follows that no beneficial result can 

 be attained. 



Such, indeed, is the variety of soils and circumstances, that 

 no general rule can be devised for fixing the quantity of lime 

 that may be properly laid upon an acre of land. The various 

 accounts from the different county surveys, and other sources 

 of information, state that from 80 to 180 bushels have been 

 laid upon light soils with very palpable benefit, and that from 

 240 to 320 and even 400 bushels have been successfully applied 

 to clays and strong grass land. It has, indeed, been found, 

 that in maiden soils its use is so essential, on its first applica- 

 tion, as to impart a permanent degree of fertility which could 

 not be obtained by any other species of manure. In some 

 parts of Scotland, which have been only of late years brought 

 under an improved course of culture, and to which lime had 

 not been previously applied, it was observed that the richest 

 animal dung had but a weak effect upon the crops of grain. 

 Peas, barley, and wheat, at first assumed the most promising 

 appearance, but when the peas were in bloom, and the corn 

 putting forth the ear, it was found that they had dwindled 

 away in nearly fruitless abortion, — which, indeed, so far as the 

 peas are concerned, ought not to excite surprise, tor it is well 

 known that they will not tiirive in any soil wliich is not cal- 

 careous; yet the same ground, after getting a slight dressing 

 of lime, brought any kind of crop, that was adapted to the 



