280 On Liming Land. 



see it recommended, to plough or harrow in the grain 

 and Hme together. I have never approved of dunging 

 the ground at the time of liming ; having made compa- 

 rative experiments. My course has been, to lime, — 

 take a summer crop, — fall- plough, — and, the next year, 

 an open fallow, or a covering, but inexhausting, spring- 

 crop, preparatory to dunging for wheat. In this course 

 I have invariably had success ; and therefore prefer it 

 to any other. I have, when the field came in course 

 again (in three or four years) limed ; and thus repeated 

 the applications to 120, and in one field, to 160 bushels 

 to the acre ; including all repetitions of liming, at dif- 

 ferent, and distant, periods. I have known 80 bushels 

 to the acre (put on, at once, on such land as mine) in- 



a gigantic plant requiring large supplies, will thrive on all the. 

 food that lime can furnish or prepare. 



When I began to lime (45 years ago) I had no practical 

 instructor ; for it was a novelty in my neighbourhood. I 

 have lost whole fields of wheat on limed lands sown the first 

 season of liming, in a few days after the deceptions verdure 

 of the plant had induced me to count on a plentiful crop. 

 The same fields produced clover in abundance. In their next 

 turn for wheat (and especially if assisted by a light dunging) 

 they amply retributed my former disappointment. My suc- 

 cess was much increased after I used plaister on the clover 

 crops ; which ameliorated the soil, and furnished vegetable 

 matter for the lime. A moderate liming, (say 30 to 40 

 bushels to the acre) harrowed in on fall ploughed ground, 

 and laying exposed through the winter, will part with most of 

 its caustic qualities, and do with dung the succeeding spring, 

 or autumn. But it would be much better to intermit whcatf 

 for another year. 



