INJURIOUS ACTION OF LIME. 27 



der wheat poisonous, but this would be for a malicious 

 purpose, and not in the ordinary course. Now, with regard 

 to swimming wheat in salt water, the great use is, that you 

 are enabled to skim off noxious seeds which the dressing- 

 machine has failed to separate ; but in this case the old 

 system of sowing by hand must be adopted, as it is scarcely 

 possible to get the seed sufficiently dry to pass the cups of 

 the drill; and, again, the process is slow and dangerous. 

 It is dangerous, because if a quantity of wheat be steeped 

 a day or two beforehand (which must be the case if the 

 drill is required), the weather may become adverse either 

 by excessive rain, snow, or frost, and the seed so prepared 

 cannot be sown, in which case it would become spoiled; 

 and, moreover, in wet seasons, when the land is wet and 

 the wheat in middling condition, the additional moisture 

 caused by swimming is injurious." 



13. As to the injurious action of lime upon tlie germinat- 

 ing powers of the seed, there appears to be in the minds of 

 some authorities no doubt. " Unless," says a writer in a 

 Canadian journal, " it can be known that lime serves other 

 purposes than merely drying it for the advantage of handi- 

 ness in sowing, I have' reason to think that its use for this 

 purpose does harm oftener than we suppose, and that if its 

 application, in conjunction with the wetting or damping, 

 does kill all that is sickly, it may, and does under some 

 circumstances, injure the vitality of the best of seed. It 

 is a well-known fact that kiln-dried grain does not grow 

 well; and the practice of farmers in scrupulously steeping 

 and liming no more seed than they expect to need within 

 ten or twelve hours, and washing off the lime of any por- 

 tion more than they can use in one day, that they may not 

 lose it the next, is good evidence that lime, in a new slaked 

 hot state, adhering to damp grain, has a similar effect to 

 kiln- drying burns and destroys its vegetation power. I 

 remember of having once heard it remarked by a shrewd 

 farmer that he suspected ' that liming of the wheat to be no 

 better than it was called.' 



" I had always a desire to satisfy myself of the doubts 



