28 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



I entertained of the efficiency of the liming process. In 

 Canada I resolved on giving myself the benefits of my 

 doubts, and sowed half of a field of wheat with seed im- 

 mersed and dried with lime, and the other half with wheat 

 just as it came from the thrashing-mill; my object being, 

 not to test the smut question, but whether wheat thus 

 limed was in any degree injured in vitality by it. The re- 

 sult demonstrated my doubts to be correct : the steeped 

 limed seed brairded, or came up, much thinner I think 

 about a third thinner than the portion from the seed 

 which was not washed and limed, but sown as it came from 

 the mill. Another circumstance in the case threw addi- 

 tional light upon the question. I filled my hand as full 

 to cover the same ground as I had elsewhere, and put 

 equally as much seed on the steeped and limed as in the 

 other portion, but what surprised me most was to see it 

 come up so much thinner than I had ever seen the same 

 quantity of seed produce elsewhere, and with this considera- 

 tion in its favour, viz., that of fine growing weather (it 

 being spring) and no drawbacks that attend the growth of 

 winter wheat. This case satisfied me that lime does thus 

 destroy, in some degree, the vitality of wheat. It was a 

 plain experiment sowing with and without liming the 

 limed portion was too thin a crop, and the unlimed was a 

 thick-standing, good crop. 



"I believe in the preventive in question for smut, and I 

 also believe liming of wet or damp wheat to be injurious 

 to its vegetative or producing qualities." 



On the same subject a writer in the Prairie Farmer 

 has the following : " We may say that we do not believe 

 it strictly necessary that lime, in addition to brine, should 

 be used to destroy this parasitic fungus it only makes 

 assurance doubly sure, inasmuch as experiments have proved 

 that lime water alone will destroy it. If wheat is allowed 

 to stand in brine that will float a hen's egg, twelve hours, 

 we should have no fear of smut if no lime touched it ; and 

 we should have no fear that fresh, thoroughly slaked lime, 

 applied to dry it, would affect the vitality of any portion 



