78 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



No wonder : you have never tried to make one. 



Else, you would not have your Lime overslaked ; 

 as I had, during an unavoidable temporary absence, 

 while my twelve acres of bare fallow were in progress. 

 Lime was all I meant to give them ; except a thorough 

 cultivation. Every ridge was levelled : not an eleva- 

 tion or a hollow remained : the subsoil that had been 

 exposed through the winter was thoroughly inter- 

 mixed : the plough and the subsoil-plough had equally 

 done their work ; and fifteen quarters of lime to the 

 acre was all I added, before the seed was sown. 



My great object was to see the specific operation of 

 lime upon a worn-out soil. If written words may 

 be relied on, it is the most puzzling substance the 

 farmer has to do with. The chemist tells us, and 

 with truth, no doubt, that it has two distinct effects ; 

 one upon vegetable matter which it helps to decom- 

 pose; the other upon mineral matter which it ( corrects.' 

 Such is the word, and we must use it for want of a 

 better. In the first operation it is virtually a 'manure/ 

 because it turns into food for the crop organic matter 

 which would else have remained inert : in the second 

 it is an inorganic alterative, supplying calcareous 

 matter, and forming a base for the free acids exposed 

 in the fresh! v moved subsoil. 



