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 elevation or a hollow remained : the 

 subsoil that had been exposed through the winter 

 was thoroughly intermixed : the plough and the 

 subsoil-plough had equally done their work; and 

 twelve 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 decompose ; 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 



