LIME AND LIMESTONE 315 



Indeed, one could hardly hope for any other result ; it is 

 too much to expect that a boy can become assimilated 

 to a population of small farmers, speaking a different 

 language and possessing habits and traditions entirely 

 alien both from the town from which he had been drafted 

 and the discipline to which he had been subjected 

 more lately. 



We visited one farm on the banks of the Towy 

 where the lighter alluvial soil had enabled its energetic 

 proprietor to carry on a more advanced style of farming 

 than generally prevailed in the district. Seventeen 

 acres out of the seventy were under the plough, the 

 custom being to take two corn crops and a root crop 

 after breaking up the ley, and sow down again for a 

 period of from four to seven years until the time 

 came for arable cultivation again. In the humid 

 climate, seeds take well and rapidly form a turf; it is 

 found also that better yields are obtained from 

 temporary than from permanent grasslands, which tend 

 to become thin and impoverished as the soil sets 

 together after the influence of the cultivation is 

 removed. 



The best soil in the valley is that situated upon a 

 belt of limestone which forms one of the Silurian 

 formations, but nearly all of the other land in the 

 valley is greatly lacking in lime. Very little liming 

 has been done for many years indeed, the practice 

 is almost unknown in the district because of the 

 distance from limestone and the cost of the carriage. 

 The general lack of lime is also demonstrated by the 

 extraordinary effectiveness of basic slag as a manure, 

 supplying as it does not only the missing base, but 

 also the phosphoric acid in which Welsh soils are so 

 largely deficient. One cannot but correlate the 

 acknowledged deficiency of the Welsh soils in phos- 

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