No. 151.] 375 



In potato culture, lime I believe to he a sovereign remedy if 

 properly applied, against the evil effects of insects, which cause, as 

 I believe, the rot now so prevalent throughout the world j the tops 

 of potatoes contain a very large per centage of lime, consequently it 

 is indispensable to its growth. Place lime upon a heap of potatoes 

 the majority of which are half decayed, and you will find decay in 

 the balance will, immediately cease. 



I have sown lime at the rate of 200 bushels per acre, upon half 

 of a ten jcre field of wheat, and left the balance unlimed. The 

 consequence was, the unlimed was entirely destroyed by weevil and 

 rust, when the limed portion produced fifty bushels to the acre of 

 wheat, weighing 64| pounds to the bushel. I have seen the same ef- 

 fect produced in oat, rye, corn, potato, and buckwheat fields. 



When you find a field does not produce a crop equal to your anti- 

 cipations, in nine cases out of ten, an application of 200 bushels of 

 oyster shell lime to the acre, at a cost of $12, will produce capital 

 crops for six years afterwards; at the expiration of which time, if 

 the ground is not plowed deep during the interim, you will find at 

 the depth of 11 or 12 inches a complete level floor of lime, which 

 gradually finds its way to the subsoil, where it forms a level surface 

 and remains until brought up by deep plowing j it will then benefit 

 your soil for another term of years, in the form of chalk, its action 

 as caustic lime then being a solvent, having ceased. 



Abroad, chalk is more used for agricultural purposes, than any o^- 

 er lime stone species; it is composed of flint, clay, oxide of iron, 

 carbonate of lime and water. Lime is therefore one-half more pro- 

 fitable as a manure than chalk; for the reason that it dissolves hard 

 substances, and fits them for the food of plants, before it again ab- 

 sorbs carbonic acid gas in sufficient quantity to become as chalk. 

 There is one question I have to ask of the learned men, which is 

 this, how do plants take up in their system carbonate of lime, which 

 is known to be an insoluble substance, and yet in all plants and 

 vegetables carbonate of lime is found to exist. It can only be, I 

 think, by attracting a large volume of carbonic acid from the atmos- 

 phere, which becomes a bi-carbonate, and in this state is alone so- 

 luble and capable of being taken up by plants. 



I have been informed by a scientific agriculturist, Mr. Wilkins, 

 who has an extensive rice plantation in South Carolina, that a por- 

 tion of his plantation was considered by his manager, as unfit for 

 ■rice cultivation, or in fact any other. He advised that it should be 



