No. 216.] 715 



1st. Has the use of lime been recommended"? 



2d. If so, in what state should it be applied? 



And this brings me to a question I have often thought of putting 

 before the Farmers' Club, if it has not already been a subject of dis- 

 cussion among its members, namely: 



" Would not coarsely ]mlverized raw carbonate of lime, mixed up 

 with a soil deprived of the lime principle, be a more permanent way 

 of improving such soil, than the same stone used in the ordinary 

 way, after burning and slacking with water, as it is most generally 

 done now?" 



This is a very old question. If we open the books we find many 

 valuable papers written on the subject, which leads to the belief that, 

 in many cases, raw limestone ought to be preferred; and it is re- 

 markable that most all the accounts given, of direct and judiciously 

 conducted experiments, (some of them of many years continuance, 

 both in England and this country) agree in the conclusion that car- 

 bonaceous matters thus applied in a raw state, have proved very 

 beneficial upon barren silicious soils, which afterward, by judicious 

 management, were rendered capable of bearing crops of cereals with 

 advantage. But it is also remarkable that most of the same accounts 

 came to the same following conclusion, that " the expense of redu- 

 cing limestone to powder, would probably prohibit its extensive use 

 in that state." Now, this objection might be well founded " long 

 time ago," but now, machinists have made such astonishing progress 

 with their ingenious inventions, that it would indeed be doing injus- 

 tice to them, to suppose that they cannot find means of crushing raw 

 limestone into a coarse powder, for the same cost incurred now by 

 the operations of kiln burning and water slacking, I, for one say 

 that it can be done: so that, assuming this to be a fact, for the sake 

 of tl e argument, the simple question remaining is, would it be more 

 judicious to apply raw limestone pulverized, than the same stone 

 burnt and slacked on the poor soils of Long Island?" 



If it is true that the burnt lime, (that is to say, limestone deprived 

 of its carbonic acid,) does not benefit the soil, until it has reabsorbed 

 from the atmosphere the greater part of the carbonic acid which it 

 has lost by burning, and has thus returned to the state of a carbonate 

 again, then indeed, it would appear that these operations of burning 

 and slacking, were mere contrivances to reduce the stone into pow- 



