AJNl) GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



PUBLISHED BX JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Agricultural Warehouse. )-T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



vol.. XV, 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 26, 1836. 



NO. 16. 



^w^^-'Uwm.iswMdi.^^ 



ON THE XJSK OP lime: AS MANURE. 



BY M. PUVIS. 



(Continued.) 



ON T!;e different modes of improving the 



SOIL. 



To improve the soil ia to modify its compo- 

 sition in siicli a manner as to render it more fer- 

 tile. 



This definition, which might be extended to 

 manures charged with vegetable mould or animal 

 substances', which also modify the composition of 

 the soil, is limited by French tif,'rii'uiture to sub- 

 stances which act upon the soil, or upon plants, 

 without containing any notable proportion of ani- 

 mal or vegetable matter. 



It is said that manures, [putrescent or enrich- 

 ing,] serve for the nutriment of plants. But it is 

 the same as to substances improving to the soil, 

 which furnish to it matters which it needs to be 

 fruitful, and which furnish to vegetables, the earth 

 aud saline compounds which enter as essential 

 elements in their composition, their texture, and 

 their products. Such improving substances may 

 well be regarded as nutritive. 



[The two cla.fses »f manures which ar« describ- 

 ed generally above, arj conveniently designated 

 in French each by a single word. " Eugrais". 

 which we can only translate as manure, is limited 

 in signification to such substances as directly en- 

 rich soils and feed growing plants — and " amen- 

 demens," signifying substances which alter and 

 improve the constitution, texture, and indirectly, 

 the fertility of soil, but the operation of which is 

 not to furnish food io plants. In speaking of the 

 action of these diflferent classes, the seii.se may be 

 rendered, though not very precisely, by the words 

 ''enrich " and "improve ;" but there is no one 

 English term that will convey the meaning of 

 either class of substances. "Alimentary manures " 

 will be used for the first class, and "manures im- 

 proving the constitution of soil," or some similar 

 awkward, but descriptive phrase, can only render 

 the meaning of the word "amendernens," unless 

 "improvers" could be tolerated as a substitute for 

 convenience.] 



Thus lime, marl, and all the calcareous com- 

 pounds employed in agriculture, since they furnish 

 lime and its compounds, which sometimes form 

 half of the fixed principles of vegetables, ought 

 also to be considered as aliments ; or, what comes 

 to the same, as furnishing a part of the substance 

 of vegetables. Thus again, wood-ashes, pounded 

 bones, burnt bones, which furnish to vegetation 

 the calcareous and saline phosphates which com- 

 pose a sixth of the fixed principles of the stalk.s, 

 and three-fourths of their seeds, ought well to be 

 considered, and surely are, nutritive. 



What, then, particularly marks the distinction 

 between manures which improve the soil [amen- 

 dernens] and alimentary manures, [engraisj is, that 



the former furnish, for the greater part, the fixed 

 principles of vegetables, the earths, and salts, which 

 are abundantly diffused throughout the atmos- 

 phere, \jhence vegetables draw them, bj means of 

 suitable organs; a;id what is most remarkable, is, 

 that the vegetable, by receiving the fixed princi- 

 ples of which it has need, acquires, as we shall 

 see, a greater energy to gather for its sustenance 

 the volatile principles which the atmosphere con- 

 tains. 



The greater part, then, of soils, to be carried to 

 the highest rate of productiveness, requires ma- 

 nures to improve their constitution. Alimentary 

 manures give much vigor to the leafy products — 

 but they multiply weeds, both by favoring their 

 growth and conveying their seeds; and they often 

 cause crops of small grain to be lodged, when they 

 are heavy. Manures which improve the s&il, 

 more particularly aid the formation of the seeds, 

 give more solidity to the stalks, and prevent the 

 falling of the plants. But it is in the siniirftane- 

 ous employment of these two means of fertiliza- 

 tion by which we give to the soil all the active 

 power of which it is susceptible. They are ne- 

 cessary to each other, doubling their action recip- 

 rocally ; and wheneVT they are employed togeth- 

 er, fertility goes on without ceasinj^ ; increasing in- 

 stead of diminishing. 



The greater part of Smprovrng substances arc 

 calcareous compounds. Their eflTect is decided 

 upon all soils which do not contain lime, and we 

 shall see that three fourths, perh.ips, of the lands 

 of France are in that state. Soils not calcareous, 

 whatever may be their culture, and wliatever may 

 be tlie quantity of manure lavished on them, are 

 not suitable for a!l products ; are; often cold and 

 moist, and are covered with weeds. Calcareous 

 uianures, by giving the lime which is wanting in 

 such soils, complete their advantages, render the 

 tillage more easy, destroy weeds, and fit the soil 

 for all products. 



Improving substances have been called stimu- 

 lants ; they have been thus designated, because it 

 was believed that their eflfect consisted only in 

 stimidating the soil and the plants. This desig- 

 nation is faulty, because it would place these sub- 

 stances in a false point of view. It would make 

 it seem that they brought nothing to the soil nor 

 to plants ; and yet their principal eflSct is to give 

 both principles which are wanting. Thus the 

 main effect of calcareous manures jiroceed from 

 their giving, on the one hand, to the soil the cal- 

 careous principle which it does not contain, and 

 which is necessary to develope its full action on 

 the atmosphere ; and on the other hand, to ve^'e- 

 tables, the quantity which they require of this 

 principle for their frame work and their intimate 

 constitution. It would then be a better definition 

 than that above, to say, that to improve the soil is 

 to give to it the principles which it requires, and 

 does not contain. 



IMPORTANCE OF MA.NDRES WHICH IMPROVE THE 

 CONSTITUTION OF SOILS. 



The question of improving manure is of great in- 



terest to agriculture. This means of meliorating 

 the soil is too little known, and too little practised 

 in a great part of France ; and yet it is u condition 

 absolutely necessary to the agricultural prosiierity 

 of a country. In the neighborhood of great cities, 

 alimentary manures being furnished on good terras 

 may well vivify the soil ; but animal manures can 

 suffice only in a few situations, and those of small 

 extent; and in every country where tillage is 

 highly prosperous, improving manures are in use. 

 The Department of the Nm-th (of France) Belgi- 

 um, and England owe to them in a great measure 

 their prosperity. The Department of the North 

 (which is, of all Europe, the country where agri- 

 cidture is best practised and the most productive,) 

 spends every year, upon two thirds of its soil, a 

 million of francs in lime, marl, ashes of peat and 

 of bituminous coal, and it is principally to these 

 agents, and not to the quality of the soil, tliit the 

 superiority of its production is owing. The best 

 of its soil makes part of the same basin, is of the 

 same formation anil same quality, as a great part 

 of Artois aud Picardy, of which the products are 

 scarcely equal to half the rate of the North. Neith- 

 er is it the quantity of meadow land which causes 

 its superiority : that makes but the fifth part of 

 its extent, and Lille, the best Jlrrondissanenl, has 

 scarcely a twentieth of its surface in meadow, 

 while Avesne, the worst of all, has one-third. Nor 

 can any great additional value ho attributed to ar- 

 tificial meadows, since they are not iD.et with ex- 

 cept in the twerrty-sixtli part of the whole space* 

 Neither can this honor be due to the suppression: 

 of naked fallows, since, in this country of pattern 

 husbandry, they yet take up one -sixth of the 

 ploughed land every year. Finally, the Flemings 

 have but one head of large cattle for every two. 

 hectares* of land, a proportion e.xceeded in agreati 

 part of ^"'rance. Their great products then are 

 due to their excellent economy and use of ma- 

 nures, to the assiduous labor of the farmers to 

 courses of crops well arranged, but, above all, we 

 think, to the improvers of soil, which they join to 

 their alimentary manures. Two thirds of their 

 land receive these regularly ; and it is to the re- 

 ciprocal action of these agents of melioration, that 

 appears to be due the uninterrupted succession of 

 fecundity which astonishes all those who are not 

 accustomed continually to see the products of this, 

 region. 



At this moment, upon all points m France, ag. 

 rictilture, after the example of the other arts of in- 

 dustry, is bringing forth improvements; in all 

 parts especially, cultivators are trying, or wishing 

 to try, lime, marl, ashes, animal charcoal. It is 

 this particular point in progress, above all, for 

 which light is wanting ; and this opinion has in- 

 duced the preparation of this publication. For 

 more than thirty years the author has devoted 

 himself, from inclination to agriculture ; but he 

 has been especially attentive to calcaneus man 



* The hectare is very nearly equal to two and a half 

 English (or American^) acres. — Tr. 



