&m"M 



AND GAR DENE lis JOURNAL. 



I'UHMSIICI) BY JOSEPH BKECK & CO., NO. 52 iNORTH MARKET STREET, (Agricultural VVafehoose.)-T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



vol,. XV. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 2, 1836. 



NO. 17. 



^<Bi^^^^'^iL'SWlB.^E>^ 



ON THE USE OF LIItlE AS lUAKVRE. 



BY M. PUVIS. 



(Continued.) 



OF THE VARI0tJ3 KINDS OF IMPROVING MA.NURES. 



The first in order, and the most important, are 

 calcareous manures. We com|irehend under this 

 name, lime, marl, old plastering mortar, and other 

 rubhish of demolished buildings, beds of fossil 

 shells [faliim,]* or shelly substances, plaster or 

 gypsum: experience and reason will prove that 

 we ought to arrange in the same class, and by the 

 side of the others, wood ashes, ground bones, and 

 burnt bones. We will not place in the same list 

 the ashes of peat, of bituminous coal, and red py- 

 ritous ashes: their effect is not owing to their 

 lime, but {as will be seen afterwards) ratherto the 

 effect of fire upon the earthy parts, and particular- 

 ly upon the argil which they contain. 



We shall next in arder treat of manures of the 

 sea, or saline manure of different Uinds, of mix- 

 tures of earth, of calcined clay : and finally, of 

 paring and burning turf, and the different ques- 

 tions which peat presents in agriculture. 



OF LIMING ON THE DSE OF LIME FOR THE ISI- 



PROVEME.1IT OF SOIL. 



1. Among the immense variety of substances, 

 and of combinations which compose the upper 

 layers of the globe, the earthy aubstaiices, silex, 

 alumine, and lime, form almost exclusively the 

 surface soil : the greater portion of other substan- 

 ces being unfit to aid vegetation, they ought to be 

 very rare upon a surface where the Supreme Au- 

 thor willed to call forth ami to preserve the mil- 

 lions of species of beings of all kinds, which were 

 to live on its products. 



It was also u great benefit to man, whose intel- 

 ligence was to be exercised upon the surface of 

 the soil, to have so few in number the substances 

 proper to support vegetation. The art of agricul- 

 tur.!, alrearly so complex, wliich receives from so 

 many circumstances such divers modifications, if 

 there had been added new elements much more 

 complicated, would have been above the reach of 

 human intelligence. 



2. But among these substances, the two first, 

 silex and alumine, form almost exclusively three- 

 fourths of all soils ; the thiril, the carbonate of 

 lime, is found more or less mixed in the other 

 fourth : all soils in which the latter earth is found, 

 have similar characters, producing certain fami- 

 lies of vegetables, which cannot succeed in those 

 in which it is not contained. 



" Falum. Beds formed by sliells. There is one of 

 these immense beds in Touraine. The cultivators of 

 that country use this shelly < anh to improve their fields." 

 This definition is from Rozier's Court Comptet, and 

 though It clenrly shows that ilie sub.slancc in question is 

 the same as what is called " marl " in Virginia, it is equal- 

 ly clear that neither of these authors consider falum a» 

 being marl. — Tr. 



The calcareous element seems to be in the soil 

 a means and a principle of friabi'ity. Soils which 

 contain calcareous earth in suitable proportions, 

 suffer but little from moisture, and let pass easily, 

 to the lower beds, the superabundance of water, 

 and consequently drain themselves with facility. 

 Grain and leguminous crops, the oleaginous plants, 

 and the greater part of the vegetables of c'ommen-e, 

 succeed well on these soils. 



It is among these soils that almost all good lands 

 are found. Nevertheless, the abundance of the 

 calcareous principle is more often injurious than 

 useful. Thus it is among soils composed princi- 

 pally of carbonate of lime that we meet with the 

 most arid and barren, as Lousy Champagne, part 

 of Yonne, and some parts of Berry. 



3. The analysis of the best soils has shown that 

 they rarely contain beyond ten per cent of carbon- 

 ate of lime ; and those of the highest grade of 

 quality seem to contain but from 3 to 5 per cent. 

 Thus the analysis of Messrs Berlliier and Erapiez 

 show 3 per cent, of it in the celebrated soil of the 

 environs of Lille. 



4. But all these properties, all these advantages, 

 all these products, calcareous manures bear with 

 them to the soils which do not contain the calca- 

 reous principle. It is sufficient to Sfiread them in 

 very small proportions: a quantity of lime, which 

 does not exceed the thousandth part of the tilled 

 surface layerof the soil, a like proportion of drawn 

 ashes, or a two-hundredth part (or even less) of 

 marl, are sufficient to modify the nature, change 

 the products, and increase by one-half the crops <d' 

 a soil destitute of the calcareous piinciple. This 

 principle, then, is necessary to be furnished to 

 those soils which do not contain it ; it is then a 

 kind of condiment disposed by nature to amelio- 

 rate poor soil?, and to give to them fertility. 



ANCIF.NT DATE OF THE USF, OF LIME. 



5. Lime, as it appears, has long ago been used 

 in many countries. However, nothing proves that 

 its efllect was well known to the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans, the then civilized portion of mankind. Their 

 old agricultural writers do not speak of the use of 

 lime on cultivated lands, nor on meadows. Pliny, 

 the naturalist, tells us, however, that it was in use 

 for vines, for olives, and for cherry trees, the fruit 

 of which is made more forward: and he speaks 

 of its being used on the soil generally in two prov- 

 inces of Gaul, those of the Pictones and jEdiii, 

 whose fields lime rendered more fruitful. The ag- 

 riculture of the barbarians was then, in this par- 

 ticular, more advanced than that of the Romans. 

 After that, all trace of the use of lime in agricul- 

 ture is lost for a long time — whether because it 

 had ceased to be used, or only because the notice 

 of it was omitted by writers on agriculture. '1 he 

 trace is again recovered with Bernard Pellissy, 

 who recommends the use of it in compost in moist 

 lands, and speaks of his use of it in the Ardennes. 

 Nea.ly a century later, Oliver de Serres advises 

 its employment in the same manner, and reports 



that they made use of it in the provinces of Giiel- 

 dres and Juliers, in Belgium. He makes no men- 

 tion of its use in France: but as the practices of 

 agriculture were not then much brought together, 

 and were but little known, t may be believed that 

 at that time Flanders, Belgium, and Normandy, 

 made use of lime. 



In England, liming seems to have been in use 

 earlier and more generally than in France, but 

 then, and ever since, good agricultural luactices 

 have remained in the particular countries where 

 they were established, without being spread abroad. 



Now, novelties carry no alarm with them and 



within the last twenty years liming has made 

 more progress than in the two preceding centuries. 



OF SOILS SDITABLE FOR LIMINCl. 



6. Lime, as has been said before, suits such 

 soils as do not contain it already. To distinguish 

 these soils from others, chemical analysis is, with- 

 out doubt, the surest means ; but it offers often 

 too many difficulties, and lime may be met with 

 in a soil in proportion great enough to exert its 

 power on vegetation without producing efferves- 

 cence with acids.* But visible characters may 

 furnish indications almost certain. The soiU 

 where the cow wheat [mdampi/re] rest-harrow, 

 [I'ononisou arrete-bau/,] thistles, colt's foot, [tus- 

 si/agf,] and red poppy spring sjiontaneoiisly — 

 which produce well in wheat, legumes, (or plants 

 of the pea kind,) and especially sainfoin — where 

 the chesnut succeeds badly — wliirli show but 

 little of dog's tooth, [chienJe}U,[ volunteer grasses, ' 

 or common weeds, [!;ra>nmes advenlices] except of 

 the small leguminous kinds — soils which, after 

 being dry, crumble with the first rain — all these 

 are almost certainly calcareous, have no need of 

 lime, nor its compounds, and would feel from their 

 use rather ill than good effects. 



[Though both the truth and the usefulness of 

 this passage, in general, are admitted, yet it is in- 

 correct in the position that none of the compounds 

 of lime would be advantageously employed on 

 calcareous soils. On the contrary, the sulphate 

 of lime (gypsum,) the most important compound 

 as a manure next to the carbonate, is most effec- 

 tive where the land has lime in some olher form : 

 and indeed, (as has been maiutaincd elsewhere,) it 

 Sf-ems generally inert and useless on soils very de- 

 ficient in lime. — Essay on Calcareous Manures, 

 pp. 50, 92.] 



On the contrary, all soils composed of the moul- 

 derings [debris] of granite or sehistus, almost all 

 sandy soils; those which are moist and cold of the 

 immense argilo-silicious table lands [ptiiteaux ar- 

 gilo-sUicietix] which separate the basins of great 

 rivers; those where rushes [;)C<i7 o/onc] the heath, 

 Its petits cartx blames, the whitish moss spring spon. 

 taueously — almost all the soils infested with 

 avoine a chapeleis, witli dog's-tfioih, with bent 

 gia*s, [agrestis,'] red sorrel, and the little fever- 



* This is a full though indirect admisjion of the truth 

 of the <)orlri»ie of neutral soils, nniintaincd in the Essay 

 on Calcareous Manures. — Tb, 



