LIME-GROWING ON CLAY SOILS. 
By EpGar BEcKETY. 
All agriculturists are agreed on the difficulty that exists in growing 
a crop of any kind on a soil that is altogether unsuitable. A good 
example is ever before us of what can be done “where skill and care are 
combined, by the really wonderful results that were obtained by the late 
G. S. Jenman, under whose loving hands has arisen from the infertile, 
heavy clays that obtain in our Gardens, a flower garden and park land 
which for beauty and the crowning effect of a display of palms, can rival 
many gardens in the world. 
Citrus plants delight in this colony either in the red lateritic soils 
that are found more or less inland, the light sandy loam of Essequebo 
and other portions of the colony, and the poor sandy soils which sre met 
with in various districts throughout the three counties—if distant from 
the sea. When one grows such a ineiber of the citrus family as the 
lime on heavy clays, then it is one realises that the idea, so commonly 
believed in throughout the colony, that limes will grow and thrive any- 
where, isa monstrous myth. 
No one who has not had practical experience with some of our 
heavy clays can realise their nature. In the dry season they crack and 
gape and are responsible for many a workman’s broken fork ; in the wet 
weather they retain such an excessive amount of moisture and are so 
absolutely unworkable, that the truth is borne in at once on one’s mind 
that such soils cannot possibly be overdrained. 
Drainage is, therefore, made as perfect as possible. Then a drought 
appears and the want of moisture and the bitterly parched appearance of 
the soil is the despair of the grower. 
All the troubles that a heavy impervious clay soil gives rise to, sink 
into insignificance when such a soil is supporting the lime plant. Then 
indeed is one compelled to summon to one’s aid every resource, either 
practical or theoretical, if success is to crown the efforts made. 
But it has been proved that even so disreputable a soil can, with 
judicious care, be made to bring forth fruit at a reasonable cost. 
In the first place one has to give the lime plants a good start in life 
—a very important item in all life, plant or animal. To do this there 
must be a careful selection of seed. It is amazing what results of a 
disappointing nature do arise, when the progeny obtained from limes 
growing on a very light soil, are brought under the conditions afforded 
by heavy clays. Some of the results are almost fantastic. 
