Burning Lime, and Limekilns. 399 



with some of the principal ones of France and Italy, and 

 received every year from that of Madrid whatever seeds it 

 requested to have sent. The 1 ? practical school, that is the 

 arrangement of the plants, is laid out according to the sexual 

 system of Linnaeus. 



( To be continued.) 



Art. VI. Comparative Remarks on Limekilns, and the 

 Burning of Lime, the Residt of many Years' Experience of 

 C. J. Stuart Menteath, Esq. on the Estate of Closeburti, in 

 Dimfries-shire. Communicated by Mr. Menteath. 



Sir, 



The application of calcined lime to the soil is of so much 

 importance in horticulture, as well as agriculture, that useful 

 information on the subject cannot be otherwise than highly 

 acceptable to the readers of the Gardener's Magazine. My 

 experience in the quarrying and burning, or what may be 

 called the manufacture, of calcined lime, has been very exten- 

 sive. I have tried various kilns and plans of burning, and 

 I have made an improvement on what I consider the best of 

 these plans, to describe which is my principal object in send- 

 ing you this paper. It is true you have described both 

 Booker's kiln and my kiln in your valuable Encyclopaedia of 

 Agriculture ; but as I have since made some improvements 

 on my own invention, and as you have not given engravings 

 of these kilns in the Encyclopaedia, this communication will 

 serve as an appendix to the subject of limekilns (§3589 — 

 3590.) in that work. 



Lime will, in all cases, be most economically burned by 

 fuel, which produces little or no smoke, because the necessary 

 mixture of the fuel with the broken limestone renders it im- 

 possible to bring it in contact with a red heat, which may 

 ignite the smoke. Dry fuel must also, in all cases, be more 

 advantageous than moist fuel, because in the latter case a 

 certain quantity of heat is lost in expelling the moisture in the 

 form of vapour or smoke, 



Booker's kiln {fig. 107.) is the best of all forms that have 

 hitherto been brought into notice for burning lime with coke, 

 or other dry smokeless fuel. The kiln of this description at 

 Closeburn is built on the side of a bank ; it is circular 

 within, thirty-two feet high from the furnace, three feet diame- 

 ter at top and bottom, and seven feet diameter at eighteen 

 feet from the bottom ; it has cast-iron doors to the fuel-cham- 



