LIME IN AGRICULTURE 53 



grown with weeds, and in newly cleared land — in 

 short, wherever there are old stumps, piles of leaves, 

 remnants of wood, and patches of heather, which 

 need to be decomposed. With the help of lime all 

 these herbaceous or woody substances are quickly 

 converted into humus, with which the soil becomes 

 enriched to the great advantage of future crops. 



"In the second place, lime corrects or neutralizes 

 the acidity peculiar to certain soils, as is proved by 

 the following experiment. Let us mix some vinegar, 

 no matter how strong, with a little lime. In a short 

 time the smell and acid taste of the vinegar will have 

 disappeared. Now wherever masses of vegetable 

 refuse, such as leaves, mosses, rushes, old stumps, are 

 undergoing decay, there are produced certain sour- 

 tasting substances or, in other words, acids, whioh 

 are invariably harmful to agriculture. This genera- 

 tion of acid occurs notably in turfy soils, which have 

 an excessive acidity favorable to the growth of 

 coarse rushes and sedges that are valueless to us, and 

 at the same time this acid is highly injurious to all 

 our cultivated plants. Lime, therefore, which is sure 

 to correct this acidity, works wonders in marshy 

 lands, damp meadows, and turfy soils. We are 

 warned of the need of lime by the appearance of 

 ferns, heather, sedge or reed-grass, rushes, mosses 

 and sphagnei. 



"Thirdly, when once mixed with the soil, lime 

 speedily resumes the form it wore before passing 

 through the lime-kiln ; that is to say, it becomes lime- 

 stone, but in the shape of fine powder. This return 



