LIME IN AGRICULTURE 55 



plication of lime has converted tracts of uncultivated 

 clayey land into rich pastures or into wheat fields 

 of exceptional fertility, lime is made in enormous 

 kilns a dozen meters high and supported by the cliff 

 that furnishes the limestone and sometimes the fuel 

 also. 



"All animal matter makes excellent fertilizer. Of 

 this class are old woolen rags, stray bits of leather, 

 fragments of horn, dried blood from slaughter- 

 houses, and flesh not fit for human consumption. All 

 these substances are rich in nitrogen and phosphates, 

 and if mixed with farm manure they add greatly to 

 its value. Lime furnishes us the means of utilizing 

 one of these substances, flesh, in the best way pos- 

 sible. 



"Dead bodies of animals, heedlessly left for dogs 

 and crows and magpies to devour, should be cut up 

 in pieces and then buried with a mixture of earth and 

 quicklime. This attacks the flesh and quickly de- 

 composes it, so that in a few months' time there 

 would be available a deposit of the most powerful 

 fertilizer instead of a useless, disease-breeding car- 

 cass. As to the bones, resistant to the action of lime, 

 they are burned to render them more friable, and 

 then reduced to powder. This bone-dust, mixed 

 with the fertilizer furnished by the decayed flesh, 

 will contribute to grain-field or pasture a rich supply 

 of phosphorus. To uses of this sort the farmer 

 should put all horses and mules that have had to be 

 killed, as well as all large farm animals that have 

 died of disease." 



