THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



131 



pests, such as "pasturing cattle upon them ;" " dig- 

 ging them up in the month of July," &c; hut I 

 and several of my neighbors have found the follow- 

 ing prescription for their extirpation to be entirely 

 successful. In the month of June or the first of 

 July, take a grass scythe and cut them off about 

 two or three inches from the ground. This will 

 cause them to bleed freely, and if an application 

 of from one to two bushels of salt to the acre be 

 made immediately, their eradication may be confi- 

 dently expected. Salt being injurious ,to the grow- 

 ing vegetation its action will at once be under- 

 stood. It, however, imparts to the land certain 

 valuable mineral properties in the form of chlorine 

 and soda, and in this manner improves the texture 

 of the soil. Upon a piece of land proverbially poor, 

 and which, from its poverty-stricken appearance, 

 had been thrown out of cultivation for several years, 

 owing to the extensive growth of briers and sassa- 

 fras sprouts, the above prescription was used in the 

 month of June, 1851. In August an application of 

 thirty-five bushels of lime was made, and the land 

 allowed to remain until the following spring, when 

 it was, in the month of May, broken up with a 

 large double plough, and a bushel of peas seeded 

 and raked in. The peas grew off finely, and in the 

 month of August a bushel of plaster to the acre 

 was scattered over the peas. The following month 

 they presented a fine growth of green vegetation, 

 to be turned in for wheat. The wheat grew off 

 finely, attracted observation, and was a subject of 

 general remark, owing to its growth and appear- 

 ance. The wheat has been carefully saved and ac- 

 curately measured and the result was 15 bushels 

 to the acre. 



II. AGENTS REQUIRED. 



Under this head it will be necessary to describe 

 some of the indispensable inorganic and organic 

 agents required by the farmer "in improving and 

 enriching poor land." The first I shall mention 

 is lime, which I regard as the substratum of all 

 permanent improvement — the grand agent that pre- 

 pares for the crops nearly all the food which the 

 earth furnishes, and " in improving and enriching 

 poor land," must be used either in its simple sub- 

 stance or substituted by other calcareous earths. 

 So great has been the action of lime upon land in 

 some sections of our State, that it has been re- 

 garded as a sure panacea for the "ills and cures" 

 of all poor land, especially upon those lands which 

 abound in acids and which are discernible in the 

 large and luxuriant growth of the acid grasses 

 which they produce. Lime is an agent in the ame- 

 lioration of arable land, but he who relies solely 

 upon it to effect every thing in making his land 

 more permanently productive, will necessarily find 

 himself disappointed. But he who judiciously uses 

 it as an auxiliary to other substances, positively 

 nutritive, will have the gratification of realizing 

 his most sanguine expectations. Fertility, in a 

 measure, depends upon its presence in a soil, but 

 there are other elements which are equally essen- 

 tial to the growth and maturation of grain and 

 plants. The office of lime is to restore the capacity 

 for production, but without additions of other sub- 

 stances, convertible into food for plants, its benefi- 

 cial effects must necessarily be arrested. Soils, 

 which may have been long in culture, and appa- 

 rently exhausted, by a severe course of cropping, 

 become charged with quantities of inert vegetable 

 matter, which, on the application of lime, is trans- 

 ferred into decomposing bodies, and converted into 

 nutritive manures for the growing plants. It neu- 



tralizes acids found in many soils which are hurtful 

 to vegetation, and which sometimes abound even 

 in humus, according to the character of the plants 

 from whose decay it has been formed. Applied to 

 the surface of grass land a year, or even two years, 

 before being broken up, it will more thoroughly 

 incorporate itself in the soil, through the agency 

 of the frosts and rains of winter. By the force of 

 its specific gravity, its tendency'is to sink into the 

 earth, to diffuse itself through the mass, and to act 

 generally on the soil. When thus applied its good 

 effects are more visible in the first crops, from the 

 fact that the moment it is applied to the surface of 

 such lands its agency in preparing the food of plants 

 commences, and incorporated thoroughly with the 

 soil, it combines with, and immediately operates in 

 reducing all the root fibre and insoluble organic 

 remains of the natural herbage it may happen to 

 meet with, and thus convert into nutriment for the 

 succeeding crop what was before of no service; 

 and if any acid or noxious rejected matter should 

 be left by the plants of the previous rotation, the 

 acid and noxious principles are neutralized and the 

 soil purified and enriched at the same time. The 

 action of lime is manifold : it will fender stiff clays 

 more friable and easy to be cultivated, and from 

 the minuteness of its particles readily insinuate 

 itself into the clay, disengaging by its strong ac- 

 tion organic matter contained in the aluminous 

 masses, destroying the continuous solidity of the 

 clay, and liberating the gases contained in it. 

 While on the other hand, upon light soils its effects 

 are equally beneficial, combining with any organic 

 manures that may be added to the soil, it prevents 

 their wasteful and too rapid escape ; and by thus 

 rendering the soil more retentive of moisture, and 

 improving its texture and consistence, eminently 

 promotes and increases its fertility. My preference 

 has long been given to oyster shell lime, owing to the 

 phosphoric acid it contains, and which causes it to 

 act much more promptly than stone lime. It can- 

 not be dispensed with in the improvement and per- 

 fecting of any soil, unless it should be naturally 

 calcareous, a condition easily detected by its ef- 

 fervescence when tested with acids, whilst its ab- 

 sence from a soil may as readily be known by the 

 growth of the acid grasses. The quantity of lime 

 per acre, which can be used advantageously varies 

 with the condition and original character of the 

 soil — highly improved land will bear a heavier 

 dressing than poor land. On a soil of medium con- 

 dition the usual dressing is forty or fifty bushels, 

 while on very poor land twenty or thirty bushels 

 per acre is deemed most advantageous to commence 

 with, the application to be repeated at intervals 

 until a sufficient quantity is obtained. Applying 

 lime with accuracy can be done with no very great 

 trouble. Obtain stakes twenty-one feet long, and 

 check the entire field over each way j the check 

 being seven yards square, they contain forty-nine 

 square yards ; and if we allow 4900 square yards 

 to make an acre, and a half bushel of lime is de- 

 posited in the middle of each square, it would 

 make exactly fifty bushels to the acre. Stakes 24 

 feet long would make nearly forty bushels to the 

 acre ; and in this manner any amount can be applied 

 that may be desired. I regard this as the most 

 successful way of applying lime, the checks being 

 perfectly visible, and the lime being deposited in 

 the middle of the square the hands can spread it 

 over the whole space with great accuracy. All 

 agricultural writers and chemists agree upon 100 

 to 150 bushels of lime to an acre as a sufficient 



