33 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



neither sole nor upper leather will suck 

 any more. If it is desired that boots 

 should take an immediate polish, dissolve 

 an ounce of wax in spirits of turpentine; 

 to which add a tea-spoonful of lamp black. 

 A day after the boots have been treated 

 with the tallow and rosin, rub over them 

 this wax in turpentine, but. not before the 

 fire. Thus the exterior will have a coat 

 of wax alone, and shines like a mirror. 

 Tallow, or any other grease, becomes ran- 

 cid, and rots the stitching as well as the 

 leather; but the rosin gives it an antiseptic 

 quality, which preserves the whole. Boots 

 and shoes should be so large as to admit 

 of cork soles. Cork is so bad a conductor 

 of heat, that with it in boots, the feet are 

 always warm on the coldest stone floor. — 

 Merchant's Magazine. 



For the Southern Planter. 



HOW TO GET A STAND OP CLOVER. 



Mr. Editor, — The frequent failures to get clo- 

 ver seed to " take" on thin land is, perhaps, one 

 of the greatest sources of discouragement to 

 many farmers, and one of the greatest draw- 

 hacks to the renovation of worn-out lands. It 

 is exceedingly discouraging after having, at a 

 considerable expense both of time and money, 

 sowed a field down in clover to find after the 

 first dry spell of weather in spring or summer 

 that you have made an utter failure to get a 

 stand. The mortifying reflection comes up 

 that the land is annually getting poorer, and 

 that in the next rotation the probability of not 

 getting a stand will be still greater. What is 

 to be done 1 ? To the planter who requires all 

 the manure he can raise for his tobacco lots 

 the idea of a top-dressing for an entire crop 

 of wheat or oats is out of the question. With 

 a debt, perhaps pressing upon him, he feels 

 that to give up the culture of tobacco, the only 

 sure crop by which he can raise money, would 

 be ruinous, and to pursue a system by which 

 his land gets every year worse and worse is 

 equally so. This posture of affairs, I have 

 no doubt, has often driven many a man to the 

 conclusion, "I will sell out, pay out and move 

 out." But suppose his condition is as mine — 

 bound by ties not to be severed as long as the 

 heart responds to filial obligations, and a home 

 in the far, fertile west out of the question — 

 what then must he dol "Root, little pig, or 

 die." Such has been my inheritance, — poor 

 land and indissoluble filial obligations. But 

 my motto is, "Try again." Some six years 

 ago, I bought a worn-out farm from an illus- 

 trious, predecessor, and made several fruitless 

 efforts to get a stand of clover on thin corn 

 land sown down in wheat, but it "could not 

 quite come it." I have, however, for the last 



two or three years, been much more success- 

 ful: in fact, I got a field well taken in 1850, 

 and another last year. The first on oat, and 

 the last on wheat land, notwithstanding the 

 drought in the spring.of 1850 and that of last 

 summer, while some of my neighbors lost their 

 entire seed. My plan has been to harrow or 

 brush in all my clover seed, both on the wheai 

 and oat crop, and to give the oat crop and the 

 upland wheat a heavy dressing of plaster as 

 soon as the clover seed comes up. The har- 

 rowing is rather a benefit than an injury to 

 the wheat, although at the time it seems like 

 "using it up," and it puts the clover seed into, 

 instead of on the top of the land, and below the 

 action of the frost and bleak winds. The 

 plaster is much more necessary to the support 

 of the clover while it is tender and feeble than 

 at a later period, and will sustain it even during 

 a protracted drought. 



Respectfully, yours, W. P. S. 



Nelson, December, 1852. 



For the Southern Planter. 



COMMON LIME-IS IT INDISPENSABLE 

 TO THE FERTILITY OF A SOIL? 



Mr. Editor,— \n the January number of the 

 Southern Planter I have read a very pleasing 

 article from the pen of Dr. Morton of Cum- 

 berland, which is in every respect so entirely 

 to my taste, I beg you will allow me in the 

 same benevolent spirit he evinces, briefly to 

 respond to some of his inquiries and sugges- 

 tions on the "action of lime." 



I will preface my remarks by saying it is in 

 the form of lime, and not as a "carbonate of 

 lime," that the earthy substance known by 

 that name, is, in agriculture almost unani- 

 mously applied to the soil. Limestone when 

 pure is strictly a pure "carbonate of lime." 

 But by the burning process (when complete) 

 oil the "carbonic acid" is driven off, so that 

 simple lime— "quicklime," or "caustic-lime," 

 as it is sometimes called— alone remains. — 

 This lime before being applied to the soil is 

 usually "water-slacked," by which operation 

 it undergoes but very little change of any 

 kind, chemically, but by the addition of the wa- 

 ter in slacking it is merely brought from an 

 "anhydrous" to a hydrated condition, so that 

 each one hundred pounds of the powder that 

 falls is made to contain about twenty-five 

 pounds of water. In other respects the pow- 

 dery mass is "quicklime," and nothing more. 

 But when unslacked lime is for a long time 

 exposed in the open air and allowed to "air- 

 slack" spontaneously, it slowly but very par- 

 tially becomes "carbonated," but it more, per- 

 haps, while in the open air gets to be a pure 

 "carbonate of lime," just as it was before it 

 had been subjected to heat. 



In the experiment with lime alluded to by 

 Dr. Morton it was in the form of time, proba- 



