58 



THE SOUTHE 



RN PLANTER. 



winter in constructing. This machine is con- 

 structed to drop and cover the corn, with a 

 horse; dispensing with the labor of furrowing 

 the ground, &c. I have also another portable 

 machine calculated only for dropping the corn, 

 by which one man is enabled to keep up with 

 a horse, and drop the corn so as to row both 

 ways with great exactness. 



I shall have something to say, in my next, 

 relative to the method of tending corn, when it 

 is planted in drills. 



Your friend, Seneca. 



LIME— CLOVER. 

 That the application of lime to the soil is 

 productive of the most beneficial results in some 

 cases, whilst it is wholly inoperative in others, 

 is a fact placed beyond the pale of controversy. 

 If we could only ascertain the precise nature of 

 its operation, we might learn without the ex- 

 pense of experiment when its application would 

 be money thown away. So very important is 

 this knowledge, that a thousand guesses have 

 been made upon the subject, and amongst them 

 some very ingenious theories have been started, 

 but none that are entirely sufficient to account 

 for all the phenomena that have come within 

 even our limited observation. The action of 

 lime is undoubtedly a chemical one, and varies 

 with the salts, the acids, and the alkalis with 

 which it comes in contact ; it is also greatly 

 modified by moisture and temperature, and it is, 

 therefore, not wonderful that there should be a 

 great discrepancy in its results. In the last 

 number of the "Monthly Journal of Agricul- 

 ture" we find, copied from the Transactions of 

 the Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland, 

 an essay from the pen of Mr. Robert M'Turk, 

 to whom was awarded the premium of a silver 

 medal. He makes the whole value of lime de- 

 pend upon its causticity, or freedom from carbonic 

 acid gas. Such is the affinity of lime for this 

 gas, universally prevalent in the atmosphere, 

 that it can only be expelled by the application 

 of heat, and its purity can only be secured by 

 exclusion from the atmosphere ; hence it is ne- 

 cessary as soon as it has been disintegrated by 

 slaking, to deposite it in the soil, at a depth se- 

 cure from the action of the atmosphere. In this 

 position Mr. M'Turk supposes it to come in con- 

 tact with innumerable woody fibres, the residuum 

 of roots and other vegetable matter that have re- 

 sisted the common process of putrefaction. The 



strong affinity that the caustic lime has for any 

 acid, causes it to attract some of the component 

 parts of this vegetable matter ; its structure is 

 thus broken up ; in the chemical changes which 

 ensue gases are evolved, which in their ascen- 

 sion open the soil ; through these openings the 

 heat of the sun penetrates, which with the 

 warmth always attendant upon chemical action 

 produces a temperature sufficient to induce en- 

 tire putrefaction in the hitherto undecomposed 

 vegetable matter, and this inert mass is hereby, 

 in solution or in a gaseous form, taken up as 

 food by the plants in the soil. 



This is all very pretty and may be very true, 

 but how does it account for the wonderful effects 

 produced by the application of marl in the tide 

 water country of Virginia, since in this marl the 

 lime is always found in the form of a carbonate ? 



Mr. M'Turk imagined that it was by this 

 operation of caustic lime upon the hard coating 

 of certain seeds, that the germ was liberated, 

 and hence the springing of white clover after 

 liming; from this he was inclined to suspect 

 that when clover seed was turned in with other 

 grain, as is usual in this part of the world, it 

 was buried too deep for the action of heat and 

 moisture, and he, therefore, instituted some ex- 

 periments to which we would direct the atten- 

 tion of Mr. Boiling Jones. These experiments 

 we will give in his own words : 



"On the 12th May, 1841, we had a piece of 

 land, well dug and cleaned, divided into nine 

 parts, by means of pins driven into the ground, 

 and division-boards nailed to them to keep them 

 firm in their places. The use of the division- 

 boards was not only to divide the portions of 

 ground separately, but also when the ground 

 was levelled within them the exact depth of 

 earth in each division might be measured. 



" No. 1. Six feet square ; the clover seed sown 

 on the surface. 



" No. 2. Ditto ; the clover seed raked in gently. 



"No. 3. Ditto; ha'lf an inch of cover. 



" No. 4. Ditto ; six-eighths of cover, one-half 

 of the division compressed by treading, and af- 

 terwards smoothed. 



" No. 5. Ditto ; one inch of cover, and the 

 other half compressed. 



"No. 6. Ditto; one inch and a quarter of 

 cover, the other half compressed and smoothed. 



" No. 7. Ditto ; one inch and a half of cover, 

 the other half compressed and smoothed. 



"No. 8. Ditto; two inches of cover, one-half 

 compressed and smoothed. 



" No. 9. Ditto ; two inches and a half of co- 



