THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



239 



encouraged in view of some rather hope- 

 less prospects. 4. Take the Ohio Farmer, 

 for it was from this, (he says), and from 

 other less valuable papers, that he gained 

 the knowledge to which enabled him to 

 save his orchard. — Ohio Farmer. 



BRUADQAST CORN. 

 As your pastures wilj be giving out in 

 August and September, it would be well to 

 put a few acres in Indian corn sown broad- 

 cast, in order thot you may have pr&vender 

 to soil yowr stock upon. An acre will grow 

 food enough for 10 head of stock. In the 

 preparation of the ground, manure liberal- 

 ly, plough deep, and harrow and roll till 

 you ge-t a perfectly fine tilth ; then sow on 

 each acre 3 bushels of corn, harrow and 

 cross-harrow that in, and then roll. 



THE APPLICATION OF LIME. 



A well-known Virginia farmer, who is 

 generally " down " on everything having 

 any affinity to agricultural chemistry, 

 writes us as follows : 



" I respect your science more than I do 

 that of most agricultural editors, and am 

 about to prove my sincerity by asking 

 you, without alluding to me, however, to 

 write an editorial, giving the views of 

 Prof. Way on the application of lime — I 

 ha*ve no access to them myself — and their 

 adaptability to stiff clay flats, wet, but rich 

 when drained and limed — diluvium 



"The question of applying lime to such 

 soils is one of much interest to me, as I 

 have several hundred acres of just such| 

 land in cultivation to which I should be! 



from solution, but the filtered liquid would 

 contain sulphuric acid in abundance — not 

 in the free or combined form, but united 

 to lime ; instead of sulphate 'of ammonia 

 we should find sulphate of lime in ihe so- 

 lution ; and this result was-obtained, what- 

 ever the acid of the salt experimented 

 upon might be. It was found, moreover, 

 that the process of filtration was by no 

 means necessary ; by the mere mixing of 

 an alkaline solution with a proper quanti- 

 ty of soil, as by shaking them together in 

 a bottle, and allowing the soil to subside, 

 the same result was obtained. The action, 

 therefore, was in no way referrable to any 

 physical law brought into operation by the 

 process of filtration. 



It was also found that the combination 

 between the soil and the alkaline substance 

 was rapid, if not instantaneous, partaking 

 therefore of the nature of the ordinary 

 union between an acid and an alkali. 



In the course of the experiments, seve- 

 ral different soils were operated upon, and 

 it was found that all soils capable of pro- 

 profitable cultivation possessed the proper- 

 ty in question in a greater or less degree. 

 Pure sand, it was found, did not possess 

 this property. The organic matter of the 

 soil, it was proved, had nothing to do with 

 it. The addition of carbonate of lime to a 

 soil did not increase its absorptive power, 

 and indeed it was found that a soil in 

 which carbonate of lime did not exist pos- 

 sessed in a high degree the power of re- 

 moving ammonia or potash from solution. 



To what, then, is the power of soils to 

 arrest ammonia, potash, magnesia, phos- 



happy to introduce you if you can trust' phoric acid, &c, owing? The above ex- 

 yourself among slave owners." periments lead to the conclusion that it is 



The views of Prof. Way, (Chemist to due to the clay which they contain. In 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng- the language of Prof. Way, however, 

 land,) referred to, we presume are those "It still remained to be considered, 

 contained in a lecture of his delivered whether the whole clay took any active 

 some three years ago, portions of which part in these changes, or whether there 

 were pretty extensively copied into our! existed in clay some chemical compound 

 agricultural papers at that time. in small quantity to which the action was 



Prof. Way had made a series of investi- due. This question was to be decided by 

 gations on the " absorbtive properties " of; the extent to which clay was able to unite 

 soils. He found that ordinary soils pos- with ammonia, or other alkaline bases ; 

 sessed the power of separating from solu- and it soon became evident that the idea 

 tion in water the different earthy and al- of the clay as a whole being the cause of 

 kaline substances presented to them in the absorbtive property, was inconsistent 

 manure; thus, when solutions of salts of with all the ascertained law r s of chemical 

 ammonia, of potash, magnesia, &c, were combination." 



made to filter slowly through a bed of dry I After a series of experiments, Prof, 

 soil, five or six inches deep, arranged in a! Way came to the conclusion that there is 



