18 
The Farming of Westmorland. 
ol little use. It is laid out from the cart in convenient beaps, 
and generally left to "sour" before being spread. The cost at 
the kilns is 3rf. or 3Arf. per imperial bushel. Where the cartage is 
long, as for instance from Kendal to the top of Long Sleddale or 
Kentmere, 8 or 10 miles of bad road, and where the land to be 
limed slopes upwards very steeply, the operation becomes very 
laborious and costly, especially if the hire of man and horse, and 
wear and tear of cart and harness, be reckoned in. So steep 
and rugged are many of the hill-side pastures, that the lime has 
frequently to be carried in bags or swills for considerable dis- 
tances ; and a cart-load, after all the labour, time, and trouble, to 
get it to its destination, looks in a very small room indeed when 
emptied out. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks the process 
is always considered to "pay." A farmer who is observed to 
be leading plenty of lime is booked as one of the right sort, 
and prospering ; and strong is the faith that the further you carry 
lime the more potent is its effect. 
One most important point is, lime must never be applied to 
wet land, or it will be thrown away; the beneficial effect is 
most strongly marked on newly drained, sour, rushy land, with a 
strong subsoil ; and on this, or on mixed heaths and bents, the 
fine grasses and white clovers spring up plentifully after a good 
dose of lime. The first dose should always be a heavy one ; 
after which the good effects will continue for twenty or thirty 
years, and the mark between limed and unlimed land be plainly 
visible ; afterwards the pasture begins to recede. A second 
coat of lime never answers anything like so well as the first, and 
some artificial dressing is usually then resorted to. 
A compost of lime, soil, road-scrapings, and manure, all well 
mixed up and decomposed, still remains a favourite top-dressing 
for young seeds. 
It is probable that bones would in many cases answer fully as 
well as lime, and the labour and cost of applying them must be 
much less when the lime has to be led a long way, and the 
ground to be dealt with is steep and difficult of access with a 
horse and cart. 
The writer recently superintended the drainage of a cow- 
pasture of twenty acres, formerly wet, producing sour blue 
grasses, which no beast would bite ; the subsoil was stiff clay, 
resting on limestone. The field having been thoroughly tile- 
drained, half of it was top-dressed with lime, and the other half 
with dissolved bones, at the rate of 6 cwt. per acre. The latter 
began to show much sooner than the lime, bringing up in pro- 
fusion white clover and fine grasses, greedily appropriated by the 
cows. The application of bones is strongly recommended on old 
cow-pastures ; their indiscriminate use, however, may lead to 
