GRAFTING AND INARCHING. 
187 
and to induce some, of those mechanical changes 
by which the succeeding crops of corn are so 
greatly benefited. 
"2°. It improves the quality of almost every 
cultivated crop. Thus, upon limed land — 
" a. The grain of the corn crops has a 
thinner skin, is heavier, and yields more 
flour. This flour is said also to be richer in 
gluten, a point however which is very doubt- 
ful, and requires experimental confirmation. 
On the other hand, these crops, after lime, 
run less to straw, and are more seldom laid. 
In wet seasons (in Ayrshire) wheat preserves 
its healthy appearance where lime has been 
applied, while on unlimed land, of equal qua- 
lity, it is yellow and sickly. A more marked 
improvement is said also to be produced both 
in the quantity and in the quality of the 
spring-sown than of the winter-sown crops 
(Puvis). It hardens the straw and makes the 
wheat a finer sample. 
li b. Potatos grown upon all soils are more 
agreeable to the taste and more mealy after 
lime has been applied, and this is especially 
the case on heavy and wet lands which lie still 
undrained. 
" c. Turnips are often improved both in 
quantity and in quality when it is laid on in 
preparing the ground for the seed. It is 
most efficient, and causes the greatest saving 
of farm-yard manure where it is applied in the 
compost form, -and where the land is already 
rich in organic matter of various kinds. 
" d. Peas are grown more pleasant to the 
taste, and are said to be more easily boiled 
soft. Both beans and peas also yield more 
grain. (See Brit. Husb., L, p. 217.) 
"e. Rape, after a half-liming and manuring, 
gives extraordinary crops, and the same is the 
case with the colza, the seed of which is 
largely raised in France and Holland for the 
oil which it yields. 
"f. On flax alone it is injurious, diminish- 
ing the strength of the fibre. Hence, in Bel- 
gium, flax is not grown on limed land till 
seven years after the lime has been applied. 
Something, however, depends upon the soil. 
"3°. It hastens the maturity of the crop. — 
It is true of nearly all our cultivated crops, 
but especially of those of corn, that their full 
growth is attained more speedily when the land 
is limed, and that they are ready for the harvest 
from ten to fourteen days earlier. This is the 
case even with buck-wheat, which becomes 
sooner ripe, though it yields no larger a return 
when lime is applied to the land on which it 
is grown. 
"4°. The liming of the land is the har- 
binger of health as well as of abundance. It 
salubrifies no less than it enriches the well 
cultivated district. This is one of the inci- 
dental results which also follow the skilful 
introduction of the drain over large tracts of 
country. Where the use of lime and of the 
drain go together, it is difficult to say how 
much of the increased healthiness of the dis- 
trict is due to the one improvement, and how 
much to the other. The lime arrests the 
noxious effluvia which tend to rise more or 
less from every soil at certain seasons of the 
year, and decomposes them or causes their 
elements to assume new forms of chemical 
combination, in which they no longer exert 
the same injurious influence upon animal life. 
How beautiful a consequence of skilful agri- 
culture that the health of the community 
should be promoted by the same methods 
which most largely increase the produce of 
the land ! Can Ave doubt that the All-bene- 
volent places this consequence so plainly be- 
fore us as a stimulus to further and more 
general improvement — to the application of 
other knowledge still to the amelioration of 
the soil ?"— Pp. 109—112. 
The entire volume consists of useful lessons, 
instructing us in the application of lime in all 
its varied combinations, with and without 
other manures, and in the effects under varied 
circumstances, whether pure, or as it exists 
in various animal and vegetable bodies. Bones 
and those applications are treated of at consi- 
derable length, on account of the large por- 
tion of lime in their composition, and all the 
various soils and dressings that contain lime 
in any form come in for their share of notice ; 
and certain it is that after reading Mr. John- 
ston's volume, many will have become "■ wiser 
if not better men." No persons who have not 
studied the subject can form an idea of the 
value of lime as a fertilizer, nor can they 
imagine how completely it is identified with 
all good soils, nor how universally it en- 
ters into the composition of vegetables, how 
insidiously it finds its way naturally to the 
earth by means of the water that runs over 
the lands that are flooded, and even in rain 
water. But it is time we draw our notice to 
a close, which we do with a strong recom- 
mendation to all who till the land, nursery- 
men as well as husbandmen, to read the book 
attentively, for it cannot fail to be of the 
greatest service, however much they may 
know, or think they know already, of this 
valuable ingredient in the provision for vege- 
tation of all kinds. 
GRAFTING AND INARCHING. 
So many books and papers have been written 
on this subject that it would seem superfluous 
to take up the subject again at any length ; 
but the short and pithy articles in Glenny's 
Garden Almanac have drawn notices from 
several practical men, and as they are considered 
