14 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
do, only as a warm and sweet beverage, Jersey 
tea, sage, blackberry leaves, and many otber 
cheap substitutes, are acceptable.— A plain and 
an easy method of distinguishing the " New- 
Jersey " from the genuine tea, even when mixed 
with it, was given in the December Agriculturist. 
Curious and Useful Notes on Lime. 
The lime we use to fertilize our fields, and to 
plaster our dwellings, is an interesting as well 
as a useful substance. Perhaps a little knowl- 
edge of what it is, and how it behaves, will in- 
vest the walls with other attractions than mere 
whiteness, and divert the attention while en- 
gaged in the disagreeable work of sowing lime 
broadcast on a windy day. If we take in our 
hand a lump of caustic or fresh burned lime 
weighing 28 ounces, we are really holding 20 
ounces of metal, which is much lighter than lead, 
and a little harder. The chemist calls this met- 
al calcium. The other 8 ounces is a substance 
named oxygen, (which makes np 8 ounces in 
every 9 ounces of pure water, and 8 ounces in 
every 64 ounces of air.) One little atom of the 
oxygen joins one atom of the calcium, forming 
what the chemist calls oxide of calcium, which 
is lime. To abbreviate it, we write CaO., the 
Ca standing for the calcium metal, and the 
for the oxygen. The calcium atom is 2i times 
heavier than the oxygen atom. The mass of 
lime we hold, is made up of innumerable pairs 
of these atoms. When a piece of wood is burn- 
ed or rots in the air, each little atom of carbon 
(coal) in U>e wood unites with two little atoms 
of oxygen in the air, and floats away unseen. 
This gas, called carbonic acid, is written C0 2 , 
the C standing for one atom of carbon or coal, 
and the 2 , for two atoms of oxygen. (It is the 
same gas that bubbles up in soda water, and the 
same that expands the holes in a loaf of bread or 
cake, or in griddle cakes, to make them light.) 
Now hold some fresh lime over the burning 
wood, and an atom of lime (CaO) will catch 
and hold an atom of the escaping carbonic 
acid (C0 2 ), and we then get a new compound 
(CaO,CO„) which is called carbonate of lime, 
made up, as you see, of calcium metal aud oxy- 
gen, with carbon and 2 more atoms of oxygen, 
—all united closely. This compound is the 
same as white chalk. A number of these atoms 
compacted into a solid mass, would make white 
marble. Color it in streaks or veins with a 
little metallic oxide, and it is the variegated 
Italian marble. Color it uniformly of a dark 
or brownish hue, and it is our common lime- 
stone. Remember, then, that challc, marble, and 
limestone, are composed of the same elements, 
differing mainly in their compactness, and in 
having a little coloring matter in the last two. 
If we strongly heat limestone, marble, or 
chalk, in a kiln, or fire, the carbonic acid (C0 2 ) 
is driven off as an invisible gas, and only lime 
(CaO) remains. This is the strong, caustic or 
fresh lime. If long exposed to the air, it ex- 
tracts from it the floating carbonic acid, and 
forms fine grains of chalky limestone again; 
new heating makes it strong or caustic again. 
This caustic or fresh lime has strong alkaline 
Qualities, like those of potash. In its effort to 
get carbonic acid for which it has a great liking 
or affinity, it destroys the flesh ; it separates the 
elements of all vegetable substances, such as 
plants, roots, muck, manures, etc., taking away 
such elements as will form carbonic acid for it 
to unite with. For this reason, we mix it with 
soils to decompose the roots and other vegetable 
matters, and thus let the atoms of the old plants 
go free to enter into and nourish new plants. 
We said that lime is an alkali, like potash and 
like soda. There is another class of some sub- 
stance having opposite properties called acids. 
Vinegar, lemon juice, and oil of vitriol, are ex- 
amples. The acids and alkalies neutralize or de- 
stroy each others' active properties, and unite 
together forming compounds (called salts), 
which are inert, often tasteless. Sour vinegar 
unites with alkaline soda, and forms a simple 
neutral salt. Almost all vegetable matters when 
decaying in the soil, especially if it be wet, 
form sour or acid substances. These dark col- 
ored acids which make a soil sour, and unfit it 
for growing plants, are called humic acid, cren- 
ic acid, etc. We add lime to neutralize or de- 
stroy them, and thus sweeten the soil. So, then, 
when sowing the lime, the farmer may be think- 
ing about the elements of the lime, its metal and 
its oxygen, and what offices it is to perform in 
the soil. Remember what is here said, and at 
another time we may talk of that other very 
different compound of lime, called plaster of 
Paris, and how it acts on the soil. 
About Mortar. — Sand, called silica by the 
chemist, is in reality a kind of acid, which unites 
with alkalies. It is made up of one atom of a 
brown substance called silicium (Si), united with 
three atoms of oxygen, thus, Si0 3 . Sand or si- 
lica and fresh lime mixed together, in time 
unite and form a hard salt, which is the mortar 
used upon the ceiling, and which cements stone 
walls. If lime has lain exposed to air a long 
time, the carbonic acid steps in and unites with 
the lime, and the silica or sand is kept out. 
This is why old air-slaked lime is not valued by 
the mason. This formula, CaO,Si0 3 , shows the 
elements united together to form mortar, that is : 
the metal calcium (Ca) and the oxygen (O) form- 
ing lime, and this united with the silica (Si), and 
the three atoms of oxygen (0 3 )— all of these 
strongly united. Has not mortar a new interest, 
thus looked at it with the chemist's eye ? 
Slaking Limb. — If we add water to fresh 
burned stone lime, every 28 pounds of lime will 
unite with 9 pounds of water, to form a new 
compound called hydrated lime. This falls to 
pieces. The condensation of the water and 
lime gives out a large amount of heat which 
was before latent or concealed. After long ex- 
posure, lime gets this water from the air, and 
falls to pieces or is air-slaked. As above ex- 
plained, the carbonic acid it gets at the same 
time, injures it for mortar, aud foi~preading on 
land. The best way is, to always get fresh 
burned lime, that which is in lumps, and not 
yet watered or carbonated by the air. — It will 
be seen also, that in every 37 lbs. of slaked 
lime a man buys, he gets 9 lbs. of water — 
quite an item where it is to be hauled any dis- 
tance. Twenty eight tons of fresh lime con- 
tains as much real lime, as 37 tons of slaked 
lime, or 50 tons of air carbonated lime. 
Make a Snow Plow. 
"D." of North Branch, N. J., sends to the 
Agriculturist the following timely suggestion : 
" I am often distressed at the amount of incon- 
venience occasioned by neglecting to open paths 
through snow, so as to secure good walking, 
not only for visitors in approaching the front 
door, but (and quite as important,) for members 
of the ...family in excursions to the wood-pile, 
barn,- cattle, pig, and poultry yards, etc. Of 
course, every body would prefer a good path, 
but it is tedious and hard work to make it, aud 
so it is too generally left among the things 
undone. I long ago adopted an expedient by 
which I turned the work into play. 
I took two pieces of inch-and-a-half plank, 
about two-and-a-half feet long, and ten inches 
wide. I beveled one end of each, so that when 
stood on edge and nailed together they present- 
ed the appearance of the letter V, flaring from 
a point at the junction towards the other ex- 
tremity of the affair, so as to give an opening 
of about two feet. I then nailed a covering, 
making a platform. I had the under edges shod 
with old wagon tire, welded at the point, and 
turned up about the thickness of the iron. One 
third of the way backward from the point I 
fastened the extremities of an iron rod bent into 
pretty much the shape of a bucket handle, in 
the center of which rod is a stationary ring for 
securing a whiffletree. 
Such is the machine. If 'the ground is all 
covered with snow' to-morrow, I need only 
hook a horse to it, mount the platform, and go 
ahead, opening a clean path to the ground. 
The permanent investment amounts to a mere 
trifle. The advantages are great. Fifteen min- 
utes are enough to make all the paths required 
on any ordinary premises, and the labor is not 
worth naming. — If one such implement were 
kept in a village, every body's paths could be 
made clear to the store, post-office, school-house, 
and church, through all ordinary snows, with- 
out back-aches or pocket-aches ; and depend 
upon it, if the thing once becomes an experi- 
ment, it will soon pass into an institution, both 
of the farm and of the neighborhood." 
["We agree with "D." that a snow plow is an 
institution which should be more common than 
it is. We recollect passing a part of a Winter 
in a country town where the paths were opened 
by a snow plow, and can testify to the thorough 
manner in which it does the work.— Ed.] 
Sheep-Farming in South America— A 
Chance for Enterprising Young Men. 
Having recently returned from the Argen- 
tine Republic, I am able to give some account 
of the extensive business of sheep-farming as it 
is carried on in the Southern Wool Zone of this 
continent, which may interest the readers of 
the American Agriculturist, particularly as wool- 
growing has of late increased so much in im- 
portance in our own country. 
The sheep-raising country of South America 
consists mainly of vast plains or " pampas," 
resembling our western prairies in extent and 
bleakness, but not in the general character of 
their herbage. The grass is green throughout 
the year, except in dry times, and is much finer 
than that of our prairies. In the Summer (No- 
vember to March) these pampas are covered by 
an immense growth of plants like thistles, the 
stalks of which are so high in some places as to 
hide a man on horseback from view. These are 
very troublesome to sheep-raisers, because they 
make it hard to watch the sheep, and because 
the burs get into the wool. In Winter the stalks 
die, and sheep and cattle eat the green leaves 
at the ground. On these plains no trees are to 
be seen, except a few. small one^around the 
houses. Streams of running water are scarce, 
hence land on the rivers is in greater demand, 
and commands a much higher price than in the 
interior. Here and there on the pampas are 
small lakes or " lagunas," where the cattle get 
water, but in time of drought, most of them dry 
