SOUTHEKN CULTIVATOR. 
163 
I had drawn off his clothes to take a bathe ; he put his shirt 
in on a bush and his pants on the ground. This last, Messrs 
I Editors, was a firm foundation- There sprung up a squall 
P of wind, however, that lifted his shirt high in the air. The 
i| little fellow concluded to save his pants, and put them on, 
^ij but did not want to lose his shirt and started running af er 
k that; unfortunately he kept his head a little too high and 
J got into a briar patch and lost his breeches also. This 
I was precisely the case with the man I sold out in Tusca- 
1 loosa county, Ala. In endeavoring to save all, he lost all; 
} when he might, at one time, by selling off a part o( his 
I property, saved a good living ; and Dr Philips’ plan leads 
Ti to the same end. In trying to make a large crop without 
ithe means of gathering it, he injures his hands frequently 
I more than his crop is worth after being badly gathered. 
I 1 agree with Dr. Philips in one thing, and that is: we 
Uhould all raise our own mules, although this part of my 
I duty, as a Southern Planter, I have not carried out, and 
! I have had to buy frequently. I need not have done 
so, however, had I done right, 
r In conclusion, Messrs. Editors, admitting that the capi- 
; tal invested was the same in the doctor’s plan and mine, 
! I will attempt to prove mine the best. MMiy 1 Because 
: I make my own provisions plentifully, and frequently 
i have some to spare, and if I should not make as much 
cotton I have more time to gather it clean and get more 
! for it than those overgrown crops badly saved, and the 
; work of the hand and mule is nearer equalized ; if either, 
i however, has the preference I give it to the hand, and it 
j gives us more time, as I have said before, to improv^e the 
plantation by manuring, ditching, building, &c. I com- 
1 menced wdth those large crops agd quit them 20 years 
ago, as bad policy. This gambling w^ay of risking every- 
i thing for a large crop without the means of gathering it, 
I leads to no good. 
I admit, INIessrs. Editor, that T have taken a wide range 
in bringing my views before your readers, but I have pre- 
, cedents for it, as I have known some to commence in 
; Genesis and end in Revelations and some out of the lids of 
the Bible; and if I have got out, it is owing to my great 
■ anxiety not to put the temptation of over cropping before 
. young planters. ’Very respectfully, 
E, JlXKINS. 
Horse Pen, Chncfav: Cn., 3'Iiss., March, 185G. 
LIME-HO’W AND WHEN TO USE IT*-S0AP 
Editors Southern Cultivator — As long as I have 
seen and read the Cultivator, I have yet to learn the man- 
: ner and practice of applying Lime as a manure on corn, 
&c. Is it to be sown broadcast and plow’ed ini If yea, 
when and how on light land 1 or is it mixed in with lot 
! manure 1 Any information from you or from any of 
your experienced correspondents will be thankfully re- 
ceived. 
I saw and read, sometime last year, (I don’t think it was 
in the Cultivator, as I have just looked over all the num- 
bers) a recipe for making soap ; it said six pounds potash, 
four pounds lard, and one-fourth pound rosin. In the 
! January number (.1856), your remarks to “Dora,” you 
' , say four pounds rosin. Surely one or the other must be 
i a mistake, please correct it, as I am anxious to try it. 
i Cupio. 
' March, 1856. 
Remarks. — Lime is used in a variety of ways for the 
! improvement of land, but not often as a “manure applied 
I to corn.” Too many soils lack other elements of fertility 
\ as well as lime, which the use of the latter fails to supply, 
1 for that mineral to take the place of the dung of animals 
as the food of plants. They require many substances, of 
. which lime is but one. Guarding the reader against un- 
reasonable expectations, we proceed to state that slacked 
lime, like ground plaster of Paris, ashes, and small grain, 
may be sown by hand broadcast over a field, at the rate 
of from five to thirty bushels per acre. If more is to be 
applied, put down one, two, three or four bushels in 
heaps eleven yards apart each way to be spread with a 
shovel. One bushel per eleven yards, or two rods each 
way, is forty to the acre; two bushels, eighty ; three, one 
hundred and twenty, and four, a bushel to the rod, or one 
hundred and sixty. On reclaimed, sour, swamp land, 
abounding in vegetable matter, as much as one thousand 
bushels per acre of uhslacked lime have been applied. 
There is, however, no advantage in making an artifical 
marl bed. 
The cost of lime, the condition of the soil in reference 
to organic matter, acidity and the crops to be grown, 
govern the use of the mineral in all agricultural operations. 
Tbe writer recently visited Athens to purchase a few 
bushels to mix with common wood ashes and apply to his 
corn, after the common practice in New York; but he 
did not buy, because the price charged for lime was a 
dollar a bushel. A friend paid five dollars for a barrel. 
At such a cost, the less lime one uses the better. 
Where the mineral constituents of corn or cotton are 
deficient, a compound of ashes, lime and salt is a valuable 
fertilizer. Three bushels of ashes, one of slacked lime and 
half a bushel of salt form the mass used by the writer. 
From five to twenty bushels per acre may be scattered by 
hand from wooden buckets, over hills of corn. All the 
ingredients being involatile, they lose nothing by exposure 
on the ground. Rains and dews dissolve them, and con- 
vey them into the soil. In the valley of Connecticut, 
farmers have told us that they paid as high as forty cents 
a bushel lor wood ashes to apply to their corn and broom 
corn. If we could have but one, we should prefer a bushel 
of ashes to one of lime, for any crop. The earthy matter 
taken out of the soil by a growing tree and a growing 
corn plant is not very dissimilar. Hence, the ashes of 
maize would promote the growth of forest trees and fruit 
trees; while commom wood ashes have been used for 
ages to increase the growth of grain. 
Lime is best applied in autumn, winter or spring. Its 
heating nature renders its use in summer injurious to ten- 
der vegetation, if recently burned and slacked. After it 
has imbibed carbonic acid from the air, it is harmless, and 
devoid of causticity. Hence a soil may contain 80 per 
cent of chalk, or carbonate of lime, and yet bear large 
crops of grain and grass. 
It is not important to plow in lime, although the usual 
pructice, because rains dissolve it before long and take it 
into the soil. 
English farmers complain of the sinking of lime too 
deeply into the ground, when applied in large doses. In 
all after-tillage, of course, the calcareous matter is mixed 
intimately with the sand, clay and mould, till it wholly 
disappears. Experience has shown the wisdom of fre- 
quently adding lime in small doses, to cultivated land, 
rather than in large doses at long intervals. As in the 
use of common yard manure much depends on the state 
