THE CULTIVATOR. 
83 
and permit only a finer hair to escape; while, probably, some of the 
cutaneous glands concerned in the growth of the fibre cease to act. 
If, however, the animal is well fed, the diminution of the bulk of 
the fibre will not be followed by weakness or decay, but in proportion 
as the pile becomes fine, the value of the fleece will be increased ; but 
if cold and starvation should go hand in hand, the woolly fibre will not 
only diminish in bulk, but in health and strength and worth. 
The variations in the diameter of the wool in different parts of the 
fibre will also curiously correspond with the degree of heat at the time 
the respective portions were produced. The fibre of the wool, and the 
record of the meteorologist will singularly agree, if the variation in 
temperature are sufficiently distant from each other for any appreciable 
part of the fibre to grow. 
It will follow from this, that the natural tendency to produce wool of 
a certain fibre being the same, sheep in a hot climate will yield a com¬ 
paratively coarse wool, and those in a cold climate will carry a finer, 
but at the same time a closer and a warmer fleece. In proportion to 
the coarseness of the fleece will generally be its openness, and its ina¬ 
bility to resist either cold or wet ,• while the coat of softer, smaller, 
more pliable wool, will admit of no interstices between its fibres, and 
will bid defiance to frost and storms. 
The natural instinct of the sheep would seem to teach the wool-grower 
the advantage of attending to the influence of temperature on him. He 
is evidently impatient of heat. In the open districts and where no shel¬ 
ter is near, he climbs to the highest parts of his walk, that if the rays 
of the sun must still fall on him he may nevertheless be cooled by the 
breeze ; but if shelter is near, of whatever kind, every shaded spot is 
crowded with sheep. 
Lord Somerville says, “The wool of our Merino sheep after shear- 
time is hard and coarse to such a degree as to render it almost impos¬ 
sible to suppose that the same animal could bear wool so opposite in 
quality, compared to that which had been clipped from it in the course 
of the same season. As the cold weather advances, the fleeces reco¬ 
ver their soft quality.” Enough will be said in the course of the work 
respecting the duty and the propriety of giving these useful animals, 
when placed in exposed situations, someshelter from the driving storms 
of winter ; and the alteration in the fibre of the wool shows that it 
would also be advisable to provide the flock with a shade and defence 
against the fervid rays of a meridian sun in the summer months. 
A writer of high authority thus expresses himself: “ Sheep carried 
from a cold to a warmer climate soon undergo a remarkable change in 
the appearance of their fleece. From being very fine and thick, it be¬ 
comes thin and coarse ; until at length it degenerates into hair. Even 
if this change should not take place to its full extent in the invividual, 
it will infallibly do so in the course of one or two generations. The 
sheep that we see covered with hair are not therefore in reality a diffe¬ 
rent species from those that are woolly, nor is wool in its nature spe¬ 
cifically different from hair—it is only a softer and finer kind of hair. 
The effect of heat is nearly the same on the hairs of other animals. 
The same species that in Russia, Siberia, and North America, produce 
the most beautiful and valuable furs, have nothing in the warmer cli¬ 
mates, but a coarse and thin covering of hair .”—British Husbandry. 
EXTRACTS. 
ON THE USE OF LIME AS A MANURE— By M. Ptrvis. 
Translated for the Farmers’ Register from the Armales de F Agriculture Fran- 
caise, of 1835 .—( Continued from page 69.) 
FLEMISH LIMING. 
13. The use of calcareous manures in the department of the North, 
as in Belgium, appears to be as old as good farming. It is now much 
less frequent in Belgium. The ancient and repeated limings have, as 
it seems, furnished to great part of the soil, all that is necessary to it, 
for the present. But the department of the North still receives lime, 
marl, or ashes, every where, or nearly so, where lime is not a compo¬ 
nent ingredient of the soil. They distinguish in this country two kinds 
of liming. The first [chantage fonder'] consists in giving to the soil, 
every 10 or 12 years, before seed time, four cubic metres, or 40 hecto¬ 
litres of lime to the hectare.* They often mix with the slaked lime, 
ashes of bituminous coal, or of peat, which enter into the mixture in 
the proportion of from a third to a half, and take the place of an equal 
quantity of lime. The other mode of liming [chaulage d’assolement,] is 
given in compost, and at every renewal of the rotation, or upon the 
crop of spring grain. It is also in regular use in this country, still more 
than in Belgium, upon the meadows on cold pasture lands, which do 
not receive the waters of irrigation. It warms the ground and increases 
and improves its products. The older the compost is, the greater its 
effect, which lasts from 15 to 20 years, at the end of which time the 
dressing is renewed. 
14. The limings of Normandy, the most ancient of France, are kept 
* 46 bushels to the acre, English or American measure.—T r. 
up in the neighborhood of Bayeux, while elsewhere they are forbidden 
in the leases: however, now they go over all the surface which has 
need of them; but in place of being applied immediately to the soil, as 
in the ancient method, the lime is almost always put in compost 
LIMING OF LA SARTHE. 
15. Of the mode of using lime, that of La Sarthe seems preferable. 
It is at once economical and productive, and secures the soil from all 
exhaustion. It is given every three years, at each renewal of the rola- 
tation, in the average quantity of 10 hectolitres to the hectare,* in 
compost made in advance, with seven or eight parts of mould, or of 
good earth, to one of lime. They use this compost on the land for 
the autumn sowing, and placed alternately with rows of farmyard 
manure. This method, of which the success is greater from day to 
day, is extending on the great body of flat argilo-silicious lands, which 
border the Loire; and it would seem that this method ought to be 
adopted every where, on open soils that permit surplus water to drain 
off easily. On very moist soils the dose of lime ought perhaps to be 
increased. 
We would desire much to inculcate with force the suitableness and 
eminent advantages, of using at the same time lime and [alimentry] 
manure. Here they do better still, in using at the same time a com¬ 
post of lime with earth and dung. In addition, during the half century 
that the Manceaux have been liming, the productiveness of the soil has 
not ceased to increase. 
16. The countries of which we have spoken, are those of France in 
which liming is most general. However, more than half the depart¬ 
ments, I think, have commenced the use, and in a sixth, or nearly, it 
seems to be established. Doubtless, the first trials do not succeed every 
where. There is required a rare combination of conditions for new 
experiments, even when they have succeeded, to induce their imitation 
by the great mass. Still, successful results are multiplied, and become 
the centres of impulse, from which meliorations extend. 
ENGLISH LIMING. 
17. The English limings seem to be established upon quite another 
principle from that of France. They are given with such prodigality, 
that the melioration upon the limed soil has no need to be renewed af¬ 
terwards. Whilst in France we are content to give from a thousandth 
to a hundredth of lime to the tillable soil, from 10 to 100 hectolitres to 
the hectare, they give in England from one to six hundredths, or from 
100 to 600 hectolitres to the hectare. The full success of the method 
of our country might make us regard the English method as an unne¬ 
cessary waste. It seems that they sacrifice a capital five, six, ten times 
greater, without obtaining from it a result much superior; and that 
without lavishing [alimentary] manures also afterwards, the future 
value of the soil would be endangered in the hands of a greedy culti¬ 
vator. 
We will not urge the condemnation of a practice which seems to 
have resulted in few inconveniences. The abundance of alimentary 
manures which the English farmer gives to his [limed] soils, has 
guarded against exhaustion: and then, in very moist ground, they have 
doubtless by the very heavy liming, made the soil healthy, and its na¬ 
ture seems modified for a long time to come; and such kinds, and 
where humus abounds, will take up a heavy dose of lime, and, as it 
seems, always without inconvenient consequences; there is then form¬ 
ed there the humate of lime in the greatest proportion, and we shall see 
that this combination is a great means of productiveness in the soil. 
SURFACE LIMING. 
18. In Germany, where liming and marling, like most other agricul¬ 
tural improvements, have recently made great advances, besides the 
ordinary modes of application, lime is used as a surface dressing. 
They sprinkle over the rye, in the spring, a compost containing 8 to 10 
hectolitres of lime to the hectare, fifteen days after having sown clover. 
Also on the clover of the preceding year, they apply lime in powder, 
which has been slaked In the water of a dunghill, the dose being less 
by one half; the effect upon the clover and the following crop of wheat 
is very advantageous. 
In Flanders where they use lime mixed with ashes, it is especially 
applied to meadows, natural or artificial, and the application is then 
made on the surface. 
BURNING LIME. 
19. The burning of lime is performed with wood, with pit coal, or 
with peat; in temporary kilns, or furnaces, in permanent, or in per¬ 
petual kilns. It is burned in many places most economically with coal, 
but it is not so good a manure as the lime burned with wood, because, 
as it seems, of the potash contained in the latter case. There are but 
few places in which peat is used for this purpose; however, in Prussia 
they succeed with three-fourths peat and one-fourth wood. It is, doubt¬ 
less, a very economical process, and the Societe d’ Encouragement has 
given in its transactions plans of peat kilns; but I know not whether 
the operators who received prizes for their use have continued the 
practice. _ 
* 111 bushels to the acre.—T r. 
