THE CULTIVATOR. 
129 
are increased in a striking' manner: the.' soil of the first named, (or 
lower) quality reaches the product of the second—the second rises one- 
half or more—and that of the best (of the manured soils) increases a 
fourth. Thus, our scale of product becomes 130,200,300 quintals—and 
deducing the manure, 106,152,236 quintals, for the two years of the ro¬ 
tation. The most fertile soil (sol d’exception) cannot.receive lime be¬ 
neficially, because it contains it already; these lands all belong to al¬ 
luvions, where tlie calcareous principle has almost always been found 
in greater or less proportion. 
35. The product of fixed principles [as ashes] in the three classes of 
limed soils, would be 559,868,129 pounds, and in soluble salts 278,- 
430,645 pounds, and, deducting the soluble salts of the manure, the 
quanties would be 230,334,525. A linht addition of lime has then 
doubled the force of absorption, and almost tripled the quantity of sa¬ 
line principles produced. One of the most remarkable effects of lime 
consists then, in making a soil produce a much greater proportion of 
sa ine principles: and if the experiments of M. Lecoq upon the efficacy 
of saline substances on vegetation are to be admitted, it would be in 
part to the phenomenon of their production that lime would owe its 
fertilizing effect. 
36. It results from what precedes, that salts are formed in the soil or 
in vegetables: thus we see every day the nitrates of potash and of lime 
form under our eyes in the soil, or elsewhere, without any thing- indi¬ 
cating to us the origin of the potash which is contained. But potash 
itself again forms spontaneously indrawn ashes, according to the ob¬ 
servations of the chemist Gelhen. We see salts also renewed in the 
artificial nitre beds, with the aid of moisture and exposure to the air. 
But it is the presence of lime that determines this formation more par¬ 
ticularly. The nitrates abound in the ruins of demolished edifices; 
they are formed in the walls, and in all parts of houses situated 
principles, in all the parts of the soil which receive the atmospheric 
influences. 
But salts are also formed in plants; The nitrate of potash, which 
takes the place of sugar in the beet—the oxalate of potash, so abun¬ 
dant in sorrel—the carbonate of potash in fern, in the tops of potatoes, 
and in almost all vegetables in the first period of their life—the sul¬ 
phate of potash in tobacco—the nitrate of potash in turnsole and in 
pellitory—prove, without reply, that vegetation forms salts as it forms 
the proper juices of plants, since the soil contains the one kind no 
more than the other. But can we say where plants take the elements 
necessary for all these formations? They can take them only in the 
soil by means of their roots, or in the atmosphere—in the soil, which 
would itself take them in the atmosphere, in proportion to the con¬ 
sumptions of plants—or directly in the atmosphere by means of their 
leaves, which would there gather these elements. And if the analyses 
of the soils, and of the atmosphere, show almost none of these ele¬ 
ments, it will be necessary to conclude from it that the substances 
which analysis has found there, are themselves, or would furnish if de¬ 
composed, the elements of the saline substances, although science may 
not yet have taught us the means of reaching that end. 
39. The formation of lime, like thalof the saline principles necessary 
to plants, is an operation which employs all the forces of vegetation— 
and these forces, directed to this formation, have no energy left to give a 
great development to plants : but when the vegetable finds the calcare¬ 
ous principles already formed in the soil, it makes use of them, and 
preserves all its forces to increase its own vigor and size. 
It would then result, from all that has been sai l, that lime modifies 
the texture of the soil—makes it more friable—invigorates it—r.-n e s 
it more permeable—gives it the power to better resist moisture as well 
as dryness—that it produces in the soil the liumate of lime which en 
damp places; they effloresce on the buildings of chalk in Champagne; | closes a powerful means of fertility—that lime increases much the 
they are produced spontaneously in the ploughed lands of the kingiomj energy of the soil and of plants to draw from the atmosphere the vola- 
of Murcia. The effect, which wfe see that the calcareous principle pro- \ tile substances of which plants are composed, oxygen, hydrogen, car- 
dnees every where, we think it produces in all the soils to which it isj bon and azote—that the limed soil in furnishing to plants the lime 
given, and where meet the circumstances which favor the formation of. which they need, relieves the soil and plants from employing their 
nitrates, viz: humidity, vegetable mould, and exposure to the air. But, ! powers to produce it—and finally, that lirne promotes the formation of 
according to the experiments of M. Lecoq anl others, and the opinion fixed substances, earthy or saline, necessary to vegetables. All t is 
which is established of the old agriculturists, the nitrates are the most whole of reciprocal action and reaction of lime, on the soil, plants, and 
fertilizing salts; It would be then to their formation, which it pro- atmosphere, explains in a plausible manner its fertilizing properties, 
motes in the soil, that lime owes, in part, its effect on vegetation. || We would, consequently, have nearly arrived at the resolving of an 
37. The foreogoing proofs of the daily formation in the soil, and by: important agricultural problem, upon which were accumulated all 
vegetable life, of saline and earthy compounds, taken in nature an I on these doubts. 
a great scale, are doubtless sufficient: but they may still be supported] the amount of lime taken up by vegetation. 
by the experiments and opinions of able men who have adopted the | 40. The ashes of plants from calcareous soils, or those which have 
same system. j been made so by manures, contain thirty per cent, of the carbonate and 
And first—in the experiment of Van Helmont, in five years, a willow phosphate of lime, which by taking ,ff the crop is lost to the soil. But 
of five pounds grew to weigh 169, and had cafised a loss of only two th« product of limed land^f middle quality is during the two years of 
ounces to the soil which bore it. But the 164 pounds which the willow the course of crops, about 20,000 pounds of dry products to the hectare, 
had taken contained five pounds of ashes, which are due entirely to w " lc “ cot j lai ” a litt.e less than a hectolitre of lime in the calcareous 
absorption, since the leaves and the other droppings of five years, which compounds of the ashes. The vegetation has then used half a hecto- 
- which litre a year. But we have shown 
were not saved, would have given at least one pound of ashes. 
that there was necessary, on an ave- 
makes up for, besides all that which, in spite of the sheet of lead which ra ? e > , tliree hectolitres per hectare each y ear. Vegetation then does 
covered the top of the vessel in which the willow grew, it might have take up, in nature but a sixth of the lime which is given profita- 
received in the waterings, and from other fortuitous circumstances. I bly to the soil; the other five-sixths are lost, are carried away by the 
Boyle has repeated and confirmed this experiment in all its parts. : water, descend to the lower beds of earth, are combined, or serve to 
Lampadius, in different isolated compartments, some filled with alu-j 
mine, others with silex, other with [carbonate of] lime, all pure, has 
made plants to grow, of which the burning has yielded to analysis lj&e 
results; and which, consequently, contained earths which were not in 
the soils which bore them. 
Saussure, in establishing that plants do not take in the soil more than 
a twentieth of their substance, in extract of mould and in carbonic acid, 
has necessarily established, by the same means, that almost the whole 
amount of fix- d principles do not proceed from the'soil 
form other compounds, perhaps even the saline compounds, of which 
we have seen that lime so powerfully favors the formation. Another 
portion, also, without doubt, remains in -the soil, and serves to form 
this reserve, which in the end dispenses, for many years, with the re¬ 
petition of liming. 
OF THE EXHAUSTION OF THE SOIL BY LIMING. 
41. “ Lime,” it is said, “only enriches the old men ; or it enriches fa¬ 
thers and ruins sons.” This is indeed what experience proves, when, on 
light soils, limed heavily, or without composts coming bet ween, suc- 
Bracannot has analyzed lichens, which contained more than half, cessive grain crops have been made without rest, without alternations 
their weight of oxalate of lime—and he has observed others covered 
with crusts of carbonate of lime, when there was none of this earth in 
the neighborhood. 
Shrader, in burning plants grown in substances which did not con¬ 
tain any earthy principle, has found in their ashes, earths and salts 
which were neither in the seeds sown, nor in the pulverized matters 
in which the plants grew. 
Lastly—the analyses of Saussure, though showing more of the car¬ 
bonate of lime in the ashes of plants which grew on calcareous soils 
than on soils not calcareous, yet, nevertheless, they formed more than 
a sixth of the ashes from vegetables on silicious soils—and Einhcff has 
found sixty-five per cent of lime in the ashes of pines grown on silicious 
soil. The labors of science then confirm what we have above esta¬ 
blished, that plants, or the soil, form salts and earths. 
38. The fertilizing effect of fallow, or ploughing, of moving and 
working the soils, prove still more that all these circumstances deter¬ 
mine the formation of fertilizing principles, and probably of saline 
of grass crops, or without giving to the soil alimentary manures in sui¬ 
table proportion. It is also what has happened when magnesia, mixed 
with lime, has carried to the soil its exhausting stimulus. But when 
lime has been used in moderation—when, without overburdening the 
land tvith exhausting crops, they have been alternated with green crops 
—and when manure has been given in proportion to the products taken 
off—the prudent cultivator then sees continue the new fecundity which 
the lime has brought, without the soil showing any sign of exhaustion. 
No where has there been complaint made of argillaceous soils being 
damaged by lime; and the productiveness of light soils is sustained in 
every case that the lime was used in compost. 
In America, where the lime of oyster shells has taken the place of 
that of magnesian limestone, the complaints of the exhausting effects 
of lime have ceased. 
HEALTHINESS GIVEN TO THE SOIL AND TO THE COUNTRY BY CALCARE¬ 
OUS AGENTS. 
42. The unhealthiness of a country is not caused by the aecumula- 
