2 
ACTION OF LIME AS A MANURE. 
secured a satisfactory yield before he resorted to heavy doses 
of lime, no longer suffices for a good produce unless he 
applies lime too. He, moreover, knows that, if he discontinues 
the use of lime, he must supply his fields with a larger 
dose of more expensive manures, which his circumstances 
unfortunately do not generally permit. When in feudal times 
local governments prohibited the use of lime, the farmers 
tried to evade punishment by liming their fields in the 
night. 
Experience has long ago taught the European farmers the 
valuable lesson that lime is an exhaustive manure, the fre¬ 
quent application of which impoverishes the land. German 
farmers say: “frequent liming makes the father rich but 
the son poor” or “the lime cart must be followed by the 
manure cart,” and in England people are familiar with the 
proverb : 
“ Lime and lime without manure, 
Makes the son and father poor.” 
Complete infertility as a consequence of overliming, has 
indeed been experienced also in Japan in several localities; and 
other districts will doubtless suffer ere long. No time should 
therefore be lost in enlightening the agricultural population with 
reference to the ruinous consequences of frequent liming, and 
inducing the farmers to entirely cease using this manure or, 
at least, to resort to it only every 3 or 4 years, except, of course, 
in special cases in which it is applied to cure sour land, to 
diminish the stiffness of heavy clay soils, or to make coarse 
sand less porous, etc. 
It is peculiar that not only is the crop feeding power of the 
soil impaired by lime but that it also deteriorates the rice crop. 
According to information obtained through Mr. D. Sato, a 
graduate of our college now on the staff of the Tochigi prefect¬ 
ure at Utsunomiya, the stems become, in consequence of too 
much lime, less flexible, being liable to be broken down by the 
wind ; wherefore the straw is rendered unfit for various braiding 
industries. The grain is even more affected than the straw. 
