ACTION OF LIME AS A MANURE. 
*5 
applied, and also because its proportion varies in the course 
of the decomposition. 
The analytical methods applied in the above researches did 
not admit of a separate determination of organic matter and 
combined water, wherefore the final results given in the last 
table comprise the loss of both these substances and are valid 
for the organic matter alone, only if the amount of combined 
water in the mixtures did not alter in the experiment. This 
supposition must indeed be admitted as valid because any 
appreciable alterations in the amount of combined water could 
not have been caused otherwise than by the entrance of lime 
into the constitution of silicates. Such however did not take 
place in the case in point because the proportion of organic 
matter in the soils and carbon dioxide produced was so large 
in the experiment that it sufficed to speedily neutralize the 
calcium hydrate applied. We find, indeed, in the mixture 
of dry land soil with soy beans and lime after two weeks 
standing, so much carbon dioxide (2.27 calculated to the 
original substance) that it even surpassed the quantity (2.00%) 
which was required to convert the whole lime into carbonate 
(CaC 0 3 ). In this form the lime could not easily affect the 
constitution of the silicates, and accordingly it could not alter 
the proportion of combined water. In the course of time 
some of the carbonate was decomposed, most probably by the 
organic acids existing in the humus and originating in the 
further decay of it as well as in that of the soy beans.—The 
above figures showing the loss of solid materials from the 
mixture, accordingly also yield reliable information as to the 
decomposition of the organic matter in the soils. We may 
deduce from them the following conclusions : 
(1) Lime accelerates the decomposition of organic matters 
in both dry land and irrigated paddy soils. 
(2) This action is accomplished in dry land to a far larger 
extent than in irrigated soils. 
(3) In general, the organic matter is decomposed in dry 
soils more rapidly than in irrigated ones. 
