In this mode of applying lime, therefore, it is long before it yields a proper return, and is not to be recommended to a poor man, unless where neceffity obliges him to practise it.

16.

If, then, lime acts upon the foil more efficaciously in confequence of being intimately mixed with it, we may naturally conclude, that it will produce a more sensible effect when it is reduced to exceeding fmall particles, than when it is applied to the foil in larger lumps, as thefe do not admit of being fo intimately mixed with the particles of the foil.

But no method has ever yet been discovered for reducing calcareous matter to fuch fmall component parts, or of spreading it fo evenly over, or of mixing it fo intimately with the foil, as by calcination. Accor

dingly

dingly it is found, that lime will produce a very fenfible effect upon the foil when applied in infinitely fmaller quantities, than any other calcareous matter whatever.

· Confidered in this view, it can never be expected that lime-stone, reduced to powder by any kind of mechanical triture, will produce fuch a fenfible effect upon the foil, as the fame quantity of calcareous matter, in the state of lime, if properly applied; becaufe it is impoffible, by mechanical means, ever to reduce it to fuch a fine powder as it naturally falls into after calcination.

§ 17.

Much, however, depends upon the mode of applying the lime to the foil after calcination. If it is fpread as foon as it is flaked, while yet in a powdery ftate, a very small quantity may be made to cover the whole furface

furface of the ground, and to touch an exceeding great number of particles of earth. But, if it is fuffered to lie for fome time after flaking, and to get so much moifture as to make it run into clods, or cake into large lumps, it can never be again divided into fuch small parts; and therefore a much greater quantity is neceffary to produce the fame effect, than if it had been applied in its powdery state.

But if the foil is afterwards to be continued long in tillage-as these clods are annually broken smaller by the action of the plough and harrows, the lime must continue to exert its influence a-new upon the foil for a great courfe of years-it will produce an effect nearly fimilar to that which would be experienced by annually ftrewing a fmall quantity of powdered lime over the furface of the foil. But, as the price of the lime muft, in the first cafe, be paid by the farmer altogether at the beginning, which

only

only comes to be fucceffively demanded, in the other cafe-this deferves to be attended to, as it may become a confideration of fome importance where lime is dear, and money not very plenty.

$ 18.

In few particulars are practical farmers. more divided in opinion than about the quantity of lime that may be laid upon an acre of ground with profit, or even with fafety. Some require that it should be applied in fuch small quantities as thirty or forty bushels to the acre; and aver, that, if more is used, the ground will be absolutely ruined-while others maintain, that ten times that quantity may be applied with fafety.

A great variation may, no doubt, be produced in this refpect, by a difference in

the

the nature of the foil, in the ftate of culture it is under at the time,-in the quantity of calcareous matter with which it may have been formerly impregnated ;-and, perhaps, a variation may fometimes arise from other circumftances, that have never yet been attended to.

A difference will likewife arife from the quality of the lime that is applied, and from the manner in which it is employed. Some kinds of lime contain, perhaps, ten times more calcareous matter than other kinds And it has been fhowed above, that a very great difference may arife from the mode of applying the lime.

Confidering all thefe circumftances, it would appear a little prefumptuous in any one to prefcribe pofitive rules that should be generally adopted in this respect. -This I fhall not attempt-but fhall relate, with candour, fuch obfervations

as