ALKALIS ... SALT—ASHES—LIME.
I do not know a rood of our country's surface so rich in all the materials which enter into the production of the Grains, Grasses, Fruits, and Vegetables, which are the objects and rewards of cultivation, that it could not be improved by the application of fertilizers; if there be such, I heartily congratulate the owners, and advise them not to sell. Nor do I believe that there are many acres so fertile that they would not produce more Indian Corn, more Hemp, more Cotton, and more of whatever may be their appropriate staple, if judiciously fertilized. If there be farms or fields originally so good that manure would not increase their yield, I am confident that the first half-dozen crops will have taken that conceit out of them. Prairies and river-bottoms may yield ever so bounteously; but that very luxuriance of growth insures their gradual exhaustion of certain elements of crops, which must needs be replaced or their product will dwindle. Whoever has sold a thousand bushels of grain, or its equivalent in meat, from his farm, has thereby impoverished that farm, unless he has applied something that balances its loss. "I perceive that virtue has gone out of me," observed the Saviour, because the hem of his garment had been touched; and every field that had been cropped might make a similar report whenever its annual loss by abstraction has not been balanced by some kind of fertilizer. The farmer who grows the largest crops is the most merciless exhauster of the soil, unless he balances his annual drafts (as good farmers rarely fail to do) by at least equal reënforcements of the productive capacity of his fields.
The good farmer begins by inquiring, "Wherein was my soil originally deficient? and of what has it been exhausted by subsequent crops?" I judge that my gravelly hill-sides would reward the application of two hundred loads (or tuns) of pure clay per acre, as I think the clay flats which border Lake Champlain would pay for a like application of sand or fine gravel where that material is found in convenient proximity; and yet, I know very well that, on at least three-fourths of our country's area, such application would cost far more than it would be worth. Every farmer must act on his knowledge of his soil and its peculiar needs, and not blindly follow the dictum of another. Yet I know few farms which, were they mine, I would not consider enhanced in value by a vigorous application of some alkaline substance—Lime, Salt, Ashes, or some of the cheaper Nitrates. I should be very glad to apply one thousand bushels of good house-made, hard-wood Ashes to my twenty acres of arable upland, if I could buy them, delivered, at twenty five cents per bushel; but they are not to be had. I doubt that there are a hundred acres of warm, dry, gravelly or sandy soil east of the Alleghanies that would not amply reward a similar application. But Ashes in quantity are unattainable, since no good farmer sells them, and Coal is the chief fuel of cities and villages. The Marls of New-Jersey I judge fully equal in average value to Ashes which have been nearly deprived of their potash by leaching, but not quite half equal, bushel for bushel, to unleached Ashes. I judge that average Marl is worth 10 cents per bushel where Ashes may be had for 25. But Marl is found only in a few localities, and a material worth but 10 cents per bushel will not bear transportation beyond 40 miles by wagon or 200 by water. Salt is only found or made at a few points, and is too dear for general use as a fertilizer. Where the refuse product of Salt-Works can be cheaply bought, good farmers will eagerly compete for it, if their lands at all resemble mine. I judge the tun of Potash I ordered fifteen years ago from Syracuse, paying $50 and transportation, was the cheapest fertilizer I ever bought. It was so impregnated with Salt (from the boiling over of the salt-kettles into the ashes) as to be worthless for other than agricultural purposes; but I mixed it with a large pile of Muck that I had recently dug, and, six or eight months thereafter, applied the product to a very poor, gravelly hill-side which I had just broken up; and the immediate result was a noble crop of Corn. That hill-side has not yet forgotten the application.
—If I should try to explain just how and why Lime is a fertilizer, I should probably fail; and I am well assured that liming has in some cases been overdone; yet I think most observers will concur in my statement that any region which has been limed year after year produces crops of noticeable excellence. I cite as examples Chester and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania, with Stark and adjacent counties of Ohio. Possibly, results equally gratifying might be secured by applying some other substance; I only know that frequently limed lands are generally good lands, as their crops do testify. I heartily wish that the flat clay intervales of Western Vermont could have a fair trial of the virtues of liming. I should expect to see them thereby rendered friable and arable; no longer changing speedily from the semblance of tar to that of brick, but readily plowed and tilled, and yielding liberally of Grain as well as Grass. I am confident that most farms in our country will pay for liming to the extent of fifty bushels per acre where the cost of quick-lime does not exceed ten cents per bushel; and most farmers, by taking, hot from the kiln, the refuse lime that is deemed unfit for building purposes, can obtain it cheaper than that.
I wish some farmer who gives constant personal attention to his work—as I cannot—would make some careful tests of the practical value of alkalis. For instance: the abundance and tenacity of our common sorrel is supposed to indicate an acid condition of the soil; and all who have tried it know that sorrel is hard to kill by cultivation. I suggest that whoever is troubled with it should cover two square rods with one bushel of quick-lime just after plowing and harrowing this Spring; then apply another bushel to four square rods adjacent; then make similar applications of ashes to two and four square rods respectively, taking careful note of the boundaries of each patch, and leaving the rest of the field destitute of either application. I will not anticipate the result: more than one year may be required to evolve it; but I am confident that a few such experiments would supply data whereof I am in need; and there are doubtless others whose ignorance is nearly equal to mine.
Many have applied Lime to their fields without realizing any advantage therefrom. In some cases, there was already a sufficiency of this ingredient in the soil, and the application of more was one of those many wasteful blunders induced by our ignorance of Chemistry. But much Lime is naturally adulterated with other minerals, especially with Manganese, so that its application to most if not to all soils subserves no good end. In the absence of exact, scientific knowledge, I would buy fifty bushels of quick-lime, apply them to one acre running through a field, and watch the effect. If it doesn't pay, you have a bad article, or your soil is not deficient in Lime.