Elements of agricultural chemistry and geology

by Jas. F. W. Johnston

4. Further, quicklime has the advantage of being soluble in cold water, and thus the complete diffusion of it through the soil is aided by the power of water to carry it in solution in every direction.

5. When it has absorbed carbonic acid, and become reconverted into carbonate, the original caustic lime has no chemical virtue over chalk, rich shell-sand or marl, or crushed limestone. It has, however, the important mechanical advantage of being in the form of a far finer powder, than any to which we could reduce the limestone by art—in consequence of which it can be more uniformly diffused through the soil, and placed within the reach of every root, and of almost every particle, of vegetable matter that is undergoing decay. I shall mention only three of the important purposes which, in this state of carbonate, lime serves upon the land.

1. It directly affords food to the plant, which, as we have seen, languishes where lime is not attainable. It serves also to convey other food to the roots in a state in which it can be made available to vegetable growth.

2. It neutralizes (removes the sourness) of all acid substances as they are formed in the soil, and thus keeps the land in a condition to nourish the tenderest plants. This is one of the important agencies of shell-sand when laid on undrained grass lands—and this effect it produces in common with wood-ashes, and many similar substances.

3. During the decay of organic matter in the soil, it aids and promotes the production of nitric acid,—so influential, as I believe, in the general vegetation of the globe ([see page 35]). With this acid it combines and forms nitrate of lime—a substance very soluble in water—entering readily, therefore, into the roots of plants, and producing upon their growth effects precisely similar to those of the now well known nitrate of soda. The success of frequent ploughings, harrowings, hoeings, and other modes of stirring the land, is partly owing to the facilities which these operations afford to the production of this and other natural nitrates.

SECTION VII.—OF THE IRRIGATION OF THE LAND.

The irrigation of the land is, in general, only a more refined method of manuring it. The nature of the process itself, however, is different in different countries, as are also the kind and degree of effect it produces, and the theory by which these effects are to be explained.

In dry and arid climates, where rain rarely falls, the soil may contain all the elements of fertility, and require only water to call them into operation. In such cases, as in the irrigations practised so extensively in eastern countries, and without which, whole provinces in Africa and Southern America would lie waste, it is unnecessary to suppose any other virtue in irrigation than the mere supply of water it affords to the parched and cracking soil.

But in climates such as our own, there are two other beneficial purposes in reference to the soil, which irrigation may, and one at least of which it always does, serve.

2. The occasional flow of pure water over the surface, as in our irrigated meadows, and its descent into the drains, where the drainage is perfect, washes out acid and other noxious substances naturally generated in the soil, and thus purifies and sweetens it. The beneficial effect of such washing will be readily understood in the case of peat lands laid down to water meadow, since, as every one knows, peat soils abound in matters unfavourable to general vegetation, and which are usually in part drawn off by drainage, and in part destroyed by lime and by exposure to the air, before boggy lands can be brought into profitable cultivation.