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be necessary. But) if an open soil have as much calcareous mat-ter mixed in its pores as to enable it better to retain water,additional lime, as it mouldered into the condition of decay-ed plaster, would excite an improper porosity, and thus dimi-nish the fertility of the soil. . The quality of the soil must there-fore regulate the quantity of lime, as well as the repeated addi-tions necessary: for strongly cohesive soils, a greater quantity ormore frequent repetitions, to check the constant tendency of theparticles to coalesce, may not only be safe, but advantageous;whereas large or frequent repeated applications would ruin openporous soils.
The application of lime has had such important effects, andhas so much occupied the industry and attention of the ruralpart of the nation, that it has been thought requisite to enterlargely into the foregoing inquiry, as well to warn the public toexpect no more from the use of it than it is qualified to effect,as to excite more accurate investigation on this important sub-ject, which is still but imperfectly known. This prolix disser-tation may now be concluded with the following corollaries.
1st. Before the application of lime, the lands should be suf-ficiently drained and freed from water, which counteracts its o-peration in altering the construction of the soil ;
2d. Lime should be spread while it is still in a powdery state,being then best adapted to mix intimately with the other ingre-dients of the soil ;
3d. There are soils, the ingredients of which are so modified,and the whole so happily blended, as to possess naturally all theaptitude to fertility, which the application of lime can commu-nicate to soils less fortunately constituted. On such, the appli-cation of lime is probably unnecessary expense ;
4th. If a soil be so destitute of vegetable aliment as not toproduce a close cover of herbage over its surface, it will be invain to apply lime, unless accompanied, or preceded, by a largequantity of putrescible matters.
2d. Non-Calcareous _Exclusive of all the arts and applica-
tions of human industry, it is well known that there are soilswhich naturally possess a greater aptitude to fertility than o-thers. Sometimes these different shades of fertility are disco-verable by inspection, and sometimes they are mote incompre-hensible. Natural fertility, however, appears, in some degree,to consist in earths which have lain and been modified in a dif-ferent manner, being mixed and blended together. Thus, if athin layer of earth (even less fertile than that on which it islaid) be spread on the surface of a field, and the two well mixedtogether, that ground will evince a greater degree of fertilitythan before. The same may be observed after any overturningof the surface, provided the upper soil have not been buried.Hence, too, the natural fertility of water-formed soils, where