--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. XIX. SOILS AND FERTILIZERS.