Page:EB1911 - Volume 25.djvu/366

Rh

capillarity of the soil by binding sands together somewhat and by opening up clays. If applied in too great an amount to light soils and peat land it may do much damage by rendering them too loose and open. The addition of small quantities of lime, especially in a caustic form, to stiff greasy clays makes them much more porous and pliable. A lump of clay, which if dried would become hard and intractable, crumbles into pieces when dried after adding to it ½% of lime. The lime causes the minute separate particles of clay to flocculate or group themselves together into larger compound grains between which air and water can percolate more freely. It is this power of creating a more crumbly tilth on stiff clays that makes lime so valuable to the farmer. Lime also assists in the decomposition of the organic matter or humus in the soil and promotes nitrification; hence it is of great value after green manuring or where the land contains much humus from the addition of bulky manures such as farm-yard dung. This tendency to destroy organic matter makes the repeated application of lime a pernicious practice, especially on land which contains little humus to begin with. The more or less dormant nitrogen and other constituents of the humus are made immediately available to the succeeding crop, but the capital of the soil is rapidly reduced, and unless the loss is replaced by the addition of more manures the land may become sterile. Although good crops may follow the application of lime, the latter is not a direct fertilizer or manure and is no substitute for such. Its best use is obtained on land in good condition, but not where the soil is poor. When used on light dry land it tends to make the land drier, since it destroys the humus which so largely assists in keeping water in the soil. Lime is a base and neutralizes the acid materials present in badly drained meadows and boggy pastures. Weeds, therefore, which need sour conditions for development are checked by liming and the better grasses and clovers are encouraged. It also sets free potash and possibly other useful plant food-constituents of the soil. Liming tends to produce earlier crops and destroys the fungus which causes finger-and-toe or club-root among turnips and cabbages.

Land which contains less than about ½% of lime usually needs the addition of this material. The particular form in which lime should be applied for the best results depends upon the nature of the soil. In practice the proximity to chalk pits or lime kilns, the cost of the lime and cartage, will determine which is most economical. Generally speaking light poor lands deficient in organic matter will need the less caustic form or chalk, while quicklime will be most satisfactory on the stiff clays and richer soils. On the stiff soils overlying the chalk it was formerly the custom to dig pits through the soil to the rock below. Shafts 20 or 30 ft. deep were then sunk, and the chalk taken from horizontal tunnels was brought to the surface and spread on the land at the rate of about 60 loads per acre. Chalk should be applied in autumn, so that it may be split by the action of frost during the winter. Quicklime is best applied, perhaps, in spring at the rate of one ton per acre every six or eight years, or in larger doses—4 to 8 tons—every 15 to 20 years. Small dressings applied at short intervals give the most satisfactory results. The quicklime should be placed in small heaps and covered with soil if possible until it is slacked and the lumps have fallen into powder, after which it may be spread and harrowed in. Experiments have shown that excellent effects can be obtained by applying 5 or 6 cwt. of ground quicklime.

Gas-lime is a product obtained from gasworks where quicklime is used to purify the gas from sulphur compounds and other objectionable materials. It contains a certain amount of unaltered caustic lime and slacked lime, along with sulphates and sulphides of lime, some of which have an evil odour. As some of these sulphur compounds have a poisonous effect on plants, gas-lime cannot be applied to land directly without great risk or rendering it incapable of growing crops of any sort—even weeds—for some time. It should therefore be kept a year or more in heaps in some waste corner and turned over once or twice so that the air can gain access to it and oxidize the poisonous ingredients in it.

Many soils of a light sandy or gravelly or peaty nature and liable to drought and looseness of texture can be improved by the additionof large amounts of clay of an ordinary character. Similarly soils can be improved by applying to them marl, a substance consisting of a mixture of clay with variable proportions of lime. Some of the chalk marls, which are usually of a yellowish or dirty grey colour, contain clay and 50 to 80% of carbonate of lime with a certain proportion of phosphate of lime. Such a material would not only have an influence on the texture of the land but the lime would reduce the sourness of the land and the phosphate of lime supply one of the most valuable of plant food-constituents. The beneficial effects of marls may also be partially due to the presence in them of available potash.

Typical clay-marls are tenacious, soapy clays of yellowish-red or brownish colour and generally contain less than 50% of lime. When dry they crumble into small pieces which can be readily mixed with the soil by ploughing. Many other kinds of marls are described; some are of a sandy nature, others stony or full of the remains of small shells. The amount and nature of the clay or marl to be added to the soil will depend largely upon the original composition of the latter, the lighter sands and gravel requiring more clay than those of firmer texture. Even stiff soils deficient in lime are greatly improved in fertility by the addition of marls. In some cases as little as 40 loads per acre have been used with benefit, in others 180 loads have not been too much. The material is dug from neighbouring pits or sometimes from the fields which are to be improved, and applied in autumn and winter. When dry and in a crumbly state it is harrowed and spread and finally ploughed in and mixed with the soil.

On some of the strongest land it was formerly the practice to add to and plough into it burnt clay, with the object of making the land work more easily. The burnt clay moreover carried with it potash and other materials in a state readily available to the crops. The clay is dug from the land Burning. or from ditches or pits and placed in heaps of 60 to 100 loads each, with faggot wood, refuse coals or other fuel. Great care is necessary to prevent the heaps from becoming too hot, in which case the clay becomes baked into hard lumps of brick-like material which cannot be broken up. With careful management, however, the clay dries and bakes, becoming slowly converted into lumps which readily crumble into a fine powder, in which state it is spread over and worked into the land at the rate of 40 loads per acre.

The paring and burning of land, although formerly practised as an ordinary means of improving the texture and fertility of arable fields, can now only be looked upon as a practice to be adopted for the purpose of bringing rapidly into cultivation very foul leys or land covered with a coarse turf. The practice is confined to poorer types of land, such as heaths covered with furze and bracken or fens and clay areas smothered with rank grasses and sedges. To reduce such land to a fit state for the growth of arable crops is very difficult and slow without resort to paring and burning. The operation consists of paring off the tough sward to a depth of 1 to 2 in. just sufficient to effectually damage the roots of the plants forming the sward and then, after drying the sods and burning them, spreading the charred material and ashes over the land. The turf is taken off either with the breast plough—a paring tool pushed forward from the breast or thighs by the workman—or with specially constructed paring ploughs or shims. The depth of the sod removed should not be too thick or burning is difficult and too much humus is destroyed unnecessarily, nor should it be too thin or the roots of the herbage are not effectually destroyed.

The operation is best carried out in spring and summer. After beirg pared off the turf is allowed to dry for a fortnight or so and is then placed in small heaps a yard or two wide at the base, a little straw or wood being put in the middle of each heap, which is then lighted. As burning proceeds more turf is added to the outside of the heaps in such a manner as to allow little access of air. Every care should be taken to burn and char the sod thoroughly without permitting the heap to blaze. The ashes should be spread as soon as possible and covered by a shallow ploughing. The land is then usually sown with some rapidly growing green crop, such as rape, or with turnips.

Paring and burning improves the texture of clay lands, particularly if draining is carried out at the same time. It tends to destroy insects and weeds, and gets rid of acidity of the soil. No operation brings old turf into cultivation so rapidly. Moreover the beneficial effects are seen in the first crop and last for many years. Many of the mineral plant food-constituents locked up in the coarse herbage and in the upper layers of the soil are made immediately available to crops. The chief disadvantage is the loss of nitrogen which it entails, this element being given off into the air in a free gaseous state. It is best adapted for application to clays and fen lands and should not be practised on shallow light sands or gravelly soils, since the humus so necessary for the fertility of such areas is reduced too much and the soil rendered too porous and liable to suffer from drought.

Many thousands of acres of low-lying peaty and sandy land adjoining the tidal rivers which flow into the Humber have been improved by a process termed " warping." The warp consists of fine muddy sediment which is suspended in the tidal-river water and appears to be derived from material scoured from the bed of the Humber by the action of the tide and acertain amount of sediment brought down by the tributary streams which join the Humber some distance from its mouth. The field or area to be warped must lie below the level of the water in the river at high tide. It is first surrounded by an embankment, after which the water from the river is allowed to flow through a properly constructed sluice in its bank, along a drain or ditch to the land which is prepared for warping. By a system of carefully laid channels the water flows gently over the land, and deposits its warp with an even level surface. At the ebb of the tide the more or less clear water flows back again from the land into the main river with sufficient force to clean out any deposit which may have accumulated in the drain leading to the warped area, thus allowing free access of more warp-laden water at the next tide. In this manner poor peats and sands may be covered with a large layer of rock soil capable of growing excellent crops.

The amount of deposit laid over the land reaches a thickness of two or three feet in one season of warping, which is usually practised