The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1874-11-21
Noriculfmral.
Salt and Lime Micture.
HOW IT rs MADE AND ITS UsEs-sHELL LIME Fol-
AGRICULTURAL USES.


The mixture is made by desolving one bushel
of salt in the least water possible, and then
stacking with this three bushels of lime hot
from the kiln. This is all the salt that can be
used by this method to slack the lime. The
most valuable lime for agricultural purposes is
shell lime or that made from burning oyster or
clam shells.
Another method recommended by G. W
johnson is, to mix one bushel of salt with two
OF lime dry, under cover, and allow it gradual
~ to decompose and unite the chlorine of the
salt with the lime. 1t may be turned occasion
ally for two or three months, by which time it
will be well united together And whatever
way is taken to form the mixture it should not
be used Immediately, but should remain incor-
ported at least six weeks that the chemical
union may be well formed. The chemical
changes that take place are-the chlorine of the
salt unites with the lime and forms coarse
chloride of lime-the soda of the salt is most
ly set free and probably slowly attracts carbonic
acid from the air and forms carbonate of soda
This mixture has remarkable decomposing
power, and if you mix three or four bushels of
it with cord of swamp muck, leaves or any
vegetable matter, it will soon be reduced to
powder. 1t is most excellent to mix with coarse
manure for the purpose of decomposing it and
rendering it fine. After the sour muck from
wet places is decomposed by the salt and lime,
1T is then in ripe condition to be composted
with barnyard manure, and the compost be-
comes as valuable as the barnyard manure
alone. Almost every farmer has supply of
muck which might be turned into valuable
manure. Hog manure has been greatly bene-
flied by mixing with the salt and lime, correct,
ing its rank character and fitting it for garden
use; but it is, probably better that the salt and
lime should first be composited with muck and
then applied to the hog manure. We stated in
our first article on manures, that salt and lime
composited with barnyard manure, would per-
serve the ammonia. This has been considered
by most, who have used it, as practically cor
rect; but, Theoretically, that small portion of
this mixture which becomes carbonate of soda,
would be supposed to dissipate ammonia unless
the chlorine was sufficient to absorb it all,
which is no doubt, generally the case.
The salt and lime mixture alone makes an
excellent top dressing for most crops, at the
rate of twenty to thirty bushels per acre. The
character of the lime is so much changed by
the union of the SALT that there is no danger of
injury from an excessive quantity, and where
land has been overturned, a top dressing of salt
will correct it at once. The decomposing effect
of this mixture upon vegetable matter in the
soil is very great. Fifty bushels applied to a
turnip field has produced as large crop as
twenty loads of the barnyard manure, which
could only be accounted for OF the suppostion
of its decomposing vegetable matter in the soil
and rendering it fit for plant food. 1t is, also,
very destructive of insects, grubs, ETC., in the
soil. Like salt, this mixture has the power of
attracting moisture from the air, and has often
been observed to prevent the effects of drouth
Rural Nei0 Yorker.