I duly received your pamphlet on the use of lime, for which I am much obliged, and am delighted to perceive that you confirm the idea (expressed in my pamphlet on the growth of wheat every year on the same land) that the excessive use of lime is ultimately injurious to the fertility of the soil to which it is applied.  This, coming from a gentleman of your reputation and experience, will, I hope, induce someone capable of performing the experiment to endeavour to ascertain with precision how much lime it is desirable to apply to an acre to give the best results, and with the least waste, assuming that the land contained little or none previous to the experiment; and it would also be desirable to ascertain whether it is better, in an economical point of view, to apply a small quantity every year, or a larger quantity every third or fourth.  My own opinion is in favour of the former method, except that it is difficult to get it ploughed in, particularly in wet weather, immediately after spreading (which is essential where you grow wheat on the same land every year) without injuring the feet of the horses.  You speak of ten days or a fortnight being necessary to neutralize caustic lime, but our horses had their feet injured by it six weeks after it had been spread on the land, last year, although the weather had been wet almost the whole of the time, say from the beginning of February to the middle of March.  You appear to think that lime will replace silica in the wheat plant.  Whose authority have you for this?  It will be very important to establish this supposition, but I fear it is too good news to be true.  On referring to your letter, I find you don’t say what I supposed you did, but that the lime liberates the soluble silicates, potash, &c.  This may be, and certainly the beneficial effects of lime in growing wheat are not to be explained by any other hypothesis with which I am acquainted.  I am this year trying some experiments to ascertain (if I can) the cause of clover-sickness, and I hope to be in a position to say whether your supposition that lime, gypsum, &c. will prevent it, is correct.  My experiments so far are opposed to this theory, but it is not very safe or philosophical to draw conclusions from one or two experiments only.  I doubt the possibility of making silicate of soda by merely mixing lime, sand, and salt together, as my chemical friends tell me this cannot be accomplished unless the silex and the alkali are fused together.  If a soluble silicate of soda can be made in the way you mention, it will be a great saving of expense.  Has it been tried?  You have no doubt seen a report of the enormous crop of wheat grown in a field in Norfolk last year (90 bushels to the acre), and that the Royal Agricultural Society have determined to have the soil analyzed by Dr. Playfair.  This is very desirable, but as Dr. Playfair is more of a lecturing than an analyzing chemist, I think it is very necessary that his analysis should be checked by another, made by