Friends, Consider the following. It is not strictly genealogy but relates to primative farming. The question as to why ancestors moved so much has been raised. The 'fatigue' of the soil is an important point. ALEX STEWART Portrait of a Pioneer By John Rice Irwin Pg. 117 "You need good hard wood to burn lime, hickory or oak. You've also got to get the right kind of rock to make lime. You want a certain kind of limestone. Not too hard. They's a kind of limestone that's mixed up with flint and it won't burn into lime. We call it bastard rock. "You take the right kind of limestone and bust it up into five or ten pound rocks and put them in your kiln and get your fire right hot. It takes two men to fire a kiln and it'll take 24 hours to make a run. You have to have the fire awfully, terribly, hot and you can smell the rock when it starts burning. Them rocks will go into ashes, just like wood ashes in your fireplace, except they're whiter. "When you was up on the ridge tuther day, to get my old log house, you passed an old lime kiln where they burned a man up. His name was Creech. Some fellers got into a disagreement with him and they killed him and burned him in the kiln. Uncle Pert Coins, that was Grandpap's uncle, said that place was hainted (haunted) and him and Grandpap wouldn't come by there of a night because the haints had got after them. They'd go ten miles out of their way before they'd go by that old lime kiln." What uses did you have for lime, other than tanning leather? "Oh, the biggest thing we used it for was on the crops. Hit's a heap better than fertilizer, and it'll last for at least six or seven years. They's nothing that will make a pasture grow like burnt lime. You get a heap better results than from this here crushed lime. When you're putting it on your row crops, don't put it to close. It's high-powered stuff and it'll kill your corn and stuff if you put it too close. But talk about growing; buddy you put a little of that burnt lime on your garden and just set back and watch it come from there." Any other uses for lime! "We used it to make cement, and we used it around toilets in later years. People kept a little bag of lime in their privies, and every once in a while they'd throw a handful down in the pit. That would keep the odor down, and it'd keep the flies away. You can put a pound or two of lime in your vat when you're heating water to scald hogs, and that will help make the hair come. "I've used lime to whitewash fruit trees. Take your lime and mix it with water and paint your apple trees and peach trees up about two or three feet high. That keeps the rabbits, goats, and everything else from eating the outside bark and killing the tree.” I recall using lime for the garden and field and in the privies. Would some knowledgable person please explain what the lime did for the soil and what the chemical process was that occurred during the "burning of the limestone." -eddie