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Transactions. 



unhealthy, infertile soils into healthy, fertile ones, then either (a) the 

 Hutchinson-MacLennan method gives excessive estimates of the lime 

 requirements of soils, or (b) it gives an optimum value that is greatly in 

 excess of practical, or at all events of economical, requirements. 



Pairs of soils were also obtained in Canterbury, and dealt with in like 

 manner. The following table gives some results : — 



Taking these results in conjunction with the fact that liming has never 

 " taken on " among the farmers of Canterbury (though the soils give an 

 acid reaction to litmus), the high so-called lime requirement is noteworthy, 

 though it is certainly much less than in the case of Southland soils. Liming 

 here also seems to reduce the indicated lime requirement, but not to a 

 degree commensurate with the quantity of lime applied. 



There are, however, some areas in Southland where farming is success- 

 fully practised without the use of lime — namely, the flats of the Oreti and 

 Aparima Rivers, especially the Dipton Flat and Bayswater. We do not 

 say that lime will not give payable results, but merely that these soils do 

 not demand lime in the insistent manner of, say, the Edendale soils. 



In the next table we give the lime requirements of some of these 

 different types of soils. 



