DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 24I 



Mr. Fuller: Our potato raisers would hardly want to put 

 much lime on the land. 



Prof. Menges : No, they would not. I am not a potato 

 raiser. I raise corn. I am glad the gentleman brought up that 

 matter. The trouble is, when these crops are plowed down the 

 land is not cultivated as it should be. Some people plow down 

 rye which was seeded in the corn stubble, after the corn was 

 cut, to raise a second crop of corn, and frecjuently fail to get 

 a corn crop because of insufficient cultivation. 



Question : How much dressing should we put on sandy 

 land in order not to waste any by leaching? 



Prof. Menges: That depends on the land. If I were in 

 Virginia, along the coast and up to within about ten miles of 

 the mountains, I would say you were going to lose considerable. 

 I do not know your conditions. As long as you have moisture 

 and enough of the organic matter, you usually get the greater 

 part of the fertility, even from commercial fertilizer. 



Some years ago I had an experience similar to one just 

 referred to. I suggested to several farmers in a community 

 to sow alfalfa and, as usual, recommended that the thing to do 

 was to get this organic matter into the soil. What did they do? 

 In the fall of the year they sowed the land with rye ; the fol- 

 lowing spring they turned down the rye ; then limed the land 

 well — 30 to 50 bushels of burnt lime to the acre. Then they 

 sowed the land with cow peas. One of these farmers, before 

 sowing the cow peas, disc harrowed and prepared his soil well ; 

 the other prepared his land indilTerently and the result was a 

 sickly crop of cow peas, while the farmer who cultivated thor- 

 oughly had a splendid crop. In August we had a splendid crop. 

 And what happened? Down in the furrow on the poorly cul- 

 tivated field was a bunch of rye about as thick as my arm, 

 which had turned black and looked like humus and was sour ; 

 while, on the well-cultivated land, when they turned down the 

 cow peas they could not find the rye — all had changed into 

 the active condition of organic matter. 



I have said, one way we get this organic matter is by the 

 green crops and another way is manure. I have stated already 

 how much we lose of the organic matter by feeding it. We 

 lose one-half of the organic matter in this way. Do you know, 



16 



