2;j2 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



LIME AND ITS USES. 



By Dr. H. J. Wheeler, 

 Formerly Director of the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment 



Station. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is a most remarkable circumstance that the use of lime 

 remained so long neglected in the United States. Twenty years 

 ago its employment in an agricultural way in this country was 

 confined chiefly to a few localities in New York, New Jersey- 

 and Pennsylvania, where its agricultural value was demonstrated 

 chiefly by the early German settlers. Lime had also been 

 introduced here and there by English and Scotch immigrants 

 who had learned of its value in their home countries. In certain 

 sections of Virginia the use of native lime marl was earnestly 

 advocated for a time by Ruffin, although it subsequently fell into 

 general disuse. 



During all this time the farmers over parts of Rhode Island, 

 Massachusetts, eastern Connecticut, and certain sections of Ver- 

 mont and Maine, were applying manure and fertilizer to their 

 land, and were often securing but meagre harvests because of a 

 lack of enough carbonate of lime to maintain the soils in con- 

 dition to properly support plant growth. 



In parts of certain counties of the State of New York farming 

 became considerably decadent solely or chiefly because of the 

 existence of excessive soil acidity which was destructive to 

 clover, timothy, and barley. It also greatly lessened the yields 

 of wheat, oats, Indian corn, and other crops. 



It is stated by Director Thorne of the Ohio Experiment 

 Station (Bui. 260) that clover cannot be grown successfully on 

 a soil which is deficient in lime, "and on thousands of acres in 

 eastern Ohio clover is making a weak and sickly growth or is 

 failing altogether because of this deficiency, and as clover fails, 

 the yields of other crops become more irregular." He says 



