DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 38I 



origin which contained quite high percentages of potash, most 

 of it was in forms decomposable with such difficulty that the 

 deficiency of available potash after lime was applied was almost 

 as great as when it was omitted. Here was a soil derived from 

 rocks, rich in potash feldspar, from which repeated cropping 

 for several previous years, with little or no use of potash, had 

 resulted in taking out the potash from the more easily decom- 

 posed zeolitic compounds, until lime could liberate but little 

 more. Unfortunately, many soils in New England have been 

 brought into the same condition by tenant farm robbery or by 

 neglect to return some part of the potash which has been 

 removed. On such farms but little can be hoped for in a prac- 

 tical way by attempting to set free potash, for the crop, by liming. 

 This is, therefore, truly a year when the wise husbandman will 

 reap his just reward for past liberality to his soil. 



Carbonate of lime has been shown by many experiments in 

 this country and Europe, to promote the formation of ammonia 

 and nitric acid in the soil ; changes which most of the organic 

 nitrogen of farm manures, green crops, and commercial ferti- 

 lizers must undergo before it is fully available to plants. 



It is also true that carbonate of lime aids in the maintenance 

 of soil conditions which tend to prevent the destruction of 

 nitrates after they have been formed within the soil or have 

 been applied in fertilizers. 



In cases where soils are very rich in iron and aluminum oxides 

 and are acid, much of the phosphoric acid is in such combina- 

 tion with these oxides that plants cannot make much use of it. 

 Generous liming in such cases corrects the unfavorable acidity 

 and results in the liberation of considerable of this locked-up 

 phosphoric acid. If ground limestone is present in the soil, the 

 phosphoric acid applied in fertilizers is kept in the soil in form? 

 which the plant can utilize later on instead of its becoming 

 quickly and quite completely unavailable. 



Recent investigations at the Indiana Experiment Station 

 showed that soils which were well supplied with all of the 

 necessary elements of plant food in available form, including 

 an abundance of nitrates, would not produce crops satisfactorily 

 until they were limed. The fault was that the nitrate was pres- 

 ent as aluminum nitrate which was found to be poisonous to 

 plants. Liming broke up this compound, resulting in the forma- 

 tion of nitrate of lime which was an excellent plant food. 



