MAY, 1910 CIRCULAR No. 7 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION OF 



THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE 

 Department of Soil Technology 



THE RELATION OF LIME TO SOIL IMPROVEMENT* 



E. O. FippiN 



Lime has long been used as a means of soil improvement. Its use 

 for this purpose is destined to increase. 



The use of marl and ashes was comparatively common among the 

 Greeks at the beginning of the Christian era although the use of lime 

 probably began at a later period. The use of marl in Britain and Gaul 

 is described by the Roman General Varro, who died B. C. 28. In Eng- 

 land, lime was commonly used during the latter part of the Eighteenth 

 Century, and pits were frequently sunk in the fields from which chalk 

 was taken to apply on the land. In America, also, lime, often in the 

 form of gypsum or land plaster, was used to a considerable extent as a 

 means of soil improvement in the Northeastern States. But in total, 

 lime has been applied only to a small fraction of a per cent, of our 

 farm lands. The rise of the use of commercial fertilizer during the 

 latter half of the 19th Century to a large extent supplanted the use of 

 lime, so that in the last three decades it has been relatively little used 

 as a means of increasing soil productiveness. 



It would seem that our function at this time is to explain some 

 of the ways in which lime is of value in the soil, thereby deriving a basis 

 on which to present some of the peculiar demands as well as trade opjior- 

 Innities involved in the use of lime in soil improvement. This may serve 

 to some extent to guide lime dealers and manufacturers in meeting the 

 needs of farmers who arc now looking intelligently upon lime as a 

 legitimate material fcr their use. Not all soils require the application 

 of lime' nor do all soils and all cro])s rec|uire it in the same form or in 



* Paper read before the National T-imo Manufacturers' Association of Pittsburg, Pa., 

 January 27, 1910. 



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