No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 203 



SO that nitrogen easily is secured, and humus-making material can 

 be plentiful, and then there need be no concern, unless it be about 

 potash. Nature has done nearly all that is possible for it. 



But a limestone country is a rich country, even when that lime- 

 stone is not rich in phosphorus, and practically all our liraostone in 

 the north is not. The country still is rich, because the soil conditions 

 are favorable to the grasses and the legumes, insuring organic mat- 

 ter and nitrogen, and they favor the conversion of fertility into as- 

 similable forms for use of the plants. It becomes necessary in 

 time to apply phosphoric acid, but full returns are got from the ap- 

 plication. Soil conditions are healthy. 



I have brought these facts together to no purpose if I have not 

 the way paved for intelligent consideration of the needs of the land 

 outside"^ of our limited limestone areas and other areas disinctly cal- 

 careous. 1 have personally met thousands of farmers whose land is 

 making no increase in productiveness, and 1 know immense areas 

 that are losing in productiveness, and the owners find the outlook 

 disheartening. Clover has ceased to be a sure dependence, and crop 

 yields are closely limited by the soil conditions. The experience of 

 the Ohio Experiment Station in various parts of its state, the expe- 

 rience of the Illinois station on many test farms in Southern Illinois, 

 where crop production has fallen oil" badly in late years, and the 

 experience of a large number of farmers scattered over the territory 

 reached by the National Stockman and Farmer justify the broad 

 claim cliat when land which once was productive is failing to 

 make good clover and grass sods and good yields of grain, the owner 

 should look at once to that land's supplies of carbonate of lime and 

 phosphate of lime. These are the first consideration, and usually in 

 the case of clayey lands the only primary considerations. Analyses 

 of these discouraging and disheartening soils may be expected to 

 show that the content of lime is below the limit of safety, and thus 

 are soil conditions made unfriendly. 



The betterment of these unsatisfactory soils may then, in all 

 probability, be secured by giving to them some of the advantages 

 of a limestone soil through the application of carbonate of lime to 

 them. How much of this material, in the form of pulverized lime- 

 stone, may be applied with profit? This is a question that can be 

 answered only by experiment. Our Wooster station land contained 

 26-100 of 1 per cent, of carbonate of lime. Assuming that one acre 

 of this land, one foot in depth, weighs 1,750 tons, the amount of car- 

 bonate of lime in this surface soil was four and a half tons, and here 

 the land was so unfriendly to clover that failure followed failure 

 for a series of years. 



Dr. Hilgard believes that it is necessary to raise the lime carbonate 

 content of a heavy clay soil of 60-100 of 1 per cent, to give it the 

 advantages of calcareous soil, while 20-100 of 1 per cent, may serve 

 a sandy soil. As our Wooster soil is not of the heaviest type, let 

 us assume that 50-100 of 1 per cent, is right. This w^ould require 

 an application of four and a half t'ons of ground limestone, or its 

 equivalent, in two and a half tons of caustic lime. Experience has 

 shown on this land, however, that one ton of caustic lime, or two 

 tons of ground limestone, gives remarkable results. The clover is 

 good, and the grain crop has increased as a result of the friendly 

 conditions created in the soil. It is believed by Director Thorne 



