No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 149 



MR. AGEE: I asked that question of Director Thorne just a few 

 months ago. Eight years ago I began upon my own farm to use one 

 ton of lime per acre; that is not much but I cut it down to one-half 

 ton per acre and I have covered that farm with clover when 

 the farms around me would not grow clover. I know men that have 

 not used more than 500 pounds but I don't think their clover is so 

 good. Director Thorne has finally gone up to 1,000 pounds per acre. 



PROF. HAMILTON: I suppose the important question that is in 

 the minds of the lecturers that are gathered here in hearing this dis- 

 cusion is, What shall we teach? Which side of this question shall 

 we take? It strikes me that the way to discover what ought to be 

 taught is to follow the suggestion made by the lecturer, Prof. Mc- 

 Dowell, and send for the bulletins of the experiment stations that 

 have been doing work along these lines at Rhode Island, Maine^ Mary- 

 land, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and read them carefully, and then if 

 you wish to make a talk that will impress itself upon your audiences, 

 send down to the Department of Agriculture, in about three months, 

 for an illustrated lecture upon soil acidity, that has been prepared 

 by Director Wheeler — H. J. Wheeler, of the Rhode Island Experi- 

 ment Station — in which there is a discussion on this subject, and the 

 discussion is followed, or there is interspersed in the discussicm, 

 views of the effect of different treatment of different kinds of plants 

 upon different sorts of soil. The figures were taken from and based 

 upon growing crops. The lecture explains exactly the conditions 

 that existed, and your audiences can see for themselves on the 

 screen, the results of the experiments. These illustrated lectures 

 are being prepared upon several important topics and one of the 

 most important, perhaps, is this which has been raised here this 

 afternoon and I merely wish to call the attention of the lecturers 

 to the fact that there is an illustrated lecture prepared now by 

 a gentleman who has had more experience in the investigation 

 of this subject than any other in the United States, and that you 

 can have this lecture, or the loan of it for nothing^ simply paying the 

 expressage both ways, and if you think it is likely to be of advant- 

 age to you as a teacher, you can have it at a nominal price, merely 

 the cost of the slides, by sending to the Department of Agriculture 

 at Washington. A syllabus accompanies the lecture that gives the 

 points that are to be made, and by obtaining these slides and the 

 lecture, you can see what has been done along this line by the ex- 

 perimenters in the United States and in foreign countries. 



MR. SEXTON: A moment ago Mr. Agee stated that the land that 

 would not produce clover had been brought back to produce clover 

 by the use of lime. Now, the fact that this land did not produce 

 clover, was that brought about by the excessive use of phosphoric 



