160 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Uit. Doc. 



acid? We want to got down to something that is practical. We 

 would like to have this information for the reason, that as we buy 

 food for our animals, we buy food for our plants. 



MK. PHILIPS: We have been accustomed to think and teach 

 that clover is a gross feeder of potash, and that when we applied 

 lime to the soil, the caustic of the lime takes the silica of the soil, 

 and whereas certain elements among others are required, among 

 them is potash, that this has been largely the cause that has pro- 

 duced the growth of clover rather than neutralizing the acid phos- 

 phate. Please answer that at some time as you go along, whether 

 this lime did not help to produce this growth of clover largely by the 

 liberation of the potash, and in the case you spoke of where your 

 neighbor applied lime, was it not because of a deficiency of potash. 



ME, AGEE: In this series of plots at the West Station Farm, we 

 have, among others, one that has been treated by lime alone, one 

 that has been treated by acid phosphate alone, and so on down the 

 list. Prof. John Hamilton well said to you, that probably there is 

 no more extended series of experiments lying out of doors in this 

 country than on the West Station Farm. There are plots where the 

 potash has been applied in abundance to the land, plots where acid 

 phosphate has been applied in abundance and plots where nothing 

 has been applied. On all three of them the clover is not growing 

 right, but we have more clover where nothing has been applied for 

 ten years than where the acid phosphate has been applied. There 

 are perhaps plots where there is a little more clover where the acid 

 phosphate has been applied than where nothing has been given to 

 the land. 



Wherever acid phosphate entered into the soil, there is more sour- 

 ness and less clover and some just like the dial on a clock. I was 

 sorry to find the other day that some of these plots are contra- 

 dictory, but wherever the acid phosphate has gone, the clover is not 

 very good; where potash has been put on it is a little bit better and 

 only where we have brought back that soil by the use of lime, is the 

 clover good. 



The DEPUTY SECRETARY: Which would you apply first, the 

 humus or the lime? 



MR. AGEE: Where the manure has gone on the plot without any 

 lime, there the clover is not so good as on some plots that have had 

 no manure but have had the lime. 



A Member: Is not manure more valuable in getting good clover 

 than lime? 



MR. AGEE: Where you apply manure to the soil, you sweeten the 

 soil, and most of the land that has grown sour, has done so because 



