440 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Ofif. Doc. 



tlie Imiinis and vou d('])l(^to llie soil of fertility. It will become a 

 siimiiJant for llie time beiiij;-, l)ul it will leave the land worse than 

 it was at first, lie careful what kind of lime you use, especially on 

 the pasture fields, because you don't have the chance to treat them 

 as you might other fields, and 1 recommend the ground limestone for 

 the pasture land. Lime sweetens the soil by the particles coming in 

 contact with tiie particles of soil, hence it would be a great deal 

 better and the sweetening process more perfect if you could plow 

 that soil and mix the lime in because the contact would be more 

 general. It may not be practical for you to plow up the field and 

 put the lime on toj) of the land. If not, you can get good results 

 from the lime by simply sowing it over the land whether you plow 

 or not. Sowing it on the sod will correct the acidity to some extent 

 but not as perfectly as if you plowed the land and applied the lime on 

 top. 



The other day I was told by a farmer, when I said you can get 

 too much caustic lime. He said: ''I have used three hundred to 

 four hundred bushels of caustic lime on land and the land produced 

 good crops for twenty years." I said: "How did you apply that 

 lime?" He said: "We apply in this way: We put it in small piles 

 and let it lie there from two to four weeks and then scatter it over 

 the fields." I said: "You are not applying caustic lime. That is 

 carbonate of lime." When burned lime is applied in this way it air- 

 slacks, and air-slacked lime is carbonate of lime. That is the reason 

 why Pennsylvania farmers have been so successful in years past in 

 using so much lime. They have been using carbonate of lime and did 

 not know it; actually so, because that lime became air-slacked and 

 when taken into the soil was in the form of carbonate of lime and 

 did not burn up the humus. It is dangerous, my friends, to put into 

 the soil anything like three hundred bushels or one hundred bushels 

 of caustic lime. 



There may be various causes why our pastures become unproduc- 

 tive. As I have said, they may need lime, plant food and phosphorus. 

 The dry weather may have caused the roots to die and the worms 

 may have killed it. I have had all these things happen to my pasture 

 land until I absolutely had no grass. What are you going to do 

 then? If we could plow and reseed, the problem would be easy, 

 but that is not always practical. I am going to tell you what I did. 

 If it suits you, you can do it; if not, you can reject it. We go on 

 to those fields and we harrow them. If the field is smooth we 

 take a double acting cutaway harrow and that is the best I have 

 tried. We cut it up pretty thoroughly so there is little or no sod 

 left. That ought to be done as early in the Spring as possible, Feb- 

 ruary if the ground is in proper condition for tillage; if not, later 

 on. March will do, and Ai)ril may do. May I think is too late as a 

 rule. I put the lime on before I start the harrowing, sometimes with 

 the grain drill, sometimes a lime spreader and sometimes with a 

 manure spreader. And, by the way, my friends, there is no place 

 on the farm that I believe you can get more out of the manure per 

 ton, except the meadow than on the pasture land. I have come to 

 this conclusion; that we have been putting the manure on the wrong 

 crop for years. My practice formerly was to manure the corn ground 

 directly ahead of the planting of the corn. I never do that now, 

 unless I have more manure than I need in either of these other 

 places. T can get the most out of manure on the pasture land, 



