370 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



How much lime does youi- soil need? The only way to tell is by 

 noting the presence of acid and trying out the matter through ex- 

 periment. If your land today refuses to grow clover, the chances 

 are that you will see a wonderful difference in the growth if only a 

 thousand pounds per acre of lime be applied. I know land in this 

 State that has greatly increased its clover production by the appli- 

 cation of only five hundred pounds per acre. In a general way if 

 clovers are refusing to grow or if general conditions are unfavor- 

 able to other sods, one should apply a thousand pounds per acre, 

 and if the land is decidedly acid and if lime is not excessibly high in 

 price he will do well to use one ton of lime per acre. I mean one 

 ton of stone lime or its equivalent in slaked lime or pulverized 

 limestone. 



Many farmers are asking what form of lime they should use. The 

 correct answer depends upon the cost of the material. Pulverized 

 lime, which is limestone burned into lime and then made mechanic- 

 ally fine in order that it may be distributed with ease, contains the 

 greatest possible amount of material for correcting soil acidity. 

 When lime has been slaked with water, its weight has been increased 

 while its ability to correct acidity has not been increased. One ton 

 9f stone lime will correct about as much acidity, roughly speaking, 

 as two tons of finely pulverized limestone. If the limestone could 

 be made as fine as flour so that every particle were available in the 

 soil, two tons of the limestone would correct somewhat more acid 

 than one ton of limestone, but as we find the pulverized limestone 

 on the market, it is safe to say that it is not fine enough to permit 

 two tons to be as effective as one ton of the pulverized stone lime. 

 The so-called "new-i)rocess" lime on the market is a lime which has 

 been slaked by steam and therefore has had its weight increased 

 without any addition of ability to correct acidity. One ton of this 

 "new-process" lime cannot correct as much soil acidity as one ton 

 of pulverized lime. 



On the other hand the ease of application is a great consideration. 

 "New-process" lime is easy to handle and on that account may be 

 worth as much to the farmer as the pulverized stone lime which is 

 unslaked and must be drilled into the ground before it slakes unless 

 one is willing to be troubled by bursted packages. The pulverized 

 limestone can be handled with comparative ease, but the buyer must 

 remember that he is paying for the transportation of a large amount 

 of waste material in the pulverized limestone as nearly one-half of 

 it is worthless so far as correction of acidity is concerned. It is 

 a mere matter of arithmetic how much soil acidity can be corrected 

 with the least amount of money, the first cost of material and the 

 transportation and the ease of application being considered. 



How should lime be applied. When the general need of lime is 

 more fully appreciated, there will be a greater demand for lime- 

 spreaders. Several firms are making spreaders that handle lime 

 in small qiiantities per acre. Where lime is inexpensive and the 

 farmer can afford to apply forty or fifty bushels per acre, he will find 

 that the manure spreader will do fairly even work, but when lime 

 is costly and only one thousand pounds per acre should be applied 

 the manure spreader is not satisfactory. The Ohio Experiment 

 Station had a lime spreader made at a local blacksmith shop at a 

 total cost of seventeen dollars. A V-shaped box was used with an 



