BLUEBEREIES WANTING IN LIMESTONE SOILS. 19 



were not interrupted by the potting, while in the plants not mamired 

 there was a temporary but definite stopping of stem growth imme- 

 diately after the potting. The apparent superiority of growth in the 

 manured plants, above ground, continued for about three weeks. Be- 

 low ground, the roots of the two cultures shoAved directly opposite 

 results. In the plants without manure, new root growth began a few 

 dnjs after potting. At the end of three weeks the development of an 

 extensive root system was well under way and the plants were nearly 

 ready for a period of vigorous stem growth. In the manured plants, 

 however, either no root groAvth took place or only a slight amount, 

 the new rootlets being fewer, shorter, and stouter than in normal 

 plants. The old rootlets turned brown and appeared to be dead or 

 dying. (See p. 64.) At the end of five weeks the growth of the 

 tops was very sIoav. About ten days later, on February 6, a bright 

 Avarm day, the loAver lea\'es on three plants Avithered, and Avithin a 

 feAv Aveeks all six of the manured plants Avere dead. 



(3) The swamp blueberry does not thrive in a soil made sweet by lime. 



In its natural distribution the blueberry, like almost all plants 

 of this and the heather family, aA'oids limestone soils. The fertile 

 limestone areas of western Xew York, of Ohio, of Kentuclns and 

 of Tennessee lack the blueberry, the huckleberry, the laurel {Kalmia 

 JatifoUa), and the trailing arbutus {Epigaea repens). The State 

 of Alabama, as described by Charles Mohr in volume 6 of Contri- 

 butions from the United States National Herbarium, is traversed 

 from east to west in the general latitude of Montgomerj^ by a strip 

 of dark calcareous soil, 35 to 45 miles in Avidth, the so-called " black 

 belt," Avhich constitutes the great agricultural region of the State. 

 The noncalcareous areas north and south of this strip have in their 

 forests a characteristic undergrowth of blueberries and closely re- 

 lated plants, including huckleberries, farkleberries, and deerberries. 

 In the intermediate belt of black limestone soil, just described, the 

 plants of blueberry relationship are almost wholly wanting. 



In an article entitled " The Soil Preferences of Certain Alpine 

 and Subalpine Plants," "' Mr. M. L. Fernald discusses the natural 

 distribution of over 250 species of plants found in the cold parts 

 of the northeastern United States and Canada. All the blueberries 

 he enumerates, five species, avoided calcareous soils, and the other 

 l)lants of the blueberry and heather families almost without excep- 

 tion occurred likewise on noncalcareous formations. 



The Avriter's own experiments in groAving blueberries in limed 

 soils haA^e not proceeded Avith the same smoothness as some of his 

 other experiments, but the results, though at first misleading, have 

 uniformlv been exceedingly instructive, though not ahvaA's in the 



^Rhodora, vol. 9, 1907, pp. 149-193. 

 193 



