The Bulletin 5 



able to supplement their good advice ivith material aid. The Legislature 

 of 1915 passed the lime law and the Commissioner of Agriculture put it 

 into effect in a way that brought the price of mixed fertilizer down to 

 from one-half to one-third of the price asked by the fertilizer manufac- 

 turers. The farmer was thus enabled to cope with the situation, and 

 the years 19 15-1 G brought unusually good crops to ISTortli Carolina. 

 The record also shows that the farmers purchased less fertilizer for these 

 crops than they ever purchased before, for similar crops, in years past. 

 Thousands of tons of ground limestone and marl were used, and the 

 demand for these materials has increased by leaps and bounds; and 

 the indications are that the farmer is going to find himself able to get 

 even better crop results from the use of liberal amounts of limestone 

 mixed with limited amounts of his other fertilizer ingredients than he 

 has ever been able to get from these fertilizer ingredients used alone. 

 In the spring of 1916 the fertilizer market made a sharp advance, but 

 got such a set-back by the farmers that today the prices of acid phos- 

 phate and other fertilizer ingredients, except potash, are not thought to 

 be very greatly in excess of what they were before the European war 

 broke out. 



In his efforts to carry out the lime law in a practical and efficient 

 manner, the Commissioner of Agriculture in 1915 issued a circular 

 entitled "Lime Facts for Landowners/' in which he discouraged the use 

 of "burned lime" for agricultural purposes and encouraged the use of 

 lime carbonate or ground limestone instead. In May, 1916, he issued 

 another bulletin entitled "TJie Relation of Calcium Carbonate (Ground 

 Limestone and Marl) in the Soil to Acid Phosphate and the Soil Phos- 

 phates." 



In September, 1916, the United States Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion at West Raleigh, IST. C, issued Extension Circular, No. 24, entitled 

 "How to Use Lime on the Farm," and sent it to the farm demonstration 

 agents and other agricultural extension workers throughout the State, 

 thus giving it the greatest possible publicity. 



In this circular public contradiction was made of many of the leading 

 statements contained in both of the above named publications issued by 

 the Commissioner of Agriculture. This, of course, brought about a very 

 unfortunate situation between the North Carolina Department of Agri- 

 culture and the United States Agricultural Experiment Station, as both 

 of these institutions could not be right in this matter; one of them must 

 of necessity be in error, and the public must suffer in consequence of 

 the publication of this erroneous information. 



We regret that the arrangement of the following discussion cannot be 

 considered entirely logical; but an effort has been made to follow the 

 circular, which has not been prepared with much care in this respect. 



