LIME AND SOILS 263 



who live on Idaho's plains. The chief difference is that the strong, 

 prudent, daring ones have gone to people the West. Those who re- 

 mained at home remained to combat a stubborn soil fact 



"Wherever men have found a soil strong in carbonate of lime 

 they have found a soil rich and a soil easily kept rich. All the great 

 and enduring civilizations in the world have been built up on soils 

 that had an alkaline reaction because of their abundance of carbonate 

 of lime. Civilizations that did not endure were founded on soils 

 that were sour. Men came from food, after all. Food comes from 

 fertile soils. Soils are fertile in proportion to their being alive, to 

 their having life-giving bacteria in them. These bacteria most 

 abound where there is much carbonate of lime. In France large use 

 is m'ade of lime and the result is a fertility and bloom and har- 

 vest unknown in America. In France, in summer one sees wide 

 stretches of blooming fields of clover, alfalfa and sainfoin. Lime 

 makes these things grow. They in turn enrich the soil and make it 

 ready for wheat. Thus are the people of France fed from the 

 stones. Thus are fields in France, that thousands of years ago were 

 cultivated fields, today richer than any we find in eastern America, 

 where the land has not been plowed yet for two centuries. 



"Hnve we no fields, then, that have been limed in the East to 

 show what results might follow? Prof E. B. Voorhees on well- 

 limed land in New Jersey grew last year more than 7 tons of 

 alfalfa on one acre. The land is exactly similar to what other Jer- 

 seymen call poor, and prove to be unproductive. On that alfalfa 

 field he could now grow 100 bushels of corn or 50 bushels of wheat. 

 Would it not do something to relieve the hunger in eastern cities, 

 were there a million such fields along the Atlantic Seaboard? Would 

 that not reduce much the cost of living? In Pennsylvania, within 

 driving distance of Philadelphia, lives Wayne MacVeagh. Older 

 men will remember that he was once Attorney-General when Gar- 

 field was President. MacVeagh farms well. Loving his soil, he 

 feeds it liberally; the cattle of this man are good. Wishing then 

 to provide yet better forage for his animals, MacVeagh sowed 

 alfalfa but the alfalfa throve not. Learning that alfalfa needs car- 

 bonate of lime he spread that over his field and harrowed it to mix 

 it with the soil. He did as God did when He made the soils, taking 

 ground raw limestone rocks and mixing the dust through the soil. 

 Full six tons to each acre he did spread. Then also he put on phos- 

 phorus, and with that he waited. Soon a miracle appeared in that 



