264 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



field ; the alfalfa that had been yellow, sickly and in despair became 

 all at once alive, bright green, full of thrift and vigor. It produced 

 several very heavy crops of hay; it beautified the hillside; it enriched 

 the soil; it made the old man see a vision and caused him to plan 

 wisely and well to cover yet more fields with lime, mother of alfalfa; 

 to cover more fields with alfalfa, to better feed his cows and better 

 feed his land. Carbonate of lime is the key, then, that unlocks the 

 strong door leading to soil enrichment in the East. 



"Would you hear another story? There lived in California a 

 man named J. F. Jack. This man knew of ranching and irrigation, 

 of alfalfa, oranges and farming. He had never lived in the East. 

 Because he wondered that God out of His goodness made it to rain 

 on the eastern farms while He left the western farms dry, Mr. Jack 

 went to Virginia to study the strange situation. At that time he 

 did not know that the long drouth of the West, enduring for un- 

 numbered centuries, had saved for them their carbonate of lime; he 

 did not know that eastern soils are starved for it. Because he liked 

 the people of Virginia, Mr. Jack bought a great plantation on the 

 Rappahannock River. There he essayed to make alfalfa grow and 

 at first it would not grow. Then he took counsel with wise men in 

 the Department of Agriculture and they told him of the lime need of 

 his soil and how it was famished for humus and hungry for phos- 

 phorus. He brought lime, crimson clover followed, that turned un- 

 der made humus and alfalfa was sown. Last year from 300 acres 

 of once worn-out land, Mr. Jack harvested 1200 tons of alfalfa hay. 

 Afterward he had a shipload of ground limestone brought to his 

 wharf and in one summer 700 tons more of the life-giving carbonate 

 of lime went out to his soil to make ready more acres for alfalfa. 

 Some day there one will see a thousand acres in one glorious alfalfa 

 field, a most hopeful thing for old Virginia, a thing that should 

 make Virginia farmers, young and old, think long and well and take 

 new heart. 



"Here is fresh field for exploitation. In Jersey are thousands of 

 acres of land turned out to pines. The land is termed poor, and 

 they say well who call it poor. It has in it no life-giving carbonate 

 of lime and little of any other element of fertility. No man can 

 now till that land and make it pay. Yet from those barren fields 

 one can drive with two horses and a farm wagon to the crowded 

 streets of Philadelphia or New York. Prof. Voorhees has shown 

 that this land can easily be redeemed. Here lies the way. First 



