266 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



their fields, putting alfalfa or clover there, getting fertility there so 

 that they could have grown bounteous crops right at their hungry 

 customers' doors! It will take less money to make acres fertile in 

 Jersey, Virginia and New York than it will to water other acres 

 already fertile but arid in the far off West." 



In Maryland one sees shell roads built through soils 

 so sandy that they are half barren. Where the wheels 

 grind up the shells into dust and the dust is washed 

 down over the soil, bluegrass and white clover spring 

 up and a good sod is made. Bear in mind -that there 

 is a good deal of horse manure left there besides the 

 carbonate of lime. The ground shells alone might not 

 have done and probably would not have done the work. 

 In Alabama on sandy coast land there is growing fine 

 alfalfa, the work of carbonate of lime applied liber- 

 ally. In Florida the same story is told, and in truth 

 wherever man has used carbonate of lime with intelli- 

 gence he has had meadow or pasture to show for it. 



Further, carbonate of lime changes the character, even 

 the species and varieties, of grasses and clovers growing 

 on a soil. When it is deficient one sees broom sedge 

 (not a good grass), redtop, Canada bluegrass and many 

 other grasses of inferior value. With the balance of 

 carbonate of lime restored, the soil is made sweet, clovers 

 enrich it and the broom sedge disappears, as do the red- 

 top and Canada bluegrass and are replaced with Ken- 

 tucky bluegrass, timothy and clovers. 



There is yet another side to the carbonate of lime mat- 

 ter. Where it is abundant in soils grasses growing there 

 are sweet and well-flavored, and animals relish them. 

 Thus one may find parts of a pasture eaten down close 

 and other parts neglected, the parts eaten close -being 



