126 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



Mr. Stephenson also grew lucerne, and when he 

 wished to sow down land to grass for a permanent 

 pasture, sowed the grass seed in the lucerne field, 

 finding that the seed took well there (as we have all 

 learned, of times to our sorrow), and that the lucerne 

 or alfalfa furnished good pasturage till the other 

 seeds came on. 



I have mentioned these foreign uses of carbonate 

 of lime because agriculture is so recent in America 

 that we have not much precedent to which to refer, 

 and agricultural practice abroad is the result of 

 experiences of the fathers for centuries back . What- 

 ever one finds them doing over there he may feel 

 pretty certain has been well tried and tested. In 

 Scotland I have seen heath land reclaimed and made 

 into farming land. The process there was to first 

 drain the wet, sour slopes, then lime them with about 

 thirty tons to the acre of lime, the raw carbonate of 

 lime being used, if I remember correctly, and after 

 that manure was used; then clovers, turnips, oats, 

 grass or any good thing that the climate would 

 grow. 



New Work. It is rather a new work, this use of 

 carbonate of lime or raw ground limestone in Amer- 

 ica. A few years ago nothing could be done except 

 to dig marls out of the earth where they were to be 

 found, and as these marls were nearly always 

 under water not much of this has been done. With 

 the increase in use of concrete construction came 

 call for crushed limestone. Railways asked also 

 for crushed limestone for ballast material. Crush- 



