CARBONATE OF LIME. 129 



pounds to the square rod, and that seems little 

 enough, and yet it means eight tons to the acre. 

 That amount I would advise when the material can 

 be had cheap enough to make it possible, and even 

 more. It costs! Yes, but it pays. Take an acre of 

 old, sour land that is not worth cultivating in its 

 natural state and put on it eight tons of ground 

 limestone. Put the cost at $2.50 per ton. That 

 means an expense for liming of $20 per acre. Then 

 that land will be fit to sow alfalfa upon, as soon as 

 it has been drained and enriched. Mind, we do not 

 claim that lime is a manure. The lime makes it 

 possible to grow crops that make manure. With 

 alfalfa growing well upon that acre it ought to yield 

 at least four tons each year, and there is a thousand 

 pounds of hay for each ton of raw limestone rock 

 you have used. Cannot afford it? Can you afford 

 not to do it? 



But with much less ground limestone on some 

 soils alfalfa has come where it had failed repeatedly 

 before. Among a mass of similar letters I find this 

 significant one from Iowa : 



"After repeated failures with alfalfa in this county (Scott, 

 Iowa), I have acted on your advice and applied 3,000 pounds of 

 raw limestone dust with the seeding in August of 1907. This acre, 

 diagonally across the three different varieties, produced a uni- 

 form luxuriant growth of alfalfa at the three cuttings, besides a 

 growth of one foot not cut. I estimate each cutting at two tons 

 per acre. The rest of the field showed a patchy growth ranging 

 from two inches to 18", very unsatisfactory. I am convinced that 

 you are right when you say that raw limestone will assure suc- 

 cess with alfalfa." 



I tried for several years to help a farmer in east- 

 ern Pennsylvania grow alfalfa, but each effort was 



