322 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



on the planet the glacial growler of that day would have 

 seen only the dark side of the picture. 



But there is still another and perhaps more pleasing 

 view of this subject. Limestone is not only a source of 

 fertility, but it dissolves in water and thus renews the 

 richness of the soil. In the floods of the last season the 

 surface water reached and penetrated the limestone. 



Though the rain fell pure and free from lime, it at once 

 began to dissolve and take up all the mineral that it 

 could hold in solution, absorbing it from the rock itself. 

 The water next to the stone having become charged with 

 lime to the saturation point, the precious fertilizer slowly 

 ascended until the water near the surface was nearly or 

 perhaps as highly charged as that below. 



Thus hundreds of thousands of tons of fresh lime, the 

 richest of manures, is lifted to the soil near the surface, 

 and when the water evaporates there the precious fer- 

 tilizer remains to perpetually renew the fruitful soil. 

 With thousands of feet in depth of this rich deposit as a 

 base of supplies, we can face the future full of hope. 



France has had two thousand crops in two thousand 

 years, because her fertile soil lies over a similar source 

 of perpetual renewal. 



I am not sure that this suggestion of the elevation by 

 the action of water of fertilizing material from beneath 

 the underlying strata has been adequately considered by 

 men who have made a special study of the chemistry of 

 the soil. In the plains of Lombardy the running water 

 deposits in the bottoms of the irrigating ditches material 

 dissolved from the Alps. The farmers there mix the 

 sediment with stubble and spread it over their fields, thus 

 keeping their lands as good as new. 



With such resources the future fertility of that part of 

 the Louisiana Purchase is assured. 



I like to take a cheerful view of our future. I am an 



