LIME AND LIMING LAND 79 



Henderson & Co., at Hackensack, N. J. We were shown there a luxuriant 

 plat of alfalfa, and were told that the year before it had been very feeble, 

 but in hauling lime to another part of the farm a little shook from the wagon 

 on the corner of the alfalfa patch. At once that part assumed a stronger 

 growth, and noting this, they applied a dressing of lime to the whole plat 

 with the finest results. Shortly after this I visited the farm of a wealthy 

 gentleman in North Carolina, who is interested in the dairy, and was trying 

 to grow alfalfa. We advised him to give it a coat of lime, which was done. 

 We passed the field but a few days ago and noted from the train that it was 

 the most luxuriant growth of alfalfa we have ever seen in the East. The 

 lime is not only to some extent direct food for the alfalfa, but it brings about 

 changes in other matters that favor its growth. One of these changes is one 

 of the most recent discoveries in science. We have seen that all green plants 

 get their carbon from the air through the assimilative action of their green 

 matter. Fungus plants have no green matter and hence, as a rule, are de- 

 pendent on what green leaved plants have assimilated. But these microscopic 

 plants in the soil, which carry on the work of changing the organic nitrogen 

 into nitrates, though they are members of the great fungus class, have a power 

 that no green plant is known to possess. They can get the carbon for their 

 growth from mineral combinations like the carbonate of lime. Here, then, 

 is another reason why the application of lime to a soil abounding in organic 

 matter favors the nitrification, or formation of nitrates, for the use of green 

 plants which must get their nitrogen from the soil. 



Lime, to have its best effect, should be well burned, and slaked with 

 water to a powder before applying it to the soil. If allowed to lie and get 

 air slaked it is far less effective, since it gets, through the action of the car- 

 bonic acid in the air, into an insoluble carbonate, or returns almost to the con- 

 dition in which pulverized limestone would have been. Stone lime slaked 

 with water till it falls, should make three bushels of slaked lime for every 

 bushel of fresh lumps. Oyster shell lime will slake two bushels for one. 

 There has of late been quite a change in the ideas of thinkers in regard to the 

 quantity of lime that should be used. Formerly it was the practice to apply 

 lime in large quantities and at long intervals. In recent years it has been 

 shown experimentally that a small application, frequently repeated, is far 

 better than the heavy application, so that now it is seldom that more than 

 20 bushels per acre are used by the best farmers, and some even contend for a 

 smaller application than this. With a short rotation of three or four years, 

 in which there are frequent crops of legumes grown, the repeated application 

 of small doses of lime every four or five years has been found to produce bet- 

 ter results than twice the amount at a longer interval. 



