42 



low. By liberal use of phosphates, potash and lime, then, we 

 can, if we will, in the first place prodnce heavy crops of 

 clover and later heavy mixed crops of grass and clover, the 

 grass feeding upon the products of the decay of the earliest 

 clover plants. That this will prove the most profitable sys- 

 tem of manuring does not follow, for, as indicated by the 

 comparison above made, yet greater profit was consequent in 

 the experiment under consideration from a cond)ination of 

 nitrate of soda with the other materials. 



The Necessity for Lime. — The fact that an application 

 of lime is frequently necessary in order to bring soil into 

 such condition that clovers will thrive was particularly em- 

 phasized in the first article upon the hay crop. The results 

 in the field which has been referred to very strikingly illus- 

 trate the same point. In this field there are two plots, which 

 for the last fifteen years have annually received equal quanti- 

 ties of dissolved bone-black and muriate of potash. One 

 in addition has received during the fifteen years two ap- 

 plications of lime at the rate of 1 ton per acre — ^ the first 

 application, deeply disc-harrowed in, in 1809; the second ap- 

 plication, put on as a top-dressing to the grass land, in the 

 early spring of 1904. The product of the two plots was at 

 the following rates per acre : — 



Unlimed plot : — • Pounds. 



First cut, 860 



Second cut, . 280 



Limed Jllot : — Pounds. 



First cut, 3,600 



Second cut, 2,575 



The total product of the unlimed plot was at the rate of 

 1,140 pounds per acre. The total product of the limed plot 

 was at the rate of 6,175 pounds per acre, or substantially five 

 and one-half times the product of the unlimed plot. The 

 grasses as well as the clovers, made far more vigorous growth 

 on the limed than on the unlimed plot. 



Methods of applying Fertilizers. — In the relatively small 

 amounts in which the concentrated fertilizer materials recom- 



