114 AGRICULTURE 



buy lime for these. There are other plants, however, which 

 will not thrive on a sour soil until lime is applied as a fer- 

 tilizing material. Among these are red clover and alfalfa. 

 Wheat, peanuts, sorghum, onions, beets, and cabbages 

 yield much better when lime is used on a soil that previ- 

 ously was acid. 



How to use lime as a fertilizer. Quicklime (or lump 

 lime) must be slacked before being spread. This can be 

 done either by pouring water over it while in boxes or in 

 the wagon body, or by covering piles of a few bushels of 

 quicklime with a layer of damp earth. Within a few days 

 or weeks the water in the earth will reduce the lumps of 

 lime to powder, and it is then ready to be spread broad- 

 cast on the plowed ground and harrowed in. From six to 

 twelve barrels of quicklime (which will occupy much 

 more space and weigh more after slacking) are used on 

 one acre. Lime need not be applied oftener than once in 

 three or five years. 



Other uses of lime when added to the soil. Lime is a 

 plant-food. Besides overcoming the acidity of certain 

 soils, lime causes the beneficial nitrate-forming germs to 

 increase. It is useful also in hastening the rotting of 

 vegetable matter, such as leaves or weeds which have been 

 plowed under. This rotting must occur before roots can 

 use such vegetable matter. 



Lime makes stiff clay soils more porous, and more 

 easily worked. Like cultivation, it is a stimulant. It 

 changes some of the potash in the soil into a form that 

 plants can use. It may cause a poor, sandy soil to become 

 exhausted rapidly by putting into crops the little fertility 



