PEHTILlZenS. 80 



this vegeuble matter to decompose too quicklr. When the crop approaches 

 maturity it finds that its qtiaatum of vegetable matter has ah^ady been 

 decomposed and used up. The result will be conspicuonaly disaatrous if 

 the 8oil was not deficient in lime. The lime has supplied no want, but has 

 only inflicted an injury, 



1. Lime is known as caustic or quick lime. This is the article as we obtain 

 it firom the kiln. Heat has expelled carbonic acid from the carbonate of 

 lime, and caustic lime is the result. 



2. Hydrated or slaked lime. When we add to lumps of caustic lime 

 about twenty-five per cent, of water, the lumps Ml down into a perfectly dry 

 powder, giving us slaked lime. 



3. Upon exposure to the atmosphere, this slaked lime /oees its properties. 

 It becomes the carbonate of lime, or mild lime — the very compound chemi- 

 cally firom which the lime was originally obtained. This mild lime, or car- 

 bonate of lime, has no caustic or disorganizing properties whatsoever. It 

 may be asked, then, why we do not use Ume in its natural state, namely the 

 carbonate of lime, if it gets into that condition when we spread it on the soil ? 

 We answer: 



1. Although lime goes back to carbonate of lime, it does not do so all at 

 once, and, in the process of returning to that condition, it decompose* 

 vegetable matter, and so makes it plant food. 



2. The natural limestone rock — the carbonate — is very hard, and its re- 

 duction to a powder by mechanical means would be difficult and expensive. 

 Now, when lime slakes in the air, it fells down into a dry powder. No 

 mechanical reduction, therefore, is necessary. It requires less expenditure 

 of force to bum the limestone, and let the lime fall to powder of itself^ than 

 to reduce the natural rock by mechanical power. 



Trees, Uke grasses, contain lime largely. The indication is to apply old 

 mortar, or lime in any form, to frtiit or shade trees, and this should be doi^ . 

 in the fall. 



Home-Made Fertlllxers for the >* Common Farmer." — The follow- 

 ing ia firom the Ohio Farmer: Let us look at an average barnyard — one that 

 may be met with most anywhere. Here we see a large pile of horse manure 

 steaming away as though on fire. Here a pile of cow manure all frozen so it 

 cannot rot its own Utter before summer. There a pile of dry corn-stalks, as 

 they have been thrown out of the feeding-room. In one part of the yard 

 stands a straw stack that the cattle run around and puU down, but the scat- 

 terings are left close around the stack, and are tramped two feet deep, while 

 a few feet from the stack the ground may be seen. The comer of the yard 

 where the out-door feeding is done is the only portion that is in any order 

 for manure. 



Now I will leave it to my readers if I have not described an average barn- 

 yard. This is where farmers «re to blame. It is but Uttle trouble to keep 

 our barnyards in prcwr shape if we only will. Let us ask the proprietor of 

 our sample barnyard if he has so much work during winter that he cannot 

 attend to his yard. His answer will be: " No, but I thought the barnyard 

 could take care of itself." With most of farmers there is a great deal of 

 spare time during the winter. Their work, aside from stock feeding, ia not 

 very pushing, and a day's time now and then would not be missed. Let us 

 have that day once in a while to straighten up that yard, and I will see to it 

 that you are paid for it next fall. Let us take a fork every few days and go 

 arotind that straw stack, taking the loose straw ^hat ia under foot and eover 



