CHAPTER II 

 THE NEED OF LIME 



The Unproductive Farm. When a soil expert 

 visits an unproductive farm to determine its needs, 

 he gives his chief attention to four possible fac- 

 tors in his problem : lack of drainage, of lime, of 

 organic matter, and of available plant-food. His 

 first concern regards drainage. If the water from 

 rains is held in the surface by an impervious stra- 

 tum beneath, it is idle to spend money in other 

 amendments until the difficulty respecting drain- 

 age has been overcome. A water-logged soil is 

 helpless. It cannot provide available plant-food, 

 air, and warmth to plants. Underdrainage is 

 urgently demanded when the level of dead water 

 in the soil is near the surface. The area needing 

 drainage is larger than most land-owners believe, 

 and it increases as soils become older. On the 

 other hand, the requirements of lime, organic 

 matter, and available plant-food are so nearly 

 universal, in the case of unproductive land in the 

 eastern half of the United States, that they are here 



[it] 



