114 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



manure, but it certainly makes our barn manures 

 last two or three years longer than they do when we 

 do not use lime." The truth is that the presence in 

 their soil of abundant carbonate of lime did two 

 useful things it stopped the leaching away of sol- 

 uble nitrates and it promoted the development in 

 their soil of the wonderful little organisms that can 

 fix nitrogen in the soil, even without the aid of 

 legumes, the azotobacter. Has any farmer failed to 

 note that grass land, when full of carbonate of lime, 

 gets stored full of nitrogen, even without the pres- 

 ence of many clovers! That is the work, so scien- 

 tists tell us, of these marvelous little azotobacter 

 organisms. 



Carbonate of Lime Is Neutral. There is an old 

 saying that has done more to harm agriculture 

 throughout the English speaking world than any 

 other known combination of words. It is this : "Lime 

 enriches the father and impoverishes the son." 



This saying leads men to believe that lime is a 

 stimulant, something that enables plants to forage 

 more vigorously and thus more quickly rob the soil, 

 or else that the lime sets free plant food. There is, 

 of course, some truth in these assumptions if applied 

 to burned lime. Burned lime does attack humus 

 or any vegetable or organic compound. Used in ex- 

 cess it may render soils temporarily barren. But 

 carbonate of lime never injures- soil in any way. It 

 is a neutral thing; like sand it attacks nothing. Soil 

 acids attack it ; it welcomes the enemy and absorbs it 

 into itself. Could we change that old saw to read, 



