128 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



using lime in the soil. Some day, soon let us hope, 

 there will be thousands of machines busily at work 

 grinding up the raw limestone rocks, which fortu- 

 nately are plentiful enough in America, and farmers 

 will be busy spreading this sweetening powder 

 broadcast over their land. 



Distributing Lime. I have found some difficulty 

 in distributing limes. Spreaders there are, but 

 usually they do not apply it nearly fast enough. 

 There will be machines devised that will apply as 

 much as one wishes, up to ten tons to the acre, no 

 doubt. At present the manure spreader seems as 

 satisfactory as anything available for spreading 

 ground limestone. 



Quantity of Lime. How much should be used on 

 an acre? It is difficult to say. The art of lim- 

 ing is too new in America, especially with carbonate 

 of lime, ground limestone, to give us much data. We 

 can only guess. The writer has known of remark- 

 able results from use of as little as three tons per 

 acre of ground limestone. This seems an infinitesi- 

 mal amount when one considers the 2,000 tons of soil 

 in the top foot of an acre. Take that acre apart, 

 there are 160 square rods in it. Supposing one were 

 asked to lime one square rod sufficiently to sweeten 

 it well, using the inert ground limestone, how much 

 would he naturally put in? Most sensible men would 

 put in at least 500 pounds, supposing cost was not 

 considered. That would make forty tons to the 

 acre, and we cannot afford that now; there are too 

 many acres to be limed. But we can afford 100 



