130 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



without success. I advised drainage, and the land 

 was drained, but yet alfalfa refused to grow. I 

 advised manure, and the land was made so rich that 

 hog weeds grew as high as a man's head, and yet 

 alfalfa refused to grow. I advised much phos- 

 phorus with no result. Different times of seeding 

 were tried, and inoculation of the soil, and yet only 

 failure resulted. Then I gave much belated advice 

 to lime, and lime well, to use eight tons of ground 

 limestone to the acre and seed in late July. The 

 man did nearly as he was told, putting on six tons 

 of raw lime dust to the acre, and the very next year 

 cut six tons to the acre of alfalfa hay. His field was 

 the marvel of all the country around, and men came 

 to see it. 



I could multiply these instances almost indefi- 

 nitely. 



Lime in Soils. The reader should bear steadily 

 in mind that the natural alfalfa growing regions of 

 the world have in their soils now about from .5 per 

 cent to 4 per cent of carbonate of lime. Five-tenths 

 per cent is half of 1 per cent, or about ten 'tons of car- 

 bonate of lime to the acre. Four per cent, would be 

 approximately eighty tons of carbonate of lime to 

 the acre. These figures are for the top foot of soil 

 only. In natural alfalfa soils the subsoil is usually 

 richer in lime than the top soil. When a man lives 

 away from the limestone it is his privilege to buy 

 carbonate of lime and add it to his soil. And when 

 he lives in a region where limestone rocks abound 

 and the soil is yet deficient because of leaching 1 rains 



