RIGHT USE OF LIME IN SOIL IMPROVEMENT 



knowledge of magnesia, and if it was an 

 impurity like clay or sand, cutting down 

 value per ton, and if it was worse because 

 harmful, they wanted none of it. 



The Fact's Importance. If every farm 

 could get its supply of pure calcium lime as 

 cheaply as it can have magnesian lime, the 

 truth respecting the value of the latter 

 would have small agricultural importance, 

 but as a great bulk of farm and commercial 

 supplies of lime is magnesian, financial 

 injury has been done consumers who have 

 paid more than should have been paid for 

 relatively pure calcium lime and limestone, 

 being afraid to use goods whose content of 

 magnesium was not small. It is poor policy 

 to use either kind of burned lime in great 

 excess, but when rationally used on all soils 

 except sandy ones, there is no prefer- 

 ence to be exercised that can be based upon 

 performance. A magnesian lime corrects 

 as much acidity as a high calcium lime, and 

 a little more, and its use is to be recom- 

 mended if there is any advantage in the 

 matter of price, except in the case of dis- 

 tinctly sandy soils. 



Magnesian Limestone. Leading scien- 

 tists making tests of limestone for normal 



66 



