lockers 



By Frank Geugler 



Wabash Locker Service opened up for 



business Taiesday, Jan. 2, and Thursday, 

 Jan. 11, the writer visited the plant and 

 attended the 25th annual meeting of the 

 Wabash County Farm Bureau. During the 

 first 10 days of the locker plant operation, 

 John Walser and Mrs. Walser had about 

 all they could do to keep from becoming 

 buried under the flow of business coming 

 into the plant. The present 650 installed 

 lockers are about all full, and additional 

 lockers have been ordered. When filled to 

 capacity, there will be 736 lockers. Herman 

 Schnitz, president, is of the opinion that 

 soon after all lockers are installed, they 

 will be rented. The board of directors of 

 the locker company is of the opinion that 

 there is a great need in the county for 

 slaughter service and is considering very 

 seriously making this service available to 

 locker patrons at an early date. 



Other new locker plants to open up for 



business recently are located at Piper City, 

 and Sibley in Ford county, and Fisher, 

 Champaign county. 



Oliver Bower, Bushton, Coles county, re- 

 ported recently that the Coles County Locker 

 Service has let contracts for reconditioning 

 a building for housing a plant in Charleston. 

 The contract has been let for insulating the 

 refrigerated rooms and orders have been 

 placed for all necessary equipment. 



The new 8S0-locker plant to be con- 

 structed at Paris has been delayed because 

 of adverse weather for construction. Most 

 necessary building materials are on the 

 ground and with favorable weather, con- 

 struction will move forward. 



The constructioa of a. new building to 



house a plant at Steelville, Randolph 

 county, is also underway. Plants are also 

 going into existing buildings at Noble, 

 Richland county, and Windsor, Shelby 

 county. 



Dec. 4, William Hegenbart, who has been 



first meat cutter for more than three years 

 took over the management of the LaSalle 

 plant and the branch plant at Grand Ridge. 

 The two plants serve more than 700 patrons. 

 Processing services are rendered also to a 

 number of small locker plants privately 

 owned. President L. C. Rinker is of the 

 opinion that at an early date their operations 

 should be expanded greatly. At only slight 

 additional cost a large room adjoining the 

 present locker plant could be insulated to 

 accommodate 300 or more lockers. Slaugh- 

 ter service should also be made available 

 to locker patrons and others, is the opinion 

 of the board of directors. 



A new broom sweeps clean. So does a 

 mower cut clean when it has a sharp knife 

 and properly adjusted cutter bar. 



Advise Farmeis To Check - - - 

 On Grinding of Limestone 



Recent investigations indicate that it 

 will pay fanners to check on the fineness 

 of grinding in the agricultural limestone 

 that they purchase. 



In the last three months the soil im- 

 provement department of the Illinois Ag- 

 ricultural Association in its quality super- 

 visional work has sampled 27 different 

 quarries in 20 counties and found that 

 only 9 were producing limestone 80 per 

 cent or more of which passed an 8 mesh 

 screen. Four were below 60 per cent, 5 

 were between 60 and 70 f)er cent and 1 1 

 between 70 and 80 per cent passing an 8 

 mesh screen. 



The importance of a reasonable fine- 

 ness of grinding of agricultural limestone 

 is recognized when one realizes the tre- 

 mendous job of work that limestone per- 

 forms on an acid or sour soil. For ex- 

 ample, 3 tons of limestone or 6000 

 pounds on a medium acid soil are ex- 

 pected to correct the acidity of 2,000,000 

 pounds of surface soil (depth of 6 2/3 

 inches) or 6 pounds of limestone is ex- 

 pected to correct the sourness of approx- 

 imately 2000 pounds of soil. 



The U. of I. College of Agriculture 

 after years -of study recommends that 

 limestone be ground so that 80 per cent 

 or more will pass an 8 mesh screen (8 

 wires to the inch or 64 openings per 

 square inch). 



Ton for ton the more finely ground 

 limestone will correct acidity more 

 quickly than will the coarser ground ma- 

 terial. The reason for the more rapid 

 action is that the finer limestone having 

 a great number of particles per ton is 

 able to establish more areas of sweet soil 

 immediately. Disking or harrowing scat- 

 ters the particles of limestone through 

 the top surface soil. 



Each limestone particle then begins to 

 correct the acidity of the soil surrounding 

 it and during the first year may neutralize 

 an area ranging from the size of a hazel- 

 nut to a walnut. Thus, thousands of 

 areas of sweet soil are developed over 

 the entire field. 



The inefficiency of coarse limestone is 

 due to the relatively small number of 

 limestone particles and consequently only 

 a small number of areas of sweet soil can 

 be established. High testing material 

 (CCE content) , a reasonable fineness of 

 grinding (80 per cent passing an S 

 mesh), and a careful even job of spread- 

 ing are three very important factors in 

 limestone usage. 



Farmers can do much to correct the 

 coarseness in limestone by objecting to 

 material not properly ground. Test 

 reports on quarries serving the area as 

 well as a specimen sample showing 



proper fineness of grinding are available 

 m each county Farm Bureau office. 



soils 



By John R. Spencer 



To produce one hundred bushels of com 



the soil must deliver 150 pounds Nitrogen. 

 23 pounds Phosphorus (P), 72 pounds 

 Potash (K) organic matter and 5 million 

 pounds of water. These figures are large 

 and further emphasize the importance of 

 soil building and fertility maintenance. 



Tliere is considerable speculation on the 

 total tonnage of limestone applied in the 

 state last year with some quarries reportinj; 

 a larger output and some a smaller produc- 

 tion. A Chicago Company (one plant) 

 marketed more than 135,000 tons in 1944 

 compared with 109,000 tons in 1943. A St. 

 Louis company, (four plants) reported an 

 increase, marketing one million tons of limt- 

 stone last year. 



A company in Johnson county recently 



changed over from diesel power to electricity 

 for its principal crushing operations. The 

 John McClure Quarry in McDonough coun- 

 ty recently received WPB approval for a 

 complete change over to purchased electric 

 power. 



Joe Stelbrink of Calhoun county whose 

 farm is on upland loess soil, level land, gives 

 an interesting experience of results with rock 

 phosphate on alfalfa. In October 1943, he 

 applied one half ton per acre of rock phos- 

 phate to five acres of an established alfalfa 

 field which according to Farm Adviser Al- 

 lison tested "A good medium" phosphate 

 content. In the first cutting of 1944, there 

 appeared to be no difference in yield; in the 

 second cutting the unphosphated five acres 

 yielded 45 bales and the phosphated acres 

 yielded 137 bales. There was evident a sub- 

 stantial difference in growth and there ap- 

 peared to be less insect damage in the fer- 

 tilized section of the field. 



According to college authorities it would 

 cost approximately 10 cents a bushel, at 

 present prices for fertilizers, of soybeans to 

 replace the phosphorus and potassium re- 

 moved by them from soils. This is based on 

 the results of a five year test at the Joliet ex- 

 perimental field. H. J. Snider states, "From 

 the most part, the beans are sold from the 

 farm and since they contain such a large 

 proportion of the total nitrogen (in the en- 

 tire crop) there is little probability that soy- 

 beans contribute anything toward building 

 up permanently the nitrogen content of 

 soil." 



While Illinois farmers are using very 

 large amounts of limestone annually a re- 

 cent estimate by college authorities is that 

 slightly more than one third of the crop and 

 pasture in Illinois is adequately limed now 

 and that approximately thirteen million acres 

 still need treatment. 



22 



I. A. A. RECORD 



FEBRUl 



