76 TWENTY-FlEST BlENNIAL RePOKT 



cured. Today there are in the neighborhood of 75 large 

 mills producing ground limestone and some 50 small ma- 

 chines are owned either individually or co-operatively 

 within the State. Convicts in some of the states are be- 

 ing used in operating quarries and machines to turn out 

 ground limestone for the farmers. Under the amend- 

 ment recently passed providing convicts may work out- 

 side the penetentiary walls makes it possible for Ken- 

 tucky to use some of her convicts for a similar pur- 

 pose. A sufficient demand from the farmers for this 

 material may possibly lead to some legislation along this 

 line in Kentucky. It has been utterly impossible for this 

 Department with two machines to reach more than one- 

 tenth of the farmers asking for their use. It is a well- 

 known fact that Kentucky has an unlimited supply of 

 carbonate of lime. It needs only to be pulve"rized to 

 sweeten the land, that now will not produce leguminous 

 crops as a result of acidity. Here is the basis of soil 

 improvement, and the sooner the farmers learn this 

 fundamental truth, the quicker will be our beginning of 

 real agricultural growth. 



CO-OPEEATIVE ORCHARDS. 



During the past two years, a Co-operative Orchard 

 Association has been organized in Lewis county, with a 

 membership of approximately four hundred and thirty, 

 owning one thousand four hundred and seventy-six acres. 

 To plant these orchards it required seventy-three thou- 

 sand eight hundred trees. These trees were of the fol- 

 lowing varieties : 



Stayman Winesap, 15,000; York Imperial, 15,000; 

 Rome Beauty, 15,000; Jonathan, 15,000; Grimes Golden, 

 7,500, and Yellow Transparent, 7,500. 



These trees were bought as whole root grafts and 

 planted in the spring of 1915. The illustrations accom- 

 panying this article show the growth, of these trees in 

 one season, which in some instances has exceeded six 

 feet. 



