124 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



feasted on clams, it ■would seem, and this was tlie 

 dumping ground for their shells during unnum- 

 bered years. Here then was carbonate of lime, and 

 it was most noticeable that the soil in the interstices 

 between the shells was dark in color and evidently 

 contained a good deal of humus, while the soil of 

 the interior away from the lime was raw and yellow. 

 The lesson is plain; in order to make alfalfa grow 

 all over western Washington it is only necessary to 

 apply lime, and as limestone is very scant in supply 

 the best source, perhaps, would be these very shells, 

 which could be ground to a powder and mixed with 

 the soil. 



Lime in England. — In other lands men have long 

 imitated Nature's way and used lime in large 

 amounts. England is built- upon chalk rock, and 

 chalk is a soft form of carbonate of lime. For cen- 

 turies farmers have dug this soft chalk and hauled 

 it to the fields, spreading it broadcast where it soon 

 crumbled and mixed with, the soil. The writer has 

 stood on the brinks of chalk pits in England so deep 

 that only the tops of trees peeped above their edges 

 and marveled as he reflected what enormous 

 amounts of chalk had been taken from them and for 

 what a very long time men had been doing good 

 farming in that land. It is a curious thought, too, 

 that the soil to which these good English farmers 

 were applying this lime was already what we would 

 term in America a limestone soil. It was a soil once 

 derived froim the chalk rock itself, decaying through 

 the ages through the action of soil waters and soil 



