124 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
feasted on clams, it would seem, and this was the 
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 
unitated 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 from the chalk rock itself, decaying through 
the ages through the action of soil waters and soil 
