28 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



ey for one thing when another is needed. A great help will be a 

 study of Bulletin 123 of the Illinois Experiment Station. If 

 you do not have this, write the Station for it. This Bulletin 

 gives a general soil map of the State, showing the fourteen 

 great soil acres, and gives a world of information about the 

 absolute needs of these soils. This is your best help until the 

 soil survey of your respective counties is complete, then write 

 the Experiment Station for definite information regarding your 

 own farm. 



There are ten elements of plant food without which no 

 plant can live. Most of these are as free for the plant as is air 

 and water for the stock on your farms. The problem is merely 

 making conditions right so the plant can get them. There are 

 four, however, that need to be given consideration, just as it 

 is necessary to provide corn, hay, etc., for stock. 



On sour or acid soil the first thing to do is to add crushed 

 limestone. You can tell by a very simple test whether limestone 

 is needed on your land. Take a lump of soil the size of an egg, 

 moisten with water sufficiently to make a mud ball, break open 

 and insert a strip of blue litmus paper, and press the soil to- 

 gether against the paper. Allow the paper to remain in the soil 

 about twenty minutes. If the blue paper changes to a pink 

 color, then the soil is sour or acid and needs limestone. The 

 subsoil should also be tested, and if acid, limestone must be 

 added. Apply enough limestone to correct the acid in the soil. 

 This may require from two to five tons per acre. Seven to eight 

 hundred pounds per acre per year are necessary to keep the soil 

 sweet. Enough limestone can be applied at one time to last a 

 number of years. In most places in the State limestone can be 

 secured at prices that will make the annual cost for this ma- 

 terial less than 50 cents per acre. Circular no, Illinois Ex- 

 periment Station, gives considerable information on limestone, 

 also names of companies selling it, and gives directions for mak- 

 ing a machine with which to spread it. 



Nitrogen limits crop yields in most sections of the State 

 on the older farmed lands. Nitrogen in its natural state is a 

 gas forming three-fourths of the air. Corn, oats, wheat and 



