LIMING OF SOILS FROM A PHYSIOLOGICAL STANDPOINT. os 
Soils of Tennessee.—The Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, 
Vol. X. No. 3, Knoxville, Tenn., 1897, contains the mechanical and 
chemical analyses of fifteen soils and eleven subsoils. In fully twenty- 
one of these twenty-six soil analyses,the magnesia content is larger 
than that of lime. This excess is in some cases but small, but in some 
unduly large. Thus, the sandstone soil of Grundy County shows 
0.073 per cent of lime and 0.291 per cent of magnesia, or nearly four 
times as much magnesia as lime. Very correctly the reporting chem- 
ist, Charles F. Vanderford, remarks, on page 38, that **it is certain that. 
dolomite (magnesian limestone) soils are much more easily injured by 
working when too wet than the soils in which magnesia is less promi- 
nently a constituent: and it is also a fact that dolomite soils readily 
and happily respond to an application of lime from a high-grade 
calcium carbonate.” The sotis of Arkansas show partially the same 
characteristics as those of Tennessee, but further information regard- 
ing them is desirable. 
Soils of Rhode Island.—The Agricultural Experiment Station Bul- 
letin No. 72, Kingston, R. [., contains seven analyses of the soils of 
that State, but only one of these soils shows an excess (a moderate 
one) of magnesia over lime: | 
Per cent. 
ES SUT a eT ee, ae a 1.295 
mre SPU ss te cee os a 1. 141 
0 ES ae ee 0. 252 
ENON I OITA Se 2 8 oe ew ae et ek 0. 209 
Bulletin No. 65 and the Seventh Annual Report of the Rhode Island 
Experiment Station contain two analyses showing a preponderance of 
lime over magnesia. ' 
Soils from South America.—The writer’s search for a number of 
soil analyses of South America was not crowned with much success. 
It may, however, be mentioned that two samples of very fertile soils 
of Paraguay” showed an excess of lime over magnesia: Lime, 0.138 
and 0.355 per cent: magnesia, 0.036 and 0.065 per cent. 
SOILS FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. 
Soils from Russia.—Yhe analyses of ten samples of the ‘* Black 
earth.”* celebrated for its high degree of fertility, show from 0.66 to 
2.16 per cent of lime and from 0.23 to 1.39 per cent of magnesia, and 
in not a single instance more magnesia than lime. The amount of 
phosphoric acid runs from 0.09 to 1.66 per cent, that of potassa from 
'Soils of Bermuda are generally rich in lime, one sample of which contains as 
much as 51.4 per cent lime for only 0.756 per cent magnesia. 
? Jahresber. f. Agr. Chem., 1873. 
*Tbid., 1873. 
