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Indiana University Studies 



same statistics are not available for the soils of Indiana is the 

 fact that the farmer has been too much inclined to let well enough 

 alone and practice the system of farming followed by his father 

 before him. He must realize that economic conditions have 

 changed and that what would bring success on the virgin forest 

 soils of a century ago will lead to disaster at the present time. 



Probably no better and more convincing data can be furnished 

 at the present time than the following taken from the work of 

 Professor Hopkins in University of Illinois Experiment Station 

 Circular No. 157 (1912) on ''Soil Fertility". He says (p. 10): 



As an average of the first 2 years' work on two different experimental 

 fields (Ewing and Raleigh) where the initial application was 5 tons per acre, 

 the average increases were 34 ton of hay, 93^ bushels of corn, 8.9 bushels of 

 oats, and 33^ bushels of wheat; and, as the increased farm manure or in- 

 creased crop residues from these larger crops are returned to the land, the 

 effect becomes more marked in subsequent years. 



On the Vienna experiment field in Johnson county, about 9 tons per 

 acre of ground limestone were applied 10 years ago. At a cost of $1.25 a 

 ton, this would amount to $11.25 and the returns for this investment have 

 thus far amounted to 90.3 bushels of corn, or to 42.2 bushels of wheat, or to 

 33^ tons of clover. Any one of these ml] pay for the limestone three times 

 over, and, in addition, two-thirds of the legume crops have been plowed 

 under as green manure, and at the end of 9 years with no further application, 

 the land treated with limestone is producing 5 bushels more wheat, 9.3 

 bushels more of corn, and 1.4 tons more clover hay per acre than the land not 

 so treated. Indeed, as an average of the last 2 years, this old worn hill land 

 has produced larger crops where the limestone had been applied than the 

 average yield for the State of Illinois for each of the crops, corn, wheat, 

 and hay. 



Since this study is not supposed to go deeply into the agri- 

 cultural phases of limestone as a fertilizer, except to show what 

 a broad market could be opened up by a proper process of educa- 

 tion of the farmer, an outline of the kinds of soil that need this 

 dressing, with their distribution, is all that will be attempted in 

 this connection. But the time is ripe and the field for experi- 

 ment is broad and must be covered before we can say we know the 

 possibilities of raw fertilizers and the principles that govern their 

 use. 



What Soils Need Limestone Dressing. The idea that, 

 since the soils of much of Monroe and Lawrence counties are 

 on the limestones and in fact are residual soils from the decomposi- 

 tion of limestones, they do not therefore need limestone dressing 

 is responsible for the fact that the farmers of these counties have 

 allowed these vast deposits of limestone to go unutilized. In 



