802 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November 30 
SOME FERTILIZER EXPERIMENTS. 
PART III. 
It became necessary to adopt some 
simple test for an acid soil—something 
that would show when liine was needed. 
Prof. Wheeler gives the following simple 
directions which any one can carry out 
with little expense: 
A Test for Acidity. 
“A few tablespoonfuls of soil are put 
in a glass or cup, and moistened with 
sufficient water to make a stiff paste, or 
a mixture of corresponding consistency ; 
then a piece of blue litmus paper, from 
2 to 2 % inches long, is introduced into 
this mass after it has stood for 10 or 15 
minutes ; after having remained in con¬ 
tact with the moist soil for one or two 
minutes, it is carefully removed and 
rinsed off with water and allowed to 
dry. If, after drying, the red color still 
persist, there is evidence that the acid 
condition was not caused by carbonic 
acid, but rather by organic acids or acid 
salts, and the necessity for the liming 
is thus made evident. Itshouhl be stated 
that the utmost care must be taken that 
the fingers are never applied to the end 
of the litmus paper which is introduced 
into the soil, for the fingers always im¬ 
part a red coloration to the blue litmus 
paper, and if care were not taken in this 
particular, the reaction caused by the 
finger touch might be attributed to the 
soil itself. This holds true both during 
the insertion and the removal of the 
blue litmus paper from the wet soil. A 
spoon or a knife blade, or anything of 
that kind, may be used for parting the 
soil and for tucking the end of the 
litmus paper down into it, after which 
the soil may, by this means, be pressed 
about the paper.” 
There is a simple chemical test that 
any one can make. It was used very 
successfully on several farms in Rhode 
Island, and whenever the blue litmus 
paper changed to a permanent red in the 
damp soil, lime was found useful if not 
a necessity in preparing the soil for such 
crops as clover. You will understand 
that “litmus paper” is a substance like 
common blotting paper, which has been 
colored by litmus dye which is original¬ 
ly a blue color and is obtained from cer¬ 
tain lichens. Whenever it comes in con¬ 
tact with acid of a certain strength, 
this blue color is changed to red, and 
when this red is placed in an alkali— 
which is the opposite of an acid— 
it changes back to blue. You might 
compare it, in one sense, to the tongue. 
When it touches a lemon, it gives a 
sour taste ; but when it is coated with 
sugar, the taste changes to sweet. And 
so the litmus paper in the soil shows by 
its turning red that there is too much 
acid present, and that this must be 
neutralized before clover can ever thrive 
and grow. 
Lime, as we have said, is the great 
sweetener of nature, and a quantity of 
it, properly applied, will cure this sour¬ 
ness, iust as when the tongue tells us 
that our lemonade is too strong, we at 
once put in more sugar to sweeten it or 
to reduce the strong acid taste. As a 
matter of fact, the use of lime in this 
case is on much the same principle as 
that of sweetening the lemonade. We* 
don't add the sugar so that the lemonade 
will make a full “ balanced ration.” Oh, 
no, if we were after .that result, we 
would use some strong extract of beef. 
The sugar is used to correct the too 
strong acid taste, and not to furnish 
extra nutriment. So in this case the 
lime is used, not so much to provide 
plant food, as to cure the “ sourness ” in 
the soil. 
And here comes in another point about 
the application of this lime. We would 
not be satisfied to take a mouthful of 
strong lemon juice and water and then 
eat a lump of sugar after it. That would 
not be so satisfactory as first to dissolve 
the sugar in the water and juice, and 
then drink it. Why not, since the same 
quantities of sugar and juice are used in 
both cases ? Because in one case the 
sugar is mixed all through the water; 
every part however small, is reached. 
In the other, there is no mixture, and 
we simply have the two extremes of 
sour and sweet. Now in using lime on 
sour soils for the purpose of sweetening 
them, the same rule holds true. The 
lime must be thoroughly mixed with the 
soil to be of real use. Many of the text¬ 
books state that lime is of no use the 
first year. This is not even a half truth, 
as these Rhode Island experiments fully 
show. It is the method of applying it 
that determines its immediate service. 
If simply spread on the surface, or only 
plowed in, lime will not give striking re¬ 
sults the first year. If, however, it is 
spread on plowed ground, and thorough¬ 
ly mixed in the soil by harrowing, it will 
be of use at once to those plants which 
particularly need it. The scientific rea- 
san given by Prof. Wheeler for this is as 
follows: 
These organic acids and other acid salts are 
extremely insoluble in water, and were such not 
the case, the natural rainfall would wash them 
out of the soil, or in other words, they would be 
carried away in the drainage water, and such 
extremely acid conditions would, therefore, never 
come to exist. Now on account of their extreme 
insolubility, it is evident that any base which is 
applied to the soil for the purpose of overcoming 
this acid condition, must be so intimately mixed 
with the soil as to come in contact with all its 
particles if the maximum benefit is to be derived ; 
while if sodium carbonate or some more soluble 
base were employed, it would be diffused more 
readily and would accomplish its object without 
so much stirring on the part of the farmer. 
As an illustration of this, take the house¬ 
wife slicing up sour oranges that are a 
little dry. She sweetens them with 
sugar. If she simply put the sugar on 
the top of the dish, the lower slices 
would be as sour as ever, unless the mass 
stood some little time, and let the sugar 
soak down. The proper thing would be 
to mix the sugar with the oranges, layer 
by layer, and thus have the sourness 
neutralized in every particle. You will 
notice that Prof. Wheeler suggests that, 
possibly, soda might have much the 
same effect as the lime. Soda is an 
alkali like lime, and being soluble, might 
be more perfectly distributed through 
the soil—like the sugar in lemonade. 
We shall talk about soda in good time. 
You can see that some of the good re¬ 
sults claimed for it may be due to this 
sweetening of sour soils, and not to real 
plant food that it adds. 
Well drained upland soils in various 
parts of Rhode Island, were tested with 
this simple litmus paper test, and found 
sour enough to give the red color. When 
dressed with lime, these soils at once 
gave better crops—that is, they made 
better use of the fertilizer and manure 
applied to them. In one case in rows of 
the same field, one row without lime 
yielded 63 pounds, while another with 
lime gave 153% pounds. 
For 10 years, at one of our experi¬ 
ment stations, experiments with vegeta¬ 
bles and different forms of chemicals 
were carried on. The report was, that 
no matter how much of a so-called 
“complete fertilizer” was used, some 
vegetables refused to grow successfully. 
No reasonable explanation could be 
found for this, and the reports were 
never published. Prof. Wheeler says 
that he was informed that the soil was 
not acid ; but on securing samples, they 
gave the red color test with the blue 
litmus paper. The report that it was 
not acid, probably came from the fact 
that most people do not believe it possi¬ 
ble for a well-drained upland to be 
dangerously sour. Since these experi¬ 
ments were given up, lime has been used 
on that soil with remarkable results, 
especially in growing clover and Timo¬ 
thy. What does that show ? That the 
soil was too acid to enable these crops 
to make use of the fertilizer that had 
been put there. Lime cured this sour¬ 
ness, and clover and Timothy at once 
got to work on that stored up fertility. 
Next week we shall try to tell what ex¬ 
periments show as to the effect of lime 
on different crops. 
Live Stock Matters. 
THE "BLACK MULLETS 
A TALK ABOUT ABERDEKN-ANGUS CATTLE. 
Fairview Stock Farm is the name J. 
W. Marshall & Son have adopted for 
their 500-acre farm lying six miles west 
of Zanesville, O. It is located od the 
summit of a hill, from the top of which 
the horizon represents a circle the 
radius of which is eight miles in any 
direction, so that from this altitude, one 
can view a tract of over 100 square miles. 
“ I’m sorry you didn’t get around be¬ 
fore we disposed of the most of our 
calves,” said the junior member of the 
firm. “ I can take you around and show 
you our breeding stock ; but we have 
only about 65 head left.” 
A splendid black bull was first on the 
list. “ He is six years old, quiet, has a 
pedigree extending through about 30 
generations, and tips the beam at 30 
pounds short of 1% ton. He took first 
premium at the Ohio State Fair in 1801, 
but was defeated this year by one of 
last year’s competitors.” 
“ When an animal carries off the pen¬ 
nant at the Ohio State Fair, he can be 
safely exhibited at any other, can’t 
he ?” I asked. 
“ Any except the Illinois State Fair,” 
was the quick reply. “ The Springfield 
Fair is the greatest stock show in the 
United States; perhaps in the world. 
An animal might be as well bred as any 
exhibited, yet not have a ghost of a 
chance where there are so many com¬ 
petitors.” 
“Will you enumerate a few of the 
leading points of the Angus ?” 
“ Uniformity in color and type ; hardy, 
strong and vigorous ; early maturity ; 
easy keepers ; meat nicely marbled.” 
“ Are there any points possessed by 
this breed, not held in common with 
others ?” 
“ Yes, several ; they are hornless, 
naturally, which is quite an advantage. 
Then they are rustlers. What we mean 
by “rustlers” is, that they can get over 
an enormous territory for a small amount 
of pasture, and look well after the ex¬ 
ercise. They are prepotent. They yield 
more choice cuts, and bring a penny a 
pound more on the London market than 
any other breed.” 
“ What points of advantage has a 
thoroughbred steer over a scrub ? ” 
“ He is, generally, more evenly fleshed, 
has finer bone, and can be marketed 
earlier than the scrub.” 
A Discussion of Inbreeding. 
“ Do you not find that keeping an ani¬ 
mal a long time, makes it necessary to 
use some precaution against inbreed¬ 
ing ? ” 
“ We avoid inbreeding by changing 
blood in our sires every two years.” 
“ Have you ever had an opportunity 
to witness the effect of inbreeding ? ” 
“I knew a man who had a very re¬ 
spectable herd of grades. He wished to 
make them better, and inbred until he 
hadn’t anything left. Inbreeding, unless 
done by a master hand, is a very danger¬ 
ous experiment. Common sense and sci¬ 
ence are sometimes crisscross, and in- 
breeding, as it is ordinarily done, is an 
example.” 
“ How far removed in relationship 
(Continued on next page.) 
Strange 
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THE BIT OF BITS. 
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The Business Hen. 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER New York. 
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