96 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
now known to be quite general, even 
where the land is high and well drained. 
These soils are unfavorable to the 
growth and development of nitrifying 
organisms, and as a consequence the pro¬ 
cesses of nitrification would tend to 
cease. Further, the tendency of these 
organic acids would be to attack such 
bases as are present in the soil, and if 
iron be one of these bases, salts of this 
metal would be formed, and these salts 
would prove injurious to micro-organ¬ 
isms, and possibly also to the tender 
rootlets of the plant. 
It is believed by some that lime aids 
in the production of root hairs, and that 
by this means the absorption of p-otash 
is encouraged. 
IS THIS CONDITION OF SOIL ACIDITY 
A GENERAL ONE? 
If then there is a tendency under 
some conditions, to the formation, in 
the soil, of organic acids, the questions 
which will naturally present themselves 
to those interested in agriculture and 
horticulture are: To what extent are 
the soils with which I am concerned 
thus affected, how may I recognize such 
a condition, and has lime proved an effi¬ 
cient remedy? Perhaps the most ex¬ 
haustive work along this line has been 
done by Wheeler and his associates, of 
the Rhode Island Experiment Station. 
For something like twelve years they 
have been working on this problem, and 
they have shown beyond a doubt, that 
the sandy soils of Rhode Island do very 
generally give an acid reaction; and 
they have further shown, as will be 
pointed out more fully later, that lime 
is an efficient remedy. Hilgard has 
noted a similar condition in the sandy 
* upland soils of Mississippi and other 
southern states, and earlier, Ruffin call¬ 
ed attention to extensive tracts of that 
character in Virginia. French investi¬ 
gators have mentioned large areas of 
sandy soil in Brittany, Limousin, and 
other sections of France, as distinctly 
acid; and in German writings refer¬ 
ence to sandy, sour soils is not wanting. 
Hilgard in speaking of sour soils 
writes as follows: “The acid reaction 
characterizing the ulmic substances, is 
also characteristic of many woodlands, 
notably in the. United States of the soils 
of the long-leaf pine region of the Cot¬ 
ton States, both upland and lowland, as 
well as of many deciduous forests in 
northern climates. Hence, liming, 
whether artificial or natural, effects a 
most notable improvement together 
with a marked change of vegetation in 
these lands.” Previous to the work of 
Wheeler, Hartwell, and others, it was 
generally considered, in America at 
least, that only low wet lands, or those 
that were largely made up of muck, 
were subject to the sour or acid condi¬ 
tions ; but we now know, beyond a doubt, 
that in many places, upland and well 
drained soils do show a decidedly acid 
reactibn. The question as to how we 
shall recognize this condition is not al¬ 
ways the simplest. It may sometimes 
be recognized by the character of the 
vegetation, or the crops grown on it, 
but the surest way is a test of some 
kind. The one most generally used is 
the litmus paper test, though this is not 
always satisfactory, since it gives us no 
very definite idea of the degree of acidi¬ 
ty, and undoubtedly fails in some in¬ 
stances, to indicate an acid condition 
which really does exist. And here it 
may be said that our knowledge of 
methods of determining soil acidity is 
