6o 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
couple of good, heavy rains coming be¬ 
tween the applications. 
Mr. Sample: You mean the lime rock, 
or hydrated? 
Mr. Skinner: Either one. 
Mr. Shepard : Mr. Skinner mentioned 
quick lime, ground lime, slaked lime, etc. 
It seems to me he neglected one of the 
important resources in this state; that is, 
marl. 
Mr. Skinner: Marl is very good, and 
has the advantage in this respect, that on 
very sandy soils it contains a certain 
amount of clay, and that adds fine parti¬ 
cles to our sandy soils and makes them 
more of the nature of sandy loams. The 
more of that we can produce in that direc¬ 
tion, the better off we are; that is, the clay 
in the marl will assist in improving the 
physical condition of the soil. 
Mr. Shepard: One of the problems is 
that it is hard to get it fine enough. I 
would like to know what experience any¬ 
one here has had to get it in shape to put 
on the land. 
Mr. Skinner : I don’t know of any par¬ 
ticular case, but where you can get marl 
cheap and apply it, it is my suggestion to 
go ahead and use it. You could not 
wish for a much better material. 
Mr. --: I would like to know 
whether or not lime which has been used 
to soften artesian water would be bene¬ 
ficial. In softening our water, hydrated 
lime is put in and the water deposits it 
after the process of softening is finished. 
We have a large amount of this by¬ 
product and I am a committee of one ap¬ 
pointed to give away this by-product in 
order to put it out of our way. If anyone 
would like to experiment with it, so that 
they could use a carload at a time, they 
may have a carload just by paying the 
freight. It is simply hydrated lime that 
has passed through the process of soften¬ 
ing artesian water. 
Mr. Skinner: I have had no experi¬ 
ence, and have had no information with 
reference to it. 
Mr. Hume : I think it would be practi¬ 
cally useless so far as obtaining the re¬ 
sults desired, because the process of wash¬ 
ing the lime would take out the active part 
that is the agent in the fresh lime that is 
used. It would be worth a trial, however. 
Mr. Lewis: What conditions would be 
noticed in a grove needing lime ? 
Mr. Skinner: The frenched condition 
that I described in the paper, with 
sloughing off of the roots. Sometimes 
it causes a marked frenching condi¬ 
tion of the leaves, and very often I think 
it induces dieback where it otherwise 
would not exist; that is, forcing the trees 
with ammonia where an acid condition of 
the soil exists, is more likely to produce 
dieback and diseased condition than forc¬ 
ing them in a wholesome soil; one that is 
alkaline. 
Mr. L. B. Skinner: Isn’t it a fact that 
all our groves need lime? 
Mr. R. E. Skinner: Down in the lime¬ 
stone country they have a soil under the 
limestone that is very alkaline. Then there 
is hammock soil that has a large amount 
of lime that really would not require 
lime. 
I would not be willing to take a litmus 
test of soil as an indication as to whether 
or not ft required lime. I would rather 
