KA1 
Published by 
The Rural Publishing Co. 
333 W. 30th Street 
New York 
The Rural New-Yorker 
The Business Farmer’s Paper 
Weekly, One Dollar Per Year 
Postpaid 
Single Copies, Five Cents 
Yol. LXXVI 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 2, 1915. 
No. 4344. 
Questions About Lime. 
Legumes Not Needing Lime. 
I read what is said about cover crops and lime, and 
readily see how they work together to bring up the 
soil, but here is my problem. I am raising strawber¬ 
ries and potatoes. Both crops need strong, rich soil, 
which means that I must use clover or some leguminous 
crop, or buy expensive manure—and weed seed. Now, 
I understand that clover is a lime-loving plant, and will 
not do well without lime. Y’et I am told that lime 
should not be used on either strawberries or potatoes. 
What then can I do if the clover must have lime and 
this lime is bad for my two crops? s. n. r. 
T is true that lime cannot be advised for either 
potatoes or strawberries, since an alkaline soil 
encourages potato scab and discourages the straw¬ 
berry plant. (Jround limestone in moderate quan¬ 
tities might not prove harmful, although if you 
exposing the roots during the Winter months, bank¬ 
ing up again in Spring. s. .T. d. 
ROM our own experience we should call the 
ground limestone practically worthless for 
lighting the borers. We doubt if it would kill any 
large number of them. A thick wash or paint of 
the lime-sulphur mixture would be much better ap- 
I lied in the early Spring. As for leaving a hole 
around the tree during the Winter months we call 
that bad practice. We have had the water form in 
these holes and freeze solid around the lower trunk 
of the tree during the Winter, causing considerable 
loss in injury to the tree. We should follow just 
the reverse of this plan. In the Fall dig out the 
borers as well as you can, then mound up the tree 
with earth or coal ashes. In the Spring hoe this 
mound down, hollow out the soil a little and paint 
two tons of ground limestone. On very hard sour soil 
3.000 pounds of slaked lime may he used, but one 
ton is the standard. It is quite possible to use too 
much lime, especially on light soils. In those ar¬ 
ticles we merely tried to tell what we considered the 
best, way of applying lime. A good drill certainly 
puts it on more evenly than any hand sowing we 
ever saw done. It is hardly necessary to tell a man 
how to scatter lime if he has ever broadcast seed 
or fertilizer. We have never tried this plan of 
using stone lime in the Fall and leaving it to slake 
and must pass that on to farmers who have tried it. 
our own experience shows that it is best to work 
the lime into the soil and not to leave it on top 
even in the lumps. If any farmers have tried this 
plan will they tell us about it? 
used enough of it to suit Red clover or Alfalfa the 
soil would he left alkaline. We should use the 
legumes which do not need so much lime. Alsike 
clover does fairly well 
on soils so sour and 
damp that Red will 
often curl up and quit. 
Crimson clover will also 
do well without the 
heavy liming needed for 
Red clover. While Al¬ 
sike will not give as 
heavy a yield as Red it 
has the power to gather 
nitrogen from the air, 
and will keep up the 
soil in a short rotation. 
It can be seeded after 
plowing up an o 1 d 
strawberry bed in June, 
and give a h e a v y 
growth to be plowed un¬ 
der the followin g 
Spring for another crop 
of strawberries. Soy 
beans and cow peas will 
also do well on a neu¬ 
tral or slightly acid 
soil, as will also Hairy 
vetch. These cro p s 
used without lime or 
with small quantities of 
ground limestone will 
prove full substitute for 
Red or Mammoth clov¬ 
er. while the soil will be 
left in fine condition 
for strawberries a n d 
potatoes. 
Ground Limestone as an 
Absorbent. 
Is it safe to use ground 
limestone as an absorb¬ 
ent in stables in place of 
land plaster or as a 
‘‘filler” in fertilizer mix¬ 
tures? B. K. 
T HE authorities seem 
to differ on this 
point. Most of them 
think land plaster is bet¬ 
ter in the stables. A few 
people advise grou n d 
limestone, but the chem¬ 
ists generally think 
or spray the lower trunk of the tree with lime-sul¬ 
phur about one part to eight or nine of water. This 
will kill some of the borers left in the tree over 
It Is Time to Select Next Year’s Seed Corn. Fig. 452. 
Cost of Producing Wheat. 
’s article on page 1052. lie 
per bushel for growing his 
wheat, and such figures 
are instructive. But do 
they tell the whole storj ? 
Bookkeeping figures, 
while technically accur¬ 
ate may prove mislead¬ 
ing. For example, if it 
could be shown that 
wheat, on many Eastern 
farms, is simply a sort of 
by-product, making use 
of land and labor that 
w o u 1 d otherwise be 
wasted, and entering into 
a rotation—such, for ex¬ 
ample, as Alfalfa, corn, 
wheat—where m a n u r e 
and fertilizer might pos- 
siblg be dispensed with, 
or at least applied to and 
charged to the more 
profitable crops, t h e n 
perhaps figures like the 
following could be con¬ 
sidered : Per acre, seed 
wheat $2, t h r ashing 
$1.27. use of equipment 
77 cents, pro rata share 
of farm expense $1.74. 
total $5.78, less credit 
straw, $1.93, $3.85. Or 
for a yield of say 20 
bushels per acre, we 
would have a “cost” of 
19 cents per bushel! 
I have used some of 
Mr. Lee’s figures, omit¬ 
ting labor, use of land, 
manure and fertilizer. 
On many Eastern farms 
where intensive methods 
are not practiced, where 
fruit or milk or corn. Al¬ 
falfa or potatoes might 
be the important crop, 
and where labor of man 
and beast could be fitted 
in, would it not be fair 
to figure in some such 
way? I apprehend that 
figuring of this kind 
might be dangerous, but 
believe there are situa¬ 
tions where something of 
the sort could be justi¬ 
fied. a. c. 
M R. A. C. brings up 
an interest¬ 
ing point in his letter, 
and I should like to re¬ 
call his attention to a 
statement in the wheat 
article referred to that 
“while I might be los¬ 
ing money on the wheat 
crop under certain con¬ 
ditions, I would lose 
there may he some slight action to set free ammonia, 
Winter, and will also prevent, to some extent, egg- more if 
did not raise wheat, because of its ira- 
as there would be with slaked lime. We prefer to use laying on the part of'the moth. 
portant place in the rotation.” While the figures 
plaster. As for “fillers” in fertilizer mixtures we 
understand that small quantities of ground lime¬ 
stone are used by some manufacturers—not over 
100 pounds to the ton. This quantity would not be 
likely to drive off any ammonia, though some au¬ 
thorities seem to think the limestone might affect 
the soluble phosphate. This seems to be one of the 
points not fully settled. We would not claim too 
much for ground limestone. 
Ground Lime for Peach Borers. 
I should like to have your opinion on the use of liine 
for the peach borer. Last Spring the soil was removed 
from the base of the trunk where the borer works prin¬ 
cipally and about one-half pound of ground limestone 
was put around each tree and then plowed, throwing 
the soil up around the tree, but some of the borers kept 
on working. Also, I would like advice on the subject 
of removing the soil from the base of the tree and thus 
How Much Lime ? Stone Lime in Fall. 
The recent articles, on the use of lime are of much 
interest. However, you do not give us much advice as 
to the amount you think would be best to apply per 
acre, and like nearly all writers on agricultural topics, 
you assume that the farmer has a small fortune in¬ 
vested in implements of all kinds, whereas not one- 
fourth of them own a grain drill, and not one in 10 a 
disk harrow. A plow—perhaps a sulky—a spring- 
tooth harrow and a cultivator comprise the bulk of his 
outfit. Therefore when it comes to applying lime it 
must somehow be done by hand; a very disagreeable 
job if jt is slaked. \\ by couldn’t one use stone lime, 
apply it after the Fall plowing or in the Winter and 
by Spring it ought to be pulverized sufficiently to mix 
well with the soil by harrowing. Give us your idea 
it- a. c> H> 
Delaware Co., N. Y. - -*• 
W E tried to state that one ton per acre of 
slaked lime is about the standard applica¬ 
tion for moderately sour soils. This would mean 
for wheat alone were given, I tried to keep in the 
reader’s mind the entire farm management proposi¬ 
tion, including the rotation of crops, which might 
in some cases justify an apparent error in judgment 
in raising a certain crop until a better one can be 
found to substitute in its place. .Nevertheless it 
seems to me that as a general rule A. C.’s way of 
figuring can really be accepted only as an excuse 
for poor management, and if pursued on many of 
our crops would be bound to lead to the path of 
many a “back-to-tlie-lander,” viz., back to the shop. 
On a farm that is managed with a high degree of 
efficiency there is no land, labor, manure, etc., left 
over to be dispensed with as a by-product. In fact 
the extent to which each and all these things are 
made use of in the production of the regular crops 
is a pretty accurate gauge of the efficiency of the 
