‘tht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
855 
Limestone, Rock Phosphate, and Clover 
[Many of our readers will remember how some years 
ago Prof. C. G. Hopkins worked out a simple method 
of restoring and maintaining the fertility of land in 
the Middle West. lie advocated the use of ground 
limestone and ground phosphate rock. This was not 
to be acid phosphate, but the plain phosphate rock 
ground to a fine powder. The limestone was to en¬ 
courage the growth of clover. This would furnish 
nitrogen, and act to make the ground phosphate avail¬ 
able. This it was claimed would produce a full rota¬ 
tion of corn, oats, wheat and clover hay, little if any 
potash being needed on most of that western soil. For 
years the leading crops had been, grain and live stock, 
which of course meant heavy drains of phosphorus. 
The ground rock was expected to supply that element, 
while the clover would furnish nitrogen. Prof. Hop¬ 
kins died before his experiments were concluded, but 
many farmers have carried similar work along. We 
shall print reports from them. The first one follows.] 
L OCAL EXPERIENCE.—It is a generally ac¬ 
cepted opinion among the farmers of the Mid¬ 
dle West that Dr. Hopkins was correct, both in 
theory and practice. Had he lived to carry out 
and oats as nurse crops. He intends to get a hay 
crop, a seed crop or turn under as green manure, 
at the same time sowing two tons of limestone and 
one ton of rock phosphate to the acre. Then these 
fields will be sown back to grain crops, following 
out the proper rotation as suggested by Prof. Hop¬ 
kins, viz., corn, corn, oats, wheat, clover. He says 
that one 40-acre plot sown to wheat in 1919, that 
had never been treated, yielded only a gross return 
of $25 per acre. It was sown to clover in the Spring 
of 1920 but not a bit of it ever came up, while two 
adjoining forties, that had been treated some years 
before, worked the same way at the same time, 
had very good stands of clover and fair yields of 
wheat. 
ENCOURAGING RESULTS.—In the Fall of 1920, 
he sowed two tons of limestone and one ton of 
phosphate to the acre, and sowed it back to wheat, 
cent acidity could be removed from our soils here 
no doubt 100-bushel yields of corn and oats could 
He obtained. That is if enough nitrates were restored, 
tOO. L. F. SABINE. 
Illinois. 
A Lawsuit over Weed Seed 
E have a report of a rather unusual lawsuit 
which was tried in Pennsylvania recently. 
We do not recall anything exactly like it. It ap¬ 
pears that two men owned farms side by side. One 
of them permitted a growth of Canada thistles and 
other weeds on his farm. The neighbor claimed to 
have a farm free from these weeds, and he com¬ 
plained about the growth of weeds on the nearby 
farm, claiming that this would damage his own 
property. It is claimed that the supervisors of the 
A Fine Specimen of the Percheron Breed in Illinois. Fiy. 322 
those experiments in full on his Edward Co., Ill., 
farm, he would have demonstrated without a doubt 
that he was right. But so far as he had gone he 
had raised the fertility to a high degree, and had 
produced some wonderful crops. I have no data 
as to the positive results of these experiments, so I 
am citing you some local cases that will probably 
be interesting. 
INCREASING PRODUCTION. — The Garwood 
Bros., of Christian Co., Ill., who farm several hun¬ 
dred acres of their own, have by the use of legumes 
in connection with ground limestone and rock 
phosphate increased the productiveness of their soil 
so that instead of getting from 15 to IS bushels of 
wheat to the acre, they realize 35 to 40 bushels. 
Corn from 25 to 40 bushels, now yields 85 to 90 
bushels. I understand that their corn crop of 1923 
averaged for them 90 bushels per acre. Oats, 40 
to 50 bushels, now 75 to SO bushels per acre. 
RESTORING FERTILITY.—Mr. George G. Sea¬ 
man of this State, who owns and operates his several 
large farms here, tells me that he has mapped out 
a program for restoring the fertility of the soil, 
and intends to spend about $3,000 a year for that 
purpose. He has at present 185 acres of Sweet 
clover and 170 acres of Red clover sown with wheat 
and to clover in the Spring of 1921. He got a 
splendid stand of clover and a fine yield of wheat 
that weighed 62 lbs. to the bushel. That Fall he 
cut a good crop of clover hay and the next June, 
1 % tons to the acre, then turned under the second 
crop for corn, which made him a bumper crop. He 
received $102 per acre from the crops of 1921 at an 
additional expense of $25 over and above that of 
1920. This was for limestone, phosphate, freight, 
hauling, scattering, etc. He is thoroughly convinced 
that it pays and pays big. 
FINANCIAL LIMITATIONS. — One reason why 
more of these aids to fertility are not used here is 
that the phosphate costs so much laid down here 
by the carload, the freight costing more than the 
phosphate costs f.o.b. in Tennessee. It is now $10.60 
a ton delivered here. Then, financial depression 
among farmers deters them from using it as much 
as they would like. When a man has borrowed 
about all the money he can and not injure his 
credit, he is down to “bed-rock,” and cannot do all 
the things that he knows will better his conditions, 
even if he is a successful “corn belt” farmer. Still, 
there is quite a lot of both limestone and phosphate 
used here every year. The University of Illinois 
agicultural department now claim that if a 100 per 
township notified the first man to cut the weeds and 
destroy them, but he permitted them to ripen. His 
neighbor then brought suit for $2,500; this included 
$500 for labor expended in getting rid of the weeds 
on his own farm, and $2,000 for depreciation in 
value. The case was tried, and after hearing a 
number of witnesses for the plaintiff a non-suit was 
given, and the plaintiff was called on to pay the 
costs. It is rather difficult for us to get all the de¬ 
tails which should be given in such a case before 
forming a judgment. The man who permitted the 
weeds to grow claims that it was a spite case; on 
the other hand, the plaintiff who says his farm was 
damaged writes us the following note, giving his 
side of the case. This will interest many of our 
readers who have been troubled in a similar way, 
and we shall be glad to hear of any other case 
known to our people which operated along these 
lines. 
I am glad to give you a short sketch of the proceed¬ 
ings, so you may see what a just man gets when he 
takes a case to court here in Pennsylvania. In July, 
1922, I kindly requested my neighbor, personally, not to 
let any more seeds of these weeds to ripen ; he did not 
comply with my request, so I had to resort to law. On 
July 19, 1922, I notified one of the .supervisors, accord¬ 
ing to law, and he served a notice on the neighbor. He 
did not cut nor destroy, neither did the supervisors. 
On July 20, 1923, I again notified the supervisors, and 
