50 Repvorr OF DEPARTMENT OF BACTERIOLOGY OF THE 
experimenter has been furnished with sensitive litmus paper 
for testing his soil. He was directed to apply this to different 
‘parts of the experimental area and return the used pieces of 
litmus paper to us so that the kind and depth of color produced 
by contact with the soil might be compared. These observa- 
tions were supplemented in many cases by like tests of the 
fields made by a Station representative. In all but two of 
approximately 200 fields which have been thus examined the 
litmus has been turned a faint pink, indicating that there was 
present in the soil solutions an acid reaction. One of these 
exceptions was a small area in an otherwise acid-reacting field 
and this difference was ascribed by the owner to the fact that 
just at that point he had previously distributed a considerable 
amount of wood ashes. No explanation was found for the un- 
usual reaction in the other field, in which this reaction was the 
same throughout. In this particular field which did not color 
the litmus pink the application of 1500 lbs. of lime to the acre 
made a marked improvement in the quality of the alfalfa. 
Where this application was combined with inoculation it, pro- 
duced a successful crop although the check was a complete 
failure. 
The three fields where no improvement resulted from the 
application of lime are of special interest in this connection. 
All of these fields gave an acid reaction which did not seem 
to be different from that observed in the other cases. Of course 
it is possible that a heavier application of lime might have 
given good results in these cases. 
More interesting evidence in this connection was accumulated 
by testing, with litmus paper, the reaction of the plats to which 
lime had been applied, especially in those cases in which its 
application resulted in a markedly improved growth of the 
alfalfa. The reaction of the soil in such cases, after the addi- 
tion of the lime and the lapse of sufficient time, some weeks or 
months, to allow for a contact of the lime with the soil solu- 
tions, was not appreciably different, as judged by its action on 
litmus paper, from what it was on the adjoining check plats 
to which no lime had been applied. 
