eous, containing such a high percentage of lime that nothing more
could be desired.

The actual percentage is not the determining factor, a clay soil needing
greater richness in this material than a loam, and a sandy soil giving a
good account of itself with an even less total content of lime, but in
its way the particular soil type must be well supplied by nature with
lime if its trees and other vegetation bear evidences of its strength
and good agricultural value.

_Natural Deficiency._ It is interesting to note the differences in
evidences of prosperity that are associated with lime percentages. The
areas that are able to produce the vegetation characteristic of
calcareous soils are obviously the most prosperous. The decidedly
lime-deficient sections, advertising their state by the kind of original
timber, and later by unfriendliness to the clovers, do not attract
buyers except through relatively low prices for farms. Such areas are
extensive and have well marked boundaries in places.

It does not follow that every farm in such limestone valleys as the
Shenandoah, Cumberland, and Lebanon, or in the great corn belt having a
naturally calcareous soil, is prosperous, or that a multitude of owners
of such lime-deficient areas as the belt in a portion of southern New
York and northern Pennsylvania, or the sandstone and shale regions of
many states, have not overmatched natural conditions with fine skill. We
treat only of averages when saying that a "lime country" shows a
prosperity in its farm buildings and general appearance that does not
come naturally and easily to any lime-deficient territory. In the latter
a man rows against the current, and if livestock farming is not employed
to furnish manure, and if the manure is not supplemented by tillage and
drainage to secure aeration, or if lime is not applied, the land reaches
such a degree of acidity that it loses the power to yield any profit.

_Nature's Short Supply._ The total area of lime-deficient soil is large,
comprising certainly much more than half of all the land east of the
semi-arid belt of the United States. No small part of this area was not
deficient at one time, as the nature of the original timber indicates,
and it is well within the knowledge of practical men that land which
once produced the walnut and ash and shellbark hickory can be brought
back to productivity with reasonable ease after very hard usage. It has
a good inheritance. It is a disconcert