sive Use of Burned Lime without
Manure at the Pennsylvania Experiment
Station 52

XVI. A Hydrated Lime Plant 53
(Courtesy of the Palmer Lime and Cement Company,
York, Pa.)

XVII. Filling the Lime Spreader at the Ohio Experiment
Station 78

XVIII. Lime Distributors 79

XIX. Remarkable Effect of Lime on Sweet Clover at
the Ohio Experiment Station 86

XX. Sweet Clover Thrives When Lime and Manure
are Supplied, Ohio Experiment Station 87

* * * * *

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

There is much in the action of lime in the soil that is not known, but
all that we really need to know is simple and easily comprehended. The
purpose of this little book is to set down the things that we need to
know in order that we may make and keep our land friendly to plant life
so far as lime is necessarily concerned with such an undertaking.
Intelligent men like to reason matters out for themselves so far as
practicable, taking the facts and testing them in their own thinking by
some truth they have gained in their own experience and observation, and
then their convictions stay by them and are acted upon. The whole story
of the right use of lime on land is so simple and reasonable, when we
stick only to the practical side, that we should easily escape the
confusion of thought that seems to stand in the way of action. The
experiment stations have been testing the value of lime applications to
acid soils, and the government has been finding that the greater part
of our farming lands is deficient in lime. Tens of thousands of farmers
have confirmed the results of the stations that the application of lime
is essential to profitable crop production on their farms. The confusion
is due to some results of the misuse of lime before the needs of soils
were understood, and to the variety of forms in which lime comes to us
and the rather conflicting claims made for these various forms. It is
unfortunate and unnecessary.

The soil is a great chemical laboratory, but exact knowledge of all its
processes doubtless would enrich the farmer's vocabulary more than his
pocketbook. We are concerned in knowing that lime's