Right Use Of Lime In Soil Improvement Part 4

_Equivalents._ One ton of fresh burned lime, made from pure stone, is equivalent to 2640 pounds of the hydrate, and to 3570 pounds of pulverized limestone or of air-slaked lime. It is easy to carry in mind the proportions expressed by 1, 1-1/3 and 1-3/4. If there were no other considerations, such as convenience in handling, evenness of distribution, etc., to take into account, one ton of fresh burned lime, one and a third tons hydrated and one and three-quarters tons finely pulverized limestone would have the same value when delivered in the field. Lime fully air-slaked, high-grade marl, and finely pulverized limestone would have the same value, ton for ton.

_Even Distribution._ The value of even distribution is not easily overestimated. If lime in proper amount does not go into each square foot of an acid soil, some of the soil will remain sour unless mixing is done by implements of tillage. Lime is diffused laterally through the soil in a very slight degree. If a strip of sour land is protected by canvas, so that no dust from lime applied to uncovered land can blow upon it, a seeding to clover will show that plants a few inches from the edge of the limed area will fail to start thriftily and may die before their roots reach the lime. Full effectiveness of an application is possible only through even distribution.

_Using Lump Lime._ Lump lime, slaked on the farm, is difficult to apply satisfactorily. Spreading with a shovel from small heaps is bad practice, and when the lime is slaked in a large heap, it cannot be handled as well as pulverized stone or commercial hydrated lime. The latter two are in condition for application by means of a lime distributor, or even a fertilizer attachment of a grain drill. The farm-slaked lime contains impurities that interfere with distribution.

_An Estimate._ It is always hazardous to attempt an estimate of cost of labor without knowing the particular farm conditions, but the expense and discomfort attending the slaking and use of lime bought in lump state justify a willingness to pay as much for a ton of hydrated lime as lump lime would cost, although the former has only three-fourths as much strength as the latter. Some farmers pay nearly twice as much for the hydrated, partly to escape the inconvenience and partly because they hope that the extraordinary claims for superiority made by some dealers may prove true. They should know that it is only fresh burned lime slaked, but incline to credit a claim that special treatment enhances value in some mysterious way.

Comparing lump lime with finely pulverized limestone, the factors of expense and discomfort and final lack of perfect distribution of the former remain important. The stone is relatively easy to handle, being slightly granular and pa.s.sing through a distributor without trouble. The fact that it is not caustic, like the hydrated, is in its favor. When everything is taken into account, one is justified in using limestone or air-slaked lime at a cost per ton three-fourths as great as that of lump lime. It is to be borne in mind that in these estimates the cost per ton is not that at the factory or at one's own railway station, but on the farm. The freight and cartage to the farm are based on weight of material, and more material per acre is required when the worthless portion has not been driven off by burning. If one must use one and three-quarters tons of limestone to have the equivalent of one ton of fresh burned lime, it is evident that the cost of freight and cartage of the worthless portion might make cost prohibitive if distances were very great. Farms lying a long distance from a railway station may easily find that fresh burned lime is the only form of lime they can afford.

The basis for correct estimate is cost delivered in the field.

_Storage._ One advantage possessed by the limestone is ease of storage.

There is no inconvenience or loss. The stone may be ordered at any time of the year when teams are least busy upon other work, and it can be held till wanted. In this way the cost of cartage to the farm may be kept relatively low, and the material is at hand when wanted, regardless of rush of work or delays of railroads. This advantage is partial counterbalance to the cost of freight on the worthless portion of unburned stone.

_Valuing Limestone._ The estimates, so far as labor and convenience are concerned, are merely suggestive, and rest upon the presumption that the stone is satisfactorily fine. It has been urged in another chapter that immediate effectiveness is determined by fineness, but as a working basis we a.s.sumed that when all the stone would pa.s.s through a screen having sixty wires to the inch it would give the desired results. The coa.r.s.est portion would not be available at once, but when an application is heavy enough to serve for a year or more, we have enough very fine material in such a grade of stone to meet immediate need. When estimating values of such a grade and coa.r.s.er grades, the amount per acre to be used is a factor. The coa.r.s.e is unsatisfactory if the price is not low enough to permit an application sufficient for a considerable term of years, so that it will contain all the fine material needed at once. In that case the coa.r.s.er material may be expected to meet later need, and may be even more desirable for such purpose, as it would not be subject to leaching.

Coa.r.s.e grinding costs much less than fine grinding, and it is the resulting low price that permits the heavy application. As stone varies in hardness and ability of the small particles to withstand disintegrating forces in the soil, an estimate of the difference in price between a 60-mesh limestone and a 10-mesh one could not serve as a safe guide. The buyer should know the percentages of a limestone pa.s.sing through screens of various sizes before he makes a purchase, and should demand part of the saving in cost of production that attends coa.r.s.e grinding.

_Oyster Sh.e.l.l._ Ground oyster sh.e.l.l should be given about the same valuation as limestone. It is a lime carbonate, and the percentage of worthless material in it varies somewhat It is coa.r.s.ely ground, but the large pieces disintegrate in the soil much more rapidly than limestone would do. It contains a little nitrogen and phosphoric acid, partially available, as an offset to coa.r.s.eness and some lack of purity, as compared with the highest grade of fine stone. It is profitable to buy oyster sh.e.l.l at limestone prices if used liberally enough to furnish a supply for a term of years. The oxide, or burned sh.e.l.l lime, would be nearly the equivalent of burned stone if it did not change to hydrate and air-slaked forms so rapidly that it rarely is on the market in the ~full~ strength of fresh burned lime.

_Hardwood Ashes._ As a source of lime, ashes have become far too expensive. The composition of ashes on the market is widely variable, dirt and moisture often accounting for much of the weight. The lime in fresh burned ashes is peculiarly effective, being finely divided and in oxide form, but the ashes on the market have much of the lime water-slaked and air-slaked. Unless a.n.a.lysis is made at time of purchase, a buyer should not estimate the content of lime in a ton at a value greater than a.s.signed to one-half of a ton of limestone. The additional value of the ashes, due to the potash content, is wholly another consideration.

_Marl._ No more should be paid for a ton of good chalk marl than an equal weight of fine limestone would cost. Each is a good carbonate of lime, with the same capacity for destruction of acids.

_Agricultural Lime._ This variable product should not be bought unless actual composition is known, or the cost is as low as that of pulverized limestone, and even then it may be a bad purchase, the methods of the manufacturer being the determining factor. If such lime is chiefly a dumping place for low-grade stone and forkings, it has small agricultural value.

_Land Plaster._ The soil wants lime in carbonate form. The oxide and hydrate change to carbonate, and therefore are good. Land plaster is a sulphate, and its tendency is to make a soil sour. It should not be considered as a means of correcting soil acidity.

_Basic Slag._ The amount of effective lime in basic slag, as made by modern methods, is so small that its value is nearly negligible. Basic slag is a good source of phosphorus, and in addition has a tendency toward correction of soil acidity, but such tendency has little cash value for land that requires a considerable dressing of lime to furnish a base with which soil acids may combine.

An expression of opinion was obtained recently from some leading soil chemists of this country, and upon such expression we base the estimate that when pulverized limestone costs three dollars a ton, the value of the lime in a ton of basic slag should not be placed higher than 50 cents, and some chemists believe that the lime content is entirely negligible as an agent in soil amendment.

_Lime in Other Fertilizers._ The demand for lime is leading some men to state a lime content for their goods that is designed to mislead. Such lime is not in a form to combine with soil acids, and is as valueless as the very large amount of lime in acid soils that is in compounds having no power to affect free acids.

CHAPTER XVI

METHODS OF APPLICATION

_A Controlling Principle._ The chief purpose of liming land is to provide a base with which acid may combine, so that the soil may be friendly to plant life. Lime has little power to distribute itself through a soil, and harmful acid may remain only a few inches distant from the point where lime has been placed. In a general way, the tendency of lime is downward, especially when the application at the surface is heavy. Economical use demands even distribution through the soil so that a sufficient amount is in every part. Means to that end are good means of distribution.

_Spreading on Gra.s.s._ Where lime is burned on the farm, and little account of labor is taken, it has been a common custom to spread the lime on gra.s.s sods the year previous to breaking the sod for corn, using 100 to 300 bushels per acre. Rains carried some of the lime through the soil, and the increased yields for a few years were due to the improved physical condition of a stiff soil that a heavy application of caustic lime produces, and to the disintegration of organic matter and to change in compounds of mineral plant food. The practice is rightly going into disrepute, being wasteful and harmful.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Filling the Lime Spreader at the Ohio Experiment Station]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lime Distributors]

The smaller application of any form of lime to correct soil acidity may be made on gra.s.s land that should not be plowed, but the full effectiveness of an application is not secured in top-dressings. If the land is under a crop rotation, it is better practice not to apply the lime on gra.s.s, but to defer application until the sod has been broken, when the lime can be intimately mixed with the soil by use of harrows.

It is the rule that it should go on plowed land, and should be mixed with the soil before rain puddles it. In no case should it be plowed down.

When clover or alfalfa shows a lime deficiency, it is advisable to make an application, either in the spring or after a cutting, obtaining whatever degree of effectiveness may be possible to this way, but the fact remains that full return from an application is secured only after intimate mixture with the soil particles. On the other hand, if land needs lime, and there is not time or labor for the application when the soil can be stirred, it is far better to apply on the surface during any idle time than to leave the soil deficient in lime.

_Distributors._ The most satisfactory means of distribution is a machine made for the purpose. A number of good distributors are on the market.

They are designed to handle a large quant.i.ty of material after the fas.h.i.+on of a fertilizer distributor ordinarily attached to a grain drill. A V-shaped box, with openings at the bottom, and a device to regulate the quant.i.ty per acre, enables the workman to cover the surface of the ground with an even coat, and the mixing with the soil is done by harrows.

Light applications can be made with a drill having a fertilizer attachment. Some makes of drill have much more capacity than others.

Granular lime, such as limestone, is handled more satisfactorily than a floury slaked lime.

_Farm-Slaked Lime._ Lime slaked on the farm must continue to be a leading source of supply to land. If there is stone on the farm, and labor in the winter is available, it is not a costly source of supply.

The chief drawback to the use of farm-slaked lime is the difficulty in securing even distribution. The loss from spreading with shovels from small piles slaked in the field is heavy. The quant.i.ty per acre must be large to insure sufficient material for every square foot of surface.

The lime slaked in a large heap can be put through distributors only after screening to remove pieces of stone, unless they are made with a screening device, and the caustic character and floury condition make handling disagreeable, but no other method is as economical when lime is high in price.

_Use of the Manure Spreader._ The next best device is the manure spreader. The makes on the market vary in ability to do satisfactory work with lime, and none does even work with a small quant.i.ty per acre.

An addition to the bulk to be handled by placing a layer of other material in the spreader before filling with lime helps, but some spreaders do fair work in spreading as little as 3000 pounds of slaked lime per acre, and certainly far better work than usually is done with shovels from a wagon.

CHAPTER XVII

AMOUNT OF LIME PER ACRE

_Soils Vary in Requirement._ There is always the insistent question respecting the amount of lime that should be used on a particular field.

Usually _no_ definite reply can be safely made. The requirement of the present, and probably of the _next_ few years, should be met by one application. The existing degree of acidity is an unknown quant.i.ty until a careful test has been made. There are soils so sour that several tons of fresh burned lime per acre would only meet present requirement, and there are soils so soundly alkaline that they need none at all. This uncertainty regarding amount required is responsible for much failure to do anything, even when some acidity is indicated by general appearance.

_A Working Basis._ If land has once been productive and in later years clover has ceased to grow and gra.s.s sods are thin, there is a strong probability that liming will pay, and the experience of farmers on normal soils, and the tests of experiment stations, justify the estimate that two tons of fine stone, or one and a quarter tons of fresh burned lime per acre, can be used with profit. This amount probably will permit fertilizers and tillage to make their full return in heavy sods that will provide humus. It is a reasonable expectation that the application will serve through a crop rotation of four or five years.

If the soil was not very sour, the second application at the end of four or five years may be reduced somewhat, and even a ton of stone given once in the crop rotation may fully meet the requirement.

In the case of the normal soil that has ceased to grow clover, and does grow plants that are acid-resistant, it is better practice to secure a relatively low-priced supply of coa.r.s.ely pulverized stone and apply three or four tons per acre, and thus lengthen the interval between applications to eight or 10 years. The fine material in the heavy application will take care of present need, and the coa.r.s.er particles will disintegrate later on.

The quant.i.ties suggested may not be the most economical for the reader, but their use cannot be attended by loss if a soil is sour, and there is reason to believe that it is much better to use such quant.i.ties without question than to defer liming for a year in the hope that some more definite knowledge of a particular field's needs may be secured.

_Small Amounts Per Acre._ There is much experience as a basis for the claim that a few hundred pounds of burned lime per acre may have marked results. Fields that indicated an actual lime requirement of a ton of fresh lime per acre have had a test of 500 pounds per acre made in strips, and the clover later on was so superior to that which was struggling to live in the untreated portion that the light application appeared almost to be adequate. In such land there cannot be full bacterial activity or continuing friendliness to plants unless the need is met fully. A larger application would have paid better. It is the soil rich in lime that can make the best response to tillage and fertilization.

_A Heavy Soil._ When burned lime is not high in price, an application of two tons per acre may be more profitable than a smaller one. A heavy soil needs to be richer in lime than a light one for best results, and physical condition also is improved by the larger quant.i.ty. A correspondingly heavy coat of stone will give quite satisfactory results, but effect upon the texture of the soil is less marked.

_Sandy Soils._ It is inadvisable to apply any large quant.i.ty of caustic lime to a light soil. Such a soil does not need as high a percentage in it as a heavy soil requires for good results, and caustic lime can easily injure physical condition. Limestone is safe for use, and is to be advised for all quite sandy land. Acidity rarely runs high in a light soil, and the opinion is hazarded here that one ton of stone per acre meets the needs of a light soil about as surely as two tons supply a heavy soil. In case of each type of soil there are wide exceptions, and yet these estimates form a basis for the judgment of the individual farmer.

CHAPTER VIII

SPECIAL CROP DEMANDS