An individual, or a group of farmers, will buy a machine for pulverizing limestone at a cost of a few hundred dollars when costly equipment would be out of the question. If he has a bed of limestone of fair quality, and the soil of the region is lacking in lime, an efficient grinder or pulverizer solves the problem and makes prosperity possible to the region. Within the last few years much headway has been made in perfecting such machines, and their manufacturers have them on the market. Any type should be bought only after a test that shows capacity per hour and degree of fineness of the product. As a high degree of fineness is at the expense of power or time, and as the transportation charge on the product to the farm is small, there is no requirement for the fineness wanted in a high-priced article that must be used sparingly.
The aim should be to store in the soil for a term of years, and the coarse portion is preferable to the fine for this purpose because it will not leach out. The heavy application will furnish enough fine stuff to take care of present acidity. If nearly all the product of such a pulverizer will pass through a 10-mesh screen, and the amount applied is double that of very fine limestone, it should give immediate results and continue effective nearly twice as long as the half amount of finer material. There could hardly be a practical solution of the liming problem for many regions without the development of such devices for preparing limestone for distribution, and it is a matter of congratulation that some manufacturers have awakened to the market possibilities our country affords.
CHAPTER IX
STORING LIME IN THE SOIL
Liberal Use of Limestone. Land never does its best when skimped in any way. As we raise the percentage of carbonate of lime in land that naturally is deficient, we give increasing ability to such land to take on some of the desirable characteristics of a limestone soil. It is poor business to be making a hand-to-mouth fight against a state of actual acidity unless the cost of more liberal treatment is prohibitive. The most satisfactory liming is done where the expense is light enough to justify the free use of material. When this is the case, extreme fineness of all the stone is undesirable. There is the added cost due to such fineness and no gain if the finer portion is sufficient to correct the acidity, and the coarser particles disintegrate as rapidly as needed in later years.
Loss by Leaching. Another valid argument against extreme fineness of the stone used in liberal applications is the danger of loss by leaching. Soils are so variable in their ability to hold what may be given them that it is idle to offer any estimate on this point. The amount of lime found in the drainage waters of limestone land teaches no lesson of value for other land, the excessive loss in the former case being due oftentimes to erosion that creates channels through the subsoil, through which soil and lime pass.
A Limestone Pulverizer for Farm Use (Courtesy of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, Columbus, Ohio)