LOSS OF LIME.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4873, 4 September 1925, Page 3

LOSS OF LIME.

MEANS OF EXHAUSTION. PERIODS OF REPLACEMENT. No soil can produce healthy and abundant crops unless it contains an adequate supply of lime, and therefore the question of liming is one which should occupy the attention of all farmers. A dressing of lime becomes- exhausted in several ways ; it is soluble to some extent, and its washed out by rains ; this is proved by its presence in drainage water. From a plot at Ro-thamsted, as much as 2501 b. per acre has been found in the gauge that catches drainage water. In addition to that source of loss, lime is used up when it acts on the soluble phosphate of isuperphosphate applied to the land ; it has the valuable effect of causing the soluble phosphate to revert, and while precipitating it in a very fine powder through the soil, it saves the phosphate from being washed away. -And when sulphate of ammonia is applied as a fertiliser, a portion of the lime in the Soil combines with the acid of the nitrogenous fertiliser, and thus iis no longer available.

On considering these ways of loss farmers will realise that it is essential on most soils to apply every fewyears a dressing of lime to maintain fertility.