WHEN NOT TO LIME

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 15

WHEN NOT TO LIME

"BUSH-SICK" LANDS

COARSE PUMICE SOILS

Though experiment in a laboratory may suggest that bush-sick pumice lands need lime, experience in the fielc". says emphatically n-o. As there ma\ be some tendency of analysts to wrong!.* advise liming, the Chief Chemist of the Department of Agriculture recalls the field experiments by a note in the current "Journal of Agriculture" as follows:—

"The field experiments in connection ( with bush sickness which were started over twenty years ago gave an emphatic negative answer to the ques-: tibn whether it was ■ necessary to use lhne on the pastures of coarse^ pumice soils of the type technically known as sandy silts and all coarser typ^s. Not only was there no response by the pasture to lime applied as a top-dressing, but animals grazed on limed land became bush sick sooner than\ on land to which no treatment had been applied. This information has been disseminated by means of the 'Journal' 'from 1912 down to the,present day, and a warning is here repeated with the added authority of recent experiments , with lime on a variety of soils. Mr. C. E. Taylor, Analyst's Assistant at Rotorua, as the result of his inquiries, reports that lime alone applied 'as a top-dress-ing for pumice soils produces a pasture more unpalatable and drier in appearance than that, on the untreated plot, while generally speaking lime and superphosphate mixture gives an inferior result to that from superphosphate applied alone. "The experience of other countries is interesting in connection with the reliability of certain laboratory tests in indicating whether a soil requires lime or not. The New Zealand experience of the coarse pumice soils is that field experiments do not bear out the need for lime indicated by laboratory tests universally used to determine the amount of lime required and the amount of- sourness or acidity present in .the soil. The British experience is somewhat similar with regard to certain fertile, soils in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Here the soil particles are coarse and are more akin to the parent rock than are those of ' the mature type of. soils found in England, and although laboratory tests for acidity and lime: requirement show that lime is needed and that no carbonate! of lime is present, applications of lime I do not improve the crops. "The results of certain laboratory1 tests as correct guides, to liming - will, therefore have to bo neglected whenj certain soils are "the sub;iect'g>f experi-1 ment. As it is feared that the results of these unsatisfactory methods in the hands of analysts inexperienced in pumico -soils may lead to the giving of wrong advice to farmers, the warning 'Do not lime the pasture of bushsickypumice lands' is again issued."

Miss Andree Saulais is only 14, and she is blind, but she has won- a shorthandtyping contest at Aulany-sous-Bois, near Paris. ■~"."'