Does Your Soil Need Lime

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23061, 11 June 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

Does Your Soil Need Lime

is the time to give 3'our soil, if it should need it, a good dressing of lime. "If it should need it' 1 is a wise proviso, for there are many soils which, at the present time, do not require lime. To find out how much your soil really does contain, take separate samples from different parts of the garden, label them, and also the place front which they wero taken with the same N markl Place each sample in a separate tin and dry thoroughly in a warm oven. When dry t empty each sample separately into a basin and pour on a little hydrochloric acid. If nothing happens, your soil is badly in need of lime. If there is a slight bubbling or effervescence your soil will soon be panting lime. But if there is a good effervescence then your soil already contains sufficient, and no further liming is advisable. By taking a number of samples you are making sure of the; quality of all your gsirden, as it frequently happens, particularly in new gardens, that one patch may be found deficient in lime while the rcsfc4s- quite all right. Burned lime is injurious to tender Bhoots and seedlings. 11 lime* ia mixed with onerthird its weight of jurater, or if it has been exposed to the

Testing With Hydrochloric Acid

air for a sufficient time, it reabsorbs from tho air, the carbonic acid gas lost in the burning. In this state, lime v& assumes all tho properties it had before it was burned. Tins effect is produped soon after it has been slaked and spread on the land in a dry state. Slaked lime should therefore bo spread on the land just after slaking, and Uh» amount to be used is approximately balf a pound to each square yard. Carbonate of lime is a very useful ingredient of the soil and does not injure vegetable growth, but takes longer to become available than slaked lime. Do not expect too much from lime. As a manure it produces scarcely any sensiblo effect at the beginning. Even after the first .vear of its application, the effects* are inconsiderable compared with what it produces in the second and succeed ing years. Do not jump to the conclusion that because you have limed your soil this autumn, you will therefore reap a bumper cjop next summer. Roughly the work of lime can bo summed up in the following four actions:—(l) Tt assists in the decomposition of vegetable matter in the soil. (2) It aids in the formation of carbonio acid. (3) It sweetens the Boil bv neutralising any acid previously there.'* And (4) it combines with the o!sn)ents in the earth and sets free potash, which reacts on the silica, and

rentiers it soluble. The following statement of nature of soils, combined with the experiment referred to earlier, will enable the reader to decide whether a dressing of lime will bo advantageous to his garden or nob, —Clay soils containing 50 per cent or more of clay, loamy sods, containing 20-50 per cent of clay, rest chiefly sand, sandy soils containing not more than 10 per cent of clay, rest mostly silica, and humus, vegetable mould or decayed vegetable matter, all may need lime. Calcareous soils with more than 20 per cent of calcareous matter will not need it.