LIME DEFICIENCY

Taranaki Daily News, 24 August 1935, Page 12

LIME DEFICIENCY

EFFECT UPON LIVESTOCK. . There is a very important connection between lime deficiency and successful stock management, ' particularly in the case of dairy cows. There is a growing belief among research workers and others that the two are very intimately bound up with each other. It has been definitely proved that lime deficiency is a cause of unthriftiness in all animals; that it is one of the causes of milk fever in cows; that lack of lime is closely associated with, if not a direct cause of, sterility and abortion, and work is now being completed which practically confirms the theory that one of the main factors which influences the development of tuberculosis is the acid balance in the animal body. ■ However useful as a temporary measure the direct addition of -lime to the animal body may be,- nothing ean equal the feeding of minerals by way of foods grown on land which has been suitably dressed with this alkaline sweetener of the soil. Just as it is still true that to add “lime without manure, makes both farm and farmer poor,” so it is as correct that “manure without lime makes for poverty.” It would be the height of folly to say that the addition of lime to the soil is a cureall, nevertheless a great many of the present ills associated with dairy farming, and this includes pig-keeping, would he removed by the use of methods which would restore the alkalinity, and, therefore, sweetness of the soil.