“What experiments are being conducted by the University of Minnesota with orchard and other horticultural crops?” We realized the importance of this matter and plans were prepared.  Then, as you know the last legislature was economical.  It decided that one of the best places to make a cut would be in the funds for experimental work; when these funds were reduced we not only could start no new experiments but even had to cut off some of the old ones.  For that reason these fertilizer experiments have to wait until the next legislature or the one after.  I hope the next legislature will make such an appropriation that they may be begun.

Now, for the next question.  A man states that he can secure at a very low rate limestone from one of the Minneapolis companies producing crushed limestone for road-making purposes and wants to know whether it will pay him to haul it to his farm.  Well, if you do not have any other work for your teams it may pay you.  However, if your time is valuable, you had better take some samples of the soil and send them in to the experiment station.  Just address them to the Soils Department or Soils Division.  Then we can decide whether it is worth while trying some of the limestone.  We cannot tell you whether it will pay; we can tell you whether it is likely to pay, or whether it is likely to be a waste of energy, or whether it is so doubtful that you ought to give it a fair trial.  On perhaps two-thirds of the fields in Hennepin County it would be a waste of money and energy; on about half of the others, we may say, it is almost certain to be a good investment at a dollar a ton.  On the remaining portion we simply can’t say.  On these, chances are even whether it would pay.  No crops are injured by limestone, so you are safe in putting it on.  Practically all crops are benefited by it on sour soils and especially the vegetable crops.

The next question is—­“Are the black peat or muck soils first class?  Do they need anything besides drainage?” Some of them, a very few, produce really good crops when they are drained, plowed and brought under ordinary cultivation without fertilization, but only a few.  Nearly all of them need commercial fertilizer, and until a bog covered with peat soil has been carefully examined to ascertain the depth of the peat, the difficulty of drainage, and the character of the peat (because peats differ greatly within a few miles of each other) it is unwise to attempt to reclaim it.  Within three miles of the experiment station we have three bogs very different in character.  One, about half a mile from the buildings, is heavily charged with lime.  Another has an exceedingly small quantity of lime so that profitable crop production of any kind would be out of the question without a heavy application of ground limestone or quicklime.  Still another one stands between these two.  One of them can be reclaimed without any great expense, but with the one it would be a very expensive matter to fertilize and treat with lime after it had been drained.