_New York State Experience._ A bulletin of the New York agricultural experiment station, published early in 1917, calls attention to the rapid increase in demand for ground limestone in New York. Within the last five years the number of grinding plants within the state had increased from one to 56, and more than a dozen outside plants are shipping extensively into the state. The bulletin says: "Farmers who have had experience with the use of ground limestone are as a rule satisfied with only a reasonable degree of fineness, and are able to judge the material by inspection. When limestone is ground so the entire product will pass a 10-mesh (or 2 mm.) sieve, the greater part of it will be finer than a 40-mesh (or 1/2 mm.) sieve.... There are now in operation in this State more than a dozen small portable community grinders; they are doing much to help solve the ground limestone problem and their use is rapidly increasing. In the practical operation of these machines they grind only to medium fineness (2 mm.). To insist upon extreme fineness is to discourage their use." This State experiment station is only one of many scientific authorities approving the use of limestone reduced only to such fineness that it will pass through a 10-mesh screen, the cost of the grinding being sufficiently small to permit heavy applications. CHAPTER X FRESH BURNED LIME _An Old Practice._ The beneficial effect of caustic lime on land is mentioned in some ancient writings. Burning and slaking afforded the only known method of reducing stone for use in sour soils. Lime in this form not only is an effective agent for correcting soil acidity, but it improves the physical condition of tough and intractable clays, rendering them more friable and easy of tillage. Caustic lime also renders the organic matter in the soil more quickly available, an increase in yield quickly following an application. These three effects of burned lime brought it into favor, and a rational use would have continued it in favor.