Lesson on Wash Day Explains Hard Water and Why North Carolina Farmers Must Lime Soil, 1915

Albemarle Observer, Edenton, N.C., Jan. 8, 1915

A Lesson from Nature by Karl Langenbeck

When wash day came around, old Mrs. Sims filled her tubs from the water barrel that caught the rain from the roof of her cabin down near North Bend way on the big Miami River. But in dry weather, she had a bad time. The boys had to fetch water from the river. Miami River water is hard as blazes and washing in it is some hard job. In the drought, the boys had to go to Cincinnati and they filled the water butt for her before they went. It was three days before wash day. Next day Jimmie and Sam Slick were fooling ‘round the yard. They had chased the chickens and shoats and gotten a licking from Mrs. Sims for general devilishness. They were mad and bound they would do “mom” a turn. So when she was taking a snooze, they up and shoveled a lot of dirt in the water but to fix her against wash day. My, wasn’t she mad when she saw it? The boys dursn’t come nigh her. Well, wash day came, the mud had settled and Mrs. Sims was highly careful how she dipped into the barrel so as not to stir it up. The boys were still keeping pretty quiet but they saw that “mom” was looking terrible pleased over the tub. “Boys,” says she, “wasn’t this here water river water?”

“Yas’m,” says Jim.

“Wall, I declare,” says Mrs. Sims, “its plum soft like rain water. I do believe that mud you ‘uns put in have took up all the hardness.”

Now, this is true and every old farmer in Ohio and Indiana knows it. But, there is much more to it, than the mere softening of water for washday. Tho it is this that tells the story, which is, that a lime-hungry soil will take lime from a natural water and leave it soft. For it is lime and magnesia in solution that makes waters hard. Wherever you find sections with river bottom lands that have a great reputation for fertility you can be sure that the river waters which overflow them, in the Spring freshets, are very hard waters bearing a fairly good percentage of lime and magnesia. These waters standing on the land loses a part of all of their lime and magnesia, which are then retained by the soil beneath. The flood waters standing on these bottoms lime them and it is easy to show it chemically.

Now, why is it that such lands have no reputation in Virginia and North Carolina east and south of the Shenandoah and Potomac flood plains. A mere glance at the analyses of the river waters of the country tells the story. The waters of the Miami, Maumee, Kentucky, Muskingum, Cumberland, Missouri and Cedar rivers of the middle west contain 6 to 12 times the amount of lime and magnesia as that contained in the Dan, the Peedee, the Roanoke and the James rivers of Virginia and North Carolina. Tho, the James gets thru its tributaries from the Valley enough lime to make it something of an exception to the rule. This is the reason why even bottom lands, as well as other lands, in the South must be limed artificially.