298 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



spoke of, and our farmers are using commercial fertilizer, and it told on 

 their wheat crop last year very decidedly. 



Mr. Longnecker: I have experimented with commercial fertilizers in 

 various ways, and have invariably found that one fourth of the amount of 

 money put into manure will give me better results. I also know to a 

 certainty that where there were exhibits made of farm products, and credited 

 to those commercial fertilizers, that there were none of the articles grown 

 at all from the commercial fertilizers, but that they were gathered from 

 the best that could be found in the country about, and over the whole state, 

 and were exhibited by owners of commercial fertilizers, as the result of 

 using their goods. At the time of the failure of the Soluble, or one of the 

 guano places of the east, last winter, it was named as one of the bad results 

 of that faihire that a large number of the phosphate rock quarries of South 

 Carolina had to be abandoned, and also one of the railroads. 



Mr. Mann of Illinois: I think one reason why manure is so much more 

 valuable than commercial fertilizers is (and it has been shown in those 

 experiments), that fluid nitrogen can be taken up by plants more easily 

 from manure. 



Mr. LiPPiNCOTT of Alabama: I want to say one word in favor of com- 

 mercial fertilizers. We live in a section where it is almost impossible to get 

 stable manure. We have experimented with various kinds of commercial 

 fertilizer, and some of them come under the head spoken of by Mr. Willard, 

 as not being worth anything. At the same time, we had an experiment this 

 spring, accidentally made, that convinced me most thoroughly that a 

 good brand of commercial fertilizer is valuable. We had a patch 

 fertilized ready to put in some trees; there were eight rows left, treated in 

 that way. Right adjoining the piece was a piece we had already plowed, 

 got ready, and on which we did not use any fertilizer, on which we planted 

 corn. Four weeks later corn of the same variety was planted in the eight 

 rows that were left over from our tree planting that had fertilizer upon it; 

 before I left home I was on the place, and the corn which was planted first, 

 which had no fertilizer under it, was about two feet high, and the corn in 

 the eight rows fertilized, the same variety of corn, on the same kind of soil, 

 was between four and five feet high. I think this carries at least one point 

 for commercial fertilizers. 



Prof. Budd: I was going to make this remark in confirmation of what 

 has been said in regard to the nitrogenous substance of manure, and I 

 apply it to the corn. Only about a year ago I was down in Champion, at 

 Mr. Dunlap's place, and he was showing us some corn planted on ground 

 that had been sowed with rye; the rye had been turned under, the ground 

 planted with corn, and the corn alongside given the same culture, and when 

 we saw it there was as much difference in the corn as in the case stated. 

 Now, where you turn under another crop, even where you turn under dry 

 straw, anything to make vegetable mold in the soil, you have something 

 worth more than most commercial fertilizers. It has been said, if you turn 

 under dry straw, that can not be worth much, but it creates vegetable mold 

 in the soil; and, in addition to the bacteria question mentioned by Mr. 

 Mann, our French chemists tell us that during every summer shower there 

 is enough nourishment coming from the rain to maintain our crops, pro- 

 vided we have enough mold in the soil to hold it; but if that is taken out of 

 the soil, our soils finally become unproductive. Mr. Carpenter tells us they 

 do not need any fertilizers where he is, but you may take everything out of 

 the soil in six years, in any section, if you take it roots and all, and the next 



