PRINCIPLES OF FERTILITY. I37 



what of profit there is in farming. Out of it, as wc with intelU- 

 geuce, knowledge and skill handle it, comes the highest profit which 

 is within our reach. 



Mr. E. W. Stetson. Is there any method by which a farmer, 

 who has not the means of analyzing his soil, may determine the 

 absence of an}- of these elements of fertilit}-? 



Sec. GiLHEUT. That seems a ver}- api)ropriate question to come 

 up here. You \v\\\ see that economical fertilization may depend 

 upon that knowledge. If, b}' any means or method, you can ascer- 

 tain that nitrogen onh', for instance, is wanting in our soil, you will 

 see at once that all you have got to do to make that soil productive, 

 is to apply nitrogen. It is cheaper for you to apply nitrogen alone, 

 than it is for you to appl}' all three of the materials, where onl}' one 

 is wanting. "A farmer who has not the means of analyzing his 

 soil," he says. That might as well have been left out of the ques- 

 tion ; (or, while we formerly hoped foi- something from an analysis 

 of the soil, we now have arrived at the fact that chemical analysis 

 is no help for us in this dilemma. The methods of analysis are not 

 sufficiently exact to determine the quantities of these fertilizing ele- 

 ments in the soil with sufficient accuracy to fully determine the 

 productive capacity of the soil. 



We may have two soils otherwise precisel}- alike in ever}- respect ; 

 one of them is lacking in nitrogen and will not produce a crop, the 

 other one has a supply of nitrogen and will produce a bountiful crop. 

 No chemist in the world can detect the difference between those two 

 soils ; his processes are not accurate enough to determine the small 

 amount which makes the difference between a fertile and an infertile 

 soil, or between a paying crop and a losing one. 



It was stated a year ago, at a meeting of the Connecticut Board 

 of Agriculture, by Professor Brewer, one of our authorities on these 

 matters, that 3'ou might cover the soil over with one inch of guano, 

 a commercial fertilizer which is especially rich in nitrogen and has 

 been used ever since it was discovered for the purpose of supplying 

 nitrogen to the soil, and mingle it with a foot in depth of the soil, 

 and then put a satnple of that soil in the hands of a chemist, and 

 he cannot discover that any nitrogen has been applied to the soil. 

 Yet there are thousands of cases where five hundred pounds of 

 guano applied to the acre has been the means of producing a boun- 

 tiful crop ; but a chemist can not discover that an inch of it has 

 been applied to the soil. 



