40 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



will take three or four years. You will get but a little touch of 

 it the first year. The best forui in wliich to get it is in the form 

 of sulphate of ammonia. You would better take it in that form 

 rather than undertake to get it in the form of nitrate of soda. 

 You may get it in the form of fish guano, or in the form of Peru- 

 vian guano. You need only to have the required quantity of 

 nitrogen, and if you buy it, for instance in the form of Peruvian 

 guano, you must know how much nitrogen you have got. But as 

 I have said, the simplest form in which to obtain the nitrogen is 

 in the form of the sulphate of ammonia. 



Now your phosphoric acid. I do not speak of superphospate, 

 nor of phosphate of lime, I mean soluble phosphoric acid. Ground 

 bone treated with sulphuric acid in certain proportions will make 

 a superphosphate which will contain this soluble phosphoric acid. 

 You can buy your superphosphate as you please, or you can make 

 it as I do, by mixing at the rate of one hundred pounds of fine 

 ground bone with fifty pounds of sixty-six degree sulphuric acid. 

 Mix them well with a hoe, and it will give you a superphos- 

 phate that shall contain from seventeen to eighteen per cent, of 

 soluble phosphoric acid. 



Now comes the potash. I don't care in what form you get it, 

 but my formulas are based on actual potash in the form of a salt 

 of potash. You may get it in the form of wood ashes if you can. 

 That farmer is a happy man who can get all the wood ashes he 

 wants. But in most sections of the country the farmer cannot 

 get wood ashes, and he can obtain potash in the form of German 

 potash salts ; these are imported into the country, and yon can 

 get them almost anywhere. For root crops, &c., get them in the 

 form of sulphate of potash ; and for all the grain crops, in the form 

 of muriate of potash, for you can get it in that form much cheaper, 

 the muriate containing fifty per cent, of potash. It answers every 

 purpose for corn and forage crops, and you can get a large crop 

 of potatoes with it, but they are fit for nothing but to sell. These 

 are the forms in which I would get the articles. Though a new 

 thing, they are quite extensively imported, and any farmer who 

 wants to do so can get the materials and try them. 



I wish to draw a few deductions from the remarks which have 

 been made to see whither we are tending if these things are so. 

 If we are not completely befogged — if one-half that has been said 

 is true, where are we tending in this matter of feeding plants ? 

 We have turned the world upside down, so far as the long 



