Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., Feb. 27, 1897. 

 Honorable Commissioner of Agriculture, Albany. 



Sir : — The very commonest and most urgent question which the 

 farmers ask of us is how to tell what fertilizer their land needs ; and 

 this is the very question which cannot be answered save by get- 

 ting the answer directly from the very soil and the very crop of 

 which the knowledge is wanted. This means that the farmer 

 must experiment and observe. How much good he may derive 

 from this experiment will depend upon how accurate he is, and 

 especially upon how much he knows about soils and the require- 

 ments of plants. In all our extension teaching, we have found 

 no specific need so great amongst the grown-up farmers as the 

 means of answering the question of how to fertilize the land. This 

 little paper will put the diligent farmer in the way of finding out ; 

 and it is hopefully submitted as one of the bulletins of the Ex- 

 periment Station Extension, or Nixon, bill. 



L,. H. Bailey. 



