Live Stock Breeders' Association. 259 



connection with rotting organic matter. As a rule, it is better to 

 use from 50 to 100 pounds of rock phosphate with each ton of ma- 

 nure. 



There are two very satisfactory methods of mixing the rock 

 phosphate with the manure. One is to sprinkle the phosphate over 

 the manure from day to day as it is being made in the stall or cov- 

 ered shed. The other method is to fill the spreader box part full of 

 manure, then sprinkle phosphate over it sufficient for the load, finish 

 loading with manure, and drive to the field and spread. This pro- 

 duces an intimate mixture and a very uniform distribution, and re- 

 quires practically no extra work to get the phosphate spread on the 

 land. Care should be taken that the manure is not too dry when the 

 phosphate is sprinkled over the load, otherwise the dry rock dust 

 may get into the gearing or bearings of the spreader and cause them 

 to wear rapidly. 



There are some extraordinary or abnormal soils. Thus, there 

 are soils exceedingly rich in nitrogen and well supplied with phos- 

 phorus, but very deficient in potassium; as, for example, certain 

 peaty swamp soils on which the application of potassium produces 

 an increase in the corn crop usually amounting to more than 30 

 bushels per acre, and on which Illinois farmers are already using 

 about twenty thousand dollars' worth of concentrated potassium 

 salts annually, and with a net profit of more than 200 per cent. 



There are soils exceedingly rich in phosphorus and well sup- 

 plied with potassium, but deficient only in the element nitrogen, 

 and which require only a liberal use of legume crops to be turned 

 under as green manures or returned to the soil as stable manure in 

 order to render them highly productive and profitable soils. Ab- 

 normal soils of this class exist in considerable areas in the geo- 

 logic neighborhood of phosphate regions, as in certain sections of 

 Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. Indeed, some of these soils 

 contain twenty times as much phosphorus as the average Illinois 

 corn-belt soil. 



But, when we consider the ordinary, normal upland timber and 

 prairie soils, covering the vast areas of the Central West, the so- 

 called "granary of the world" — soils of glacial and loessial forma- 

 tion and of granitic origin, there are two substances always to be 

 kept in mind and always to be provided in abundance, for any and 

 every system of permanent agriculture to be practiced on these soils. 

 These two essential substances are phosphorus and decaying or- 

 ganic matter, which will, of course, also supply the nitrogen. 



It is not of great consequence by what methods or in what 



