1902.] BUSINESS METHODS IIST BUYING FERTILIZERS. I 53 



or draws fertility from the cultivated soil. Hani out the farm 

 manure and spread it through the winter as fast as it is made, 

 if it is leaching and running to waste in the stable yard. In 

 any case, save and use all of it. When summer comes, keep 

 the cultivator going oftener than ever before, not wholly to 

 keep down weeds, not wholly to keep the moisture in the soil, 

 but to tickle fertility out of the soil particles and to make the 

 land mellow. Let no weeds go to seed, kill them in their 

 helpless infancy and let the crop have all the plant food. 



Has any one of us tried clean farming, weedless land, and 

 incessant cultivation, with all the manure on the farm carefully 

 saved and applied, and found it a failure without commercial 

 fertilizers? I think not. 



Under favorable conditions the man who farms it as I 

 have described, next year, putting business method^ into his 

 work, in 1903 is more likely to have cash to buy fertilizers and 

 land better fitted for their successful use than the man who 

 pays time prices for his fertilizers and tries to make them do 

 part of the work of his cultivator. 



But, on the other hand, are there in your grange a number 

 of men who can and will put up cash for fertilizers, even with 

 some scraping and pinching, and will take them from the 

 car or boat as soon as they come? Let each name the kind 

 and amount of chemicals or of mixed goods which he wants 

 in a written, signed statement like this : 



" I agree to take the following fertilizers, in the quanti- 

 ties named, as soon as notified of their arrival. 



" I also agree to pay for them to the 



price agreed upon by a majority of those who may join in 

 this order, promptly on his call. ." 



Then let the one chosen as agent send a printed note to 

 every maker of fertilizer, and also to New York fertilizer 

 brokers, running somewhat as follows : 



" Members of this grange will buy, on the best terms ob- 

 tainable, tons of fertilizers and fertilizer chemicals, to 



be delivered at railroad station between February 



15th and March ist. The materials and minimum guarantees 

 are as follows : 



"Two tons nitrate of soda (15.6 per cent, nitrogen). 



" Ten tons dissolved rock phosphate (14 per cent, soluble 

 and reverted phosphoric acid). 



