USE OF WOOL-WASTE. 45 



from the land. But in applying chemical fertilizers to the 

 corn-crop, we must be very careful to understand the con- 

 ditions, as I said before, under which we apply them. The 

 chemical fertilizer, rationally applied, I have no doubt will 

 brins the desired results to whoever uses it; but there is no 

 quicker way for a farmer to lose money than to buy chemical 

 fertilizers and apply them without understanding the applica- 

 tion. I am tempted to give an illustration as proving this 

 point, and it may be of interest in itself. I will answer for 

 the truth of it, although I do not care to give names. A 

 gentleman, who is a manufacturer, but who is interested in 

 farming, has quite a large farm, and cares more for results 

 than he does for the expense of getting them. He has, among 

 the waste product of his mill, the refuse of the burring- 

 machine, wdiich takes the burrs from the wool. It is almost 

 clear wool-fibre. An analysis of that shows that it contains 

 some fifteen per cent, of nitrogen, some two per cent, of pot- 

 ash, and but very little, if any, phosphoric acid. This wool- 

 waste, one inch in depth, was placed under the soil seven 

 inches deep. He had a man go along and push this wool- 

 waste under the furrow as it was turned over. He planted 

 grass-seed, and this year he harvested from that field twenty- 

 five tons of hay from five acres. I saw the hay myself, and 

 it was a noble sight for a farmer to look on. He was so suc- 

 cessful in this experiment that he thought he would apply this 

 manure to other crops and see how it would act. 



He ploughed up quite a large field, and, except on a strip 

 perhaps four rods wide and twenty rods long, he put this wool- 

 w^aste, until the soil was quite heavy with it. He sowed upon 

 that field the ordinary flat turnip. I saw this field during the 

 last days of October, and on that part where the wool-waste 

 had not been applied, the leaves were of a very dark green, 

 very short, indeed, and the plants looked sickly. But beyond 

 this Avas a field of turnip-tops, which came up four inches 

 above my knee, so thick you could not see the land, and the 

 leaves of a bright, turnip green. As I was walking to the 

 fields, and as the gentleman explained what he was doing, I 

 said, "You will get no crop commensurate w^ith the manure 

 you have applied, but you will get leaf." The result was as 

 I stated. Where there was no manure, there was a fair crop 



