148 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



A Member: Can seed corn be grown by the use of commercial fer- 

 tilizers when soil is deficient in vegetable or organic matter or 

 humus? 



PROF. Mcdowell : I win refer that question to Mr. Seeds. 



MR. SEEDS: I want to say one thing. A great problem comes up 

 in my mind when I hear this talk of professors from the State Col- 

 lege and then realize that there are seven miPions of dollars spent in 

 Pennsylvania annually for fertilizers. The question arises with me, 

 how much of that money is wasted? When a man has corn and corn 

 fodder and timothy hay to feed a cow^ he will try bran in different 

 proportions. I would like to go out over the State of Pennsylvania 

 and be able to give the farmers some guide by which they can buy 

 fertilizers. I believe that out of the seven millions of dollars in- 

 vested in commercial fertilizers, that half of it is wasted. Of course 

 we don't get down to the bottom to ascertain the balance of this ra- 

 tion. As Brother Agee has answered that question, you go on and 

 use acid phosphate and you get a soil so depleted of humus and de- 

 cayed vegetable matter that it is not possible, as Brother Agee has 

 said, for it to produce clover. 



Illinois has begun the work and taken soil from different parts 

 01 the state in order to test this question, and they are going to de- 

 termine how much phosphoric acid and how much nitrogen should 

 be used on the different soils. I propose to get that from Illinois 

 and make use of it. I am convinced that the plant that grows out 

 of the ground needs a balanced ration just the same as the cow, or 

 the hen that is on the nest or the horse that is on the track. 



MR. AGEE: I want to say one more word now because I think I 

 have left a wrong impression. There is land in Pennsylvania, some 

 right here on your State College farm, that can be treated with 

 acidulated fertilizer safely. Permit me to say that I went over your 

 experimental plot and there is good clover there. Where I live, 

 bone black has been used for twenty-two years. We are not here 

 teaching that you must not go out and teach that a man who uses 

 an acidulated fertilizer is necessarily going to put his soil into an 

 unfertile condition. It depends upon the constituents of your soil; 

 if you have an abundance of lime there and will put the humus into 

 the soil with the acid phosphate to reinforce the natural supply of 

 phosphorus it is safe, as is proved by the plots to which I have re- 

 ferred, if twenty-two years of practice prove anything. I am only 

 cautioning those that push the acid phosphate without the use of 

 lime or something to prevent or overcome the danger from too much 

 acid collecting in the soil. 



MR. PHILIPS: What percentage of lime would be ample? 



