416 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



I believe that up to date we have missed the mark in our legislation 

 for fertilizer control. We have taken it for granted that the matter 

 of availability was all the farmer needed to know in regard to the 

 fertilizer he spent his money for. Whether it was of mineral, animal 

 or vegetable origin, whether it was acid, alkaline, or neutral in its 

 chemical effect on the soil, these are thngs we have taken for granted 

 the farmer need not know. Whatever we may have thought, or what- 

 ever fertilizer representatives may have been able to persuade legisla- 

 tures to believe, the fact remains that these things are vital to the 

 farmer. 



Everything the farmer sells is regulated by law. When he sells a 

 bushel of potatoes or apples he is required to give sixty or forty-five 

 pounds, respectively, although it is scarcely possible ordinarily to 

 heap this weight on a bushel measure. If he sells dairy products a 

 close inquiry is made as to what he fed his cows, and as to the cut of 

 dress of the person who does the milking. If he sells wheat he may 

 not deliver rye to the purchaser. But when it comes to purchas- 

 ing that which may mean success or failure for his year's work the 

 legislature turns the farmer over to the tender mercies of the fer- 

 tilizer companies. 



During the year 1915, fully 33,000 tons of fertilizers, in bags, were 

 sold to the farmers of the State at a cost to them of $8,500,000, not 

 more than |4,000,000 representing cost of material. The other |4,- 

 500,000 being composed in salaries to the officers of fertilizer com- 

 panies, dividends, salesmen's commissions, mixing and bagging goods, 

 office expenses, etc. The source of European potash having been al- 

 most entirely cut off from the result of preparedness on the other side 

 of the pond, has resulted in one year in increasing the use of acid 

 phosphate about 250 per cent, and raising the price of this American 

 staple about 50 per cent. 



About ten or twelve years ago before a local farmers' institute, 

 the writer of this report made the statement that the ordinary grain 

 farmer could not afford to depend on the nitrogen in commercial fer- 

 tilizer to grow his crops. At the present prices of acidulated 

 phosphorus and water soluble potash, I now unhesitatingly put these 

 two elements in the same class. In other words, under present condi- 

 tions the ordinary farmer cannot afford to use the product of the fer- 

 tilizer trust. 



To this general rule I would note a single exception. To increase 

 production without the direct use of commercial fertilizers on a farm 

 accustomed to their use is not an easy task. On ninety-nine out of 

 every one hundred acres in Pennsylvania the first thing, and often 

 the only one that is needed to bring up the crop producing ability is 

 humus. To get the organic material out of which we make humus 

 grow a succession of leguminous crops and work the full crops into 

 the soil. To increase this growth it may be profitable under most 

 conditions to apply some water soluble fertilizers. 



When the soil is being filled with the various growths of legumes it 

 is also being supplied with nitrogen. Nitrogen is the form that na- 

 ture provided for plant growth from the beginning. In the breaking 

 down of the organic structure of the plants in the soil the almost 

 exhaustless store of potash is touched for all present needs. On many 



