THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 91 



of phosphoric acid, nitrogen and potash, and put them together, and three 

 times 10 is 40 or 50 every time. Now I don't like that arithmetic. It hurts 

 my pocket-book; and so I don't figure that wa3^ I buy my chemicals 

 separate. I buy what potash I want, as potash; and what phosphoric I 

 want, in that way; and my nitrogen, if I buy it at all, in another way. There 

 is a good deal of talk about home mixing of fertilizers. There isn't anything 

 in that. If you take it on to the barn floor and turn it over and mix it over, 

 and you add nothing to its value, you are going to scatter it all over the field 

 in the end anyway, it is a good deal better to spread each one separately 

 on the field, because each portion of the field requires a different portion. 



So I would say, buy your chemicals separate, so far as you can. Then 

 here comes the next business proposition. A small farmer who only wants 

 a few hundred or thousand pounds will find it more difficult than will a large 

 farmer; and here comes the need of a society like this, or your local societies, 

 or your Grangers. You have some Grangers in Michigan; you ought to have 

 more, a good Grange in every agricultural town in this State, where the 

 farmers are thinking and working together for the general cause of agriculture. 

 With such an organization you could buy together. Farmers are the hardest 

 people in the world to pull together. Farming is such a blessed good business 

 that you can live in spite of the other fellow some way. But here is a chance 

 in this particular line to cooperate in your buying, and run into your towns 

 five, six, ten, twenty carloads of chemicals, and divide it up among your- 

 selves, and get the full benefit of the lowest market rate. You will find 

 dealers ready to meet you more than half way, because it is one solid business 

 proposition; it is a sure cash deal. If you go into this cooperative business,* 

 every fellow puts up his money Johnny on the spot. Don't wait to see 

 whether the crops grow or not; but go into it as a business proposition and 

 pay as you go sure. 



That, Mr. President, in a general way, is practically all I have to say 

 on this subject. 



I would like to say just a word about spraying discussed here by Prof. 

 Fletcher day before yesterday. It is one of the important things in our orchard 

 management, is the spraying. I have had a good deal of experience in 

 fighting this blessed little friend of ours, the San Jose scale. While I have 

 been a strong, and ardent believer in the use of lime and sulphur on account 

 of its stimulating effects upon the tree itself, I have been experimenting 

 with oil for three or four years, and I have from away back; tested all the 

 soluble oils, so-called, I have been experimenting with, and I was glad to 

 hear Prof. Fletcher say what he did, and that, while perhaps the time had not 

 come when we were going to abandon lime and sulphur, he did believe the 

 oils were pretty nearly here. After an experience of a number of years, 

 I am perfectly well satisfied that, while lime and sulphur has the most stimu- 

 lating effect on our trees of anything we use, there isn't any danger in the 

 modern oils; I don't think there is any danger whatever in them. They 

 are making them now with some fungicide in them which makes them actually 

 helpful to the tree. I am thoroughly satisfied that the oil sprays are coming, 

 and are going to be so much easier to apply, and if they reduce the cost 

 somewhat so they don't cost any more than lime and sulphur, I believe 

 we shall use them in all our sprays in the future for the destruction of scale 

 insects. 



