1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 135 



manures that you go into the market and buy that you have 

 in the composition of stable manure. I think that stable 

 manure is so near a universal fertilizer that the experience 

 of all practical farmers is that we can get no fertilizer supe- 

 rior to it. We may get one cheaper under certain conditions, 

 "we may get one to use as an auxiliary under certain exigen- 

 cies, under the exigencies which almost every farmer experi- 

 ences in the State of Connecticut and in New England; but 

 in supplying that, I do not think it is absolutely essential in 

 the experiment that he should double the quantity of any of 

 those ingredients. I think the Almighty, if you put the 

 manure into the ground, will take care of it and the crop will 

 come in due time. 



In regard to putting into the ground just exactly what you 

 take out, or what you expect to take out, I do not tliink that 

 is quite fair to those that are to come after us. I know two 

 men who can farm it and take up every red cent they put 

 into the ground every year, and when they die, it will be all 

 gone ; they will leave nothing behind them. But they are 

 unusually smart. Thank God ! there are but few such 

 men. 



Mr. HiNMAN. It seems to me that it hardly follows, that 

 because stable manure is the best manure that we have, tak- 

 ing one year with another, and one soil with another, that 

 our friend Webb is quite right in his idea. He is talking of 

 a manure largely composed of organic matter. Take the 

 phosphoric acid, the nitrogen, and the potash out of stable 

 manure, and I would not give any more for the products you 

 have taken out than I would for a given quantity bought in 

 any other commercial fertilizer. I do not care if there is 

 twenty per cent, of nitrogen in stable manure. If I know 

 that five per cent, is enough on my soil, I would not buy the 

 other fifteen per cent, if it is in the stable manure. Now, 

 as to laying it up for those who are to come after me, I be- 

 lieve that nitrogen is something that goes off in the air, or 

 leaches through the ground ; at least, one gentleman said it 

 should be applied in any form only just before planting the 

 crop, because it is so volatile. At any rate, I would never 



