142 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



sward ground, a vast store-liouse of nitrogen. If we can 

 draw from tliat, we can get it in a cheaper form than we can 

 by buying it, and buying it and putting it there is not a 

 profitable thing for a farmer to do. 



Mr. Webb. Don't you buy it then. 



Mr. Sedgwick. I don't intend to. I am only giving facts. 

 Here is another point. I have heard farmers say this year, 

 "I bought so and so's ammoniated super-phosphate, at forty- 

 five dollars a ton; I bought the acid phosphate, the South 

 Carolina rock super-phosphate, at twenty-four dollars a ton; 

 and I got just as good a crop from one as I did from the 

 other. How do you account for that?" I do not account 

 for it, but I notice that in some sections where that thing 

 has been going on, the ammoniated super-phosphate trade 

 has been growing less and the acid phosphates have been 

 growing into demand. There comes in the practical sense 

 of the farmer himself. Scientific men will say they are 

 exhausting the fertility of the soil by using phosphoric acid. 

 That is their lookout, not mine. My lookout is to furnish 

 them what they want, and if they are getting good results 

 from that class of goods, that is the kind of goods that the 

 manufacturer will make. 



Mr. Augur. I have been very much interested in this 

 whole discussion, and it seems to me that we all agree on 

 this one point: that we need all the stable manure that we 

 can make — the more the better. Those of us who can buy 

 stable manure from grain fed horses, without paying too 

 high a price, would like to do it ; we believe in it. I believe 

 that the mechanical effect of stable manure is excellent upon 

 the soil. But, admitting all this, as Mr. Hubbard has so 

 justly remarked, we need something more. We find in Middle- 

 sex county that all our farmers who make farming profitable, 

 in addition to what manure they make upon their farms, make 

 a large investment for commercial fertilizers, and the ques- 

 tion is, what shall we buy? Well, if I understand the matter 

 rightly, (and I think I had it from Prof. Johnson and Prof. 

 Atwater,) we need not feel at all afraid of putting in too 

 heavy a stock of phosphoric acid and potash, for if we do not 



