1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 143 



use it all this year, it will be there years after. Like a 

 deposit in the bank, we can surely draw from it. It is not 

 exactly so in regard to a surplus of nitrogen ; it is a little 

 more volatile. If we do not draw it from the soil, it is liable 

 to leach out or evaporate, and it is less certain to remain in 

 the soil than either of the other two elements. 



Now I would like to add my testimony to the value of 

 Prof. Atwater's experiments. I had a set of his experimental 

 fertilizers, and I must say that I learned a great deal from 

 it, and in consideration of my own experiments and those of 

 a great many others, I was led to adopt the ideas that Prof. 

 Atwater suggested, to some extent, which have been already 

 brought out, in regard to the corn crop particularly. I may 

 not state the figures exactly, but if I understand it rightly, 

 in every instance, in a large series of experiments, a one- 

 third ration of nitrogen paid a profit ; a two-thirds ration, in 

 some instances, if I remember rightly, paid, but in more 

 instances, while it augmented the crop, yet it did not pay a 

 profit ; the cost of the extra one-third of nitrogen exceeded 

 the increased value of the crop. A full ration of nitrogen 

 was found still more unprofitable. I cannot state exactly in 

 regard to the result of a full ration of nitrogen, as my memory 

 is a little treacherous about figures ; but I was going to tell 

 of a little experiment that I tried, after having adopted that 

 idea. I have a peach orchard of some eighteen hundred 

 trees which is on a high hill, to which it is very difficult to 

 haul any considerable quantity of stable manure, and we 

 have depended for fertilizing that tract largely upon commer- 

 cial fertilizers. The year that I planted out that orchard, I 

 planted nine acres of the eleven with corn. I used the rock 

 phosphate, which cost some twenty-eight or thirty dollars per 

 ton, and for my potash I used a high grade muriate, which I 

 supposed to be, and still think to be, the cheapest form in 

 which we can get it ; and for the nitrogen I used what I was 

 led by Prof. Johnson and others, through our experiment 

 station, to believe to be the cheapest source of nitrogen, Peru- 

 vian guano, but I was a little cautious not to use an over 

 dose. I had a very satisfactory crop of corn on rather cheap 



