1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 145 



has urged us to do it. I think I have hardly ever met that 

 gentleman when he has not asked me, " Can't you take some 

 of these sets ? Can't you do something to help on these ex- 

 periments?" 



1 will just say one word in reference to some experiments 

 made by me, at his request. Some years ago, he got out a 

 number of sets of fertilizers. I presume most gentlemen 

 know what I mean when I say that. There was phosphoric 

 acid alone, potash alone, nitrogen alone, and the different 

 ingredients mixed in various proportions, and there were 

 others besides. Where I used the phosphoric acid alone, it 

 was much superior to anything else. One of my neighbors, 

 an enterprising farmer, says that the potash went far ahead of 

 anything else with him. A man living only about a mile from 

 me applied the same set of fertilizers that I used, and his ex- 

 perience was that the sulphate of potash went far aheat} of the 

 others. So that, as has been said by Prof. Johnson and a great 

 many others, we have got to find out what we need for our- 

 selves. I will say that in my experiments I used phosphoric 

 acid on my land, applying it to different crops and in different 

 places, and the result was the same in reference to corn and 

 turnips ; the same on low land and on high land. As the result 

 of these experiments, instead of buying a high grade fertilizer, 

 containing a large proportion of nitrogen, I select that which 

 is highest in phosphoric acid. I do not know whether I have 

 fully answered Mr. Webb's question. In reference to manu- 

 facturers of fertilizers buying up dried blood, there has not 

 been that importation of guano into this country of late years 

 that there was previous, so that these men have had to obtain 

 their supply of nitrogen from other sources. 



Mr. Smith. I want to ask Mr. Augur a question or two in 

 reference to his experience in raising that crop of corn on 

 about nine acres, as I understood him. Did you apply this 

 commercial fertilizer that you referred to to the whole nine 

 acres on which you raised the corn ? 



Mr. Augur. I did. 

 10 



