1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 149 



must say I never have had occasion to find fault with them 

 yet. Probably there are others who make just as good an 

 article as they do, l)ut they are reliable. They have had their 

 phosphate analyzed and promise to keep it up to the analysis, 

 and I believe they do; at any rate, I have used it a number of 

 years. 



Mr. Webb. I apprehend tliat the two gentlemen, from the 

 inference wliich they draw from the question I asked, misun- 

 derstand tlie position which I take. I think the use of special 

 fertilizers is necessary to successful agriculture on every farm 

 almost in the State ; but in obtaining these fertilizers, if I can 

 buy muriate of potash for the potash, pliosphoric acid, and ni- 

 trogen, in their simple forms, and mix them myself, at a saving 

 of twenty-six per cent., as 1 have done this last year, I think 

 it is my duty and my privilege to do it ; and in doing that I 

 prefer to use a certain proportion of nitrogen. My object in 

 asking the question which I did was to ascertain if it would 

 not be advisalile, in preparing special fertilizers, to prepare 

 them so that they should contain as nearly as possible the 

 constituents of stable manure. 



In regard to taking up all you put down on your land, I 

 hope the chemists never will succeed in teaching us how to 

 do that, because tlie natural acquisitiveness of mankind 

 would tempt them to take a little more, and the next genera- 

 tion would be worse off than I was when I bought my farm. 

 I have had twenty-three years' experience with a run-down 

 farm. 1 have been feeding it my level best for all that time, 

 until you cannot hear a jingle in my pockets. 



Mr. Hubbard. I want to say one word in relation to the 

 ration of nitrogen used in these experiments which have been 

 alluded to. Mr. Webb, I think, referred to it as a "double 

 dose," a "big dose," an "extraordinary dose" of nitrogen, 

 or something of that kind. 



Mr. Webb. That was the idea. 



Mr. Hubbard. I think that the largest ration of nitrogen 

 used in those experiments was precisely that prescribed in 

 Prof. Stockbridge's formula as the quantity of nitrogen that 



