1882.] COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 153 



years the wheat crop will fall off from fifteen bushels to ten 

 bushels, and the addition of nitrogen will not double it nor help 

 it, but phosphates having been exhausted must be supplied 

 again in order to restore the present rate of productiveness. I 

 have no doubt that the day is coming when Mr. Hubbard's land 

 will have undergone a similar change — it may not be in his 

 time, or in the time of his grandchildren — but if he and they 

 continue to follow the suggestions of his late experience and 

 use phosphoric acid as the ])redominant element of tlieir fer- 

 tilizers, his land will get relatively overstocked with phospho- 

 ric acid, and putting on more of that will then be as unprofit- 

 able as putting on " the full ration " of nitrogen is unprofitable 

 now. 



I may say not only that there is no best corn manure for 

 all farms but that there is none for any one farm, taking all 

 time together. If the addition of one-third of the full ration 

 of nitrogen is now sufhcient, and we need to apply also phos- 

 phoric acid and potash perhaps, but phosphoric acid predomi- 

 nantly, the time will probably come when there will be a 

 surplus of phosphoric acid stored in that land, and when the 

 yield will notably diminish unless the manuring is changed, 

 and then a double dose of nitrogen will give a big crop, and 

 nitrogen will be, or appear to be, the best corn manure. We 

 have got to consider not only the conditions which now exist, 

 but the conditions which we by our processes of cropping and 

 cultivation are constantly producing. In the broad sense 

 then there is no best fertilizer for any crop which we can 

 formulate as suitable for universal use. Every man must find 

 out for himself what are the immediate wants of his land, 

 after a time, if we feed our land with the proper special fer- 

 tilizers — Mr. Hubbard giving predominance to phosphoric acid, 

 Mr. Inglis giving phosphoric acid, Mr. Inglis' neighbor giving 

 potash, Mr. Webb giving what suits his case best — we may 

 all get our lands up to that high condition in wliich we can 

 go on with the same fertilizers, pretty nearly, for the same 

 course of cropping just as in the past we have been going on 

 with one fertilizer, viz., stable manure, provided our soils have 

 and retain the good physical qualities to which the u?e of 



