FEETILIZERS— COMMEECIAL AND DOMESTIC. 



The extremely low prices of agricultural products almost 

 everywhere prevalent, at present, and particularly the un- 

 precedentedly low figures which the chief Southern staple 

 ijrings on the market, have, of necessity, attracted attention 

 to the importance of the practice of greater economy in all 

 of the departments connected with the conduct of the farm. 



In no single department of the farm economy is there 

 a greater tendency to make retrenchment or to curtail ex- 

 penditures than in the direction of the reduction of the 

 amounts heretofore paid out for the purchase of commer- 

 cial manures or other fertilizing materials, and it is to be 

 hoped that this tendency will at least lead to a more thor- 

 ough utilization of the valuable domestic manurial re- 

 sources which have been to a great extent, heretofore, 

 either neglected or else disregarded. 



These crude supplies of fertilizing materials which are 

 within easy reach of almost every farmer, can, if intelligent- 

 ly and properly utilized, be made to supplement quite ad- 

 vantageously the supplies of artificial fertilizers which 

 are employed as ingredients of the best domestic mixed 



manures. 



The rational system of fertilization of the soil demands 

 that the chief essential fertilizing constituents removed by 

 any crops shall be replaced by returning to the soil an 

 equivalent amount of these constituents for the use of sub- 

 sequent crops, and it is, in part, to a lack of observance of 

 this important principle, that the exhausted condition of 

 many of our soils is due. 



At the same time, it is also true that a very large propor- 

 tion of our soils have been impoverished in a most marked 

 degree by a washing away of the surface soil with its sup- 

 plies of plant food and vegetable matter, while many of our 



