50 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL RErORT. 



grade fertilizers are the cheapest. The two things that keep up the 

 price of plant food in mixed fertilizers are the long credits asked hy the 

 farmers and the demand that fertilizers be sold at a low price per ton. 

 The longer the credit and the lower the price per ton the higher is the 

 cost per pound of real plant food in the fertilizer. 



I have only .spoken in general terms because the subject is too 

 large to be treated otherwise in so brief a time. The matter of the 

 composition of fertilizers for different crops under average conditions, 

 the characteristic needs of the different kinds of soils, the time and the 

 manner of applying fertilizers, are all questions that at once arise after 

 we have learned that they can be used at a profit. 



If I can render you any assistance along these lines, I shall be glad 

 to do so. 



DISCUSSION. 



Col. Waters — Would you put your corn fertilizer in the hill? 



Dr. Huston — No, because it is too heavy and you are liable to de- 

 crease the germinating power of your corn and when the dry weather 

 comes, it will have no power of resistance. The average corn raiser 

 who uses a hundred pounds of fertilizer to the acre thinks he is doing 

 a pretty good business in putting it in the hill. But some experments I 

 conducted five or six years ago showed whether the fertilizer was 

 drilled in with the corn or dropped in the hill. Up to the time we laid 

 the corn by, that corn where the fertilizer was dropped in the hill was 

 quite in advance of the other corn — that is, where it was broadcast — 

 yet when we came to harvest and weigh it — I assume that you raise 

 your corn for pounds and not for stalks — we had gained one bushel 

 where wc applied it in the hill and ten bushels where we broadcasted it. 



Mr. Ellis — If you had a very poor piece of land that you wanted to 

 improve, would you recommend plowing under a green crop to begm 

 with before you began using a commercial fertilizer? 



Dr. Huston — It would depend upon what stage the land was in. I 

 believe for bringing up your lands, if you raise wheat, the place to be- 

 gin is on your wheat crop with a fertilizer. Take, for instance, the 

 Marionville experiment. You would not get much more wheat with 

 the 1 20 pounds of sulphate of potash, but you should follow that wheat 

 with clover. The wheat fertilizers, if followed with grass and clovei 

 ought to bring up the land. 



You may reduce the nitrogen in your corn fertilizer, and as the ni- 

 trogen is the most expensive, you may split your bill in two by putting 

 in a leguminous crop. 



