CORN GROWERS* ASSOCIATION. 5 1 



Mr. Laughlin — ^Thcre is some corn on exhibit here on which the 

 farmer used ditierent amounts of fertiHzers, and he found a hundred 

 pounds did as well as three hundred pounds — ^but the fertihzed corn 

 kept on growing all the time, while that not fertilized turned yellow. 

 The fertilizer was planted in the hill. 



Dr. Huston — If he had broadcasted a part of the fertilizer, his in- 

 creased fertilizer expenditure would have been profitable. In the latter 

 part of the season, when you did not have so much water, probably 

 these plants sufiiered from lack of water and could not use the additional 

 amount of fertilizer. If it had partly been broadcasted, they could have 

 utilized it. 



There is a great deal to be learned in regard to the methods of 

 application, and while you do not get as striking results, I believe, after 

 twenty-five years' experience you get more corn by broadcasting the 

 fertilizer, and that is what we are after. 



Mr. Laughlin — I would like to ask what kind of a machine you use 

 in broadcasting. 



Dr. Huston — We do it with the wheat drill. Broadcast immedi- 

 ately after you plow, before you harrow. 



Mr. Boles — I have heard that if you continue to use a fertilizer, it 

 kills the ground. 



Dr. Huston — I am glad you spoke of that. Ever since 1884 I have 

 had charge of the fertilizer business in Indiana, something over a mil- 

 lion tons have pased through our office. I have had occasion to visit 

 practically every county in the State and always inquired about those 

 lands which had been damaged by the use of fertilizers and they were 

 always in the next county. 



There is an immoderate use of fertilizers which may do you dam- 

 age. It is a substitution of commercial fertilizers for farm yard manure 

 instead of using the commercial fertilizer as a supplement that does the 

 damage. I can point to a great deal of land which has been damaged 

 by continual wheat sowing or corn growing. Our fertilizer furnishes 

 only a small amount of nitrogen. By the continual planting of one crop 

 you remove a dozen elements of plant food from this land and you put 

 back one. This one cannot be substituted for the other eleven and I do 

 not think it would take you long to figure that the withdrawal of twelve 

 elements from your soil and the return of one is bound to get your land 

 out of balance. This is the reason we hear of commercial fertilizers 

 injuring the land. They are not properly used. The damage has come 

 in making them a substitute for barnyard manures. On nothing out- 

 side of market gardening can that be done with economy. 



