112 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



The writer can speak in this matter from personal experience as he 

 is called upon to calculate from 500 to GOO rations for farmers annually. 

 Where the advice given has been followed, favorable results have beeu 

 obtained in every case. As a result of using- the rations calculated by 

 the Halle Experiment Station, the milk production, for instance, has iu 

 some cases been increased lh liters per cow daily without materially 

 increasing the cost of the ration. The usefulness of this work led the 

 Prussian Government to recommend all the larger experiment stations 

 to take it up; and the calculation of feeding rations at present consti- 

 tutes a part of the regular work of most of the stations. 



A similar line of activity is open to the experiment stations in study- 

 ing the practice in using fertilizers. The agricultural depression 

 makes it important to investigate the means by which agricultural 

 production can be cheapened, and in this a rational use of commercial 

 fertilizers is of first importance. The benefits to be derived from 

 artificial fertilizers were first learned on a broad scale in Germany; 

 but the results of trials of guano, Chile saltpeter, and phosphates 

 led to an extravagant use of them. With the former high prices of 

 agricultural products the expense of this could be borne, but with the 

 present prices wasteful practice in the use of fertilizers must be 

 guarded against. Hence it becomes necessary for the experiment sta- 

 tions to investigate to what extent and with what crops the excessive 

 use of fertilizers is practiced, and to prescribe means for its correction. 



On the other hand, a diminution in the use of commercial fertilizers 

 is by no means to be recommended in all cases. There are extensive 

 regions in Germany where comparatively little commercial fertilizer is 

 used, and this is true in the legions where the soils are especially 

 responsive to fertilizers. Among the latter are principally the sandy 

 soils, on which we have learned to produce surprisingly large oops 

 with the aid of commercial fertilizers. In the trials by Schultz Lupitz 

 of potash salts iu connection with the cultivation of nitrogen-gathering 

 plants, the yield of sandy soils was increased one-third on the average, 

 and the cost of production thereby materially cheapened. 



The amount of potash salts used has increased from 30,000,000 lbs. 

 in 188L* to over 400,000,000 lbs. in 1895; but it is calculated that if 

 an adequate amount of potash were applied to all the soils which require 

 potash the annual consumption of these materials would amount to 

 some 1,700,000,000 Lbs. It is an important matter for the experiment 

 stations to encourage this use of potash salts wherever potash is indi- 

 cated as needed. 



The case is similar with lime. Lime is the basis of all culture and 

 of successful farming, and the effective use of commercial fertilizers in 

 soils deficient in lime is entirely out of the question. Therefore it is the 

 duty of the experiment stations to determine the localities where lime 

 is deficient, and to urge that liming be practiced much more extensively 

 than formerly. They should not rest until this question is solved to 

 the advantage of agricultural production. 



