FERTILIZERS. 29 



elements contained within it are in a condition to be utilized by the plants. Although this 

 knowledge imparted by chemistry is imperfect, it is nevertheless of value to the farmer, for 

 it tells him what elements are necessary to apply to his lands in order to make them produc 

 tive. It goes farther than this ; it shows the composition of the various plants that he 

 cultivates, and what proportion of the various fertilizing elements each variety of product 

 abstracts from the soil ; therefore the amount of fertilizing material removed from the soil 

 by the different crops can be calculated with considerable accuracy, and by applying a 

 sufficient supply of these elements to his soil he may be sure that it contains the necessary 

 elements of fertility in a form to be utilized by the plants. It will be seen, therefore, that 

 both the analysis of soils and plants are of great use in agriculture, and that when both are 

 combined with experience and observation, the farmer may derive great benefit from the 

 teachings of chemistry. This is a subject of great interest and importance, and will be more 

 fully treated in connection with fertilizers. 



FERTILIZERS. 



PLANTS require food on which to subsist, it being just as essential to their sustenance 

 as with animals. They also require a variety of nutrition for their proper nourish 

 ment and growth, which can no more be secured without it, than a perfect animal 

 growth when subsisting constantly on one element. It is also equally true that different plants 

 require different proportionate elements in their food, just as different species f animals 

 require different kinds of nutriment, and they will dwarf and starve unless that nourishment 

 is furnished them. When fai mers learn to feed their crops with the same care and consider 

 ation that they feed their animals, they will be more successful in their business, and find that 

 farming pays well for the labor bestowed. 



Although some soils contain all the requisite elements of plant-food in the proper propor 

 tions for certain kinds of crops, and will produce them for a long time without any apparent 

 impoverishing, others contain certain necessary substances of nutrition in smaller quantities, 

 which must be furnished in fertilizers of some kind in order to produce a healthy and 

 luxuriant growth. These elements that are needed in the soil to supply the suitable plant- 

 food may be contained in the proper proportion in vegetable manures plowed into the soil 

 in a green state, stable manure, lime, wood ashes, guano, or any of the other substances 

 used for fertilizing purposes. It depends upon the farmer to ascertain what is needed, 

 and supply the requisite demand ; certain it is, that all cultivated soils, however rich, will 

 in time become impoverished with constant cropping, unless a portion of the elements 

 extracted from the soil by the growth of these crops be returned in the form of fertilizers of 

 some kind ; it may be by a deposit of rich mud or sediment drained to impoverishment from 

 other soils by inundation, as is the case with the valley of the Nile and banks of the Ganges, 

 or it may be by other agencies ; it makes no difference how the supply comes, the principle 

 remains the same, which is, that soils producing constantly must be supplied with nutriment 

 from some source. The Nile and Ganges rivers have continued by their overflow to furnish for 

 more than 3,000 years all the fertih zing elements requisite to produce crops constantly during 

 that period. When soils remain in their natural state, or are used only for pastures, but 

 little change is perceptible in their character. Changes, however, are constantly going on 

 both in their texture and capacity for production, although so gradual as to be perceptible 

 only after a long period. Soils constantly cropped are the ones to become exhausted soonest. 

 The decay of vegetable matter upon the surface of lands, the fertilizing properties washed 

 down by the rains and melting snows from the steep declivities of hills and mountains, the 



