1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



401 



been in such a predicament yourself, you can 

 imagine how provolced I felt. Once more I 

 made huge resolutions that I would stop lend- 

 ing my tools; but I did not say any thing out 

 loud to anybody. The neighbor came up in the 

 field to apologize; but remembering my experi- 

 ence of but a few days b(>fore, I resolved that 

 wisdom should keep her seat, or, in other words, 

 that this time I would be sure not to say any 

 thing that I should regret afterward. Lest I 

 lay too much blame on my neighbor, let me ex- 

 plain that the extremely wet weather probably 

 hindered liim from getting in his seeds: and he 

 knew, too, that I could not use the drill, for my 

 land was even worse than his on account of the 

 wetness; and as it kept raining he finally forgot 

 about it when the weather did turn around so 

 we could get on our ground. 



As I knelt down by my bedside that night, I 

 thanked God for his many mercies of the day. 

 I thanked him especially that he had kept me 

 from saying any thing the memoiy of which 

 would give me pain and keep me awake. As I 

 prepared to lay my head upon my pillow, after 

 the severe work and many cares of the day, I 

 thought, "Oh what a thing is wisdom!" Dear 

 reader, is it not true that it is worth a thousand 

 times more than silver or gold? The feeling 

 that, when you, go to sleep at night, you have 

 not wronged any one during the day, and have 

 not dishonored thesacred name of Christ Jesus, 

 whom you profess to follow, is worth more than 

 any thing else that this world has to offer. 

 "Behold, the fear of th(i Lord, that is wisdom; 

 and to depart from evil is understanding." 



High-pressure Gardening. 



CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS— DO THEY PAY? 



See here, Mr. Root; do you mean to say that 

 all who are using commercial fertilizers are 

 throwing money away, and don't know what 

 they are doing, or are interested in the sale of 

 them ? Do you believe that Joseph Harris' rec- 

 ommendation of nitrate of soda was all a selfish 

 one? Is the Rural New-Yorker wrong, and 

 teaching what is costing the farmers of the 

 country millions every year? If these things 

 are so, we want to know it. Now. Mr. Root, 

 just read " Chemicals and Clover." Vols. 1 and 2. 

 and then say if you think all these successful 

 farmers are putting tons of fertilizers and thou- 

 sands of dollars in the ground for nothing. 



Did Hale Bros., of Connecticut peach fame, 

 throw their money away when they raised $2.5,- 



000 worth of peaches on bone and potash, where 

 no peaches had been raised before ? How about 

 Tankage goes up head in the Rural of April 8 ? 

 How is it that many farmers are raising much 

 larger crops of potatoes on fertilizers than Terry 

 is, if his land is already so rich that fenilizer 

 does no good? Tliere must be some other rea- 

 son besides too rich land. Your soil is doubt- 

 less full of nitrogen, from the large doses of 

 barnyard manure you liave been using. I find 

 on some soils phosphoric acid is all that is need- 

 ed; on others, it is potash. I cleared new land 

 last year, and put manure in the hill for corn, 

 with ashes, hen manure, and phosphoric acid; 

 left some rows with no manure; the manured 

 was 50 per cent better than not manured, and 

 the phosphate alone was just as good as where 



1 U!"ed ashes and hen manure. On potatoes, 

 nitrate of soda did no good; but cotton-seed 

 meal increased the crop largely— at least a half 

 more than no manure: also more than a $27.00 

 complete fertilizer. This was on fairly good 



land, manured broadcast with cow manure. 

 Fertilizer has ulways paid me when used with 

 judgment. I think in time Terry will find his 

 land growing poor in potash and phosphate. 

 Grand View, Tenn. A. P. Ames. 



[My good friend, such letters as youi'S are ex- 

 actly what I want to get; and I have been sur- 

 prised that I did not get more of them. Yes, I 

 know all the facts that you quote. I have read 

 all about them in the Rural, and in "Chemi- 

 icals and Clover," and in other books — the very 

 things you mention. I have written to the 

 Mapes people, and they have promised to help 

 me out. A bag of the mixture they sent me 

 operates a good deal as guano did; and it costs 

 just as much as guano. I think that, on the 

 whole, however. I should prefer the guano. 

 Now, what gain have we made? This fertilizer 

 costs $il.00 a ton. In view of the facility with 

 which it may be applied, it may pay on some 

 crops. J. M. Smith, of Green Bay, Wis., says, 

 quoting Mr. Terry's own words from our forth- 

 coming potato-book: 



" Fertilizers have never paid me on good or 

 poor land." 



You yourself acknowledge that nitrate of so- 

 da did no good. Our experiment station says it 

 does no good at all on many crops; and I do not 

 believe they have succeeded in making it pay 

 on any crop. I want to see some reports from 

 those who "have fertilized, say three rows, and 

 then skipped three rows, and so on through the 

 field. I have done it here in our market-garden 

 repeatedly, with the results I have given you. 

 If I had put it on a whole piece, and then given 

 the fertilizer the credit because the crop was a 

 good one, I might have had many encouraging 

 results. I have had a long talk with friend 

 Terry on this very subject, and he is just as 

 anxious as I am to see it demonstrated that 

 chemical fertilizers are at present cheaper than 

 stable manure, or, if you choose, cheaper than 

 clover. Here is something from another friend:] 



800.000 TONS OF NITRATE OF SODA IN A YEAR. 



Mr. Root: — I have noticed what you say from 

 time to time of farm chemicals, especially ni- 

 trate of soda. If English farmers use 800,(XX) 

 tons per year, there are surely some places in 

 America where it will pay. Wm. H. Allen. 



Monroe, Mass.. May 3. 



[Friend A., it would surely seem that nitrate 

 of soda must be a prolitable fertilizer, if there 

 is no mistake in the figures you give us; and 

 substantially the same are given in a little book 

 by Joseph Harris. Within an hour I have been 

 applying Mapes potato-manure to two plots of 

 potatoes — one Early Ohio and the other Early 

 Puritan. I instructed my man very plainly that 

 I wanted him to use the potato-fertilizer on only 

 a part of each piece; and I set the grain-drill 

 so the fertilize]' would run out when he was 

 about half through. I felt a little anxious, 

 however, and so got around just as he was fin- 

 ishing the piece. He had moved the lever so as 

 to maki' it feed slower, saying he was afraid 

 there would not be enough to go over all the 

 potatoes, if lie left it where I placed it. And 

 this is not the first time tiiat I have had just 

 this sort of work. People the world over seem 

 determined to avoid any sort of accurate test. 

 They will scatter their fertilizer over the whole 

 of their land, and then if they get a good crop 

 they will give the fertilizer the credit. The 

 work of the experiment stations brings out the 

 truth sharp and clear, like a beaconlight; and 

 when they are ready to advise the use of chem- 

 ical fertilizers in the way Joseph Harris and 

 the Rural New-Yorker have done, then friend 

 Terry and I will be satisfied that there has. not 

 been a blunder made somewhere.] 



