FERTILIZERS 145 



As a rule, the land in the Red river valley is not fertilized, 

 and produces less than 15 bushels per acre, but the application 

 of fertilizers has given 26 bushels per acre. Rotation of crops is 

 already widely practiced in the northwest, and as the soil becomes 

 more exhausted and the prices of land and produce rise, ferti- 

 lizers will be used there, just as they have in every other coun- 

 try where similar conditions arose. Even the largest bonanza 

 farmers are looking forward to the time when they must fer- 

 tilize. Stock will also be raised, and farming will become more 

 diversified. This will give opportunity to utilize many of the 

 products of wheat on the farms where they are produced, and 

 the need for commercial fertilizers may ultimately be removed 

 altogether. One-fourth of the nitrogen and nearly all of the 

 phosphoric acid and potash which enter into a crop of wheat 

 are contained in bran, screenings and middlings. Most of these 

 ean be returned to the soil by raising stock. These principles 

 are not mere theories, for their practical working has been 

 demonstrated in Michigan and Illinois, in portions of which the 

 land has been continually growing more fertile under cultivation 

 without the use of a pound of commercial fertilizer. 



The average Kansas wheat grower has given little thought 

 yet to fertilizing, but "his methods will change with the years 

 and the necessities." In Minnesota, "results already reached 

 warrant the statement that the average yields per acre of 

 wheat can be increased 25 to 50 per cent by so rotating the 

 crops and manuring and cultivating the fields (as) best to 

 prepare the soil for this grain. ' ' * The necessity of fertilizing 

 is little felt in Canada as yet. 



Fertilizer Laws. A majority of the United States, including 

 nearly all the states east of the Mississippi, have statutes, most 

 of them rather stringent, governing the sale of commercial 

 fertilizers. That dealers were cheating farmers was first shown 

 by the Massachusetts experiment station. This station was in- 

 strumental in the passage of the Massachusetts fertilizer law, 

 which was more or less closely followed by other states. The 

 department of agriculture has made efforts for a more uniform 

 system of laws, and to regulate interstate trade. No general 

 fraud is now practiced. Thousands of official analyses are 

 1 Minn. Bui. 12,, p. 321. 



