rERTILIZF:RS. 59 



with dried blood, furnishing nitrogen ; tlie second with superphos- 

 phate ; the third with a potash salt ; the fourth with a mixture of 

 the first two ; and the fifth with a mixture of all three. Each of 

 these plots contained ten square rods and received twenty pounds 

 of fertilizer. The sixth, which was of the same size, was manured 

 with barnyard manure at the rate of five cords to the acre, hen 

 dung and ashes being added in the hill. The plots were all planted 

 with corn. On the third plot, with potash salt ; the fifth with dried 

 blood, superphosphate, and potash salt ; and the sixth with yard 

 and hen manure and ashes (which also furnished potash) , the crop 

 looked well through the season, the stalks were large and strong, 

 the ears well filled, and the grain good. On the plots without 

 potash the growth was very poor, the stalks small, weak, and yellow, 

 and the ears poorly' filled. This experiment was not in all respects 

 perfectly accurate, and its results are not to be taken as mathe- 

 matically exact ; but the fact that on the three plots where there 

 was no potash the crops uniformly failed, and that on the plots 

 where potash was applied they were uniformly good, shows that the 

 weak point of this soil was potash, and that the strong point in any 

 fertilizer applied to it should be potash. The fifth plot, with potash 

 onl}", producing as good a crop as the fifth or sixth, which had 

 potash and other ingredients, is a strong indication that the soil 

 alread}' contained enough of all materials except potash. But in 

 the next field the case ma}^ be different. The potash salt on the 

 third plot would cost at the rate of S6.72 per acre, while the yard 

 manure on the sixth plot cost $40 per acre, besides the ashes and 

 hen manure. 



In a very careful experiment on sixteen plots, with as many 

 different fertilizers, by W. I. Bartholomew, of Pomfret, Conn., in 

 every case where phosphoric acid was omitted the crop failed, and 

 in every case where it was applied in any form, either by itself or 

 in combination with other substances, the crop succeeded, and the 

 quantity of corn was remarkably in the proportion of the phos- 

 phoric acid applied. What this soil most needed was clearly phos- 

 phoric acid. 



An experiment by Chester Sage, of Middletown, Connecticut, 

 resulted in failure, in ever}^ case, except where a complete fertilizer 

 was used. Dried blood, superphosphate, potash salts, and plaster 

 alone, each brought crops no larger, and, if anj'thing, poorer in 

 quality, than where no fertilizer was applied. The mixture of 



