FERTILIZERS. 71 



Are the experiments of the Germans of no vahie ? When the same 

 prodnct has been raised on a piece of land for a hnndred years, and 

 a constant supply of the needed ingredients is produced by nature, 

 would 3'ou add what the soil already- holds in excess ? Stockbridge 

 assumes that all soils are alike, and that all are barren, and supplies 

 all he expects to reap. This seemed to the speaker to be a waste 

 of money and material, and to be radically wrong. England has 

 more moisture than we, and experiments there may differ from our 

 own. But he regarded anything which tends to induce our farmers 

 to lessen their stock or to undervalue barnj-ard manure, as a 

 mistake. 



Dr. Sturtevant said that he was willing to put himself on record 

 as to the scientific question of the complete fertilizer being a sub- 

 stitute for dung, but that this was not the whole question by any 

 means for the farmer to consider. There was something in the 

 application of a scientific truth. Each country has a different 

 climate, and the fields receive different treatment. Would we 

 advocate the German average crop of wheat, of twelve bushels per 

 acre, or the English average crop of twenty-five ? We surel}' should 

 not claim the one as the exponent of German science and the 

 other as the exponent of English empirical practice. Yet the 

 farmer who applies the teachings of science in the manner recom- 

 mended by an honest exj^erience, obtains yields far in excess of the 

 mere imitator. The farmer must consider the xohy of a process, 

 and then, if satisfied that the why is correctly apprehended, put his 

 learning to a practical application. 



In considering chemical fertilizers, the speaker first noted that 

 his own experience, and that obtained from books, ottered no evi- 

 dence against the certainty and reliabilit}' of action of chemicals 

 when properl}' applied. The presence of certain elements of plant 

 food in excess, infiuences the physiological condition of the plant, 

 and hence affects the crop. We must then see to it that this influ- 

 ence is in the direction of profit to us. Plants in a dung heap or a 

 barren soil may be equallj' barren of fruit ; superphosphate strewn 

 on the side of a hill of corn, will cause the plant to develop more 

 fibrous roots on that side, and hence make the plant thus situated 

 a grosser feeder, and more capable of securing the plant food 

 already in the soil ; on old land, formerly dunged but now run out, 

 an unneeded plant food, like salt, will oftentimes release fertilit}'' 

 from the soil, or put the plant into a condition to secure supplies 



