18 



RESULTS OF THE ADDITION TO NOTHING OF 



Complete Barnyard Land 

 Fertilizer. Manure. Plaster. Lime. 



Hard corn, bushels per acre. 15. 11.5 1.4 -2.2 



Soft corn, ^' '' 2.5 2.8 1.7 2.1 



Stover, pounds " 1240 993 170 -278 



Fertilizer. Manure. Plaster. Lime. 



Value of net increment due to $14.35 $11.37 $1.92 

 Value of decrease due to $1.59 



Financial result, 2.35 gain 13.63 loss 1.20 gain 2.55 loss 



These comparisons make it strikingly evident that this soil, almost 

 exhausted as it was, was to a large degree specially exhausted. It 

 needed nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash : but the latter to a far 

 greater degree than either of the others. They, if potash also was 

 present, produced a considerable increase ; but if it was absent, only 

 a very small one. The two together are almost powerless to increase 

 the crop. Potash, on the other hand, even alone causes considerable 

 increase : with either nitrogen or phosphoric acid, the increase due 

 to potash is doubled : with both of them and potash, the increase due 

 to the latter is doubled yet again, amounting to no less than about 

 seventeen bushels of corn per acre. 



The "complete fertilizer" yields a sraaW profit; and though 

 furnishing but little more than one-fifth the nitrogen, but one-half the 

 phosphoric acid and but four-fifths tiie potash contained in the 

 manure used, gives a larger apparent increase than the latter. The 

 real effect of the manure was, however, probably rather greater than 

 the figures indicate, since one of the nothings with which it was com- 

 pared, as already stated, felt the effect of the manure applied to the 

 adjoining field. 



For this soil, I should recommend a similar use of fertilizers to that 

 suggested for Marblehead, page 11, hut in larger aviounts and with a 

 somewhat larger proportion of phosphoric acid. 



