110 Practical Farming 



tankage, cotton-seed meal, etc.; phosphorus in phos- 

 phate of Hme found in rocks and bones; and potassium 

 in the potash salts and ashes in the form of potash. The 

 object of commercial fertihzers is to furnish these things 

 in a concentrated and readily available form. They are 

 naturally associated with other matters, so that in a ton 

 of fertilizer we find only certain percentages of the essen- 

 tial plant foods. Then, in order to make a particularly 

 low-priced article, the manufacturers often add what they 

 call a "filler'' of perfectly inert material, so that while an 

 apparently low price is charged, the farmer is really paying 

 full price for all that is of value in the article, and is pay- 

 ing freight on the filler, which is of no value. Hence, in 

 buying fertihzers it is always cheaper to buy a high- 

 grade article than a low-grade. I know of one instance 

 where a manufacturer of a low-grade fertihzer added to 

 each ton 500 pounds of the burnt oxide of iron which was 

 the result of his manufacture of sulphuric acid that was 

 used in the dissolving of the phosphatic rock. This 

 material was perfectly useless to the farmer if not actually 

 harmful, and one-fourth of the freight on each ton was 

 for this useless material, while he thought he was getting 

 a cheap article. There is always an abundance of filler 

 naturally associated with the materials that must be used 

 in the manufacture of fertilizers, and no filler is needed 

 whatever. 



The term "Complete Fertihzer" means that the article 

 has in it a due percentage of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, 

 and potash. Any two of these alone makes an incom- 

 plete fertihzer, and, as we shall see, it is often advisable 

 to use an incomplete mixture. Manufacturers of fer- 



