[16] 



COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 



As for commercial fertilizers, their most proper use applies to two or 

 three cases. First, to make up the deficiency in the annual returns to 

 the soil, arising from the sale of our products. This is in the nature 

 of a common credit and debit account, which should be kept by 

 every farmer ; for on the regular balancing of this account depends 

 the maintenance of profitable productiveness. 



Secondly, they are profitably used in making up for the one-sided 

 wear, so to speak, of our lands; whose wearing-out is frequently de 

 pendant merely upon the drain of phosphates ; in which case the appli 

 cation of commercial super-phosphates will be followed by a surprising 

 effect. They are therefore highly valuable adjuncts in the reclama 

 tion of worn lands, enabling us to make crops while the soil is being 

 rehabitated by subsoiling, fallowing, green-cropping and marling. 



But in order to perform these services, they must be what they claim 

 to be ; which, as we all know to our cost, is too frequently not the case. 

 I am satisfied that we ought to adopt the same remedy as other States, 

 allowing no fertilizers to be sold, that have not been sampled, and their 

 per centage of active ingredients ascertained and certified to, by a State 

 Inspector. 



As a rule, we pay by far too much for them. And in any case, they 

 will not do to rely on, as they supply but one, or a few of the ingredi 

 ents required by plants. The main return should, as a rule, come 

 from the farm itself. 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



Among the most essential points in the treatment of all lauds, both 

 manured and unmanured, is rotation an annual change of crups in 

 proper succession. 



Without this, the land ceases to produce much sooner, if left un 

 manured ; and manure used is less profitable. 



We have sinned greatly against this important principle in our inces 

 sant cropping with cotton; and if there were no other reasons why we 

 should diversify crops more than has been done, this one would be suf 

 ficient to condemn our system. I remark that the proper succession 

 for some of our important crops is far from being well settled ; and that 

 the question, if settled for one class of soils, frequently arises anew 

 with reference to other classes, and will require numerous and well 

 devised experiments for its settlement. 



