POTASH 73 



quality of the tobacco was very poor. We asked him to send a copy of the 

 bill of materials he had bought. He purchased them from a large manufac- 

 turer of fertilizers, and it was evident, as soon as we saw the bill, that he had 

 been imposed upon purposely in order to discredit the formula. I prescribed 

 sulphate of potash in the mixture, and he ordered it. On the bill was 

 charged "sulphate of potash/' and then added, in small letters, "low grade 

 kainit." The cause of the poor quality of his tobacco was evident and we 

 wrote to him that he had simply been cheated, as he should have had the high 

 grade sulphate free from chlorides, and it was evident that the fertilizer man 

 was after killing his home mixing. 



MANUFACTURED POTASH SALTS. 



These are products which have been treated to remove the excess of other 

 constituents and to concentrate the potash. The most common form and the 

 form most generally used in this country is the muriate (or chloride) of pot- 

 ash. It usually contains about 50 per cent, of actual potash. Dealers frequent- 

 ly confuse unlearned buyers by giving on their bags the percentage of muriate 

 instead of the percentage of actual potash. Thus they will say, "muriate of 

 potash, 80 per cent." and lead the farmer to believe that there is 80 per cent, 

 of potash. If you get an article with such a percentage stated, it simply 

 means that it has that much of the muriate, and you can tell how much potash 

 it has by multiplying the percentage of muriate by the fraction 0.632. Thus 

 a bag marked muriate of potash 80 per cent., would have 50.56 per cent, of 

 potash. In the same way the dealers will mark the sulphate of potash (the 

 high grade) 98 per cent, sulphate of potash, and you can find the actual 

 potash by multiplying this by the fraction 0.54, so that a bag having 98 per 

 cent, of sulphate of potash will contain 52.92 per cent, of actual potash. As 

 we have said, the sulphate is important for some crops for which the muriate 

 is not well adapted, but its cost is greater than that of the muriate, and where 

 the muriate is adapted to the crop it is always the most economical to use. 

 The higher cost of the sulphate leads manufacturers of fertilizers to use the 

 muriate where the sulphate should be used. One of the largest tobacco 

 growers in North Carolina told the writer that he sent a formula to a large 

 manufacturer in which he specified sulphate of potash. They agreed to make 

 it by his formula, and when the goods arrived he sent a sample to the State 

 chemist for analysis, and this showed that the muriate had been used instead 

 of the sulphate. He therefore very properly refused to receive the fertilizer. 

 Tobacco growers who buy ready mixed fertilizers cannot be too careful as to 

 the source of the potash in them. There is another form of manufactured 



