288 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



the "dissolved bones" are not really dissolved rock phosphate it would be an 

 exception to the general practice of the fertilizer trade, for the idea is so com- 

 mon among farmers that the phosphoric acid from animal bones is better 

 than that from rock, that manufacturers have gotten into the habit of calling 

 dissolved rock, bone. 



Another Rhode Island formula for use on sandy soil for corn is as follows: 



Pounds. Per cent. 



Muriate of potash 360 \ t Nitrogen 4.2 



Dissolved bone black 1000 [ yielding | Potash 9.0 



Nitrate of soda 550 J I Phosphoric acid 9.2 



The main fault in this is that all the nitrogen is furnished by the im- 

 mediately available nitrate of soda, and if the corn is planted where there is 

 no plowed under sod, there would be need for some organic nitrogen to keep 

 up the nitrification during the long season in which corn grows. Then, too, 

 the phosphoric acid could be more cheaply gotten in South Carolina dissolved 

 rock than in bone black, though the percentage might not have been so high, 

 but as the percentage of phosphoric acid is too high anyway, this would be 

 no disadvantage, unless the soil is known to be very deficient in phosphoric 

 acid. 



The Rhode Island Station gives the following formula, which was de- 

 vised for the soil of an old pasture of sandy land, known to be very deficient 

 in phosphoric acid : 



Pounds. Per cent. 



Nitrate of soda 200 "J 



Tankage 700 ( f Nitr g en 3 - 7 



Double superphosphate ::.'.:: 700 f yieWtag Potash ; 



Muriate of potash 400J l Phosphoric acid 158 



The bulletin states that half a ton per acre of this formula was used for 

 Indian corn, and the yield to have been much above the average. We are of 

 the opinion that the yield must have been much above the average and 

 the price of the crop still further above the average for the 

 farmer to have gotten the cost out of the crop. The same grower stated that 

 this formula, applied at the rate of a ton per acre, produced a yield of 280 

 bushels of potatoes per acre on an old sandy-loam pasture. This would not 

 have been considered an extraordinary yield for such fertilization by the grow- 

 ers of the early potato crop in the South Atlantic coast, and it would have 

 been more satisfactory to know how many potatoes could have been grown on 

 the old sod without such a heavy application, for it is not the largest crop that 

 is always the most profitable. 



