300 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



All this looked exceedingly learned and chemical, and the farmer, know- 

 ing nothing under the sun about the meaning of all this array of symbols and 

 figures is totally uninformed as to the nature of the stuff. The circular 

 stated all these things were available to plants in the soil. The mixture was 

 sold all the way from $20 to $28 per ton, according to locality. The New 

 York Station took up the examination of the article in a bulletin, and showed 

 that it contained in a ton but 28 pounds of available phosphoric acid and 

 2.6 to 4.5 pounds of potash, and at trade values for these, a ton of the great 

 natural plant food was worth $1.52. 



This fraud, which was simply, as was evident from the analysis, a pul- 

 verized phosphate rock and green sand marl (glauconite) has been so fully 

 exposed that nothing has of late beefi heard of it. 



All that a farmer needs to know in regard to any fertilizer mixture is 

 how much nitrogen, phosphoric acid (in an available form) and potash it con- 

 tains. That a certain percentage of phosphoric acid is equivalent to what would 

 be contained in another combination, such as bone phosphate of lime, has 

 nothing to do. with the matter, and is only put there to make the farmer think 

 there are bones in it; as these fellows know that most farmers have a high 

 opinion of the value of bones, though they know that the article has no bone 

 in it whatever. They also know that farmers consider sulphate of potash the 

 best form, and hence they say that the percentage of potash in their stuff is 

 the same amount that would be found in a certain amount of sulphate of pot- 

 ash, while there is not a particle of sulphate in the stuff. 



So far has this habit of putting "equivalent to," on the sacks obtained, 

 that firms that should know and do better sometimes add these meaningless 

 figures. I have before me a sample of "Pure Raw Bone." The analysis 

 printed on it says: "Ammonia, 3.65 to 4.15 per cent. ; phosphoric acid, 22.00 

 to 24 per cent., equivalent to bone phosphate of lime, 48.00 to 52.00 per cent." 



This simply means that the article contains about 3 per cent, of nitrogen 

 and 22 per cent, of insoluble phosphoric acid. Fertilizer manufacturers 

 have always put the nitrogen content on their sacks in the forjn of ammonia, 

 because as they say, "the farmers understand ammonia but not nitrogen." 

 How it is easier for a farmer to understand a combination than a simple ele- 

 ment we cannot understand. The figures are put there simply because they 

 look larger in the form of ammonia, a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, 

 than they would if only the actual nitrogen was printed. The 3.65 per cent, 

 of ammonia is simply 3 per cent, nitrogen but it looks larger 

 to put on the combination figures, and so the practice has grown. 

 The above analysis does not show a very high grade of raw bone 

 meal, and the sliding scale is deceptive also, as it gives the 



